The Resilient Mind - Why Tough Love Fails (The 11% vs 64% No One Talks About) - Lisa Katona

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Watch the episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/sapI6MmPBlYTraditional "tough love" approaches to addiction have a dismal 11% success rate because they ignore the most critical component: the family.In this episode, Lisa Katona Smith, author and founder of the Parallel Recovery model, shares her evidence-based approach that boosts recovery success rates to over 64%.Discover how to stop battling the "hijacked brain" and start doing your own work to heal the family system. Learn to set boundaries that invite connection, not conflict, and ask the crucial question: "Who have I become in this disorder, and who do I want to be?" This is a guide for families ready to move from fear to healing.To Know More,Follow Lisa Katon On ⤵︎Website: https://lisakatonasmith.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-katona-smith-985b48212/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parallel_recovery/Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Why Tough Love Fails with Lisa Cotona. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Over 100,000 people die every single year from the effects of addiction. Addiction is a family disease. It's thrown out all over the place. But we aren't addressing the family in that.

What do you see as some of the limitations to current treatment? Traditional models of tough love, rock bottom, that has poor outcomes. It's about 11% success rate. It's really very low. Who have I become in this disorder and who do I want to be in this relationship? And we need to stop talking to that hijacked brain, go around it and connect to the person. When fear is guiding us, it's really hard to slow down and look at ourselves. It's easy to finger point.

I don't need to recover. I don't have a problem. They have the problem. So how do we, or how do you address that resistance? People don't get sick in a vacuum. I wanted so badly to be a part of the solution. And I was just told I was part of the problem. And I, you know, if I'm honest with myself, I was a part of the problem.

I have some rapid fire questions for you. Today I am super excited to be joined by Lisa Katona Smith, who's going to be talking about her perspective on parallel recovery. Welcome, Lisa, to the resilient mind. Thank you for having me. So let's start at the beginning of traditional treatment in terms of recovery. What do you see as some of the limitations to current treatment? I think one of the biggest limitations, well, the limitation that I focus on the most is

the exclusion of a grander system of people. So someone might enter treatment for their addiction and to various things, substance use being one of them. and, you know, we address the person of concerns, behaviors, and things have gotten a lot better with comprehensive support of the holistic person. However, what tends to happen, the majority of the time is the family system, the grander community is pushed aside, ignored, not really addressed. And truth be told, people don't get sick in a vacuum. Everybody has a system of other people that are caring for them, loving them, worried about them, concerned about them. And if we're going to be honest, in some ways, participating in the behavior that is actually a problem.

And how did you come to this realization or is it personal experience? What brought you to this perspective? Yeah, unfortunately, it was personal experience. I have, my oldest son has struggled with mental health and substance use in his life. and that started in adolescence for him. And over the course of really being desperate and trying to help him, you know, we came to realize that we were just left out of the process.

We weren't guided in ways that were impactful before things got to crisis. So, you know, we weren't invited into the process when we were the willing participants and he wasn't. And that's a missed opportunity. And then once, you know, crisis sort of did occur, we weren't included in the process so that when he would return back to our family,

we could do things differently. So, you know, well-intentioned, we did things the same, which is where he got broken in the first place. And do you think, like, why do you think there's that gap? Is it kind of the idea that, okay, this is the person who's struggling, so we just need to support them or provide the treatment in isolation?

and they don't look at the greater context of things? I think there's a lot of reasons. I mean, one being an insurance-driven model of care, supporting families is not an insurance billable thing. So there's a bottom line. And then there's also, you know, when somebody finally gets to a place of entering a treatment setting, they've usually, you know, things have gotten pretty bad for them.

And so the acuity is high and the need for support. is very high. And the bandwidth of the providers for those people doesn't extend to the families. They just don't have the bandwidth. It's a lot of work. There's a lot that goes into really solid, good, evidence-based treatment. And, you know, they don't have a space for the families. You know, another reason is if I could wave my magic wand, families would enter actual treatment with the client, with the person of concern. Nobody can actually step away from their lives, for an extended period of time like that, that it's just not realistic.

And the perfect scenario doesn't exist. However, we do know through evidence and research that when families are included in the process of change with their person of concern, that the results go up exponentially. And, you know, so I really try to nudge the treatment professionals to say, we've got to include the families in this. And they're desperately asking for support.

