Joseph highlighted the significance of celebrating successes, no matter how small, and the role of community and support in the recovery process. He emphasized the importance of perseverance, personal growth, and family involvement in effective long-term recovery from addiction. Lastly, he encouraged everyone to create individual lists of successes and corresponding celebrations because sobriety is a family affair.

Hello, and welcome. I am your host, Joseph Devlin and today we're going to read the final parts of chapter seven of my book, a step out of darkness. So let's get at it. I really want to take a moment here to take my hat off to you and congratulate you, you should take a moment and congratulate yourself. On getting this far. I know it has been difficult, and there has been a lot of sacrifice on your part. There may have been intense fighting back and forth, but you continue to push on, congratulate yourself, your love and perseverance or working. Maybe at this point, we can begin to see that our greatest challenges force us to grow the most. Your loved one will draw support from the same love and determination that you have been demonstrated. You are an example for them about what showing up in life and walking in love and kindness is all about. It is better known as practicing what you preach. Please remember that you are not responsible for their choices. Just as no one is responsible for your choices. These positive actions you're taking will continue to influence your loved one to make the right choices. One of the best teachers in life is observing the manner in which other individuals walk through life. My second child walked faster than my first because they had someone to watch how it was done. When people show us what to do, we learn faster, through your loved ones observations of you, you're giving them the permission and the freedom to go ahead and let their love shine. Thank you for being you. And please treat yourself to an ice cream cone, or a nice fancy dinner. This chapter has effective suggestions that I have seen working many years in the addiction field. There are many more great examples of things that you can do. And if you have any suggestions, I encourage you to write to me, and let me know what worked for you. I also encourage you to share these successes with other families who are walking through this addiction epidemic, as we can be the best supports and resources for one another. I will end this chapter with this study show that these three things are correlated to an individual's effective long term recovery. One family involvement in treatment, to attending a meeting immediately upon discharge from an inpatient facility, or at least that day, and three remaining in treatment for a minimum of six months.

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That's our reading for the day.

