Get Your Addicted Loved One to Go To Counseling
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[00:00:00] You know your addicted loved one needs some help and you wish they would agree to go to counseling. But every time the conversation comes up, the whole thing goes sideways. They have about a million roadblocks and excuses and reasons why. They shouldn't, don't need to, don't want to go to counseling.
You're in luck if this sounds familiar, because today I'm going to talk to you about exactly what to say, like what words to use and everything when you run into these really common. roadblocks that your loved one throws at you. Now I've got a list of six of them here. These are like the really common ones that I hear all the time, but if you're watching live and you're thinking of a roadblock that you've heard, throw it in the chat and and maybe we'll brainstorm together about how to maybe overcome that roadblock.
Cause I'm sure there are some that some like really special, unique ones that I'm missing out on. And I can't tell you I [00:01:00] can overcome every roadblock, but I'll do my best to tell you what I would say in that situation. Now, before I tell you these sort of six scenarios and each way of having the conversation goes with a different roadblock, I want to say this, because this is more important than anything else.
You have to wait for the right moment to Say this or have this conversation. And if your loved one isn't at the right point to go to counseling, you actually might make it worse to get them to go to counseling. And I actually have a video about why that is. Counseling can make addiction worse if it's not either the right time or it's not.
With the right person or it's not set up properly. So make sure you watch that video. I will link it up here for you at the end. I think the thumbnail or something is called something like why you should stop telling your addicted loved one to go to counseling. And it's not that counseling can't ever help, but you need to have the situation set up, right?
So that will help you with that. And if you're wondering how to even get them to the point [00:02:00] where you can even have this conversation, then there's a whole playlist of videos about how to get someone motivated to make a change, motivated to take steps towards recovery. We have a whole invisible intervention program.
We have tons of resources for you on how to get your loved one there. But when you finally get to the moment, I call them like little Moments of clarity or moments of willingness where you can see that, okay, we have a window here. It's I've been waiting for this. I've been like working all the steps and now it's finally here.
And you're like, what do I say? I want you to have a guideline on what to say. You may even want to take some notes on this and feel free to customize. These suggestions to language that kind of works for you. And the dynamic best between you and your loved one, but you can take these words, I would say, and you can make them sound more like you, and it's going to help you overcome these six big main objections that you're likely to run into.
Now we'll start with a really common basic one, which is,[00:03:00] I don't believe in counseling. Anybody on here have a loved one that either says, or, that they don't believe in counseling. I'm not going to talk to no counselor about my business. What is that? That's woo wee hoo here. That's for crazy people.
A lot of people have a bunch of stigma and bad imagery in their head about the idea of even talking to counselor and it just seems foreign or dumb, even though I'm a counselor, it's weird that I'm a counselor because. The idea of talking to a counselor I don't even know how I thought of being a counselor.
Actually, I didn't think of being a counselor. I was a teacher, and I thought I'd be a school counselor. I'd heard of a school counselor, but I really didn't know anything about what a therapist was. That was just not a thing in my family. That was not a concept. I can relate to that idea of do what?
Doctor who? About my personal business? I get it, actually. Because that would have been the case in the family you guys know I'm from Tennessee, in the little tiny town, not even close to a big town, like really small, isolated town. This idea of, I don't believe in counseling, this is a [00:04:00] really common thing.
One of the ways that you can... Avoid and get around this one Sometimes is you can say you can either agree and you can say yeah I don't know that might be just like a bunch of crap. Who knows? Let's try it you can and you can say or whatever so you can give them this You're leaving the door open and a lot of these are going to be like this You're going to leave the door open for them to have that objection if they have an objection And you start to push on it really hard and say I don't know.
You start to defend it. They're trained for this and they're that. They're just going to like cling on to the objection even harder. So I don't want you to do that. When someone gives you an objection, if there's any amount of validity to it, then at least validate the valid part. You don't have to do the whole thing, but you can say, I can see where you're coming from with that.
And honestly, there's some truth in that. What? Counseling? That's weird. The other thing you can do is don't use the really common phrases that I know most of you use. Don't use [00:05:00] the phrase like, I want you to get some help. Just that word right there, help, that just feels icky sometimes for people.
