Hello and welcome to Episode 53!

Today we’re wrapping up our mini-series that’s been all about The BALM Philosophy, which stands for “Be A Loving Mirror”. The BALM was designed to help people struggling in relationships with substance abusers (and other difficult people) get their lives back, learn how to communicate effectively, and possibly even be a positive influence for change in another person’s life.

For the last 3 episodes we heard the creator of The BALM, Beverly Buncher, talk all about how she successfully intervened in her husband’s life (not once but twice), and what she teaches other people about how to be their loved one’s best chance at recovery. So if you haven’t heard those episodes, I’d recommend listening to them first. (Episode 50: The Loving Path To Family Recovery, Episode 51: Practical Strategies For Communicating With Difficult People, Episode 52: How To Start Implementing The BALM Philosophy In Your Home)

In today’s episode we’re talking to Jackie Stein who is one of Beverly’s students, and who has also become a recovery coach through Beverly’s coach training.

Jackie is in a long-term romantic relationship with a man who has a substance use disorder, and she’ll be telling us about her experience with that.

Before we start, if you already want to know more about The BALM, just click here to inquire.

Here’s my interview with Jackie Stein…

Interview with Jackie Stein About Learning To Communicate With A Substance User

Brian: Hey Jackie, welcome to the show, it’s so good to have you.

Jacqlyn: I’m delighted to be here, thank you.

Brian: I can’t wait to dig into your personal story. I know you have a lot to bring to the table. You have some really interesting personal experience that I think a lot of listeners can identify with. You’ve done a lot of the hard work that I think a lot of people want and need to do in some cases, so I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.

Question: My first question for you is, could you start by briefly sharing a little bit of a back story of your situation with your loved one, and what life was like before you discovered BALM?

Jacqlyn: Sure. Life was insane before I discovered BALM. My loved one, who is my partner, is suffering from an alcohol use disorder that has been going on and off for many, many years. And being a person who wanted to try to fix him – my life was very insane before I found the BALM – I lived in a constant state of anxiety.

If he was drinking, I was worried about where he was, how much he was drinking, whether he was safe, or whether he was alive. When he wasn’t drinking, I spent all of my time worrying about whether he was going to pick up a drink, where he was, and what he was doing. I was a professional person but my whole life almost 24/7, was focused on what he was or wasn’t doing.

Question: What did that do to you as a person? Did it have any effect on your profession or anything else in life?

Jacqlyn: Yeah, at first it was kind of subtle. I think I wasable to mask it better, but as time went on – I worked in a large financial services company, I had a pretty responsible job – I was constantly worrying about him. If he would call while was in the middle of the conference call, I would put the call on hold to take his call because I was worried about where he was. My mind was constantly pulled in other directions. I had a hard time focusing on what I needed to do for work. I had a hard time focusing on what I needed to do at home that didn’t involve him. My life was absolutely consumed with what he was doing and where he was.

Questions: I’m curious, how did you discover this BALM? Where did this come from? How did you hear about it?

Jacqlyn: That’s a really interesting story. I had decided that I wanted to go back to school. I had decided that working for this financial services company was not really what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I decided to go back to school to study addiction counseling. I think somewhere in the back of my head I thought that if I became an addictions counselor, somehow I could help other people but maybe I could also help him.

During the course of my studies, it occurred to me that there were lots of services available for people that were suffering from substance use disorder, but there weren’t too many opportunities for the families. This is truly a family disease; everyone gets sick. There’s Al-Anon and Nar-Anon but they really didn’t seem to provide enough “oomph” for me so I decided to go in search of something more powerful. As luck would have it, I got on a Facebook page with one of my friends, and saw a response to a question of some sort from Bev who was somebody that I knew from childhood but had lost track of.

We started to talk, and when she told me what she was doing and I told her what I was doing, it was like a new marriage made. She had started this program called BALM which stands for Be A Loving Mirror, and she was telling me how she had decided that there was not enough out there for the families. When I’ve heard that, I just knew that I had found somebody who was trying to pursue the same thing I was trying to pursue, and it occurred to me that maybe I could use the BALM personally as well as professionally.

Brian: For those of you listening, if this is one of the first episodes you’ve ever heard of this show, we are in the middle of a mini-series, a four-part series about this BALM program developed by Beverly Buncher, and that’s who Jackie is referring to here so feel free to check out the episodes around this episode. Make sure you get the whole series here just so you have the full context.

Question: I’m curious, you mentioned Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, what was it about BALM that you felt really was so different that really, really drew you to it that you didn’t see anywhere else?

Jacqlyn: In Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, they talk about three C’s; you didn’t cause your loved one substance use disorder, you can’t cure it, and you can’t change it. I was onboard withall of that, but they also seem to be focusing on walking away. There were a lot of people there that were still married but had basically separated themselves emotionally and spiritually from their loved one and were just sort of hanging in. I thought, “There had to be more to life than just hanging in.”

When I learned about the BALM, the BALM goes further than that. The BALM says, “Yes, you didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it, you can’t change it, but you can be your loved one’s best chance at recovery. You have a connection with your loved one that is much deeper than their substance use, and that you have a connection to them that you can hold on to. You have to learn a new way to communicate with them, and obviously, you’re always at choice, you always have the right to walk away, but you can learn how to let go without giving in or giving up.” This was just a completely foreign concept to me. I had never heard anyone before talk about trying to make the relationship actually work and not just coexist.

Questions: You mentioned substance use in this particular case. What’s your thought about how this  applies to situations that don’t involve that? Can this work in other situations too?

Jacqlyn: I think The BALM program can work in just about any situation. When I say substance use, most people think of drugs or alcohol but there are process addictions too like food, gambling, and sex but there are also people that suffer from serious mental health issues. I think using the BALM tools can help in relationships where mental illness is an issue as well.

Question: You mentioned discovering that you can be your loved one’s best chance at recovery, did it surprise you to learn that there’s something you can do to be the loved one’s best chance at recovery?

Jacqlyn: Yes, because everything that I was doing was absolutely the wrong thing. This is coming from a person who is personally living a life in recovery. I should have known that trying to cajole, nag, plead, and beg him was not going to be the answer. But that’s exactly what I did. I would cry, yell, throw things, and try to be rational. But when you’re dealing with a person who’s in the throes of a substance use disorder, rational is not necessarily the way to go. They can’t hear a lot of what you’re saying. As soon as you start to yell, nag, or plead, they basically just turn off the sound and they just watch your mouth moving.

I didn’t understand any of that, and through the BALM I learned how to have a loving and non-judgmental conversation with my partner where he may not want to do what I would like him to do but he can hear what I’m saying. He can tell that I’m seeing things in him and he’s willing to hear what I have to say as opposed to turning off the sound.

Brian: I’m curious to understand more about how you’ve done that.

Question: We have talked to Bev a bit about some of the strategies here, but what strategies have helped you specifically in your situation most with your relationship?

Jacqlyn: A couple of things, first is there’s a whole process for learning how to create what we call a BALM conversation which is sort of like a little mini intervention. Part of what we learn is how to be obs