Family Resources for Addiction and Mental Health Recovery in Austin.

How to use this guide.

This is the material our clinical team teaches inside the program, written down for the people at home. Your family member is learning it in group. You should have it too — not so you can run their recovery, but so the two of you stop speaking different languages.

You don't read this front to back. Find the thing that happened this week and start there.

Every section is built the same way: what the thing is, what it looks like at your kitchen table, and what to do about it. Where a book or an outside resource helps, it sits in that section rather than in a pile at the bottom.

Try your local library for the books first — most carry them, and several are on the shelf in Austin. Or check Half Price Books if you'd rather own a copy — their Austin stores usually have these used, often for a few dollars.

Jump to a section.

Understanding what's happening to them

• 1. The window of tolerance — why they can't hear you when they're flooded
• 2. Post-acute withdrawal (PAWS) — why month two is often worse than week one
• 3. Healing the frontal lobe — why good intentions arrive before good decisions
• 4. Stages of change — why arguing someone into readiness doesn't work
• 5. Cross addiction — when it moves instead of stopping

What to do differently at home

• 6. The six kinds of boundaries — decisions about you, not rules for them
• 7. Active listening — how to hear the forty-first version of a conversation
• 8. The four horsemen — the four habits that end conversations
• 9. Distress tolerance — what to do with a feeling you can't fix

Taking care of you

• 10. Core beliefs — the old rules running underneath both of you
• 11. Grief and loss — you're allowed to grieve someone who's still alive
• 12. The eight dimensions of wellness — why sobriety alone isn't a life

Also on this page

• Free support that isn't us — Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, SMART Family & Friends, NAMI
• The books on this page, in one place
• Where family fits in the program
• Common questions

1. The window of tolerance.

The zone where a person can feel something hard and still think clearly. Early recovery makes it very narrow, because substances were doing the regulating.

What it looks like at home:

• Above the window: fast breathing, jaw set, voice up, feet pointed at the door. Ready to fight or bolt.
• Below the window: flat face, one-word answers, gone behind the eyes.
• Inside it: they can disagree with you without detonating. That's the goal.
• It flips in a sentence. One question about money and the person who was fine ten seconds ago is gone.

What helps:

• When they're outside the window, the conversation is over — they just haven't said so. Nothing lands, because the part of the brain that processes what you're saying isn't driving.
• Say "let's finish this later," and mean it. Then finish it later.
• Stop reading it as being dismissed. You're being out-run by their nervous system.
• Give it twenty minutes. That's about what a flooded nervous system needs. Twenty minutes of being reasoned with does nothing.

Where it comes from: Psychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel. The window widens with time and practice — that's most of what the work is.

A tool you can use tonight: Siegel's hand model of the brain — make a fist, thumb tucked under your fingers, and you have a two-minute picture of what "flipping your lid" means. Our team uses it constantly, and it's the easiest way to explain all of this to a kid.

2. Post-acute withdrawal (PAWS).

The months-long stretch where the brain rebuilds the chemistry it outsourced. It does not move in a straight line.

What it looks like at home:

• The first days are dramatic, then things settle and everyone breathes.
• Around week six or eight: irritable, sleeping badly, foggy, flat, snapping at nothing.
• Good week, bad week, good week, terrible Tuesday.
• The mood swings feel personal and pointed. They are mostly chemical.

What helps:

• Stop reading every bad day as evidence. Families see this and think: they're using again, or this isn't working, or this is just who they are now. Usually it's none of those. It's a brain doing repairs.
• Ask "is this a hard day or a hard month?" Track months, not moments.
• Treat their sleep like medication. Wrecked sleep makes every other symptom worse, and it is the one you can help protect.
• Say the pattern out loud: "week eight is famous for this." A thing with a name and an end date is less frightening.

Go deeper: The first 30 days sober · The first 60 days sober from alcohol · Alcohol recovery · NIAAA on alcohol use disorder

3. Healing the frontal lobe.

The part of the brain that plans, weighs consequences and stops you doing the stupid thing. Heavy substance use suppresses it. So does trauma.