It's Oh God, here we go again. You know you're going to get the eye roll response and don't say, you need to get some treatment. Use a different word if at all possible. I was talking to someone this week and we came up with the idea of using the word hey, let's get some advice on this issue from someone who like knows something about it because it doesn't hit that same Trigger point as when you say the word treatment when you say that when you get the shutdown like what you're going to get when you say that word is Absolutely not.
Because at this point the garage door is slamming down because they don't want to do that. If you say the word get help, you're going to get the eye roll. Oh my god, really? Here we go again. So use a different word. Something else, and you know your loved one best, and find a way to couch it, frame it.
That's not so off putting to them. Now, the second, this second roadblock, [00:06:00] a really common roadblock that you're probably going to run into is, this really happens when you're dealing with someone who, who's a really stubborn person, who you can't force into anything. I know everyone hates being forced into things.
Everyone likes to have control and independence and autonomy, some people are just like really hard headed and even if they wanted to do it, but you told them they had to do it or need to do it, then they really not going to do it because you said that when you're dealing with that person, then you never want to go at it directly and you want to, you don't want to push, you want to gently open the door and invite them if they feel like it, because they have this like real hair trigger on you can't make me.
Put a hands up emoji in the comments or in the chat. If you're a person or someone, and you're thinking of them, you're like, Oh yeah, that's my person. They're like that. They're just stubborn headed. And they're literally say no, just because you suggested it. If it's. If you're dealing with that kind of person and they start throwing up objections at you, then just validate their reasonable [00:07:00] objections.
And so some of those objections could be about those people don't know what they're talking about. You want to like, listen to those objections and we'll address the money ones specifically in just a second. Cause it is such a common one, but just listen to what they have to say and then say, you could be right?
Like you could totally be right. Like it might just be like a waste of time. This is where you want to say. Let's just give it a try, and if it's terrible, forget about it. If it's terrible, you don't have to do it. Don't say forget about it. But if it's terrible, you don't have to do it. And then that leads me into the next statement that you can say is, once you've given them that out, you've acknowledged their point, the ones that you can acknowledge in good faith, then, if you have somebody specifically, this also works if they really don't like authority.
Then you want to always give them that exit door and one way to do that is let's get you an appointment with A couple two or three different people and you decide who you like or another way to do that is to say Yeah, why don't you go try [00:08:00] it out three times give it a fair shot And if you still don't like it, then we'll do something else.
We used to use that one a lot Families that would call and they say, I really want my loved one to see you, but they just won't do it. Or sometimes the person would need to be like an intensive outpatient. And we would say to them, we'd say, listen, get your loved one to agree to come three times. And if they hate it, they don't have to come back because I know, we know Campbell, Kim and I, all of us know if you don't like us by three times.
If we don't have you engaged, we're not going to get you. We're pretty decent at it. And most addiction counselors, they have to develop a skill to build rapport with people because the people that come to see us don't want to come see us. So we have to get good at this. And if I've not won you over at least a little bit.
I'm not saying like fixed you or changed you by three sessions, but I'm just saying If by three sessions that person does not come home and say And you say how was it if they say it wasn't awful that's a win because that's like a it was all right, but they don't want to say that but that's the goal is to get them to [00:09:00] either try two or three and see who they like.
That makes people feel like they have options and they're not forced. And the three times see if you'll go to that group, that counselor, that program, whatever, three times it feels like, all right, I can do three times. That's not that big a deal. It's three, one hour sessions. I can do that.
And now a lot of times they'll concede to that. And like I said, by the time they go three times, if you've got them with, a good match for them, then they'll be like this isn't terrible. I might as well come back. They might be thinking, I just probably want help, but it's to make my wife or my mom happy.
I'll just do it. And it's not that terrible. That's fine. That's a good starting place. If you ask me the other one now you don't usually get this objection necessarily if it's your kid, but you probably might get this one. If it's your spouse is a, why do you want to go pay a bunch of money? They'll throw.
a money objection up. Now, sometimes a kid will do that just because they know the parent cares about the money. They don't really care about the money, but they know it's your button. [00:10:00] So they throw that out there because they think it might be a good one and get you. So the thing about money is it can be expensive to go and see a counselor.
And what feels really expensive about is you want me to pay what? For an hour of talking to someone's tongue. And so this is some behind the scenes. I don't necessarily want you to say this exactly this way, but I just want you to understand this. And then that way you can figure out how to say it to them.
