Twelve Steps of Self-Care for Caregivers

I have found the twelve steps of AA and Alanon very helpful in all parts of my life. Whether or not a person is struggling to address an addiction or an addicted family member the philosophy of the Twelve Step approach is both practical and inspirational.

Now I have found a book that applies the practice of the twelve steps to family caregivers and to their own self-care.

The book is, “Self-Care for Caregivers—A Twelve Step Approach”, by Pat Samples and Diane and Marvin Larsen. Pat is the editor of The Phoenix—a personal growth newsletter and Marvin and Diane are experienced family caregivers. Hazelden published the book, and it is order number 1236 at www. Hazelden.org

Given our current demographic boom and the increasing need for and demand on family caregivers, and the growing understanding of how the 12 step philosophy works this book lands at the intersection of both and it is a wonderful contribution to the language and practices for caregivers. The other growing population that will naturally benefit from  this approach is the membership of AA, Alanon, OA, NA, Nar Anon etc. who have learned to integrate emotional growth and spiritual growth with practical change in their lives. They are also part of the growing demographic bump of caregivers.

This is a book that would work well in a caregiver support group as it breaks down caregiver needs and the ways to think about care of self and others using the language of the twelve steps.

Coaching Cancer

Last night a very moving moment on ESPN. Coach George Karl of the Denver Nuggets spoke passionately about his experience with cancer. First prostate and then throat and neck cancers. He spoke about being a man committed to winning and making a career pushing himself and others to be strong and win every time. He spoke movingly about the kind of winners and fighters he met in cancer treatment rooms and said, “I was not the bravest one in those rooms, many are braver than me facing those treatments for cancer.”

He addressed the live audience and the ESPN viewing audience asking for government commitment to fight cancer. And he asked that the United States government match dollar-for-dollar what is raised by the American Cancer Society and other cancer foundations.

What stood out was how much this big, strong man had suffered in his cancer treatment and was still suffering in his recovery from treatment. We so often forget that part. People with cancer have to survive both the cancer and the sometimes quite brutal treatments for cancer. That second phase can take a very long time.

Gift of Desperation

I have been thinking about the good of this year. I didn’t plan on a complicated relationship and cancer, but who does? I have written so much here about what is scary, hard, worrisome and painful. But there is another side and I have to stop and remind myself of that sometimes too.

I’m not a fan of the “cancer is a gift and made my life more meaningful” school of thought. There are many other gifts I’d like and many other ways I’d prefer to find meaning. I’ll take community service and beach vistas over cancer any day but here we are.

Some of the good?

In the last 24 months I have had to get on my knees and surrender more than I ever have before—and I have surrendered more deeply. This has certainly affected my relationship with my faith and spiritual life. I began working with a spiritual director and began to study spiritual direction myself. The relationship and the bonus of living with cancer and being a caregiver with a Scarlet Letter got me back to doing intensive therapy and doing that work at a new level of intensity as well.

That willingness came from the gift of desperation.

And out of that has come new understandings of myself, my family, new ways of thinking and from that new ways of behaving. It’s a work in progress for sure but I can see the changes that I wanted for years but could not quite get to. My thinking—ever so slowly—is changing and thanks to the gift of desperation—I am getting closer to the woman I want to be.

And yes another gift has been sensuality and sexuality. because I was pushed—the gift of frustration and annoyance at the reticence to talk about cancer in the official world of Cancer Land—I started reading and writing and talking about sex and cancer, and well, you can’t do that with out doing your own home work, so now I also have a great sex life and who would ever have guessed that would be an outcome of these really tumultuous years.