Disturbing thoughts(POD)
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[00:00:00] I'm your host, Amber Hollingsworth. I'm an addiction specialist and I've been helping people beat addiction for more than 20 years now. This podcast is for people who want to know how to get through to an addicted loved one. For people who are tired of being told that they just need to stand back and wait for their loved one to decide to do something about it.
Subscribe to this podcast to learn how to outsmart addiction and put this whole mess behind you for good. On the outside, everything looks. For the most part put together. Usually when you think about someone who you might describe, or even they might describe themselves as a functional alcoholic, a functional addict, if they have this ability to keep some of the things in their life together, but underneath that mask there.
Is a ton of obsessive dark and troubling thoughts going on, and that's what I want to highlight today. I want to shed the light or turn the light on [00:01:00] what really goes on inside the mind of someone who. You or they would describe as functionally addicted, but before we do that and have a whole bunch of good ones, so definitely you want to stay and listen to all of them.
I want to talk about what the term functional alcoholic means. That is not a clinical term at all in the land of diagnosing alcohol use disorders. There's no such thing as a functional alcoholic. It's not in the dsm, which is what the big book that we use to diagnose. So it's not clinical at all. It's not a real thing.
But it is a pretty common term that most people use and have heard, and we all have an understanding about what it means. So although it's not a clinical diagnosis, it is something that we're all familiar with. So let's talk about what it really means. Typically, when someone says, I'm a functional alcoholic, what that means is, Okay.
Yeah, like I drink too much, but I'm not like a real alcoholic. It's not like that bad. It's not [00:02:00] like I have to wake up and drink. It's not like I, I can't go without it. That's what the thought process is behind using that term for yourself. Now, when you're using it that term for someone else, typically you're thinking the biggest category is you're thinking that.
They still go to work usually. So the criteria is they still go to work. If it's, let's say it's a stay-at-home mom, the work of that person is to take care of the children and the house. So maybe it means they're still doing that, and for some reason we think that if someone is still going to work or they're taking care of those pieces of their responsibilities.
To at least a moderate degree that they can't possibly be addicted. Now I'm going to use the word alcoholic just because it's hard to use addict and alcoholic back and forth, but you can switch out the word alcohol for any word you want. You could be a functional addict too, of any kind of substance or behavior, but just because someone goes to work, just because someone shows up to the PTA meeting [00:03:00] even doesn't mean that they are not.
Alcoholic or addicted. Now, they sometimes will use that term to say, okay, yeah, I drink too much. But they're minimizing the issue when in reality they're just a few steps away from being what they might call like a real alcoholic or a full fledged addict, like all the way there and. If we could stop trying to say, I'm either alcoholic or I'm not, I'm addict, or I'm not, but we could look at where we're at on the continuum.
We'd have something that's more accurate if you stop thinking about it. It's really just common sense, right? You think the person that's alcoholic, I. What Met. Met the definition of being an alcoholic from the first time they drank? No, there was a lot of stages and phases that went on before they got to that point that most of us recognize as alcoholism, I have to drink every day, or I get sick if I don't drink.
The truth of it is you're alcoholic long before you're alcohol dependent. Most people think if I can stop drinking or [00:04:00] using, I must not be addicted. That is incorrect. What that means is I must not be so far into physical dependency that I can't stop. But you have to be addicted for a long time before you're physically dependent.
Cause you have to be. Compulsively obsessively using drinking, whatever you're doing so regularly for such a long period of time in a row that you can't stop doing it without getting very sick. That addiction is there long before physical dependency. So when you're saying. To yourself or about someone else?
If someone, a functional addict or alcoholic, it is still the same. It's still addiction, it's still alcoholism. I always say it's like saying, well, if I said to you I had stage three cancer, you wouldn't go home and say, I don't really have cancer. It's all cool. You say, oh my gosh, I better do something about this, because if I don't, it's going to get, it's going to get to that last ending point.
It's the same thing with addiction, so, If you're [00:05:00] having these thoughts that we're about to have, which are for sure functional addict, alcoholic thoughts, then I want you to really let it absorb in that this is addiction. Like this is the real deal thing. You're fully there and if you don't stop. You will eventually become non-functioning.
And when we think of non-functioning, it goes back to what I said before. We typically think of someone that's stopped going to work, maybe stopped paying their bills, stopped taking care of their responsibilities. For most people, especially if it's alcohol, people will continue to go to work. They are probably like their performance will go down.
They may have more missed days, they may be going through the motions, but they'll still show up to work. Where you typically see the responsibilities fall first is at home. You're going to see it first in. Relationship dynamics, and then you're going to see it in other like practical matter kind of responsibilities, and then you will [00:06:00] last see it usually in someone's work performance or ability to parent or something like that, their main responsibility, but they'll hang onto that usually.
A lot longer because that's the thing that people see from the outside more clearly. When you're dealing with a functional act or alcoholic, usually the person that's closest, the person that they live with or that they spend the most time with, that's usually one of the only people that know what's going on.