But really, when you pay to see a counselor, you're not paying for their one hour. You're paying for their bazillion years of experience. You're paying for the fact that they have an entire graduate degree. Yes, you're speaking to them for an hour, but what that person can give you in one hour is more than you can get from talking.
If you're talking to somebody. Who's like me and dealt with it 20 years. You're going to get so much value, so much more better advice and good help in one hour. So not thinking of it, like I'm paying X amount of dollars for hour. It's I'm paying X amount of dollars to expedite the process.
That's the way I view it. [00:11:00] We can fumble along and we can try to figure this out. And when it comes to addiction recovery, that's probably going to cost you a lot more money, a lot more than going to see some counselor somewhere. So when you think of it that way and you explain it as we just want to expedite the process.
So we don't have to try and fail. We don't, you don't have to say this far, but we don't have to pay for DUIs and lawyers and a divorce and another failed semester of college or, all of those things. And so if you can get them to view it differently, if it's not your spouse and they're not involved in the money, I wouldn't bring up the money at all because you're literally just handing them some kind of like excuse or reason.
But sometimes that can definitely be a roadblock. Another one you can run into is I've tried that and it doesn't work. Have you guys run into that? I've done that before. I've been to treatment I've talked to counselors. It's not helped and The way you deal with this is to investigate into it further that's the way I deal with it.
Anyways with clients in session One of the first questions I ask within the first five or [00:12:00] ten minutes is usually Have you ever been to treatment or seen a counselor or like groups or anything about this before? Because I want to get a sense of what their past is And then I'll say, was it helpful or not helpful?
Because the first thing I've got to overcome is this frame of mind they're coming into me with. If they've not done it before, then they're probably nervous and a little like unsure and not knowing what to do and a little intimidated or scared by the process. So if that's the case, then I want to address that with the person and help them feel like, Oh, this is what happens, and guide them through it so they don't.
Feel like what's about to happen? Am I going to have to lay on the couch? Talk about my dreams? What's going to happen? So talking to that. But a lot of times when I see people they have had some experience some of them a little bit and some of them a lot of experience with talking to people in the past and then if I can get a sense really quickly over whether they viewed that as helpful or not helpful That's a really good piece of information that I can then work with to get to the next level.
Because [00:13:00] usually what they'll say is something like, blanket, right? Especially what they're going to say to you as a family member. I did that, it didn't work. When in reality, it was probably a little mixed and gray. And you can say, yeah, you have given it a fair try before, what was that like? So if they throw you that roadblock, just start to if they let you just dig in there and open up some of those little pieces and boxes and find out.
Because what you'll find out if you ask some more questions is they'll say I didn't really want to see that person anyway, and I wasn't going to let it work. And then they'll acknowledge to you, but mostly to themselves that it didn't work because. They didn't want it to work or they'll say actually I did get sober for a while, worked for a while.
I'll say, okay, so it like worked for a while, but then it wore off. They'll start to see their past experiences. Usually a little more objectively now, in a situation where I have somebody who like really did have a horrible experience in counseling, then I'll just be like, dude, that sucks.
I can't believe that counselor said that to you. I will never say that to you. One time I saw this teenage [00:14:00] boy who came to see me like for an outpatient counseling session and he, his dad brought him in and he did not want to be there. But I'm like, whatever. That's all y'all people that come see me.
So I'm talking to him and he's just looking at me like, what? So I'm asking him this question. I'm telling you guys that I have you been to counseling? He's yeah, my dad drugged me to see somebody two months ago. Some guy in Simpsonville close to where we live. And I was like what happened?
Was it good? Was it helpful? What happened? He's you know what that guy did? I was like what'd he do? And he said, that guy told me that. First of all, he made me stand up and I thought that was weird. And then there was like this bathroom attached to his office. I started getting scared when he said that.
I was like, Oh my God what is he about to say? I was nervous. So then he says that this counselor makes him stand up, walk into this bathroom that's like on to the office or whatever and says you see how big this bathroom is This is how big the jail cell is that you're going to end up in and started giving him this lecture on the first session First time this kid had ever seen a counselor first [00:15:00] time this kid had ever seen this counselor and we're talking about a teenager using drugs That's a terrible technique.
That is that whole scared straight stuff like I'm sure your mom and daddy done tried that on you If that were you wouldn't be in the counselor's office. So I just laughed I was like what and then I started like laughing. I was like my bathroom is a little bigger Maybe you'll get a good self, I started like joking about it and I said don't worry I'm not going to do that.