I know I was, I wanted so badly to be a part of the solution. And I was just told I was part of the problem. And I, you know, if I'm honest with myself, I was a part of the problem. But I didn't have the guidance and the education and the space to really have a safe exploration of what being part of the solution looked like. And you talk about it in the context of parallel recovery. Yes. So tell us more about that idea. I know you've written a book about it and how families can start to maybe think about how they can be involved in it.

Yes. So I've really pulled together lots of different evidence and research-based study around including families in the process of supporting someone in recovery. And I've kind of expanded that and put my own special touch on it. And I call it parallel recovery, which is truly not intertwined recovery or on top of. of or overbearing or controlling recovery. It's our own recovery process. And there's a phrase that is, you know, if you have somebody who has struggled with substance use disorder,

addiction of any sort, you've probably heard the phrase, addiction is a family disease. It's thrown out all over the place. But we aren't addressing the family in that disease model. So parallel recovery really invites families to do their own work in their own recovery process with ultimately everybody has the outcome goal of helping the person who's engaged in the most concerning behavior however if we can put down that outcome and start including ourselves in the recovery process the outcome of the person of concern actually goes dramatically up so it really is

engaging in the family's own recovery process separate and equal to the person who is you know engaging and destructive behavior in their own lives. And I'm wondering for, let's say a family kind of going through someone who's recovering, it's easy to finger point or they might not be as open to the idea of like, I don't need to recover, I don't have a problem, they have the problem. So how do we, or how do you address that resistance? That's the number one problem with the resistance. Absolutely.

It's easy to start pointing fingers at outside sources. And I think that that's just a natural human tendency in anything. When we have discomfort, when we have to look at ourselves personally and reflect on our own engagement and something that's not working, we want to find an external problem, like reason and an external solution. And truth is, if we dig deeper, the reason, there might be external causes or catalysts, but we grabbed onto those catalysts. We bought into them.

And secondarily, the solution, our power, if we want to actually control things, our power is internal. What can I control? So you can't control. And usually when I start working with families, they've been doing this for a minute, maybe years. And I always say, you know, has this worked for you in the past? How has this work for you in the past? And, you know, that moment of it's not been working is, would you be open to trying something different? It's not going to hurt.

let's look at ourselves first and be the inviter, be the model, be the leader of the change process. And how does that look like? So kind of going into the detail. So there's someone in the family who's struggling and then they want to support this individual. Like what will be maybe some of the first steps to start having that conversation? I've initially, people comment on, they always want to start with how do I tell them something? How do I create a boundary? How do I, you know, it's the outside stuff, right? And I saw, we're going to slow down to go fast. And it starts with personal reflection. I call it the mirror moment of being able to say, wow, how have I actually participated in continuing this problem? Not in starting, not in causing, not in creating this problem. But in, I have played along. I have been the door slamer.

I've been the arguer. I've been the lecturer. I've been the litigator. I've been the one who's been begging and pleading and using guilt and shame and all the things that families, because they don't have other tools, fall into because honestly, they're scared. And when fear is guiding us, it's really hard to slow down and look at ourselves and say, hang on a second, where do I have power here? So I start with, I mean, just simple values exercise. And the question is, who have I become in this disorder? and who do I want to be in this relationship.

So if we think about disordered behavior, addiction, substance use disorder, anger, lying, all the things that are really destructive in people's lives, the person who's in pain, we've got the family system who loves them deeply and is also angry with them. And then we have the disordered behavior and the hijacked brain. And we need to stop talking to that hijacked brain, go around it, and connect to the person. And in order to do that, I need to actually look at myself and say, who have I become trying to communicate with the problem? Who have I become? Who do I want to be instead? What do I want my impact to be? Not what do I want to do to fix this person? But what do I want my thumbprint on the person who's in pain to be? How do I want them to experience me? And we start looking at values, personal values. And then I look at something called the shadow side of values, which is,

values that have gone hijacked, values that have gone awry. So for example, you may have a value of humor, and a hijacked shadow side of that value could be sarcasm. So you might use sarcasm or sharp language that you might justify as comical or not a big deal in order to protect yourself, as opposed to using, you know, your actual value and being able to really integrate with the person, not that. their problem behavior. Another value that is really common that people have is devotion. And devotion gone awry could be being a dormant, could be showing up as a martyr, could be showing up as

actually very needy, even though devotion is a very giving value. We become needy ourselves. We want it to be a commingled value as opposed to a one-way value. So I really work with people to say, what would your loved one say about you? What would they say your impact has been? And nine out of ten times when families have been in this for a while, which most families have by the time they get help, they actually start saying, I think that they would say I'm a nag.