And so what happens is that person, the one that can see it, because they see behind the scenes, behind the mask. They, and we've talked about this in other videos a ton, so I won't spend much time on it, but that person that sees it starts to nag, heart, threaten, beg, plea, you negotiate, do all this stuff with this person who is in this addicted cycle, but this person over here who's still functional, thinks that person is crazy because we still want to work.
Like I'm president of the pta, what's wrong with you? How I can't be an addict if I'm doing those things. Sure you can. When you have an [00:07:00] addiction, you're balancing your life stuff with this constant, never ending internal dialogue of obsessive thoughts. And as that addiction grows, those obsessive thoughts take up more and more space in your head, time in your life, until it gets to the point that your responsibilities and the things in your life start to fall through the cracks.
And the longer it goes, the more things fall through the cracks. Those are what we call the consequences. So let's look at some of the earlier thoughts. Hopefully. The reason I want to do this, the reason why it's so important is because I want you guys to catch this sooner. You do not have to wait till you lose everything.
That's ridiculous. You don't have to wait until you literally have to drink first thing in the morning to say this is a problem and I need to stop. If you will recognize these thoughts that we're about to talk about, you can catch it early and you can stop, but just because you can stop doesn't mean you're addicted.
Means you've made the decision [00:08:00] that you're on that road and you're going to go ahead and stop because you know it ain't no good at the end. I promise you. There's nothing good at the end of that road. Old school recovery saying is it ends in jails, institutions, and death. And I'll have to say, in my experience, that is 100% true.
And it's usually jails, institutions, jails, institutions around and round until it gets you. That's the way it goes. Or you can hop off that track, get on another track. So let's look at what the thoughts are. The first thought that you're going to see appear in someone who's a dysfunctional alcoholic addict, which is like a constant thought that's always, there is this thought about I can't wait until.
Now that until, could be slightly different until five o'clock when I get off. Work until the weekend when I can really do X, Y, Z until my wife leaves to go visit her family cousin. It's on like Donkey Kong while she's gone. There's this waiting anything, any time that's not spent in the addictive behavior.
Everything else just crap you're doing [00:09:00] while you're waiting. And the time and energy you spend on that crap you're doing while you wait is bare minimum usually because you're just trying to get through, you're just trying to check the boxes because your whole life becomes about that addictive behavior.
And if you're not doing it 24 7 all day every day, that doesn't mean you're not addicted. It means you're just not to the end stage of it, but in your life, all that stuff. Starts to matter to you a little less. You definitely enjoy it a lot less, and you may still be doing it, but you know in your heart you're half-assing it.
Let's be real, because that's not where your heart is anymore. So you're mostly just faking it. A lot of it is just faking it. It could be I'm just waiting for my out of town work trip because I know my spouse isn't there. It could be, I can't wait till my husband and kids go to bed because that's when it's on.
It's this waiting until thing. Now you pretend on the [00:10:00] outside looks real good, you're playing the game. It looks good, but inside this is what's happening. The other thing that happens inside is when the person is like engaging with the family and a lot of times in doing activities and things that.
Normally you'd think they'd be fun and enjoy it, I don't know, Christmas morning or going out for some kind of big fun family activity or vacation or something like that. If that activity doesn't involve the addictive behavior, the person may be pretending to enjoy it on the outside, but inside, underneath that mask, what's going on is I can't wait until this is over, and eventually what happens is the person.
Loses the ability to wait until it's over, or they have less and less ability to wait until it's over. So you'll see this person start to like sneak off during activities. The most common one is like you see them like, sneak out to their car, or I'm going to take a walk, or whatever it is so that they can.
Engage in that whatever it is, that compulsive behavior that they need to do [00:11:00] because they can't get through the whole activity without it. Another thought that you can witness in someone this sort of what you'd call like a functional alcoholic, is that if you could see inside their head, you would see that they are very aware of.
What everyone else is drinking and how much everyone else is drinking, and they almost have this anxiety about what everyone else is drinking because they're going to be trying to match their drinking. Not a hundred percent to the other people. But they're trying to stay under the radar so they don't want to go so far past what everyone else is doing.
So they have this persistent anxiety inside it. It's almost like a pressured kind of feeling, watching you drink, watching you do whatever it is. And you also see that they will pressure you to do more, because then they feel better about doing more. And so a lot of people who have less like alcoholism, for example.
Before they go to a drinking event, they will start drinking earlier. They will bring [00:12:00] alcohol to sneak drink while they're drinking with you at the football game or whatever it is. There's more because they're very aware that their addictive behavior is. Is more than other people that they're around.
And so they're trying to make it look the same on the outside, but it's not the same on the inside. They feel shameful about it and they're hiding it how much, and so that's why they're so aware of what other people are doing. They'll also want to naturally start to surround themselves with other people who do whatever that is excessively, because number one enables them to do it, and it makes them feel better about doing it if they're at a.