And so just letting them tell you about that bad experience and validating that bad experience lets them take their wall down. And so when they start throwing these objections and these roadblocks, there's some validity there. Just find it and listen to them. Cause when you listen to them, They feel safe and they feel heard and then their walls start to come down and then That's when they're more open to actually talking about it Maybe even open suggestions, but they're at least more open minded about having a conversation about it But the first [00:16:00] thing you have to do is you have to handle these objections There's actually a special kind of training that counselors get it's actually any counselor can get it, but mostly addiction counselors get it.
And it's called motivational interviewing. It's a technique that counselors are taught on how to deal with resistance. Even on the counsel world, they don't even want us to call it resistance. Counselors are so cheesy sometimes.
They get on my nerves, too. That's what I tell the counselors. When I go to these conferences, I'm around other ones. I'm like, Oh, my God, I don't blame you. So they don't like the word they use resistance because that's negative. But that's what it is. The client is resistant to going to see the counselor.
And so they teach you these techniques for how to deal with that resistance. And basically, what they teach you is you they the term is roll with the resistance, don't Fight against the resistance. That technique teaches you how to be like neutral and ask questions in a certain way to pull out certain other pieces of information.
And then emphasize that, for example, a question they have [00:17:00] these, they call them scaling questions in this technique. And they'll say, on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly do you need to change, or how motivated are you are to change, or whatever.
And they might say, 3. And you might be thinking, a 3? You're about to go to prison! You might be thinking that, but you're not going to say that, because you watch these videos. I know you're not going to say that. And when they say that, you say, really? Why a 3 and not a 2? And the reason you say it that way is because when you compare whatever number they give you, if they give you a 1, we'll say why a 1 and not a 0?
Because then they're going to give you some reason why they need to change. It's a question that prompts some kind of reason and motivation. And then when they give you that, you can ask more. Now that's a whole technique. We teach it inside of our invisible intervention. And also you can actually see me do a motivational interviewing session, like a whole session for free, if you want to get a feel for how that works.
But it's this great set of techniques that teaches you how to find the positive [00:18:00] things that makes the person want to change and pull them out and magnify them up and how to dismiss this other talk. Because everybody that's in this situation has some ambivalence. You have some ambivalence about trying these techniques.
Everybody, it's just natural, right? You have part of you that says, yes, and part of you that says no. And trying to fight with this partisan one that says no is ridiculous. It's just going to make them want to defend that stance. And what you have to do is you have to learn to pull their motivation out.
And almost everyone I've seen has some motivations for change. Even if they come in the office and they tell me, I'm just doing this because my wife wants me to do this. Then I say something like, dude, you must be a good husband. You must love your wife a lot. Like she must be something special to do this.
And then they'll tell me about something they care about. I don't want to get a divorce. That'd be bad for my kids. Tell me about your kids. Obviously, you care about your kids. You're willing to do whatever it takes. And so whatever they give you. You find the good piece in that and you start pulling [00:19:00] it out.
And when you do that, you find that they do have a desire to change. Yes, they have some desire to say the same and some fear. They've got both sides. And there are ways to pull forward. Now that you have some techniques, some ways to talk to your loved one about going to counseling, if you know that they're not quite ready to change, and you've barely got them talking to going to counseling, then look for somebody who's trained in this technique motivational interviewing you know there's like addiction treatment facilities Where you can go and they'll say get a sponsor go to 12 step meetings do this do that write a relapse prevention plan all well and good all great advice, but if the person either Doesn't think they have a problem or doesn't want to change that problem.
You're wasting your breath on that. So there's a whole different set of techniques and skills that have to be used with someone who's either in denial or maybe on the fence. You're going to have to address the motivation piece before you start telling [00:20:00] someone how to solve a problem because they don't want to solve it.
If they don't even think they have a problem, they're just looking at you like you're crazy. And then you got one more time that they got in their back. Like I tried that didn't work. Now you've got one more bad experience in the backpack here so that they carry around and use as a reason to not.
Try it again. So timing is very important when it comes to these things. And I talked about this some when we talked about denial and different kinds of denial. But the word treatment, if you're going to avoid any one word, it's probably that word because that's the scariest word.