Okay, so how can we shift your expression of what you're trying to do in love to be receivable? And that's the invitation piece for the person who's, struggling. And I can imagine, of course we've been talking about, like, again, from personal experience that you are right in terms of we might not have the skills and you're doing the best that you can to help and kind of create that space. And I love that reflection component about just checking in with yourself and who you'll become. But sometimes there's a lot of fear and shame associated with that. And so if, let's say we are afraid of facing that as a family,

is a system, how do we overcome that fear and or shame as well so that we can actually start reflecting and choosing to actually see how we might have changed? Yes. So I really love to look with families at genograms and kind of past patterns of behavior through families. And what that does is it takes sort of that finger pointing or I've been a terrible parent or I've been a terrible partner off of the shoulder. of one person and it kind of disperses the burden and it looks at patterns of behavior through

I love to do even five generations of family patterns because we all have survival patterns that have been passed down to us through generations. So for example, patterns of codependency that three generations ago were out of necessity of survival. A woman who was married to somebody who struggled with alcoholism five generations ago really didn't have choices to care for and support her family besides making sure that her husband got up and went to work every single day to support this family. So she may have developed patterns of codependency and enmeshment, emotional emmeshment, out of sheer survival. And when we start looking at those patterns, we can actually, first of all, have compassion for what generations ago have experienced

and then be able to say, wow, I have received these patterns and I no longer need to express them in this way because I have different skill sets and I have a different life than those people had. But I have gotten these patterns. I have learned these patterns out of survival. So can I thank past generations for their resilience and ability to survive hard circumstances? And can I flip that pattern of enmeshment and codependency? to be one of more empowerment and growth and understanding and knowledge. And so I really like to have families even create like a family motto to be able to say,

we thank generations of the past for their resilience and their ability to have grit in hard circumstances, which we no longer need to have. And moving forward, we're going to ask for help and engage others in our health and support. And we can sort of flip the script in that. It's really not pointing fingers in a blameful, shameful way, but it's just being grateful for how we've survived in generations and how we can move forward better downstream. I love that.

And so when we compare those two approaches, right, the parallel family-centered versus the traditional treatment, how do they differ in the improvement of outcomes to the individuals that they're supporting? Well, there's a lot of research that says there's exponential outcome differences. So, for example, traditional models of tough love, rock bottom, detached with love. That's a phrase that if you're a family that's been doing this for a while, you've heard that phrase. It comes from a kind of a popular family support model. That has poor outcomes.

it's about 11% success rate. It's really very low, long term. And when families start sharing the burden of change and really modeling the way forward, being the leaders, those within six months, the outcome of the person of concern, the person with challenged behaviors becomes 64% success rate in getting somebody who is struggling with substance use to reduce their use dramatically or have complete abstinence. That's within six months. Those numbers go up even grander when we talk about long-term family engagement. When families get on board with this and say, we are going to live in a

different way. We are going to relate to this person who struggles in this way differently, long-term after a year. Those numbers go up to about 82%. So we're talking about the success rate of just 11% is not good. People are dying. A lot of people are. dying. We have all seen the numbers that come out of research-based models that say over 100,000 people die every single year from the effects of addiction on their life. And if we could reduce those rates, we can't make them zero. We know that. But if we could reduce those rates exponentially to 60, 70, 80% reduction, so many lives would be saved and families would be healed. It actually gives me like exciting.

