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 effor...

One thing about alcoholism that's particularly troubling is the memory issues that accompany it.

Alcoholics genuinely 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. In this circumstance, the alcoholic isn't intentionally trying to Gaslight their loved one; they don't remember what they said or did during a blackout incident. It's a form of GASLIGHTING and will make you question your sanity. 

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 six months. Don't you remember your dad left that when he came at Christmas?" In these situations, the alcoholic person knows precisely what they're doing. They're trying to throw you off their scent or deflect the argument.  

Addicts and Alcoholics are like Ninjas! They can reverse th...

What should you expect if your loved one is in early recovery as if they're recently sober and 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 recovery.

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, so once they 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.

Sometimes you have a brief period that is kind of like that. 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!"

When people get clean and sober, we call that the pink cloud...

Have you heard of S.G.B. injection for post-traumatic stress disorder? Recently, one of our viewers commented on my video and asked if I knew about it or if I'd made a video about it. It sparked my curiosity because I had never heard of injections for P.T.S.D.

P.T.S.D. stands for post-traumatic stress disorder, and because there is such a high correlation between trauma and addiction, we're deep-diving into the S.G.B. 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.

Generally, 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 S.G.B. injection, how it works, how it impacts, and how it can be a super helpful resource for someone recovering fr...

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 did 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 effective ch...

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

Whatever side of the issue you're on, everything I will teach you today is helpful, whether or not addiction is in your life. 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. These are healthy skills that we can all benefit from.

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 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 into the unhealthy ...

This topic is crucial, whether you're the family member, the person who has the addiction, your counselor, or you don't have anything to do with addiction. 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 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 mind that because you've communicated the boundary, you've set this new rule, and the person is to respect that.

It sounds great in theory, but it's ineffective. Someone...

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 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, it is also pulling everything in the wrong direction.

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

Recently, I released a video titled "Is AA(Alcoholics Anonymous) a religion?" You can watch it HERE.

Now, I pose the question, Is alcoholics anonymous a cult? What about narcotics anonymous or any of the unknown' for that matter? (read to the end to get my opinion).

You've probably heard that AA is a cult, but we're going to take an objective look and find out what qualities of AA are like a cult, and if AA isn't a cult, what the heck is it? 

I think the best way to tackle this question is to look at the qualities of a cult and see if AA has any of those qualities.
Spoiler alert! -- It has some of those qualities.

The first quality of a cult is having a questionable commitment to a leader. If you're familiar with alcoholics anonymous, you know that it was created by someone named Bill Wilson. Eventually, he brought along a friend named Dr. Bob, if you had to say someone was the leader of alcoholics anonymous, it would be Bill and Bob, for sure, but neither one of them is living n...