Like people may really not want to do counseling and think it's dumb or something like that. A lot of times I'll just do it. To make you happy, which is totally fine. I don't have a problem with that. That works too. And I'm telling you that because I've been doing this 20 years and literally almost everyone I've seen comes in reluctantly, they don't really want to.
They're doing it because they had to, for some reason. Now, these days I get more people that come in cause they want to, but that's because you guys are doing such a good job of[00:21:00] setting the right stage, but historically people come in and that's fine. So you have to figure out where they're at in that process.
If your person doesn't think they have a problem, then don't, not only should you not say the word treatment because it's going to make them shut down, but it's treatment, like going inpatient. That's really expensive. It's a waste of time unless you have the right stage. They either have to be somewhat ready.
That doesn't mean they want it. You guys know how I feel about that. They have to be. Somewhat motivated to do something, even if that's an external reason, or they have to be in some kind of position where they have to do it. And I'm cool with have to do it too. Have to do it, or I'm going to go to jail,
have to do it is fine because that will keep somebody involved long enough , to get sober long enough that their brain will clear or motivated enough. One or the other has to be in place. And I would definitely make sure you wait for the right timing before you go and spend a ton of money on treatment.
Timing is important. So if we're not ready for that, maybe we can get them ready to talk to a counselor. Or if they're not ready for that, maybe we can get them ready to watch a video. Think about[00:22:00] what could I maybe get this person to do to take a baby step in the right direction. . As always, there are links to other resources in the description. One of the things I put in the description is a link to my Insider's Guide on Addiction Treatment, and that will help you understand the different levels of care that are out there, what insurance pays for, what it doesn't.
It'll help you think through what might be
the right kind of the options are. All right, we got questions. Amber says, I'm here and emotionally exhausted. I feel so overwhelmed and just completely done. Why can't he just see his addictions make things worse? It's crazy. I've been doing this 20 years and every time I see denial in somebody that's so obvious.
It's mind blowing every single time just like really even though I have a hundred videos on here I explain it to you, even though I get it intellectually just as a person It's like you really can't see that's a problem. Like they really can't it's crazy and it is [00:23:00] Exhausting and overwhelming and so if you need to take a step back you take a step back I mean if you need to like literally Get away from this person you get away from but at least emotionally take a step back.
I'm telling you guys all these things to do but I always feel a little guilty because you don't have to do these things. You do these things when you're ready and when you want to because it's not always the best thing for you to do. It's totally fine to take care of you too. Jennifer, how do I convince him that I'm not the one that can help him?
He thinks I can help him do anything, but I am his partner and it just doesn't work like that. He isn't accountable to me. I'm seeing that a lot, Jennifer, and that actually, I'm not sure 100 percent why it's happening in your situation.
So they pull on your heartstrings. And so sometimes they're doing it like that. And then other times they really do expect you to like Detox them Campbell deals with that a lot like parents who've literally went over and helped their adult child Detox multiple times like what are you doing or they'll say things like you [00:24:00] just hold my medicine for me the thing I would say about it jennifer is Dude, that's not fair.
You can't put that on me. I'm here to be your girlfriend, your wife, your mom, your sister. I'm not here to be the police, the probation officer, to do that, and that's not fair for our relationship. That's what I would say, because it's truly not. When they ask you to make them act right, they end up resenting you for it.
It's just a no win situation, and it's crummy, Jennifer's saying, 100%.
Jan says my son is supposed to see a peer recovery counselor. Right now his appointment was 1. 30 and it's 1. 23. I woke him up two times. Is that enabling? He's not ready. It takes a 20 minute drive to the place. Does this mean he doesn't really want to go or is in the action stage?
It definitely could mean that. That could be a sign of resistance for sure. I might remind him once, but I wouldn't keep. Push in the topic. If it's a peer recovery specialist, I'm not sure if it's [00:25:00] something that he's paying for you're paying for. Sometimes if it's a counseling appointment, I'll suggest that the family say we'll pay for all the ones you go to because a lot of times if it's counseling and you don't show up, like you have to pay anyway.
If you don't like canceling time, you just know, show the appointment. And so we, a lot of times it's like a parent or something and then we tell them, say, tell them you'll pay for every appointment that they go to. And if they can't go to, they have to cancel in time. And I think that's. Totally fair.
So I'm not sure if there's money involved in this, but if there is, you might could leverage that at some point. LAC says my husband has seen a counselor three times. I asked him yesterday how it was and he said he hates it. He's been getting better, but he's not saying he's never going to do it again.