What it looks like at home:

• Your family member can be brilliant and still make a decision that makes no sense to you.
• The part that would have caught it was offline.
• Plans that made sense on Sunday have fallen apart by Wednesday.
• They can explain exactly why it was a bad decision — afterwards. That's the part coming back online.

What helps:

• Sleep, food, movement, time and repetition. That's why the program looks boring from the outside. Boring is the treatment.
• Expect good intentions to arrive months before good decisions do. Judgment returns last.
• Don't read a lapse in judgment as a lapse in caring. Those are different parts of the brain, and only one of them is injured.
• Put structure where willpower used to go — same wake time, written plans, fewer open decisions in a day.

The book for this one: The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk. The standard text on what trauma does to a brain and a body.

Go deeper: Where trauma sits underneath it — EMDR · PTSD and trauma · EMDR International Association · NIDA on treatment approaches

4. Stages of change.

People move through five stages — precontemplation (no problem here), contemplation (maybe there's a problem), preparation, action, maintenance — and they move backward as often as forward.

What it looks like at home:

• You have the perfect argument ready. It doesn't work. It never works.
• They were doing so well, and now they're not. You think it's over.
• They agree with every word you say and change nothing.
• You notice you're doing all the wanting for both of you.

What helps:

• You can't drag someone from stage one to stage four with a good argument. Pushing a person in precontemplation usually pushes them further in.
• Going back a stage isn't the wheels coming off. It's a documented part of how change works.
• Meet them where they are, not where you need them to be.
• Ask instead of arguing. "What would have to change for you to think about it?" moves more than an hour of evidence.

Where it comes from: Researchers James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente.

Go deeper: Signs someone needs IOP treatment · Am I an alcoholic, or just stressed?

5. Cross addiction.

The same underlying drive finding a new outlet. The brain isn't attached to the substance — it's attached to relief.

What it looks like at home:

• The drinking stops. Then it's the gambling app. Or the shopping. Or the gym, four hours a day. Or a new relationship that consumes everything.
• Families often celebrate the swap, because the new thing looks healthier.
• It usually arrives inside the first year, and it arrives with enthusiasm.

What helps:

• The question isn't "is this activity bad?" It's "is this being used to not feel something?"
• Raise it gently, and raise it in therapy rather than at dinner.
• Watch the function, not the label. How much, how often, and what happens when they can't.

The book for this one: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts — Gabor Maté. On what the relief is for.

Go deeper: Individual therapy · Alcohol and anxiety: why drinking makes it worse · The ADHD and addiction connection

6. The six kinds of boundaries.

A boundary is a decision you make about you. Not a rule you enforce on them. People hear the word and think punishment — a wall, a threat. It isn't.

The six:

• Personal — the overall limits you set to protect yourself and decide how you want to be treated.
• Emotional — your feelings are yours, theirs are theirs. You can care about someone's pain without picking it up and carrying it.
• Mental — respecting your own thoughts, beliefs and opinions while letting other people hold different ones.
• Material — how you use, share or lend your money, your time and your things. Where most families in recovery struggle first.
• Physical — protecting your space, your privacy and your body by deciding what feels comfortable and safe.
• Spiritual — choosing your own values, beliefs and sense of purpose without pressure from anyone.

What helps:

• A boundary you won't keep is worse than no boundary at all. It teaches everyone that your limits are a negotiation. So set fewer, and keep the ones you set.
• "I'm not giving you cash" is a boundary. "You have to stop lying to me" is a wish. Only one of them is yours to control.
• Say it once, plainly, and don't argue the case. A boundary you defend five times has become a debate.
• Expect the first one to go badly. Someone used to a yes will read your first no as cruelty. That passes.

The book for this one: Codependent No More — Melody Beattie. The one most families are handed, and for good reason.

Go deeper: Family therapy · Holidays, family triggers and impulse control · Sober weddings, BBQs and family events

7. Active listening.

Listening is a skill, not a mood. You've had this conversation maybe forty times, and it's hard to hear the forty-first as though it's new.

