Learning to hear and clarify an ambiguous message is tough. In family recovery, at first you cannot see interpersonal transactions accurately. At the beginning of an illness or addiction, family members believe there are miscommunications or misunderstandings. Over time they may begin to see that there is not misunderstanding, but rather disagreement. Later, impasses are incorporated into your life, at first by reacting (‘If he’s not going to cooperate, I’m going to yell at him until he does.”), and then by responding actively (“Clearly, just asking him will not bring cooperation. What can I do to create motivation?”).

Interestingly, after considerable practice at hearing what is said, and setting boundaries for yourself, you may experience minimal tolerance for others who cannot read the messages being conveyed. When you listen to a family member say, “It’s like talking to a brick wall,” you’re likely to think, “I don’t talk to brick walls.” Then, sometime deep in the process of your own recovery, you begin to understand. You have experienced the challenge of comprehending, incorporating, and then tolerating the truth of behavioral illness that is rarely logical. You become skilled at moving from ambiguity to clarity, and boundary setting is not nearly as difficult as it once was.

I had the opportunity to work with parents who could not see the behavioral dysregulation of their older adolescent son. The messages that they experience as ambiguous are very clear to me. They ask the child for compliance, he disagrees, and he becomes violent if they push their request. They want to know what to do, and I say, “what do you want to have happen?” They do not know. This is the first missing piece in an ambiguous conversation: Know what you want to have as the outcome. They said they want him to be happy and they want him to do what he wants to do. They are hopeful that happiness will occur as a result of his complying. What he wants to do and what they want him to do are different. In their family, asking for what they want, and wanting him to want the same thing, has been proven to be faulty thinking. They called for parent coaching after their therapy session, and said “he doesn’t want to comply.” I’m not surprised he does not want to. I am confused that they would believe he would want to stop doing what he wants to do because they want him to stop. Without listening to the available information, they are stuck in the world of ambiguous boundaries.

I imagine family conversations such as these as being similar to offering a plate of cookies. The parents want him to take a cookie with sprinkles. He selects plain sugar cookies. They tell him sprinkles are better and ask him to re-choose the cookie. Each time he chooses the wrong cookie. Each time he picks the plain cookie. They have all of the information they need from him; Now they need to decide what that means for them. I tell the parents, “Remove all of the plain cookies, and tell him he can have these or none.” The parents become protective, believing that this type of parental behavior is controlling and mean. They are at a loss and ask if they can take away his car and his phone because he’s choosing the wrong cookies. He is choosing from the plate of cookies they are offering. He wants the plain cookie: be a dependent in the family system without the sprinkles, that is, the guidance and rules that are offered by the parents.

Before the transactions become buried in reaction, space is needed for their solution to benefit from clarity: If x, then y. If you are dependent in the family, then you follow these basic rules. If you choose the cookie without sprinkles (e.g., being a dependent without following the rules), you do not get the benefit of sprinkles (e.g., you do not receive privileges). Everything in a dependent’s life is a privilege except basic food, basic clothing, and basic shelter.

This is a difficult part of family recovery. Notice where the ambiguities are and create clarity. It is a much easier task to do with mental and behavioral healthy situations. When the situation is not healthy words do not sufficiently clarify the situation. These are often diseases of hiding, lying, and shame. When parents say, I need you to go to therapy and the son either says “no,” or agrees and then no-shows, the answer is “no.” There is nothing more to discuss. Parents need to decide what their goal is, decide which choices are the son’s to make, and decide what they can do to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. Family members will benefit from clarifying what they need to do to take care of themselves given the situation they have, not the situation they want. The loved one deserves the respect of a clear and congruent request. The family deserves the respect of believing the behavioral response. It is not helpful to them or to him to allow ambiguity into the request or the response.

In their fear and desperation, some families look for an advisor with a magic potion for recovery. They will believe advisors who claim to have the answer to family recovery. Truly, it is the rare observer who can tell you what to do. When the problem moves from ambiguity to clarity you will know what you need to do. In Al Anon you may hear that when you do not know what to do, don’t do anything. Be wary of the advisor who shouts, “he’s picking the wrong cookie!” Think instead, was it your intention to offer cookies that include the privilege and not the responsibility? There is no one size fits all in family recovery and your navigation system alerts you to the ambiguities in your system: “Recalculating your route. You have missed your exit.” Because solution will not be the same for every family or every person in your situation, you learn each time you need to recalibrate. Family recovery is a slow dance, and often experienced as a dance of loss. Learning to clarify the ambiguities, of what is being asked and what is being denied, is essential to the development of your healthy boundaries.