Event and other people are drinking or smoking or whatever it is they're doing, but they're only doing it a little bit. It makes them feel guilty about what's going on with them, so they want to stay away from that. The other thing that they're aware of, and this is Yes, matrixy and a little complicated, is they're keeping track of how much you have seen them engage in the addictive behavior.
So usually when someone's like a functional addict or alcoholic, it's not [00:13:00] like they're saying like, I'm being completely sober. They're just saying, well, I'm not alcoholic or I'm not addicted. So they'll let you see that they're doing whatever it is to some degree. But they're, but like I said before, they're hiding a lot of it.
So they're tracking in their mind how many drinks you've seen them have. And a lot of times, like, especially if it's like a go out or a social event or something, they'll want to do it in front of you because they're trying to prove to you. That they're managing it and that their addictive behavior isn't out of control or abnormal.
So they're aware of how much you're doing, they're aware of how much they're doing to some degree buying and minimizing it to themselves a little bit. But they're very aware of how much you are aware of how much they're doing, and they're trying to paint a certain picture for you. And that's what I mean when I say there is a lot going on behind the scenes.
We got a lot more on this list, but can you even see, just from what we talked about so far, how much time and room and space and energy this will take up? Like it's no wonder you start missing things. [00:14:00] It's no wonder you forget things. It's no wonder your responsibilities start to fall through the cracks.
This thought process, this is what addiction is, it's not what or how much you do. It's this thought process that I'm talking about. It's not what you drink, how much you drink or how frequently you drink it is the thought process. Because sometimes I see people who are addicted to alcoholic addict, whatever they don't use every day.
Maybe they just do it every weekend. Maybe they just do it twice a month or something like that. But if you could look inside their head, this thought process is happening and this is what addiction is, it's not. It's the outward thing that you see. It's the inward thing that you can't see. Another thought process that goes on is in this stage of addiction, which is.
What I would call stage three addiction, and there are four stages. This is stage three. There's this process of, they know they go overboard sometimes, and they know that, you know that they go overboard sometimes because sometimes it's real obvious there's a dui or like you, they forget [00:15:00] something really important or like they show their butt at a really important family event or something like that.
So it's obvious that the dam breaks sometimes. The dam is breaking a lot more than looking from the outside, but they keep the mask together. But there are these times when the mask can't stay together and bad crap happens. Basically, when that happens, they'll start to make these little deals and promises with themselves and sometimes with you.
If they know that you'll say these things to you, but if you don't, Quite know everything's going on. They will definitely be making these little deals with themselves, and all these little deals are about stopping or cutting it back. It can make, maybe it looks like I'm going to take a 30 day tolerance break.
I'm going to do dry January. Or doesn't have to mean I'm going to quit altogether, but I'm going to cut it back. I'm not going to drink vodka anymore. I know that stuff makes me mean that kind of thinking. So it's this. These lines in the sand that they start to draw and these promises that they make to themselves and sometimes other people, and they really mean it when they think [00:16:00] it.
They definitely mean it when they think it to themselves. Most of the time they mean it when they say it to you. Sometimes they don't, but most of the time they do. And then guess what happens? They break the promises because there's this obsessive thought going on inside and they're really, at this point, not totally insightful about just how much this thing has a hold of them.
So they minimize what it is really going to take to conquer this problem. They try to do, like in recovery, they call it the half measure. They start to do the half measures, cutting it back, this, that, and the other, and it won't work. Maybe it works for a couple days. It works for a week. Maybe it works for a month, but it's not going to work consistently.
And so once they start breaking the promises, they usually break the promises before the family knows it. So let's say a person's been six months over and they have a relapse and the family catches them in a relapse. So you think they're six months over and they relapsed at that six month mark, but they probably relapsed at that five month mark.
Most people don't get caught on the very first time. Some people do, most people [00:17:00] don't, so it's probably they've broken their promise to themselves before you know that they've broken the promise as the family member. And then when that happens, they start to feel so guilty and shameful about the fact that they're breaking those promises and they're letting themselves down.
They're letting you down. That feeling bad about yourself is such a crappy, horrible feeling. They need to make that better somehow. And the way they make that better is they do more addictive behavior. That's the obvious one, but the not so obvious one is they start to justify what's happening. So start to make all these excuses about why the thing is happening, whether it was the one bad incident or just the ongoing problem.
They have all these justifications for it. Everyone does it. Everyone gets too drunk sometimes, or I couldn't help it. I just got over served. That's my favorite. Over. Sorry. I love that one. Justifications and blame. This is like even under the justifications, because they'll say out loud to you the [00:18:00] justifications, but a lot of times they won't say out loud to you about the blame, but they're blaming.
They're broken promises on all these external situations, and usually depending on what the situation is, the people closest to them, there's some kind of blame. Or maybe it's like they can't find a reason why they're engaging in this behavior that they know is wrong and feel kind about. So they blame something from their childhood.
They blame their parents, they blame their work situation, they blame the economy, they blame Covid. They blame their work environment. And so all of this justifying and blaming this happening. And keep in mind, this layer is happening over top of the, how much have I had? How much have you had? Can't wait till I get it.
Wish this was over. So you got all that layer going on. Then you got all this emotional layer going on about all that thought process going on. I hope that you're starting to see just how much room and energy this takes up. It's massive. It's huge. But on the outside for a long [00:19:00] time, a person will look normal and functional.
If a person is an opiate addict, they will look normal and functional for a long time years. They'll be a functional opiate addict for years before you see it start to fall apart on the outside. But if you could have some kind of like MRI or something and look inside there, this is what you'd see. So, They got that going on.
Then the next thing that happens is because they got the blame going on and the justifying going on, they also have a lot of self-pity going on. And I have a video coming out pretty soon about this. This is such a key critical component to addiction. Like literally, it's almost like a linchpin thing. And if you could pull this linchpin out, The whole house of cards starts to fall down in a good way.
The addiction doesn't have hold of you because it's the self pity that is the final way that you let yourself off the hook. For changing the things that you need to change. Why should I have to? It's not fair. Too many demands are being placed on me. No one ever [00:20:00] sees what I do, right? They only see what I do wrong.
So now you've got the obsessive thoughts. You've got the shame, guilt, justifying, rationalizing cycle going on. And then you layer on top of that, you got like this self pity layer, which is how you make yourself feel better about continuing to make the bad choices. It's this weird dynamic where you like beat yourself up, but then you rescue yourself by making a reason for it.
Because I. Just like someone else beat you up, you gotta intervene. You gotta stop that from happening. It goes on within our own head. We that bully part of ourselves because there is, there are these phases where you really see it and you really do take responsibility of it and you hate yourself and you see very clearly what's happening and you'll beat yourself up for it.
Although you don't necessarily make the right active steps and changes, the beating yourself up is of no use. It's helpful maybe for. Five minutes of beating yourself up so that at least you can wake up enough to see. You need to take some action steps, but any more beating yourself up or any more beating [00:21:00] up from anyone outside, it's even worse.
Anyone outside is beating you up or tearing you down or criticizing you. Then the self-pity. Cycle starts and that's like the ultimate, let yourself off the hook secretly. Another thing that's going on inside of there is these activities, these things that they're pretending like they care about, they don't really care about.
And some of them, they feel really bad about the fact that they don't care about, they don't want to spend time with their brother, their sister, unless their brother, sister does the addictive behavior. Their mama, they don't want to go to the important family birthday dinner. That kind of thing. They don't really care about it, and the reason I don't really care about it is because unless it involves the addictive thing, they can't care about it because not only are all these obsessive thoughts taking up all the space.
And there are other videos on this. Y'all know this. All the dopamines and the brain chemicals, you lose the biological capacity to enjoy those things, but you're still pretending. That's what functional addiction means. This video is sponsored by Better [00:22:00] Help. Better Help has more than 20,000 therapist worldwide, which is one of the things that makes them so easily accessible.
That is honestly my favorite. Thing about better help is that you can get access to the help when you actually need it. You guys know that I talk about getting help. When you're in that right moment, timing is everything. And the last thing that you want to do is start calling around to all these different therapist practices and waiting for weeks to get a call back.
If you even get one now, better help. It's not a. Crisis line. It's not a hotline. It's real professional therapy done securely online. It's so easy to set up an account. All you have to do is go to better help.com/put the shovel down. Don't forget to use that link to get an extra 10% off. That's B E T T E R H E L P.
Put the shovel down. I see they are. Thinking, how much [00:23:00] do I have left? If, if it's a substance, they're thinking, how much do I have left? How much money do I have? Can I buy it on Sundays? Do I have enough to get me through the week? There's this constant, obsessive thought about. Acquiring the thing, whatever the thing is, whether it's alcohol, substance, pornography, whatever, getting access to it, having enough of it recovering from it, and it's this completely emotionally and logistically consuming process.
And then there's this whole other process that's going on. This is like a lot of layers, right, where they have to spend a lot of time thinking about how they're going to hide it from you, man. Especially if you're a drinker, the evidence of drinking is really difficult. To hide all them empties is tough. So then you have to start buying the mini bottles because the mini bottles are really.
It's easier to like sneak. You can have them on your body and people don't know them. It's easier to do the sneak drinking and all that stuff, and it's a little easier to get rid of the evidence, but especially if it's [00:24:00] drinking, dang, drinking, messes with your memory, messes with your critical thinking, and then you just forget to hide them empty.
The amount of thought that goes into getting rid of the evidence. If you're a non-ad, if you could see that like a movie, you could see in some, you would be astounded. If you're watching this video right now live or even on the playback and you're relating to what I'm saying and you want to add something, I would love to hear from you.
