HELPING TO
HEAL
People are often good at helping others with their problems while being infinitely harder on themselves. Self-compassion is something that can help everyone to heal, said Kim Moore
‘ W e lost my husband aged 50 to chronic alcoholism,’ Kim Moore of Blossome told the conference.‘ We also lost his dad, his mum, and his sister attempted suicide – twice. That is the impact of addiction on families.
‘ I got lost too,’ she said, and it wasn’ t until almost three years after his death that she started to‘ thaw’ and process the‘ really complicated’ grief she was carrying.‘ I started to make a commitment to my own self-care.’ It was through that healing journey that she founded her organisation Blossome, she said –‘ a compassionate, trauma-informed self-care community. It’ s not counselling, it’ s not therapy, it’ s community-based. And it’ s about people coming together to practice self-care and heal.’
SELF-COMPASSION Blossome used an evidence-based practice called‘ mindful self-compassion’, she told the conference.‘ We’ re all very good at helping other people, but how good are you at turning compassion inwards towards yourself? If you can learn self-compassion it changes everything. We’ ve got to do things differently.’
Self-compassion was about mindful awareness, common humanity and selfkindness, she said.‘ It’ s all about treating that difficulty in a different way. Self-compassion completely changes the relationship that you have with yourself.’ Its ultimate aim was to ease suffering, she said,‘ something that we can all use. When it comes to addiction there’ s an awful lot of suffering that we all feel.’
RIPPLE EFFECT Blossome was the first organisation to deliver a self-compassion programme specifically designed for people affected by addiction, she told delegates,‘ and we delivered it to the family members’. A pilot programme had finished in March, and‘ the impact that we’ re already seeing is incredibly significant,’ she said.‘ It’ s not only helping the people who’ ve taken the skills training and have learned selfcompassion, it’ s helping everyone around them – like a ripple effect.
‘ As family members when we focus on our own self-care and develop our own self-compassion what happens is it takes the pressure off the loved one who’ s in recovery,’ she continued.‘ It changes the dynamics of the relationships of how we communicate with one another – and we all begin to heal. Selfcompassion is the antidote to shame.’ DDN
18 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • SEPTEMBER 2025 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM