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...

Where is the line between helping, supporting, enabling, and having empathy for someone struggling with an addiction? We're going to shed a little light on this for you so you can figure out what's helping and what's enabling.

I'm going to give you five reasons why being kind to someone, showing empathy, and even giving positive reinforcement can them figure out that they have an addiction problem way faster than when you try to do it more directly.

We get so frustrated and impatient dealing with someone who has an addiction because it's so clearly right there and it's just mind-blowing because the person with the addiction, can't see it.  The more you push and try to get them to see the issue faster, the longer it takes them to get out of denial. When you come at someone directly like that, they immediately put their walls up and they get defensive. They'll no longer hear, listen, or even consider what you're saying. It's almost like a reflex even if they don't mean to they're going...

How do you rebuild trust after addiction has come in and destroyed your family? These are the foundational things that have to be there if you want to rebuild trust. I'll advise both sides-- the person that's addicted and the family. 

Believe it or not, this is a two-way distrustful situation. The person with the abuse problem feels like their trust has been broken too. That's the thing about addiction, it causes chaos, heartbreak, and no one comes out of it unscathed.

I'm going to tell you what you need to do as an addicted person first. This isn't going to be easy to hear or easy to implement. But it is necessary!

1. The first (most important) thing you need to do is OWN UP to the damage you've caused. When you cause distress to the people that you love, they need to hear that you understand the depth and magnitude of what kind of position you put them in. You have to be vulnerable about this. You made choices along the way that got you in this situation, right? It's time to own...

These five common communication mistakes are probably damaging your relationships. In fact, you may be doing them automatically but it's pushing people away from you. We're going to start from the least problematic and go to the most problematic mistake. I think you're going to be surprised by the fifth one, you're going to be like I can't believe a counselor said that but I think it's an important one!

When you hear these common mistakes people make, you're going to think, "oh I've done that before!" and it's okay because I've done all of these things before too. Anyone can benefit from understanding these five mistakes.

The first common communication mistake is the one-upper or relating to someone's story too soon. This one is probably the one that I'm most guilty of doing. For example, someone says, "oh my gosh I had the worst day!" Then they start telling you about their bad day and you start to relate to that because you're like "oh yeah I know what that's like". What happens ...