It's hard to, it's hard to sometimes explain to people who don't understand it, what it's like, but. It's so time consuming. It's like looking at the trash can. It's all way full. Let me just add these bottles in, either at the bottom or on the top. Lemme tie it up and take it out. I'll take the trash out, honey.
And then it's, lemme put this bag way underneath those bags because I don't want my family to see it and I feel embarrassed. I don't want to put all those wine bottles out there in the recycle bin because the garbage guy's going to see it. The shame, the hiding can. It's crazy. They also have this. Ongoing [00:25:00] obsessive game.
They're playing with themselves about trying all these ways to cut it back. It's related to the promises. The promises are from now on, I'm not going to, and that usually involves like longer breaks, but there are these smaller cut it down kind of things, which is just like, I'm going to drink less. I'm not going to have more than three.
I'm not going to use that substance. I'm only going to use this substance. All that kind of stuff. So it's this. Attempt to cut it back, but never works. The cut it back thing is probably the least effective thing, although the other things don't really work in the long run either, but this one works or this one doesn't work, falls apart even quicker.
I'm going to do less. I'm going to go on, I'm going to go to the tailgate party, but this time I'm not going to get totally smashed. I'm going to drink. I'm not saying I'm not going to drink, but I'm not going to get completely wasted. Insanity, right? This is what goes on inside the mind of someone that looks on the outside like they are functional.
But I want you to remember that functional means still [00:26:00] pretending people will hold onto that facade for as long as possible. I don't blame them, right? But eventually it gets so bad, and then all your cards on table and everyone knows. And then when this happens, it is, it's worse because not only is the addiction progressed, but then you move into the, yeah, I'm an alcoholic.
Everybody knows I don't even care and I just accept the identity and I'm either just like proud of it, like maybe there should be like an alcoholic flag or something you could wave or I reside myself to it and I say, well, this is just who I am and there's nothing else I can do that is, is much more difficult to deal with.
Because when I see people, a lot of the people, most of the people I see in our practice tend to fall into this, what I call functional category. And even though it's frustrating for outsiders to deal with them because it makes crazy like, how do they not see this? Why won't they stop? They're ruin their life.
It makes me a little crazy sometimes too. Even though I get it, it's, it's way more easy. To fix [00:27:00] than when you deal with someone who's kept going all the way till they get to that end stage. Because so many times when they're in that end stage, they've just accepted the fact this person is a functional actor or alcoholic.
They don't really want to be an addict or an alcoholic, which is good. So the fact that they're denying it to themselves and you is good because it means they don't want to be it. So a lot of times it's my job to help them. Kinda gentle, natural kinda way. See that dude, you are that. And if you don't stop, you going to be that kind of that.
And because they don't really want to be that and they still have the capacity to stop, this is the place to intervene in my mind. Now when I say intervene, I don't mean yell at them, beat them up, because I already told you what happens in their head when you do that. And. If you need some more help with that, there're about 300 videos on this channel about that.
So when I say intervene, I just mean start for this person to intervene with themselves. Or if you're the family or loved one or even counselor watching this denial might frustrate you. But it's a good thing because like I said, it means they don't want to be [00:28:00] that. And if we can help them see that they don't have to be that, but that they are on that road, now we have someone that actually can stop.
We just gotta help them make the decision. To do the stopping and help them figure out how to do the stopping. So it's a good and a bad thing. I want to take a second to remind everybody that there are always resources and links in the description. If you are struggling with alcoholism and you're not sure where you're at in that.
In those phases and stages, if you go to our website, there's a like a, in the top menu there, there's a button that says free resources. One of those free resources is you can download the actual criteria and you can measure which phase or stage you're in. If you're not sure, it's not going to talk about these inside thoughts.
As much, it's going to talk more about behaviors. It's, it's mixed. The clinical criteria are a mix of behaviors and thoughts, but it doesn't go into this detail. But if you want to see the official guide on how to do it, it's there. And if your addiction is something [00:29:00] not alcohol, you can still get that same thing.
because literally in the dsm, the way we diagnose thing, it's literally the same criteria every single time. The only difference is, is just changes out the word. So you can do that too if you're trying to figure out clinically for real, could I be diagnosed with it? All right. So always resources in the description.
Jennifer has a comment. Let's see what Jennifer has to say. Jennifer says, and when it progresses and that mask slips, they become non-functional and it's all out and it's a big mask. Amen to that, Jennifer. Eventually, Functional becomes non-functional. But what happens is it becomes less functional until non-functional.
And sometimes people ask me, well, how does someone get between stage three and stage four? How does someone move from functional, non-functional? It can happen slowly, like we just talked less and less functional, or it can happen more quickly. If and when some major life structure changes for them, because usually there's something holding the dam back like they're married and their spouse is watching them all the [00:30:00] time, so they have to keep it somewhat under control or they have to go to work every day or something like that.