I know. It really is exciting. And there's a, you know, in the United States, there's an organization called the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It's a federal organization that is, has changed its model of recovery. And it's really embraced more of a harm reduction and also family-centered recovery process. And all of a sudden, when they started to change their model of care, people and their definition of what recovery is, you know, essentially instead of it being stop doing the behavior and that being the measure of success, when they included a more holistic, comprehensive approach to, you know, can you look at your eight dimensions of wellness and increase your well-being? Can you be more engaged in community? Can you can your family system get healthy? Can you live a life of productivity and engagement? Can you increase your

physical wellness? When that started to become the model of measurement, people's expression of, am I in recovery went way up. And now there's really a 70% agreement with people saying, I am in recovery. They may not be in complete abstinence, but they're certainly on a road to being productive community engaged citizens and their families are involved in their lives. And that is, that's hopeful. All or nothing is really, I mean, it just cuts out so many people from this, from this dynamic. And what leading indicators tell you that a family system is moving in a more healthier direction versus maybe being stuck or regressing?

That's a great question. You know, I would say that families would, if interviewed, if asked, do you find yourself more in a sustainable, radical acceptance space? So even if the person, again, the outcome can't be person driven. It's really got to be a little bit more comprehensive. When I talk about parallel recovery, I have sort of two buckets. Sustainability of family. So it is really hard to love somebody who is hurting themselves. with substance use.

It's really hard and connection to the person. So I would say, you know, asking the family systems, are you able to weather this storm in a more sustainable way? I'm not saying, are you skipping through the daisies? Is everything perfect? It has, have things gone from all to nothing or nothing to all? That's not, that can't be the measurement because it's just not realistic. But are you in a more sustainable place?

Can you ride these waves more? effectively so that it's not impacting you and your well-being, your productivity in life, your physical and health wellness. And are you able to love the person who is struggling in a way that you feel proud of and they can actually feel the impact of? Those really are the two measurements, I think. And how can as families set boundaries? Because I think that's kind of trying to think of where to like enabling the behavior,

setting boundaries, still being compassionate, seems like trying to balance something that is a little bit complicated. So how can you set healthy boundaries as family? Yeah, so boundaries, I think, are vastly mistaken. And they're a little bit social media popular right now. There's a lot of, you know, influencers out there that are saying things like,

well, you just need to set a boundary that they can't to do that. And that right there is just not a boundary. That's a rule. And after the age of maybe four, if you've ever been a parent, you realize like rules don't work. They're not super effective. And truth be told, we have an entire justice system

where people knew the rules and they still broke them. So creating boundaries. A boundary is a way to invite the person to be in relationship with you with parameters of safety. So a boundary truly is saying to the other person, this is how I can love you as well as myself. And those two things are important. and needed in order for this relationship to be sustainable, which does not mean that you give

into the other person. They may not like what's going on, but they can hear you and want the relationship more than they want the behavior. So for example, being able to say, I am really uncomfortable and I don't trust myself when we're in conversation and things escalate to yelling and swearing and disregulated, you know, interactions. I don't feel like I can actually hear you, nor can I speak my truth. So I'm going to ask that if the conversation starts getting elevated and language starts getting thrown away, I'm going to let you know that I'm going to step back. And it's going to be important for me to hear what you have to say.

But I might have to put a pause on the conversation until we can both be calm and regulated in the conversation. And then the tricky part is, I'm the one who has to follow through. So as opposed to yelling at the person that they're not listening to what I said, if the conversation starts to get escalated, I simply say, hey, look, what you're saying is really important to me. And I think that you're passionate and that you've got something important that you want me to hear. It's very clear. But I can't hear you when there's yelling. Could we try to do it again in a more regulated way or a softer, calmer way, or could we sit down and have a better conversation? Or do we need to return to this later? I'm going to need to, you know, take the dog out for a walk anyways. Why don't I do that?

And when I return, maybe we can both be in a calmer place. So you're actually inviting the person to continue the relationship, but you're setting expectations for how you're going to stay in the relationship. A conversation feels really simple. Something harder would be somebody who's maybe actively using drugs and they're coming to your house or they're living in your house. That's a really hard one right there, living in your house. Let's just start with coming to your house. But you can say, you know, we really love to have you over for dinner, but it's really hard for us to watch you when you're clearly not well. Notice I'm not saying hi or using drugs or I'm not actually pinpointing the actual behavior. I'm talking about how it impacts them as a person and how I have a hard time

loving them as a person. It's going around the behavior, talking to the person. So I might say something like, I really want to have you over for dinner and we miss you and just miss talking to you and being around you. And what is a time that works best for you so that you can show up your best self? I'm letting them know, I want to engage with you, not in a lecture, not in talking about what I want to change about you, but in you, the person. We want to have you over to connect with you as the person that we love. And we want to ask you to engage in a way that we can do that. What time is best?

