It is hard seeing your client struggle through resistance to change. Facing a difficult emotional experience, and at the same time, wanting to escape it. Struggling in sobriety, mourning the loss of the addiction, a job, maybe even their family. They are thinking they are of little worth, while working on some of the hardest challenges they have ever faced. Yes, it is hard for the coach to keep pushing; it is just as hard for the client to keep showing up for the appointments and completing the homework assignments. But push we must and the following paragraphs explain why.
I have a 35-year-old male client with 120 days clean. I can see this change is extremely hard for my client to move through. He has commented that it is like taking a college course, Change 101. He’d really rather go back and do what he has always done: escape, do drugs, it was easier, he knew how to do it, and at least, he limped along. This is what coaches call resistance to change.
Expecting resistance and preparing how to deal with it is the most crucial part of developing a plan of change for your client. In order to forecast any type of resistance, a coach needs to understand the most common reasons people object to change. Below are six examples of the reasons underlying a client’s resistance to change. Some will be artfully combined and the order of their prominence will frequently shift. What‘s imperative is that the coach anticipate each instance of resistance, having ready a response in their back pocket.
1. Denial — I like to use consequences as the perfect wake-up call to denial. This is my classic change-resistance stand-by: When my client says, “I can’t see any reason to change,” my response is adapted from an AA slogan, “If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you’ll keep getting the same results over and over.”
2. Anger — It’s remarkable how closely these stages of resistance mimic the five stages of grief. In the case of anger, I use the same response I would in replying to a client who is grieving the loss of a relationship. I mix with it a bit of empathy. Rationally, my client understands his live-in girlfriend, his job, or his family is not responsible for the onset of his addiction. I point this out. Emotionally, he may resent anyone for causing him pain or resent his family for placing shame or putting pressure on him. I suggest he may feel guilty for being angry, and this makes him even angrier. Teasing out these threads of anger helps eliminate the “blurred lines” standing in the way of progress.
3. Fear and Confusion — One of the most common reasons for resistance is fear of the unknown. People will only take active steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe — and perhaps more importantly, feel — that the risks of standing still are greater than the risks of moving forward in a new direction. Once again, I bring out my bag of slogans and request he use affirmations on a daily basis. One of my favorite quotes is by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Every time you meet a situation that you think is an impossibility, then you meet it and live through it, you find forever after you are freer than you were before.” Another is from Dr Susan Jeffers: “Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from the feeling of helplessness.” Or Winston Churchill’s quote: “If you are in Hell, keep going.” The basic emotion of fear jumbles one’s thoughts, resulting in confusion. Using simple affirmations can break through the underlying emotion of fear and help redraw the line, nudging it forward toward change.
4. Depression — Again, a classic symptom of grief as well as resistance to change. This phase may be eased by a few kind words. However, I have to battle for this particular change model, and fight against my client’s old thoughts of living an “easy life” in addiction. That old life seemed easier than all of this work. So first, I ensure my client is following his medication-assisted treatment protocols. Then, I pull out my depression-buster toolbox: Get some friends and talk about it — my client’s assignment is to have coffee after his next NA meeting and talk specifically about his depression as well as having to work on his relationships. Depression-buster tool number two is to read inspirational messages. My newest favorite book is National Geographic‘s Daily Joy — 365 Days of Inspiration, uniting inspiring words with lovely National Geographic images of the world. Tool number three? Distraction. When depressive thoughts come creeping back in, get out of that bed, no sleeping until noon. Walk, workout, mow the lawn, go to the grocery store and shop for some nutritious ingredients for this week’s meals. Write in your journal, call your coach, talk to your sponsor and best of all, hit your knees and ask your higher power to take from you these thoughts and feelings of depression.
5. Crisis — No matter what, there will be a crisis during the period of time in which you are implementing change. So ready yourself for it. In this particular coaching situation, a crisis can be deadly, so I pre-empt any thought of my client ‘using’, head-on. I talk about how addiction will transform thoughts of escape or defiance into the thought of using. I urge my client to prepare for this with a Fire Drill:
“What are you going to do if these thoughts enter your head? Write this down and use it just like a fire drill is used in a school or office. Thinking of using? A bell starts ringing! Call a friend, say the serenity prayer, call me, take a walk, take out the picture of your 5 year old daughter from your wallet, go to a meeting, hug your girlfriend, write in your journal, drink a glass of water and repeat! Continue to do these things until the thoughts pass.”
I have my client write all of these actions of a fire drill down on a 3×5 card and carry it in his wallet. Defining and breaking down a crisis helps, too: Picking up a drug is the biggest crisis; a minor fender bender is not. Heading out to an old drug-dealing location is a crisis; bouncing a check is not. In all cases tell someone, call a sponsor, a NA friend or your coach.
6. Acceptance — Sometimes it takes a crisis to move to acceptance, and hopefully a minor crisis like a fender bender or a bounced check is the crisis my client will experience to effect this change. He can see the experience of dealing with a crisis as a sober person works more effectively. Of course, as his coach, I follow up by asking him about the eventual resolution of this minor crisis. I am confident he will see how his change of interaction and communication styles has helped improve the resolution of the crisis. Most importantly, he will have accepted this aspect of change because he has gained a new found confidence in being a sober person resolving a crisis in a orderly and humane way.
And confidence is really the strength my client has needed all along.