If there's a change in any of that and those things that keep the gate up, go away. It will move from functional to non-functional really fast. Like Covid was a huge one of these things because people didn't have to go to work anymore. Even if you were still working, you were probably working from home, which means you didn't have to wait till five o'clock anymore.
Many people went from stage three to stage four during that time. Because of that, because of the structure and the way they had to keep it together changed. If the spouse finally leaves, if the kid leaves. High school and goes off to college and there's no one watching. When the structure goes, you're going to move quick from three to four.
Let's see here. Daniella says, my husband is a dry addict and behaves just like that. For those of you who don't know what the term dry means, the, it's like an old recovery term. It's not a real clinical thing, but it is a. Sort of a common recovery term, which means it's kinda like an alcoholic who's not drinking anymore, but [00:31:00] still acts and thinks alcoholically.
I used to have a friend in recovery and he used to say, you can get a drunken horse thief sober, but there's still a horse thief. That's what the time means. WM says, my ex-wife's favorite. I only had one glass of wine. Yes, one glass that you filled to the rim six times. So true. And a lot of times once people move into more of a state of honesty, they'll come in and they'll tell me these things.
That's why I know, because they tell me these things. They're like, yeah, I drink two glasses. But lemme tell you, those glasses are like this big. Steph says, sounds exhausting. It is exhausting. It's miserable. If you think. From the outside looking at this person, they may look like they're having fun, but it really isn't fun.
This thing that we just talked about, it's not fun at all. It's freaking misery. It's like being held hostage. You are trapped. You're like tied to a treadmill and you have to keep running and you can't stop. They just have the mask on. Because they're trying to stay in denial about it and they're trying to trick you about it, but it is misery underneath.
I promise you. Nancy [00:32:00] says, my son uses Fentanyl and it consumes everything because he'll get physically sick if he doesn't have it. That's right. And it doesn't last very long. I call it the four hour treadmill. And if you get four hours out of one dose or hit or whatever, you're lucky. You gotta get on that treadmill every few hours and that's why.
You can't get anything else done, so you can't go to work consistently. It's so hard to maintain that and maintain any kind of normalcy. Colleen has a question. Can you do a talk one day about drug-induced psychosis, particularly cannabis induced psychosis? I do have a couple of videos on this channel about that kind of thing, but what I'll say, Colleen, it is a real thing, and for those of you don't know, Cannabis, which is marijuana.
I know you guys know that part. But when people are compulsively using marijuana, they have a much higher chance of having a psychotic break, like delusions, like hallucinations, like psychosis, real deal. And a lot of times when that happens, it can take months and months to clear up and people think, oh, that's [00:33:00] just, that's just weed or whatever.
It's not dangerous. I can't tell you how many young guys I've seen who activated. Like lifelong mental illness because of marijuana smoking, usually like around that college age, but any person who's using marijuana, your chances of having some kind of psychotic illness or disorder activate are way higher than the general public.
See, we have a Facebook user here who says, I've been married to an alcoholic for over 40 years. Everything you're sharing. I see with my loved one, the amount of energy he spends on his addiction is confounding. He's decades into drinking and pretending. It is confounding and it's exhausting for the person, but they're so used to it.
It's their norm that they don't even realize how miserable and exhausting it is. Most of the time don't realize it until they get out of it for usually like at least 30, 60 days, something like that. And then they look back and they're like, golly, that was terrible. Cause you've been doing it years.
Usually it's just your norm. It's like an automatic. Nicole says, my [00:34:00] addicted loved one doesn't enjoy time with our child. I don't really see that he has pretended to enjoy things. It keeps the addiction hidden and able to thrive. It's a survival tactic. Oh, I, you said, I totally see that he has pretended to enjoy things.
Yeah, and especially when it has to do with enjoying time with your child. You want to enjoy that child and you know you should enjoy time. So sometimes there's like, you're trying to, but deep down inside, There's a whole nother life. There's a whole nother thing happening, and it's hard to keep up two lives at once.
It's like trying to keep up. Two marriages. It's freaking hard. I don't know why I want to try to do that. Too much work at Lisa says, my husband did not hide anything. He'd leave beer cans everywhere, all over the yard, kitchen counter tables, and in the shower next to the toilet and in the vehicle he was driving while drinking.
Yeah, that's somebody who has, is moved. Probably is either already non-functional or is very close to non-functional. Like they're not even trying to hide it [00:35:00] anymore. That's what I mean when at first it's just like these little cracks in the dam and little things pop through and bad things happen every now and then.
But the longer it goes, the more bad things happen. The more frequently they happen, the worse things happen. Till you get to this point, you don't even care. You're not even trying to hide it. Like that's, to me that that's moved into the non-functional. Side of things. Ansley says, past alcoholic in my life claimed for months that he had quit cold Turkey.
Sure enough, the lies eventually caught up with him and it cost him more than if he'd just been honest about things. Oh, it always costs more. It always costs more, for sure. Nani says, my husband can drink 10 plus beers a day and recognizes his dependency, but claims he's not getting drunk because he's so easily able to hide the physical symptoms, doesn't slow walk straight, et cetera.
