Coming Up for Air — A Toolkit to Help with Your Loved One's Recovery from Addiction & Mental Illness

When you’re in the middle of crisis, feeling reactive or uncertain about what to do, use the “three questions” to helps create space and time and take the best action. What am I feeling? What can I do about it (think as broadly as possible)? What am I actually gonna do? Kayla likes to consider a fourth: What’s happening that’s making me feel this way?

It’s important to CRAFT that you become a complex thinker – not just black/white or good/bad, but looking at a bigger picture to see a range of possibilities and hold more than one truth. To, as Kayla says, “heal into wholeness,” it’s important to become more yourself by experiencing all the feelings and thoughts you may have, to hold them and see your perspective and the other person’s. The bigger picture you get, the more you can see possibilities that make you more whole and lead to healing.

We intend to be supportive and helpful, and keep our loved ones safe. But our words aren’t always perceived that way. It’s important to become more aware of how we’re coming across, and to gain the tools to soften the message, hear when they feel upset, and shift things so that we can go back into connection. The result is building the relationship so things can come out more clearly, and the person can more readily receive our words if they choose to.