Siblings are often overlooked in conversations about addiction and family recovery. They can carry fear, anger, resentment, responsibility, and grief while watching both their sibling and their parents struggle—and may feel like there’s little room for what they’re going through.

In this episode of the Recovery Through Relationship series, Heather talks with Dominique Dajer, founder and host of For Love of Recovery, a podcast created to support siblings of people struggling with substance use. Dominique shares her experience loving her younger brother, Justin, through years of substance use and multiple attempts at treatment.

Whether your loved one is actively using substances, in treatment, in recovery, or somewhere in between, this conversation is a reminder that you don't have to choose between trying to control someone and abandoning them. There is another path- one where you can care for yourself, honor your own limits, and remain a meaningful source of connection in your loved one's life.

In This Episode

• The often-overlooked experience of siblings affected by addiction

• Moving away from “rock bottom” and tough-love approaches

• Staying connected without taking responsibility for someone else's recovery

• Using harm reduction and Invitation to Change in family relationships

• The anger and resentment siblings can carry when addiction consumes the family

• What Justin has shared about Dominique's support while he was actively using substances

• Why early recovery can bring a different kind of fear for families

• Rebuilding trust and learning to let go of control in recovery

Key Takeaways:

• Connection and boundaries can exist together. Dominique learned that she could protect herself without making the relationship conditional on Justin's sobriety.

• You don't have to wait for “rock bottom” to offer support. Families can respond to where someone is right now while allowing natural consequences to occur.

• Siblings need support too. Their anger, resentment, fear, and needs can easily be overshadowed when so much of the family's attention is focused on the person struggling with substance use.

• Changing your approach isn't about finding the perfect way to make someone recover. Dominique practiced new skills because she wanted a healthier relationship with her brother—not because she could guarantee that doing so would make him stop using substances.

• Recovery doesn't instantly erase fear or restore trust. Family members have their own healing and “rewiring” to do as they learn to respond to the person in front of them rather than continually reacting to what happened in the past.

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Resources Mentioned:

• For Love of Recovery podcast
• Invitation to Change
• CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training)
• Harm reduction
• Nar-Anobn
• Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change
• Johann Hari's TED Talk, Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong

Connect With Dominique:

Dominique is the founder and host of For Love of Recovery, a podcast dedicated to helping siblings navigate the challenges of having a brother or sister struggling with substance use.

Website: ForLoveofRecovery.com

Resources From Heather Ross Coaching

Live Class. 5 Hours. 5 Life Changing Shifts. One entirely new way to navigate your child’s addiction - with greater peace, confidence, and hope.

https://heatherrosscoaching.com/5-day-peaceful-mom-blueprint-experience/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A New Perspective about enabling - If you've ever worried about enabling, this guide is for you!

https://heatherrosscoaching.com/perspective-about-enabling/

Rock bottom is a high-risk gamble - not a reliable recovery plan.

Families are often told that a person must experience enough pain and loss before they will become willing to change. But substance use disorder itself involves continuing to use despite serious negative consequences - so why would more consequences alone reliably create recovery?

In this episode, Heather explores research suggesting that turning points are not simply caused by external losses. They happen through an internal conflict between how someone is living and who they believe they are - or want to become. She also shares a painful experience with her daughter, Helanna, that changed how she understands tough love and natural consequences.

You’ll learn the difference between natural consequences and punishment, why safety and capability matter, and how CRAFT combines natural consequences with connection, positive reinforcement, loving boundaries, and self-care.

This episode offers a more compassionate and practical path: stop making pain the plan and begin using your connection and influence to create more possibility for change.

In This Episode

• Why rock bottom is not a dependable path to addiction recovery
• What research suggests about psychological turning points, identity, and values
• How shame and perceived powerlessness can become barriers to change
• The difference between natural consequences and punishment
• Why capability, safety, values, and the parent’s limits all matter
• How CRAFT uses connection, positive reinforcement, and influence to support change
• How to care for yourself without turning away from your child

A Quote Worth Remembering

“When we treat someone with dignity, love, and respect, we create more possibility for them to see themselves as worthy of a different life.”

