If that question creates a little ache in your heart, it’s probably related to the wish, shared by so many of us, that you had asked that question more often or gotten a “yes” when you asked it. That ache in your heart might reveal many things, including a sense of loss, a missed connection, or the thought: “I’d like to know you more…and I’d like you to know me”.
As a psychologist (and a father, brother, son, uncle, husband, and friend), I think a lot about connection—as well as its opposite, disconnection—and how we find our way to it. It’s cliché to say, “men don’t let down their guard and allow vulnerability, so they don’t connect too deeply with others” (dating myself here but think Robert Duvall in “The Great Santini”), but there is something to that cliché.
More specifically, I spend a lot of time trying to help families figure out how to help each other, especially when one person is struggling with substance use that has gotten destructive. And, while substance use struggles are a specific kind of challenge, the “how to help” question is one that goes way past substance issues and into something broader: “how do we connect, how do we know each other, and how do we help each other have the lives we want?”
So, what has been shown to help people help each other and move toward better lives? Connection, not disconnection; collaboration, not confrontation; invitations, not mandates; a desire to understand you, not an insistence that you understand me; a willingness to be vulnerable to uncertainty and emotions, not a black-and-white path with a single set of answers.
Simple. Or not quite so simple. Those parts about connection, collaboration, inviting, listening to you, and living with uncertainty? Now that’s vulnerability. And it leads us back to our cliché/not-such-a-cliché.
When I work with family members who are concerned about and want to help a loved one struggling with substance use, I rely on approaches that help deepen understanding and connecting, including communication skills to bolster both. Over the past 25 years, researchers have developed and studied approaches that can be used quite powerfully by family members (CRAFT: Community Reinforcement and Family Training; Invitation to Change Approach). These approaches have some common elements, including using positive reinforcement (instead of punishment), staying connected (instead of disconnecting and “tough-loving” it), and learning to communicate collaboratively and respectfully. In other words, these are pathways that don’t force change, but invite it and allow for choice.
So how do those approaches fare in these studies? It turns out they are wildly effective tools for families. These approaches have demonstrated double and triple the rates of successfully encouraging help-seeking in those struggling while supporting big improvements in the family’s mental health, compared to approaches that suggest disconnection and mandates.
The painful thing for me however is that the “families,” in almost every study or training done with these approaches, are women! Women show up to learn how to help, to collaborate, positively reinforce, communicate better, and invite change.
In studies of CRAFT, researchers took out ads inviting families who have someone struggling with substances to be in a free study. And who showed up to participate? Women – moms, partners, sisters, daughters. Men? Not so much. In the 90’s, researchers found that 91% of their family participants were female (Miller, et. al., 1999). In the early 2000’s, Meyers et al. (2002) found the same thing – 88% of the family participants were female. And a decade later, a 2012 study on CRAFT (Manuel et al 2012), had participants that were 85% women.
In our work with families, we conduct trainings with an enhanced form of CRAFT called the Invitation to Change Approach (ITC). The Invitation to Change incorporates CRAFT ideas, along with other evidence-based approaches that focus on improving positive communication (Motivational Interviewing strategies) and helping families work through emotional pain without shutting down or getting demanding (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practices). All of this makes the ITC a powerful approach but also one that calls for collaboration, communication, and that dread word again, vulnerability.
And who shows up for ITC trainings? Mostly women. Over the last 4-year period, 2018-2022, we trained almost 700 people, and less than a quarter of them were men. While I deeply appreciate everyone who shows up in this scary arena to help a struggling family member, I can’t help but wonder: where are the men?
When someone we love is struggling, whether it be with substance use, mental health issues, work, or relationships, this desire to be seen and heard becomes critical, as does our willingness to see and hear. The simple act of seeing others can be a potent and incredibly powerful tool for change—but to see others, you need first to be willing to show up and look. To look with open eyes, without preconceptions, and, most helpfully, without a bushel of preconceived answers and demands. Just show up and say, “I’m here. I don’t know how to help, but I’d love to try—if you can guide me.”
We live in a culture that isn’t particularly fond of vulnerability, emotional struggle, or stumbling on the way to change. And as men, what we know is usually just to show up and fix stuff. But “fixing stuff” is different from seeing, hearing, and knowing another person. And what we know is that some of the most powerful forces for change are connection, acceptance, and positive support.
So, as men – can we allow ourselves to show up, to be part, to offer our hearts and hope and help, and to be vulnerable in that process? Can we open ourselves to hear and see another person’s struggle without having to fix it, and allow changes they may make to be painful and halting and slow. To stay connected to a loved one as they go at their own, their pace of change is a chance to witness and experience a deeper healing we can offer, to ourselves as well as our loved ones.
“Dad, can we talk?” That’s a scary and healing “Yes.”
For more information on how to help, check out some of our resources:
https://beyondaddictionworkbook.com/
https://cmcffc.org/trainings-hub/families
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey Foote, PhD, is co-founder of the Center for Motivation and Change (CMC) and the CMC:Foundation for Change, a nonprofit organization with the mission of improving the dissemination of evidence-based ideas and strategies to the families of persons struggling with substance use. He is co-author of the award-winning book, Beyond Addiction—a practical guide for families dealing with addiction and substance problems in a loved one, and of The Beyond Addiction Workbook for Family and Friends: Evidence-Based Skills to Help a Loved-One Make Positive Change (New Harbinger).
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Spot-on piece addresses the difficulties men continue to have with connection acceptance and vulnerability; and the benefit of seeing and bearing witness to another’s pain without trying to “fix it”. I’ve been struggling personally with “how to help” as my son has been sharing more regarding his concerns with alcohol. Maybe this is what it’s like to “feel seen”; and it’s much appreciated.