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All right, I want to jump right into it. With this. Remembering to celebrate our successes. I was just having a conversation with some folks recently. And in this Go, go go world sometimes simply just missed the fact to sit down and say, Wow, I accomplished this. Let's take a moment. Let's breathe in, breathe out, take it in, feel that feeling that like wow, there's a relief, there's a peace, there's a success, there's a joy that comes in with each breath. And we inhale, and then we exhale. And it's just like we're breathing that joy. And that peace in and out of ourselves and into the environment around us. And anything could be a success, like getting our loved one to treatment, having our loved one to say hello to us, having our loved one stay sober one day. All of those are milestones. And for ourselves, has we've been consumed by that person who's an addiction, and it's affected our entire family. So when we're seeing these glimpses of somebody who's maintaining themselves in treatment, they're coming up with goals and a game plan and action steps to achieve their heart's desire. We get to celebrate that say, Hey, there's a plan of action that's been put in place and has worth celebrating and that our demeanor changes. And it's different than you know, when our loved ones in addiction. If you walk into our home, you could like cut that tension with a knife. You just feel it that moment. And now that they're in recovery, and their lives are changing your whole and home environment that starts changing, people can even you can even walk into your own home and you're gonna feel the presence of just something lifting. And it's just going to be a little bit lighter and celebrate that and it's in those celebrations that you carry that piece with you in and you carry that change in your home. So please look at those things that you can do for successes and for celebrations of those successes, and going to get an ice cream cone or going out to dinner. Those are good ways to say you know what I was doing something. And for many of you have been long, you know, listening to this podcast over and over, hey, tonight, take yourself out. For an ice cream cone, take yourself out for a cup of coffee, go for a walk, do some kind of celebration, but intentionally say, it's because I've been persevering. And I have put intention towards this and things are getting better. Because once we do that, I said, we're going to carry that presence with us. But we're also showing our loved one, that it's okay to celebrate in the moment. Again, we are in this fast moving, fast paced environment. And I am as guilty as anyone, when it comes to this. This is okay, what's next? What's next great, I'm glad we did that. But eventually, like that makes life not fun anymore. And we want to be creating a different environment within our family. And again, as our loved one sees that, hey, listen, we're happy, we're celebrating as some of these moments, tensions released. And we get to do things with one another without like that performance, we have to form and do something now we can just be for a moment. I make the point here that it's like, they may not know how to do that, especially in the beginning in addiction, you know, there's always that constant thought of like, hey, how am I going to get my substance? How am I going to get the thing that's gonna, that I'm trying to fill inside of me? How am I going to get that addiction, so as opposed to constantly like a running thing that's going on in someone's brain. And now we're helping them to like slow it down a little bit, you're doing great. Let's just keep keep up with this, you know, taking these steps, slow and steady wins the race. And it's okay to slow down for a moment, we don't always have to be performing. And I know for me early on in recovery, one of the things that really meant a lot to me, was when somebody would just sit down and have a cup of coffee with me, or better yet, we'd even go out to a meal together. And we just shared time together. And I was able to talk with them. And they were able to talk with me and was wasn't about really heavy subjects or was just being with one another. And that's that celebration of life, the thing that I was one of the things I was looking for. But in that moment that person allowed, you know, allowed me to feel that I mattered and that I had value. And that they knew a lot of the things that I had done. But it didn't matter to them. They didn't approve of what I was doing. But in that moment, it was like, hey, accept you, I value your scene, you're doing great. And they didn't even have to say all that they just did it by sitting down and being in their presence with me. So I encourage you to think about that. Are there ways that you can do that with your loved one. And I want to say this is that, in the midst of all this, we want to be celebrating things, because that shows them a different way of looking at life that we always don't have to keep going, going going. And their successes are going to be their successes. And that's what's a really important part about that goal setting while you're in treatment, or the goals that you're setting at home. Because in reality, we're not responsible for the choices that somebody else makes. And it's really important for everyone to hear, again, is that, you know, when we're in this family and our loved ones are making these choices, we often take on the burden that hey, somehow I could have helped make their choice for them, I could have done this better, or it's something I did was the thing that made them make that choice. And we're not responsible for another person's behavior nor nor their choices. However we can influence their behaviors and their choices. Family sobriety now is all about that is saying is that we know as a fact as a restorative practitioner, is that like when we do things with people, people are happier, they're more productive, they're more likely to make positive changes in their own behaviors, as well as changes in their own community. So by sitting down and just having a cup of coffee with somebody, you could be changing the trajectory of their life. So although we're not responsible for their decisions, I want you to see that we have a lot of influence, how they may make their choices, because we're always desiring to live in community with one another. And our loved ones really want to be in community with us. So what our values and what our morals and what our standards are, they're going to look at them, and they are going to try and meet them, or at least respect them, even if they don't agree with you, on your stance on certain things. And that's okay. That's okay. But it allows us to live in this community with one another. And this brings me into my point, the last three points that I had, and the chapters that we know three things that are correlated to somebody's long term sobriety, and it's family involvement in treatment, attending a meeting, immediately upon discharge from treatment, and remaining in treatment for at least six months, these are three things that you have an absolute influence over your loved one, on whether or not they will follow through on these, you know, you can have your your active engagement while they're in treatment. And afterwards, attending a meeting, you can strive them, you can walk right into that meeting with them, and remaining in treatment for six months. I remember when I was, you know, at 45 days sober, and I was in treatment. And I told my mom, you know, I'm good, let's go. And she said, and I knew it was difficult for her. She said, No. And I knew that that was a burden on the family and how I was going to get transported back and forth. But she said, No. So whatever that may be commit to that six months, it's, it's we need at least that much to make change, change is hard, and most people don't want to do it. And I can understand that completely. I didn't want to change a lot of things about myself, but especially not changing into recovery. But if we can stick to at least those three things, I'm very, very heavy influence on that. So I want you to, to think reflect back on, what we were just talking about is that in all of our successes, even if you have to say some like notice to your loved one on something, and it's hard, like hey, I want to stay out till after 11 o'clock, but the agreed upon goal is 10 o'clock. You just say no.

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And go to your room, sit down on the floor, you know, or sit down on your bed, put your feet on the floor, breathe in, breathe out, and just get grounded in that moment. And that's even just a moment of recognizing the success of something saying, Okay, I was able to say no, and everything's okay. Yes, they're upset with me. But it's okay, we're holding boundaries, we're moving forward. And that's a success. And I want us to take one last look at your goals and successes. And your successes can be anything new, like I said, anything that you want it to be a clean urine sample, you know, making it on time to work the whole week, you know, whatever it may be, and you can put your successes, celebrations, at anything from a cup of coffee ice cream cone, an extra 30 minutes on Xbox, going out to a movie, you know, get a new pair of shoes, sitting around a campfire, taking a vacation to the beach, taking a vacation to the mountains. Really whatever your budget allows, incorporate those, like think about those things and saying, Okay, these are different levels of celebrations, and they're important and we're going to hit those. So my challenge to you is come up with a leap a list of at least 10 Different successes 10 different ways you can celebrate successes, and hate make that list of maybe 20 You know, do 10 to 20 and then you can list them in like low medium to high successes, get the celebrations and make it personal to your family. Because every family is unique and different. And so those those certain things that that will light up your family like maybe you go out and you make s'mores together. And that brings back just so many great family memories and, and experiences and great talks and fun. That's what it is, you know, like make that your celebration. So I appreciate everybody being here with me today. And until our next episode Remember sobriety is a family affair