Key Takeaways

• Natural consequences are cause and effect; punishment is pain imposed with the intention of forcing change.
• CRAFT does not require parents to allow every possible consequence. Decisions should account for safety, capability, values, and what each person can realistically provide.
• More pain does not automatically create more readiness. Shame, distress, and loss of control can interfere with a person’s ability to weigh choices and move toward change.
• Connection, dignity, encouragement, and opportunities to experience capability can help strengthen a person’s positive identity.
• Parents cannot control recovery, but they are not powerless. They can build connection and influence while caring for themselves in sustainable ways.

Resources Mentioned

CRAFT – Community Reinforcement and Family Training

Resources From Heather Ross Coaching

The Peaceful Mom Blueprint

https://heatherrosscoaching.com/5-day-peaceful-mom-blueprint-experience/

A New Perspective About Enabling - If you've ever worried about enabling, this guide is for you!

https://heatherrosscoaching.com/perspective-about-enabling/

How to leave a podcast review

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5xkPZM8mj-E

What happens when everything you've been told to do isn't working?

For years, Kelly believed she had to be the strong parent who held firm boundaries, enforced consequences, and tried to control her son's substance use. The harder she tried, the more he retreated and hid.

Everything changed when Kelly discovered CRAFT and began learning a science-based, compassionate approach to addiction. Instead of trying to control her son's choices, she learned how to change the way she responded, which transformed their relationship.

Today, when her son recognizes he's entering a difficult season or feels vulnerable to a recurrence of use, he doesn't hide it. He calls his mom.

Kelly shares how healing her own nervous system, letting go of perfection, and focusing on connection instead of control helped create a relationship built on trust rather than fear.

She also talks about the importance of harm reduction, why parents' health matters just as much as their child's recovery, and how learning to recognize progress instead of perfection changed everything for both of them.

Whether your loved one is actively using substances, in treatment, in recovery, or somewhere in between, this episode offers hope that your relationship can become one of the most powerful resources in your family's recovery journey.

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In This Episode

• Why trying to control a loved one's substance use often backfires

• How CRAFT helped Kelly become a safe person her son could call

• The difference between focusing on relapse and recognizing progress

• Healing your own nervous system while your child is struggling

• Why harm reduction made more sense than perfection

• Kelly's family's experience with ibogaine treatment

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A Quote Worth Remembering

"I look for progress, not perfection."

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Key Takeaways

• Trying harder to control your child may unintentionally push them further away.

• Healing yourself isn't selfish - it creates safety for your entire family.

• Recovery is a journey, not a single event, and setbacks don't erase progress.

• Parents don't have to choose between enabling and abandoning their child.

• When loved ones feel emotionally safe, they're more likely to reach out before a crisis instead of after one.

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Resources Mentioned

• CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training)

• Allies in Recovery

• Harm Reduction

• Moms for All Paths to Recovery

• Other Parents Like Me

• Therapeutic boarding schools

• Ibogaine treatment

• Nervous system regulation

• Meditation and breathwork

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About the Recovery Through Relationship Series

For decades, families have been told that love, support, and staying connected to a child struggling with substance use is enabling - and that tough love is the only path to recovery.

The Recovery Through Relationship series shares a different perspective through honest conversations with parents whose relationships became a powerful part of their family's healing. While every recovery journey is different, these stories offer hope, practical wisdom, and evidence that connection can create opportunities for change.

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Resources From Heather Ross Coaching

If you want answers and support to help you and your child Sign up for a 45-minute $17 Road to Recovery call with Heather using the link below.

https://heatherrosscoachingcalendar.as.me/RoadtoRecovery⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

A New Perspective About "Enabling" - If you've ever worried about enabling, this guide is for you!

https://heatherrosscoaching.com/perspective-about-enabling/

Reviews help parents know the podcast is worth listening to. If you want to leave a review but don't know how here is a very short video on how to leave a podcast review

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5xkPZM8mj-E