Walking the Loving Path: The Family’s Crucial Role in a Loved One’s Recovery 

Walking the Loving Path: The Family’s Crucial Role in a Loved One’s Recovery 

When a family includes a person with a Substance Use Disorder (SUD), it’s very challenging to understand what their loved one may be going through. It’s even more difficult to create happy memories. Family members are consumed with heartaches and fear of near tragedies so that even smiling can seem to be a daunting task.

A former teacher of mine, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, used to repeatedly say “That which you put your attention on grows stronger in your life.” This is true in all aspects of life. Whatever you focus on grows. So, if you focus on the negativities that are happening in your family due to your loved one’s SUD, negativity will increasingly be all you see. The pain will just seem to be unbearable every day as you watch your loved one go deeper and deeper down into their disorder.

But how do you stop focusing on the negative when all you can feel is sadness when you think of your loved one with SUD?

Does the Loving Path promise that your loved one will stay alive longer? No, the loving path does not promise that, but it does promise to give you hope. It promises you will see your loved one more objectively. That you will learn how to be their best chance of living a life in recovery.

If you are constantly thinking about how horrible and challenging your life is, how awful your loved one is, or how your life is a bitter mess, you are trudging the path of pain, sorrow, and resentment. This is not the Loving Path.

With BALM, you are invited to take the path of love where you can see every experience with your loved one as an opportunity to be more loving, share happy memories, and reminisce about all the good times of the past, even though the present is challenging.

That is how the loving path of the BALM promises to help you. If you let it, it will change your perspective and the course of action you choose to take.

When we see our loved ones through a new perspective, with eyes of love and compassion, we see deeper than their disorder. We see the person and not the disorder. We come to understand their situation and we find loving ways to communicate with them more. Often, we find opportunities to contribute to their recovery.

You may experience pain, but you don’t have to suffer. This is the promise of the Loving Path.

What challenges are you facing now with your loved one? 

How can you use BALM to help you see them through the eyes of love, hope, and possibility?

Love, Bev

PS: If you are currently in the BALM Family Recovery Program, go to the handouts in Lesson 2 of the 12 BALM Principles to see the Loving Path Chart.

If you are not in the BALM yet, join us  for a brief talk titled What’s Love Got to Do With It? and learn more about our revolutionary approach to family recovery. Click on the title of the talk to register. The live talk will take place on Monday, June 19, 2023. After that date, you will receive a vido of the talk by registering.