The skills:

• Be in the conversation. Not half in it, phone face-down but buzzing.
• Make eye contact. Show up with your face.
• Watch the non-verbal cues — theirs and your own. Your crossed arms are talking.
• Ask open questions. "What was that like?" opens. "Did you take your meds?" closes.
• Say back what you heard, in your own words, before you respond.
• Listen to understand, not to reply. Most of us are drafting a rebuttal while the other person is still talking.
• Hold the judgment and the advice. Especially the advice.

What helps:

• That last one is hardest for parents. Your instinct is to solve it — and solving it is often the thing that ends the conversation.
• Ask before you advise: "do you want help with this, or do you want me to listen?" Both are fine answers.
• Silence is allowed. The urge to fill it is usually yours, not theirs.

The book for this one: The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz. Don't take things personally, don't make assumptions, be careful with your word. Short, and it changes how a household talks.

8. The four horsemen.

Four patterns that predict a relationship coming apart. They show up in families in recovery constantly.

The four:

• Criticism — attacking the person, not the problem. "You never" and "you always."
• Contempt — the eye roll, the sneer, talking down. The most corrosive of the four.
• Defensiveness — meeting a complaint with an excuse or a counter-complaint. Nobody hears anybody.
• Stonewalling — shutting down, going silent, leaving the room while your body stays in it.

What helps:

• Name what you need instead of what they did wrong.
• Take responsibility for a piece of it, even a small piece.
• Take a real break when you're flooded, and come back.
• Look again at stonewalling — it's usually someone dropped below their window of tolerance. Not cold. Overwhelmed.

Where it comes from: Dr. John Gottman, after decades of watching couples argue.

The book for this one: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work — John Gottman. Useful well beyond marriages.

9. Distress tolerance.

The skill of getting through a feeling you can't fix without making it worse. Some feelings can't be solved at 2am — they can only be survived.

What it looks like:

• Cold water on the face.
• A walk around the block.
• Ten slow breaths out — longer out than in.
• Putting the phone down for five minutes, because urges pass, usually faster than anyone expects.

What helps:

• It isn't positive thinking. It's a trained skill with steps. Skip any program that talks about releasing negative energy — those people are guessing.
• Your own hardest moments deserve the same tools. You are allowed to not fix something.
• Do it alongside them if they'll let you. Walking next to someone beats talking at them.

The book for this one: The Happiness Trap — Russ Harris. On why trying to control a feeling makes it louder.

Go deeper: DBT skills for distress tolerance · Dialectical behavior therapy · Boredom and stillness in recovery · Behavioral Tech, the DBT training institute founded by Marsha Linehan, who built the model

10. Core beliefs.

The deep rules a person never chose — I'm not enough, I'm a burden, if people really knew me they'd go. Installed early, running quietly underneath everything.

What it looks like at home:

• Someone who believes they're a burden will not ask for help at the exact moment they need it most.
• Someone who believes they're unlovable will test whether you'll leave, over and over, until you do.
• You have them too: "if I'd been a better parent," "if I'd noticed sooner."

What helps:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy is the work of dragging those beliefs into the light and checking whether they're true. Not chanting affirmations — checking evidence.
• Check yours against evidence as well.
• Listen for the absolutes — always, never, everyone, nobody. That's usually a belief talking, not a fact.

The books for this one: Mind Over Mood — Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky. A workbook, not a read; it is the CBT one. And No Bad Parts — Richard Schwartz, if the internal family systems idea lands for you.

Go deeper: CBT · Internal family systems, which works with the different parts of a person that want different things · IFS Institute · Dual diagnosis treatment

11. Grief and loss.

You're grieving. Not a death — a version of a person. The kid you thought you'd have, the marriage you planned, the years this took.

The stages our family program uses: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, acceptance. Built on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' original work.

What it looks like at home:

• Grief doesn't run on a schedule and it isn't a straight line. People move back and forth, skip stages, and hit them out of order.
• Most families never give themselves permission to call it grief at all.
• It ambushes you at odd times. A photo, a song, somebody else's good news about their kid.

What helps:

• Acceptance isn't approval. It's stopping the fight with what already happened.
• If the heaviness doesn't lift — most days, for weeks — talk to someone. Families get depressed too, and they almost never treat it.
• You can grieve who they were and love who they are at the same time. Both are allowed, in the same week.

The books for this one: Beautiful Boy — David Sheff, a father's account of his son's addiction. The one to hand someone who thinks no other family has been here. And Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb, on what therapy is really like, if you're weighing your own.

Go deeper: Depression · Individual therapy · NIMH on depression · The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation

12. The eight dimensions of wellness.

Emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, spiritual. Sobriety is not a life.

What it looks like at home:

• A person who has stopped using but has no work, no friends, no money and nowhere to be has not arrived anywhere yet. That empty space is where relapse lives.
• Most families of someone in treatment are down to about two dimensions: the crisis, and work.

What helps:

• Run the list on yourself, not just on them. Two dimensions isn't sustainable, and your family member can feel it.
• Pick one dimension, not eight. One friendship, one walk, one appointment you keep for yourself.

Where it comes from: SAMHSA, the federal agency for substance use and mental health.

Go deeper: Building recovery communities in Austin · The Austin social scene in recovery

Free support that isn't us.

You need somewhere to put this that isn't your family member, and isn't a bill. All of these are free, and none of them are treatment programs.

• Al-Anon — meetings for families and friends of people with a drinking problem. Meetings all over Austin, and online.
• Nar-Anon — the same idea, for families affected by drug use.
• SMART Recovery Family & Friends — a secular, skills-based alternative if the twelve-step language doesn't fit you. Built on CRAFT and the tools on this page.
• NAMI Family Support Group — peer-led groups for families dealing with mental health conditions.

We recommend these to families every week. You don't have to be our client to walk into any of them.

The books on this page, in one place.

Each of these sits in the section it belongs to above. Library first.

• Codependent No More — Melody Beattie · boundaries
• The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz · active listening
• In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts — Gabor Maté · cross addiction
• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk · the frontal lobe, trauma
• The Happiness Trap — Russ Harris · distress tolerance
• Mind Over Mood — Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky · core beliefs
• No Bad Parts — Richard Schwartz · core beliefs
• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work — John Gottman · the four horsemen
• Beautiful Boy — David Sheff · grief
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb · grief, and your own therapy

Where family fits in the program.

Family isn't a visitor's badge here. It's part of the clinical work.

If your person is in our intensive outpatient program, they're living at home and doing treatment around a job and a life — which means you see the hard parts up close, every day.

• The family guide to supporting someone in IOP — what that week looks like
• Chosen family and support systems
• Building a support system — yours needs rebuilding too, not just theirs
• Family therapy — where this work goes

Common questions.

Do I have to be in therapy myself to use any of this?

No. Every section stands on its own. But most families find that once they start looking at their own patterns, they want somewhere to put that. Family therapy is where it goes.

My family member won't admit there's a problem. What do I do?

Read section 4. You're likely dealing with precontemplation, and argument makes it worse. What tends to move people is a relationship that stays honest and a door that stays open. Call us at (512) 616-0809 — you don't need them on the phone to ask.

How do I tell a bad day from a relapse?

Often you can't, and trying to be the detective costs you the relationship. Look at the shape of the month rather than the temperature of the night. Then say the true thing: "I noticed this, and I'm worried." Not an accusation. An observation.

Am I enabling?

Ask what the help protects. Help that protects them from the illness is support. Help that protects them from the consequences of the illness usually isn't. It's a hard line to walk and nobody walks it perfectly.

Does insurance cover this?

We're in network with most major carriers. We'll quickly verify your insurance and follow up — no cost, no commitment.

Ready when you are.

You've been carrying this a long time, probably longer than anyone knows. You don't have to have the right words ready before you call.