And then if they show up and they're not at their best self, you can say, shoot, this is really hard for me to say. Notice I'm taking all accountability. I set the boundary. I'm doing the follow through. And I know that you were looking forward to this. We were as well. But we really can't have you here when you're in this state.

It's just too hard for us to watch. Maybe we can try again next week. And you create the invitation that they want to return for. It's really a model of retraining your person to want your love. But in the process of family members getting involved in the problem, as I said at the beginning, when we get engaged in the problem, we get engaged in changing the behavior. And we've got to stop trying to change the behavior. We can't change the behavior.

We've already tried. It doesn't work. All we can do is invite them to be loved. And everybody needs connection. And if we're going to be real, people who are engaged in substance use addiction, they don't have a lot of bridges left. They have a lot of relationships that are fractured, failed, non-existent, and they're pretty lonely.

They really do want connection. And if you can create that healthy connection, they're going to come back to it. beautiful perspective. And how does it work in the context of like families? So let's say there's like one child that is struggling and then you have to set those boundaries. But then those boundaries, do they also apply to the siblings? Because sometimes they might end up feeling like, well, I'm getting punished or why does this apply to me, but not to my brother or my sister. How do you navigate that dynamic? Right. So again, going back to I'm not talking about the behavior. of concern. So let's just put alcohol use as the behavior of concern. I'm not talking about, I'm not setting a boundary around alcohol use. I'm setting a boundary around what alcohol use does to the person and my ability to love them. So if you've got one person in your family who has disordered behavior around alcohol use, and you've got other people in your family that can

use alcohol and have it not impact their relationships. and their life, you're setting a boundary around the person and how the alcohol influences them and impacts them. So, you know, I would suggest not saying, well, I mean, you could say, look, we're going to have Thanksgiving and it's not going to include alcohol at all. And that's absolutely something that can happen in your family and it might need to. But if that's not what we're talking about, if we're talking about one person shows up and they're completely disregulatory, or they completely hijacked the whole dinner because of their substance use or everything becomes about the problem behavior as opposed to connection and in relationships and community,

then that's what you need to talk about. So it's not about punishing at all. I'm not punishing anybody, but I am setting parameters around. This is how I want to invite you to show up your best self. And I'm really sorry that, you know, when you drink alcohol, we are uncomfortable with how you behave. Now, I might ask the other siblings to, you know, not rub it in somebody's face by, you know, engaging in in the behavior that is hard for the other person to put down. Because if they're in an active substance use disorder, active addiction, they're really not

in a place to be able to go to a party with substance use involved and be successful there. That's actually kind of a cruel invitation. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. ask you to do that. But, you know, I was speaking a little bit more generally. And are there any signs, early signs, that families can watch out for? Because it sounds like with parallel recovery, it's families that are already supporting the individual. But for some families that may have not experienced this, are there any signs to watch out for so that they might be able to intervene earlier before it gets to a point where it requires a significant support? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think,

In terms of the parallel recovery, this is really just a better way of being in a relationship with anybody, any person. So, for example, the problem is when you've got somebody with, you know, active addiction in particular or dysregulated behavior to extremes, families just are so uber focused on that behavior. But when you've got somebody who is, you know, starting to kind of get slippery with their behaviors that are difficult to be around, engaging with that person that you care about with curiosity. Again, not talking about the exact behavior, but being able to say, hey, yesterday or the last couple times I've talked to you, things seemed really out of control.

And I'm really wondering what's going on. Notice I'm not talking about, you know, you really yelled at me or, you know, the last two times that we went out, you drank way too much. or I notice you disappearing to the bathroom and then coming back, falling asleep or other behavior that we know what that means. But we want to be curious about what's going on underneath the behavior. That's how you create that connection so that when somebody does come to you and say, you know what, things have gotten really bad.

I've lost my job. And I think it has to do with the fact that I just really don't have a handle on my alcohol use. They can come to us because we are safe people. We're not connecting them to the thing that they're choosing as an outlet. We're actually connecting to them as the person who's hurting, who has a problem, who's got concerns in their life, who's not who's not kind of holding everything together, who doesn't have the tools to live their best self. So you can never go wrong with curiosity. Actually, you can go wrong with curiosity. you can never go wrong with curiosity that is truly authentic, that really is curious.