Yeah. Sometimes you'll hear people like almost be braggy about that. Nani, let's say things like, I can drink you under the table. I'm like, the dude that's walking around saying that is the dude with the problem. I probably wouldn't be bragging about it cause it just means his tolerance is so high. It [00:36:00] means literally he needs 10 plus.
To function. Right? So 10 plus he can still look somewhat normal. That means his tolerance is that high. That's not a good sign. Nani says for some reason for him that line in the sand for him that his dependency is not that bad. Yeah. Because he's telling himself, yeah, I can, I drink all those beers and I need to, but I still function.
That's what he's saying. I still function. I'm still pretending. Right. I got this. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to work, or I'm. Helping around the house or I'm doing whatever, but just because you're going to work, helping around the house doesn't mean you, you do not have a problem. The rival. I think going to a few AA meetings would be good for opening the eyes of problem drinkers and functional alcoholics.
Hearing how drinking hurts the family from someone else's story is a big eye opener. That's a really interesting comment because I have mixed feelings about it. It depends on whether that person is going into the AA meeting, open-minded or not. Because you find what you're looking for. If you're [00:37:00] going in open-minded, then you can, then you might look at it through this lens like what you're describing, which is, dang man, I better stop before I get that bad.
That's one thought. But the other thought, most of the time when you send a functional addict or alcoholic to a meeting and then don't really want to go, the thought is, I have no idea why I'm here. I'm not like any of these people, dude, I never did that to my wife. So it can make the denial worse. So it depends on the mindset, I think.
Which is why you don't want to force people to go to any kind of meeting because it can backfire on you in that way. Let's see. Steph says, is there any way to get past blaming and self-pity? Is that a phase moving towards recovery? No. That is a phase moving towards more addiction. That's not a sign in the right direction at all.
It's a sign in that I'm hunkering down into this thing and it's getting worse. The first part of the question, is there a way to get past the blaming self-pity? If you're asking that for yourself, Steph, watching videos like this is you are literally. Like holding yourself accountable. You're confronting [00:38:00] yourself.
You're getting real with yourself. If you're asking a question, which is more likely, you're thinking about someone else in your life, the best thing that you can do is if this is happening to the person that you love, then there's a good chance that you could, they could be putting you in the bag eye role.
And so if you step out of that bad guy, role it, it makes the blaming and the self-pity go away faster because you won't, you're not giving them anything to work with because they want you to be mean. They want you to not have empathy. They want you to argue with them. They want you to be unfair because I.
That allows the blaming and the self pity to continue. So stepping out of that role, we teach all of that in our Invisible Intervention online course, just as I'm practicing compassion and empathy and have found happiness of myself. But I still told that my unhappiness is the reason we still have relationship problems.
Sometimes they just want to keep putting you in a bag, eye roll, even when you get out the bag Eye roll, because. The self-pity and the justification. That's like the fuel for the addiction. It's like even when you're trying to get out, they don't [00:39:00] want to let you out. Here's another comment from Facebook user.
I'm doing all this stuff to heal myself, but my husband is pretty stubborn and stuck in denial. We've been to a therapist who uses motivational interviewing, but she said we can take his drinking off the table as there are so many underlying issues and now he's done with therapy. I don't think I can do anything to help him.
It's been a good life for myself after learning how to move on, but he just stays in his past. I don't know if I'm a little confused about what you're saying that the therapist is saying to him. Is the therapist saying, oh, it's fixed, it's off the table. He is done drinking, or we're not even going to work on it because there are bigger problems here.
I don't know which one you're saying there. Wish I did. But nonetheless, I'm glad to hear that you are holding a healthy boundary and that you're taking care of yourself. If you're listening and you don't know what motivational interviewing is, it's like a counseling technique specifically designed. It's a way of communicating with someone to help find, help that person find their motivation for change.[00:40:00]
And to get someone out of denial, it's a very, it's not confrontational, it's not argumentative. It's like the nice way of getting someone out of denial and it's the most effective way if you want to learn to do that, because you don't have to be a counselor to do that. It's literally just like a communication pattern.
You can learn to do that. We have a whole online course for that. It's called Motivation Masterclass. You can learn to do motivational interviewing with your loved one, which is super helpful. Or it's also inside of our invisible intervention. It's part of a larger program too. You can get it by itself or inside of that.
Karina says, I'm recovering alcoholic, working on my behavior, especially codependency. My husband is a codependent addict. I have six months without substance use. You've helped so much. Thank you so much for the sweet feedback, Corina, but. So proud of you. Congrats the fact that you've got six months and you're still living with someone who's still actively using.
That just blow my mind. That's amazing. If there's something that would show you, somebody is serious and they mean it like they are in the middle of it. In the middle of living with [00:41:00] someone who has it and addressing their own problems, that is impressive. Super, super impressed. Karina, married a long time, says, I just can't anymore.
He crossed a boundary and I'm moving into another room of the house to get space. Any suggestions on how this could work? I've seen this happen a lot with married people. Sleeping in a a different room does give you a little bit of space, especially if it's drinking cause. If the person stays up drinking and then they're stumbling into bed, or then they're obnoxious, or they're just difficult to deal with and being in the same room, if it's helpful to you to be in another room, that's good, but ultimately, if the problem doesn't get better, the being in another room won't necessarily solve it, but it does give you a little distance and a little.
Self-care sometimes. Courtney says, you mentioned the alcoholic making a choice to stop for brief periods of time, especially after they've had an out of control event. They can stop without detox in stage three, or do they just moderate? Most of the ones that I see in my office, they can stop [00:42:00] without detox, although if it's alcohol or benzodiazepine, don't just stop with, without a little consultation with a medical person.
But most of the time people can. Sometimes they moderate and sometimes they stop for periods of time, either which way it's still bargaining. Usually they try to cut it back and if that doesn't work, they take periods of abstinence. Sometimes they set out to, for it to be a short period, like I'm going to take a month break or a week break, or something like that.
And sometimes they say I'm done, but they only last a week or a month. So it's slightly different. If they say I'm done, but they only last a month, I would call that a relapse. If they're intentionally trying to take a short break, I would call it bargaining. So, It's just a difference in mindset. Lazy. When my husband spent the night in my room, he would leave beer cans on the floor.
It turned into a joke, didn't pick them up. Told him it was to remind him. I didn't know he was an alcoholic. Well, if you didn't know he was an alcoholic, but. You decided to leave them there? That's probably [00:43:00] what I, if you would've consulted me about the issue, I would've just said, don't pick them up. because if you pick them up, you're helping with the denial.
Let them sit there. Not because you, it's not a cleaning issue. It's an awareness issue in my mind. And if he never picked them up, I might go back in there and pick them up later, just if you can't stand the messiness of it. But I would let him wake up and see them. Because that's helping someone see the truth of it.
Like if they pass out on the floor, unless they're going to like dive a alcohols and then leave them on the floor, don't put them in the bed because you're helping to contribute to the denial. Cause they think, see, I'm fine. I'm functioning. So let them see what's happening. Don't push it down their throat, just step out of the way.
Vanessa says, my question is, what does a person do when they're in a situation that has them completely dependent on the attic? Not just talking about codependent talking about money. You get yourself out of that money dependence. You figure out how to get more financially independent, and if you are in a relationship with someone who has an addiction and you are financially dependent on them, you need to start doing that right now.
You need [00:44:00] to because you, you are in a very scary predicament. So start today. Figure out how to not be so financially dependent on them. Start working. Do something on the side. Do something. Tyler says, I've heard that functional alcoholics make up a very high percent of people who struggle with alcohol.
Is this true? Yes, it is. Definitely true. There are so many more people out there who have alcohol problems. A lot of times when I, the people I treat, like I said, I treat a lot of people who are functional and they have these like social circles, friends, couples, friends mates and all that, and they go out and they're like, dude, a lot of my friends drink like that too.
I'm like, yeah, and secretly this is what's going on inside their head too. They're just pretending and sometimes when you step out of it, you're like, oh, like a lot of my friends are in this functional phase, I'd say. That's correct. And when you all hang out together and you're in that phase, it helps you to not see reality because not everyone does that.
It's normal. It helps you to convince yourself. Lydia says, my son says he will taper off opiates by himself. [00:45:00] I know this is a bargaining stage, but what are the chances of succeeding? Is it similar to an alcoholic trying to. Moderate drinking. Yes, I would agree with you. It's prob that's not going to work. Now if he's going and he is getting a medication and he is tapering off under a doctor's supervision with something like Suboxone or something, that might work.
But just trying to say, I'm going to take less and less and stop. In theory, it can work like it on a biological level, like it makes sense theoretically, but it flies in the face of addiction. It works for dependency. It does not work when it comes to addiction, which I said is psychological, right? So there's the physical dependency, like I need it.
And then there's the addiction, which is the psychology. So it'll work for one, but it won't work for the other. So ultimately, I've not seen it work. Maybe it has worked sometime, but I've not seen it work and I've been doing this 20 years. Long time, but it's one of his bargains and you have to let people do their bargains.
So I'm not telling you that, cause I'm telling you to make him stop or tell me can't. I'm just telling [00:46:00] you. Prepare yourself. CLS says, can someone in stage three functional but daily drinker stop for brief periods of time without detox? Yeah, a lot of people can do that. And they'll do that to convince themselves that they're not alcoholic.
See alcoholic, they couldn't quit like they gotta drink every day. They'll literally do it as a test to prove to themselves they're not alcoholic, although, That's not correct. This, these thought processes is what the addiction is. It's not whether or not you use every day. Thanks for listening to our audio, but did you know these episodes are recorded?
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