Put your own mask on first.

You know the speech at the start of every flight. In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, a mask will drop from the overhead compartment. Secure your own mask before assisting others. Nobody hears that and thinks the airline is telling parents to ignore their kids. Everybody hears it and understands the logic. You can't help a child put a mask on if you've already passed out.

This session is the same instruction for the cabin you're living in. The oxygen is thin. Someone you love is in trouble. And your instinct — a good instinct, a loving instinct — is to reach for them first. We need you to pause before you reach. Not for long. Just long enough to put your own mask on.

Here is the hard part, and the reason this session comes first. If we ask you right now — what do you want? — most family members answer with a sentence that starts with someone else's name. I want him to stop. I want her to pick up the phone. I want him to go back to treatment. I want her to be safe. Those answers aren't wrong. They're what love sounds like in a crisis. But notice what's missing: you. The subject of your own sentence.

Self-care, in this course, means practicing a different kind of sentence. Sleep. One meal a day you actually taste. A friend the disease hasn't eaten yet. A walk that doesn't end at the liquor store checking if their car is parked there. Ten minutes of something — a book, a bath, a prayer, a podcast — that has nothing to do with them. It sounds small. It isn't. It's the mask.

A word about the research. The model this course is built on — CRAFT, Community Reinforcement and Family Training — does not start with communication skills or intervention strategies. It starts here, with the family member's own life. Clinicians who work with CRAFT know that a family member who is depleted, angry, and running on fumes cannot implement any of the later skills. You are not being selfish by starting with yourself. You're being practical. Nothing else in this course works otherwise.