Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

Hi friends.

This is Chris McLain lead.

Pastor at Shady Grove, United Methodist Church in Short Pump and welcome to this community Forum on substance use disorder.

We're offering this in the month of February mindful of Valentine's Day.

And the message is that all those and their families who are experiencing the difficulties and struggles with substance use disorder.

You are loved give yourselves just a big hug.

You are loved And cared for.

And we're Gathering to learn more to help ourselves help our loved ones and be a resource to our neighbors, to be a help.

One to another.

I'm not an expert in substance use disorder, but I am a person who understands what it's like to have this as part of family life.

And so I really am a resource one.

beggar showing others where to find bread.

And I hope some of what I've learned can be of help to you or somebody that you know.

We're going to begin by talking about the relationship between nature and nurture.

It's not one or the other, but it's very much a conversation between the two.

And so just see that in the picture of a family relationship.

And we're all part of relationships.

I want to stay there and just take a look.

So you see in the middle layer to the right side, there's a square squares indicate, man, I didn't make this up, this is Bowen, family systems theory.

That designates men as the squares but not on guys at all.

You're not square.

but at any rate you see right there, somebody who it was determined later in life, might have Asperger's.

And so there's a potentially strong genetic component there.

And, and then a child from that marriage, that had ADHD, you also see up on the left in a circle.

So, that's one of the grandmothers in this family.

Grouping you see, depression there.

And then, if you follow that blue arrow down to the one labeled too overwhelmed, that's also a person who experience anxiety and depression next to that assessor.

Who Experienced anxiety and depression and eventually took her own life.

And so in that we are seeing some things like Asperger's ADHD anxiety and depression that you seem to have a nature component.

Maybe there's some heredity going on in there.

But we also see very much the nurturer of things all around.

Just how the relationships that we find ourselves in the midst of can have an impact on the qualities that we naturally have from our genetics.

For example, overwhelmed person is a person who is very sensitive and if you take a very sensitive person and put that person highly supportive situation than that, sort of nurturer of somebody who could have some Positive result, that said that sensitivity and a negative situation, a little bit.

Then start at the top.

And you see a grandfather on the mother's side is what we're looking at a grandfather.

And the ex is there because he's passed on.

Who is a high-functioning alcoholic in a distant marriage?

So you see that red color which indicates kind of stopped, like, maybe a little negative here and that the dots, which means Justin in a distant marriage with a severely depressed wife together.

They have three children over to the oldest.

Child is a line indicating a lot of focus, so you can have a very positive Focus.

Oh my special child, or, you can have a negative Focus.

Oh I'm so worried about you, either way, I focus is kind of intense.

Maybe you can.

Put on this oldest son, who is considered in the family, the favorite Child, and then you see these red lines going on with that middle child again.

Who did take her life and you see the red and you see the distance dashes and then you see these bars in there.

And that indicates a cut off of a relationship and estrangement and that blue line coming down from mother.

So in this case, when mother had that second pregnancy, if something major shifted and she really wasn't able to function and so there's errors indicate, so just looking in that family unit since we are thinking about substance use disorder.

So you have a dad character With a lot of responsibilities in this case, coming home into a very distant marriage where Mom is struggling to function at all and ask him, you know, why do you enjoy a drink every night and maybe to excess?

And if he could have answered us, the answer for my, well, has been to take the edge off to try to ease into the evening and put the stresses of the day behind in case you see just that, that, that sort of emotional environment, the each member of the family finds themselves and okay, if you look over on the right side, you see a dad who was a military service and came home with post-traumatic stress.

Disorder.

And so you see those distance lines but the memory of that family is at that distance was not particularly negative just benign.

So friendly but apart and quiet.

And so the wife in that marriage began to focus very intensely on each other members, to all these arrows coming out of her.

So that becomes that intense caretaker role.

So you can see how she's compensating for post-traumatic stress, taking that out of the picture and then coming down into those two children, a brother and sister they have a similar sort of friendly enough but overall distant relationship, okay?

And so let's look at this oldest son, were Middle Line, the one labeled high-functioning alcoholic, so this individual May well have had to ask Very high-functioning and stressful job.

And so there's a possibility there that that person needed a little more, an individual in personal time.

And then he knew how to ask for and that black dash line over to his wife, indicates the distance on his part.

And again, what would his why be?

Perhaps his wife for drinking and nightly in such a way that eventually he experienced liver disease, May well over again had to do within me for distant space quieting at any rate.

So you see this and so just kind of makes sense, right?

From a family in which he was not able to experience.

One of the children needs extra attention so you see those black arrows going to that child with ADHD getting an extra attention and arrows, indicating a little bit of neglect and conflict headed toward the two daughters, right?

So here's mom like, help me, help me, help me and how are the kids respond over time?

You see the child with ADHD, develop a kind of a distant relationship with family.

So he has those little light, red dots Pointed out for the family and, and the child that oldest daughter.

wants to step away her for her family.

And we'll just see if there isn't a better one yet.

She also has a tendency to come back and and try to be And then that one in the middle, see all those greens figures, you see that with a yellow a little more caution and maybe a little more true friendship happening.

In those relationships to the siblings.

But overall, you see each of those children coping with the way stress moves around in their family and maybe see what their own innate ability to handle stressful situations and what not, they're all kind of reacting to what the environment is presenting them.

what?

And so what have you learned from this?

Is that that you are you are a space like this in the context of your own family, if you had to sit down and draw it out, you could write down who was who was maybe the favorite or where there was conflict or where there is distance them.

Maybe you were there some patterns in the face in a generation and how alcoholism or maybe some other form of substance use disorder pops up in the family.

So here's you know, the one labeled overwhelm her dad was a high-functioning alcoholic and her husband is also a high-functioning alcoholic, so you might see some more connections.

And so the message here is that we do have some onboard That are part of our genetic inheritance that are you know what we've inherited is not set in stone.

It's it's time those traits and they are a potential trait and then how that trait is expressed by the environment we find ourselves in as well.

So that's the hope what you received from that.

Alright, let me tell you more about our resource behind the vast.

Majority of this talk is a book called Beyond addiction.

It is created by a group called the center for motivation and change and they called craft Community reinforcement and family training.

So different groups like Al-Anon that supports families of those who are experiencing substance use disorder and and they have to help those folks.

Just the teaching that the folks at the center for motivation and change use and it has as a useful things.

And so we're going to be walking through that, just the beginning of it and this session, and then two more sessions that will be available.

I hope you join in either in person, in the fellowship hall at church, or check it out online.

If you need help right away on that website, where you can talk to a peer to peer counselor, who is well trained to help you figure out how to begin articulating, your needs and pointing you in the right direction for your particular situation.

There are support groups available.

4 days a week, really helpful people and you'll find behind that are folks that have really read this book.

And so you might even hear about it and they mean the Beyond addiction book.

So let's pop-in to that?

Can you get this book beyond addiction?

Because you are concerned about a loved one.

I hope that you will put a bookmark on page 24.

It has a section called if you're the one we're talking about and I want to read that to you.

It says, if you found this book, your loved one might not know how to tell you that they're worried.

And sometimes, scared angry, sad, frustrated hopeless, sometimes, all at once about, what they perceive as you're not.

So great relationship to some sort of substance or behavior health, help you, and themselves.

What we're telling them in these pages is that people change in different ways and you substances for different reasons, many of which are reasonable though They might be causing considerable harm.

We just walked through that. in the diagram, we saw that there were some reasonable situations in which people have been coping with substance use, right?