I love you, but I'm not in love with you. What exactly does that mean, and what do you do about it?

What that typically means is that the person doesn't have those attraction butterflies towards you. They still care about you as a person, but they're just not feeling that romantic chemistry. Usually, when people say this, they had it before, but they lost it somewhere in the process.

Let's look at what it means on the other side of the issue. It's only natural to want to feel that strong desire feeling. To have that craving of wanting to feel the excitement. The new love romance feeling happens because of the chemical dopamine.
Dopamine is the desire chemical which is one of the reasons why we're talking about this topic because all things addiction is related to dopamine.

Early on in a romantic relationship, you usually have a lot of infatuation feelings. The clinical term for that is limerence, but it's the state of mind where you crave the other person.

You're almost...

Is it possible to beat your alcohol problem without going to rehab? I think it is definitely possible. I'm going to tell you our secret formula of how we've helped hundreds of people get sober without ever having to go to rehab.

If you or a loved one is struggling with an alcohol use disorder, you may be wondering, what's it going to take to conquer this problem?

Anytime I'm talking to a person trying to overcome an alcohol problem or stop drinking, the first thing that I want to think through is whether or not this person needs a detox. With alcohol, believe it or not, it's one of the more dangerous things to stop cold turkey. If you are highly alcohol dependent and you've been drinking for a while, Cold Turkey can be dangerous. You can be in danger of having a seizure or even developing psychosis.

I have a video that I made a while back to figure out whether or not you need the detox part. You can watch it HERE.

The second thing that you'll have to put a lot of energy and effort...

One thing about alcoholism that's particularly disconcerting is the memory issues that go along with it.

Alcoholics truly don't remember what happened when drinking (referred to as a blackout), and when their family is upset, they get irritated and feel like the other person is overreacting. It's a form of GASLIGHTING and will make you question your own sanity. In this type of circumstance, the alcoholic isn't intentionally trying to Gaslight their loved one, they just don't remember what they said or did during a blackout incident. 

But in other instances (like when you find their hidden alcohol), alcoholics intentionally try to make you think you're crazy. They may say something like, "that's been there for over 6 months. Don't you remember, your dad left that when he came at Christmas?" In these situations, the alcoholic person knows exactly what they're doing. They're trying to throw you off their scent or deflect the argument.  

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What should you expect if your loved one is in early recovery, as in they're recently sober, they're working on their recovery? The angle we're looking at is trying to help family members have a realistic understanding and expectation about those early days and weeks of the recovery process.

I know you've waited for a long time for your loved one to address this problem. Probably years, right? You've been through the mud and the muck, and you're probably 10 miles past your limit, and so once they finally do decide to get sober, you are way past the point of being ready.

I want you to hold your fire.

Even when someone decides to get sober, it's not an overnight transformation.

Subconsciously we're thinking, "if they could realize they have a problem and decide to stop, it's going to solve all of our problems. Everything is going to be better, and it's just going to be wonderful and rainbows!" Sometimes you have a brief period that is kind of like that.

When people get...

Have you heard of SGB injection for post-traumatic stress disorder? Recently, one of our viewers commented on my video and asked me if I knew about this or if I'd made a video about it. It sparked my curiosity because I had never heard of an injection for PTSD.

P T S D stands for post-traumatic stress disorder, and because there is such a high correlation between trauma and addiction, that's why we're deep-diving on the SGB injection. It's going to help us understand better if this injection could be helpful for those that are struggling with these co-occurring disorders.

In a general way, we all know what the word trauma means, but there is a clinical definition for post-traumatic stress disorder. In the counseling world, there's a lot of talk about something called complex trauma.
I thought the best place to begin would be to explain the issue to you, and then we'll get into this SGB injection, how it works, and how it impacts, and how it can be a super helpful resource for...

The first step to helping someone decide to get sober is to stop trying to change them and start trying to understand them. That is the essential ingredient. It's the foundation that you must put down. Otherwise, you're not going to get anywhere.

This is the most effective strategy that a family member can have. This is where every family should start, and if you get stuck in the process along the way, this is where you should return. Think about this as a home base, trying to understand the person and their situation.

This idea came to me when I was doing a video interview with Kyle from Sober Dogs, which you can watch HERE. He asked, how do you change a teenager who doesn't want to be changed? I said that's it! I don't focus on changing them. I focus on trying to understand them. When there's resistance, it's because people don't want to be changed. They don't want to be judged.

If you focus on hearing and understanding someone, you're going to lay down the groundwork for...

What is the quickest way to go from unhealthy boundaries to healthy boundaries? Let's identify a few situations where you could be sliding into unhealthy boundaries and learn how to turn the situation around.

No matter what side of the issue you're on, everything I'm going to teach you today is helpful, whether or not addiction is in your life. These are healthy skills that we can all benefit from. A quick way to figure out if you're sliding into unhealthy boundaries with someone is to determine whether or not you're on the drama triangle.

In the 1960s, Stephen Cartman came up with this theory called the drama triangle as a way of explaining dysfunctional social interaction. I love to explain this to people because it's so easy to understand, and it has such a concrete visual, which helps.

There are three roles in the drama triangle--The rescuer, the victim, and the persecutor.

If you find you're demonstrating these characteristics, this is a surefire signal that you are sliding...

This topic is crucial, whether you're the family member, you're the person that has the addiction, your counselor, or you don't have anything to do with addiction at all. You need to know how to set and communicate effective boundaries.

The most effective way to communicate a boundary is by not verbally communicating. You see, that's where most people mess it up. They want to tell people what they can and can't do or what they will and won't do. You say to your kid, you can't have drugs in this house, or you can't come home drunk anymore. I know you want to communicate that way because you feel like you're setting a boundary, but boundaries are about your behavior, not their behavior.

You can set boundaries for your behavior.

When setting a boundary for your behavior, you must stop believing that people deserve a fair warning.

You have in your mind that because you've communicated the boundary, it's like you've set this new rule, and the person is to respect that.

It sounds great in...

Could you be inadvertently sabotaging your loved one's chance at getting sober? As a counselor, there are a few ways that I regularly see family members do that can undo all the work the counselor is doing to help a person who's trying to find sobriety.

Families, I'm about to call you out here, but before I do, let me say I've done every one of these. As I said, we don't inadvertently do these things. We're not trying to sabotage their recovery in any way. The things that we say are natural things to say. When you say these things it can be counter-productive. Not only is it not helpful, but it is pulling everything in the wrong direction.

1. Negative forecasting. I get why you'd want to do this. Negative forecasting is kind of like making future predictions that the person's going to fail or it's never going to work. Let's look at some different ways this might show up. Maybe you have it in your head that your loved one can never get better.

The problem is if you have that in...