Where people go wrong with curiosity is when they ask questions like, hey, have you thought about that may sound curious, but it's actually directive. It's not curious at all. We want to get underneath. All of what I talk about really is, you know, whatever you're about to say, can I go one layer deeper? Can I go one layer deeper? Can I go one layer deeper?

If I really want to be curious, I'm going to say, I've noticed that. things have been really hard for you the past couple months. And I'm concerned about, you know, the sadness that I see. Could we talk about that? Substance use is a solution to a problem. People don't just use it because it's a solution. It's a solution to social anxiety. It's a solution to imposter syndrome. It's a solution to physical pain. It's a solution to emotional pain. It's a solution to all sorts of emotional mental health discomfort and it works predictably and it works quick. It doesn't work long term, which is the problem. But what we want to do as loved ones is get to the underlying problem and talk to the person about the problem.

One of the signs of any disordered behavior is it is covering up in underlying. lying problem. So when we start seeing lying, cheating, hiding, alcohol use, substance use, self-harm behavior, anger, abusive, external abusive language, those are all cover-ups for something else. And they do a really good job at hiding the problem from the people who love the person. And so early on, it's not getting as family members, as loved ones, as chosen or not chosen family members, being able to recognize that somebody is struggling and they're exhibiting behaviors that I don't like and that other people don't like and that ultimately are harming them. Can I ask a question about what's going on underneath that behavior instead of

focusing on the behavior? Because again, going back to we've got the person, the problem, and the family or the community, if we don't want to talk to the problem and we want to talk to the person and we want to invite them to get support and be loved and get help, we need to actually talk to the person. So we've got to go around the problem to say, what's hurting? What's going on with you? I'm wondering what's been happening in your life that's making you show up this way because that's the person I love and care about.

And does the approach change for teens versus adult children, partners versus parents? Or is it kind of the same approach regardless? It really is the same approach. I think that, you know, there's different hats to be worn. Teens, adolescents, those under the age of, you know, their own consent, obviously you are responsible as parents for those people. And sometimes the balance of boundaries and rules is really difficult. That is a difficult place to be.

be. But again, I would argue particularly with teens. This didn't start with the behavior. This started with something else. So getting those adolescents, young adults able to talk about, you know, what is the pain point? What is hard in my life? And it's going slow to go fast. It really is. I mean, you can't train for a marathon by going out and running 20 miles your first day running. You've got to start with one mile. And that's, it's a long process. And we want to get to the end result way too quickly. It's just not possible. So we've got to stop talking about the problem and stop talking about what's underneath the problem. When you're talking about parents as opposed to partners, you know, obviously partners have a choice whether or not they're going to be in that relationship.

And sometimes that becomes something that they have to face. But I have supported partners, particularly partners where there's there's a co-parent relationship to leave the marriage or the relationship and be supportive of that person being the best parent for their shared child as they possibly can be. Sometimes we enter into partner relationships with somebody who's already sick when we enter the relationship and we don't even know it. And so, you know, if that relationship becomes so changed as the person becomes healthy that you can no longer be in that relationship, how can you be the biggest, loudest clapper for that person to be their best self so that they can move on with their life, with or without you. But particularly if you have children

together, they can be the best parent for your shared children because the reality is our kids are going to be best with two healthy parents, not just one. And then in terms of the parent relationship, that one is probably the most difficult because, you know, it's permanent. When you become a parent, you become a parent for life. And frequently, you know, I hear parents say stuff like, I'm done. I'm finished with this. And, you know, my first question is, well, you may be finished with this today, but are you finished with this in five years? Because you might not be. And if you're not going to be finished with this forever, then how can you do this better? How can you create a sustainable space for you?

to love the person that you love more than anything on the face of the planet. And that's why this is so hard. Can you engage with this person? Can you learn how to do this differently so that you don't have to be done with them? Everybody needs connection. And I would say the family system parents in particular, they're the first people in your lives and they're the last person in your life. So how can families learn how to do this?

It's really difficult. It's a very hard place for parents to exist in. And have you noticed any differences between cultures or socioeconomic context when it comes to this recovery model? The answer is the same. It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic level, what your cultural model is. There definitely are some cultural models that have a tendency to be a little bit more entangled or overla. with their own emotional well-being. There's certainly some cultures that, you know, have a message, a family message of, you know, we take over or, you know, there's a lot of drama involved in the,

in the culture around somebody who's expressing discomfort and in unhealthy ways. But the end result should not be the same. Everybody can be invited into this process. And truly what this is looking at is how do we have healthy adult connections moving forward? And if we look at sort of very, very simplified development of early childhood adolescent to adult relationships, you know, there's the initial codependency model, which is what happens because as human beings, we don't have, we aren't born being able to take care of ourselves. We need to have a codependent relationship with our parents, but that really should not last very long, maybe seven years. And then we move into, so that would be the codependency stage. Then we move into a detachment stage,

which is usually happens in adolescence. And parents who have parented through adolescence, no, this happens usually around middle school, 12, 13, 14, where our children become lovely individuals that really stretch, stretch parameters and are trying to break away. And it's super important for us to as parents allow that break to happen so that we become individuated as whole human beings without the need to overlap with our children and our children become whole individuals without the need to be overlapped or underlapped with us as parents. Here's what's happened in recent times is with technology and social media and the internet and all the things that kids have access to things that are really scary at way

earlier ages than they used to. And so parents become very entangled in that detachment stage because what we see and what we are worried about is very scary. And so it's understandable, but it's also extremely important that we allow for that detachment to occur. And then finally, if you picture, like an image, it would be a Venn diagram of two separate circles coming together with an interlaped inner portion of those circles. But those are two healthy human beings, adults, coming together to communicate and connect as healthy individuals. When that separation doesn't occur, that Venn diagram doesn't actually break apart. And that overlap becomes a codependent sort of hangover from that initial stage of development. So, you know,

what I'm talking about really is how do we allow individuals to have their own agency on autonomy and their decision making, invite them to connect with us and be able to connect with them in healthy ways as a healthy adult ourselves? And what are some steps that someone can take, I guess, today after listening to this, that are listening to this, they know someone who's struggling right now and they do want to provide that support or build that healthy connection? What are some steps that they can take right away? Well, I think it depends on, you know, how detached, I guess, that relationship is.

But I would encourage people to really, again, stop talking about the problem and start saying, hey, I'm concerned about you. And I'm going to, I don't feel like I've been loving you the way that I want to love you. I think maybe I've been a little bit overbearing or underbearing or, um, you know, avoidant in our relationship and I'm really wanting to show up better for you. So I'm going to start doing some things differently and I want to be curious about what's going on with you. I mean, I think the first thing I guide families to actually say to a person when they come to me for help is we haven't been okay watching what's going on. And we've decided that we're

going to get some help for us so that we can start to get okay and start to learn how to love you better. And then they start to make action in that loving better mindset. So let the person you love know, we've really been struggling with what's been going on. It's been impacting us. And we want to do some things different. So we're going to try a couple new things. Whether you're getting help or not, you can start with, you know, asking curious questions. Hey, last week when you came home and things were kind of a mess, what went on leading up to that? What went on the day before? What happened during the day that led up to the night that occurred? Asking about their experience rather than their expression of how they're trying to soothe their experience. I call it being a compassionate witness

to somebody else's human experience. And what's hard about that is if you're not getting support around how to be okay in somebody else's discomfort, it can be really challenging. We're not showing up to fix somebody else. We're showing up to witness somebody else. And when somebody feels witness, then they're more likely to grab our hand and walk to a different solution.

I'd love to add a layer of complexity to this. Okay. What if, for example, there's multiple individuals that are struggling in the family, Well, sometimes maybe the family system is someone might have substance use, another addiction, maybe someone who passed that trauma? How could a family start navigating that if everyone is struggling with their own thing, and they might not have that capacity to help each other?

