"The Friday Night Open Meetings are important to the KHK treatment program.
The meetings are emotional for many of the parents, and sometimes for the
clients. The format may be hard to understand or to accept initially. However,
years of experience have proven that the format is effective when parents follow
the guidelines. As parents begin to use the information from the Parent
Education sessions and become more informed about the disease of addiction, they also
become more comfortable with the open meeting format."
Parents of first phasers tell of a time from their child's drug using past.
Parents of upper-phasers can comment on issues their phaser is facing, and
comment on their progress.
Don't say the name of any person outside the program, especially old friends.
Don't mention pets of convey messages from people who are not at the meeting
(though you can tell why a parent is not present.)
Speaking Guidelines:
1. Don't preach. Preaching did not work before. It is not more effective
because your child
is forced to listen to you. You have very little interaction with your
child during all of first
phase. Don't waste it on ineffective communications.
2. Don't beg, Recovery (this program) is not about pleasing you. It is not
about going
home to the family. It is about reclaiming their own lives. Eventually,
and for the rest of
their lives, they have to choose sobriety for themselves. The program
will attempt to
rebuild the family relationship and reestablish self-pride to use as
tools to hold on to
sobriety- but they have to choose to work the program first.
Remember that our children have all abandoned self-love, and family-love to
their addiction. Instead of using their family's love as a tool to
face the world, it has become a burden to escape so they can use. They had to
put distance between themselves and the people that loved them so they had the
freedom and privacy to use. They have become immune to the pain of their
family.
When you beg, you enter into the roller-coaster of codependency- "I'm well if
you are well; I'm not when you are not." If your message is "I hear you are
having a bad week, so I've been sad and I've had a bad week too" you are
telling your child that you are so involved in their disease that you are not taking
care of yourself. You are also putting them in a controlling situation. They
control your mood and your wellness. You will learn in the parent education
seminars that you, the parent, need to reclaim control of your own life, of your
own well-being, and of your own home. Not only is it not good for you when
your child controls you, unconsciously he know it is not good for him either.
3. Don't read, not even from progress reports, and don't comment on them.
Time spent on
this will keep you from spending time on your past, and will again put
your child in an
inappropriately powerful situation.
4. While some encouragement or reminders of past good times is ok, it's
important to focus
on bad "times from your past." These reminders serve several important
functions.
The remind your child that her life -and yours- was out of control. When
your child
maintains in group that she does not have a problem, you have publicly
told about the
chaos that controlled her and you. They will use thes "times from her
past" to encourage
her to accept responsiblility for her actions, and to accept the severity
of her addiction.
They tell your child of the effect that her actions had on you and on
those around you. It
is very likely that she barely realized it at the time. For sure, her
addiction prevented her
from caring.
It allows you to express all the negative feelings that built up about
her drug use. Before
comes home, the slate is wiped clean. You have said to her all that she
needs to hear
from you, and are ready to put everything behind you both. For the same
reason, your
child spends her 15 minute "talks" making amends to you. Before you can
rebuild family
relationships, honesty has to be re-established between you - from both
sides. There
need to be no hidden resentments or hidden sins. It is important that you
do not pretend
that all is well between you, that there is no hidden anger. She will
know that the feelings
are there.
Stating your feelings in a public forum demonstrates to your child that
you can express
very negative feelings without screaming and yelling. It is important
that she see you
demonstrate increased self-control and self-respect.
