What if I’ve tried BALM and it didn’t work to get my loved one into recovery?

Getting Help for a Loved One

Few if any struggling loved ones wake up one morning and say, “Hey, it’s a beautiful day today! I think I will go into treatment!”

For most, treatment or other types of help come about as a result of either a serious health or legal consequence, or a family member’s or employer’s requirement that they do so.

In the BALM we have a saying: Prevention is Early Intervention. As long as your loved one is still alive, there is still much harm to prevent.

This idea, of preventing future harm by intervening NOW, no matter how long you have been in the game with your loved one, is what the BALM is all about.

But it is not really a program for people who feel they can take a few courses and magically everything will get better.  We do find that for many of our families, large changes can take place well within their first year of working the BALM. For others, the journey can take longer and those families who stay the course often find themselves getting their lives back while also helping their loved ones doing so.

Getting Help for Ourselves

The Be A Loving Mirror Method is actually a way of life that is about the journey as much as the destination.

What does this mean?

As you learn and practice BALM more consistently and deeply, you will improve the quality of your inner and outer life. This will allow you to be a role model of powerful recovery living  and will give you the tools to help your loved one, IF their journey includes the kind of help you want to give.

What If They Continue to Refuse Help?

The fact is that every one of our children and spouses is on their own life journey. When a loved one is on a painful journey and we see it and feel helpless to change it, we can either lose hope and give up or we can respect their unique journey, while increasing our own ability to speak with and work with them in ways that can help them wake up.

When we let go of it all happening the way we want it to, we have more energy to do the things that have the greatest potential to help them.

The BALM Conversation as Daily Mini-Interventions

All that we have learned in BALM is designed to shorten the time from our introduction to BALM to our loved one’s  decision to recover. 

We  learn ways to intervene through BALM conversations which often seem like a tiny drip drip drip of reality, too small to make a difference in and of themselves, though when added up, day after day, they often make a huge difference. 

And we practice BALM not only to create the end we want, but to develop inner peace along the way.

Building Your Professional Team – Starting with Your BALM Coach

For those times when BALM conversations are not enough, your BALM coach will help you gather your team of professionals to help your loved one get help. Getting help for your loved one is not a willy nilly action. It must be planful and may take time to put together and implement. The value of having a BALM coach  help you through this, someone who is working with you privately, who knows your story and the BALM so they can guide you to the best potential outcomes along the path, cannot be overestimated.Your coach understands the process, has contacts, and a network of BALM coaches and other professionals to help you as well.

If you cannot afford a BALM coach, you may gather guidance from the collective wisdom of the experts and families who discuss how to do this in the many BALM interviews,  and twice a week, you can get help in the BALM coaching groups available to you.

Your job as a BALMer is to stay on the loving path, regardless of how your loved one’s journey is going. This will allow you to be prepared to help them  with the clearest head possible as you get your own life back, one day, one moment, at a time.