One person, just one, needs to recognize that I have been impacted by patterns that are nobody's fault. they have just been adaptations of survival, whether that's trauma or just life experiences. I'm going to go back to the genograms and sort of the family history. If one person can recognize that my life isn't looking the way I want it to and I'm open to making changes for myself, they can be the ripple that invites everybody else in the system into a healthy change process. And, you know, whether, again, whether you're getting, you can find all over the internet, all sorts of resources on the term genograms. I would invite you to investigate that and maybe have a family meeting that says, hey, you know what? I'm really curious about some of the things that I'm doing

that aren't really, frankly, working for me. And I want to look at making some changes. Would you guys be interested in looking at our family history and seeing why we're doing things that we're doing or if you're one person and you do your own investigation and you start looking at like hey you know generation three generations ago five generations ago i'm noticing some patterns that i have adapted and that aren't suiting me they suited them but they're not suiting me and i did this research and i want to share this with you guys would you be interested in hearing what i've discovered. And then really when we speak of a place of I, when we speak of a place of I have been impacted and I am making changes and other people who are maybe could stand to make some changes

are witnessing our changes being positive for ourselves, not nagging for them, but positive for ourselves. They might be interested in hearing what research we've done, what we found out. And when I go back to genie Grams with families and I have, again, sort of a family message, a family motto, it's always thanking generations past for what they've taught us and flipping pattern that is no longer serving us to be a strength of resilience, of growth, of forward progress, of healing, of just expansion of self. when other people hear and see that, and it's not about them having to do anything different, then we, again, we show up as a compassionate witness, sharing our own human experience, and we can invite somebody to grab our hand and walk with us. And we truly can't, it's like a pond that has gotten complacent and is growing algae or mold or fungus that is kind of sort of. choking out the ecosystem of the pond. And if one person sticks their finger in that pond and that ripple starts to disrupt that algae, then all of a sudden, all of the living organisms in that

pond might be able to get some air to have some growth in their progress. So I mean, it really, it really can be an invitation. And that's what I want, you know, everyone to hear is that parallel recovery isn't about fixing other people. It's about saying I have been impacted by what's going on in our family experience. And I want this to look different for me. I hope you join. That is so beautiful. Thank you. And what did you learn from your own family's experience that you will do differently today? So if it was at the beginning, like how would you, like what would you do different today? So much, so much. You know, I, when I think back to when my son's started struggling. There was a lot of finger pointing, you know, looking for externalized reasons

why he was hurting. And that just felt easier. I think I would have probably slowed everything way down. I would have changed how we engage in education. I would have changed how we engaged in sort of societal expectations of pace of growth and growing up as an adolescent, I would have slowed things way down. I would have slowed my own mindset and my own expectation for my own children. And again, it's the externalized reason and the externalized solution. It's not about getting a job or making friends or being a part of a team or be like it really is about becoming a whole human being. And I think I would have given more space for all of the people in my family to develop themselves and really listen to themselves and be, I would have

gotten safe with allowing for, you know, maybe somebody to look a little out of what the box that I was being told needed to look for. I sort of speak of my oldest son who is the one that my work is based off of as he's a gray area thinker. He's, you know, the sky is green and the grass is blue. And I think I would have given space for him to realize for him, the sky was green and the grass was blue. And that can be beautiful. It can be really impactful and life changing for a lot of, a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and

brilliancy and creativity. And I would have given space for all of that. But in order to do that, I had to get okay with things not looking comfortable for me. and I had to get okay for being a compassionate witness to that, even if I was uncomfortable with it. That's probably the number one thing I would have changed. Thank you for sharing that. I have some rapid-fire questions for you.

Okay. I believe about substance use disorder recovery that you held 10 years ago that you have changed your mind about. That it is a moral failing of a person. One question clinicians should ask family members. members more often. Who have you become and who do you want to be in this relationship? One practice families can use to reconnect after conflict. I call it the U-turn and it's acknowledging that yesterday our conversation didn't go the way I wanted it to go. Could I have

another shot at it? For people that want to learn more about you, your book, your resources, where can they find you? Sure. My website is Lisa Katona-Smith.com. My book is called Parallel recovery, a guide for those who love someone with substance use disorder, you can find it on Amazon. And I'm most active on Instagram at parallel underscore recovery. And if there's one key takeaway, you'd like every single listener to live with today, what will that be? You are important in the process of recovery. And what you do with your power is going to make an impact in the overall health and wellness of the person that you love. That is super amazing, so encouraging.

And I'm so grateful for you taking the time to write your book, but also come and share your story with us because I know it's going to help a lot of people change the way they view it. Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you so much. I'm honored. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes. Thank you.