He's really. introverted and doesn't like talking anyways. How should I take it? Should I just wait it out and see if he's willing to continue? I'm glad you gave me this example. This is a great example of they're giving you something negative and they're resisting something and this is where you want to roll with it.
You can say, I bet it is weird talking to some [00:26:00] stranger about your business. What's it like? What's that person like? Be curious and interested in a casual way and not in a serious way and don't give him any kind of lecture about how it's good for him or anything like that and say, I bet it is weird.
And say, what's he like? What's his office like? What does he make you talk about? In a curious way if your loved one can tolerate it, that's what I would do. That's how I would handle it.
Beavis says, Does all this advice and techniques help with someone who has struggled with a trauma bond? Yeah, these are just techniques that help people overcome their roadblocks and resilience. So yeah, I would say so. These techniques won't work on everyone, but these work on a lot of people on the really common objections.
What if he doesn't want to share his private thoughts and feelings with a stranger? That's goes, that's similar to that last question that we had about the introvert. That's understandable, but you can say, so if you don't, a lot of times people will be more okay sharing their thoughts than their feelings.
[00:27:00] And especially men, so in count sometimes I'm talking to a guy, which is most of the time, I'll say, what do you think about that? And they'll give you an answer that will explain to you how they feel. So you can use words that are. that are less touchy feely or whatever. And they'll usually tell you what they think about that.
And if your person is say I don't know, just go in there and fill them out. You don't have to tell them anything if you don't want to tell them as much as you want to or not, just see what you think about them. So that's a, that's another example of roll with the resistance. Don't fight against it.
Agree with it and give them that space. Where they know they're not being forced into it and they know there's an exit door. Because a lot of times if they just know there's an exit door, they'll do it because they know they're safe. They know that they can run out if they want to. I literally tell that sometimes to people that come in our office.
This is a funny thing in our office, we're in this old house downtown. This house is really old. It was cute, and that's why we like it. But it's so old like all the doors are janky and they like swell up with the weather and they [00:28:00] get skinny and they do all this funny stuff and so inside of my office the door like literally won't stay shut and so I had to put Like it won't, it just won't latch.
And so inside the door, I had to put like one of those hook latch locks. And so when clients come in, like they come in and then I like lock them in. And it's so weird. And I say, listen, I'm locking this door. It's not weird. You can totally open it and run out if you want to. I literally say you can run out of here screaming if you want to, because it's like weird, it's like I'm coming in and then the lock goes down, but that's the only way the door stays closed.
CCV, how do you find a sober coach? Do you need to be trained in a treatment program to get a referral for a coach rather than a counselor? That's a good question. Sober coaches are a newer thing. And so they're not, everywhere, but there's like more and more people being trained in it.
There's NADAC, which is national alcohol, drug and alcohol abuse counselors. It's like the big national organization that does addiction counseling. They [00:29:00] train people as peer support specialists. Somebody else said their person was seeing a peer support specialist. That's the same kind of thing.
So you can find more and more of them in your like area. And you can even look it up. Somebody came knocked on our door. Me and Bree were eating lunch the other day and somebody just came knocked on the door and they were like, Hey, I'm a new I just got trained as a recovery coach.
I'm just like putting my resume out there. So there's more and more of them. But usually people that do that are people that are in recovery. that have they're not just like an AA sponsor because they do actually have some training and stuff like that to help people, not as much as a counselor.
Now, Kim and Campbell and I call ourselves recovery coaches. We are trained counselors, but what we do these days is more like advice and coaching, and it's not like deep counseling get into your childhood trauma, talk about your dreams stuff is more coaching. So we call it coaching. We're counselors, but most people that do that are like people in recovery.
But I think they're super helpful and that sounds less intimidating and [00:30:00] scary than counselor sometimes So it's a good way to go. Irma says word of advice. My son is going into rehab program tomorrow, but he Says he decided that he doesn't want to have communication with me throughout the program. He'll be doing rehab for a year What do I do?
I don't understand why he would not want to communicate with me every now and then. He said that it's okay if I communicate with the person in charge, but not with him. That's interesting. I don't, I could guesstimate some reasons why that could be. Because I would think my first thought when you said that Irma was, is that he doesn't want you to talk to the treatment people.
He doesn't want to put you on the release of because he doesn't want you. Telling them all his stuff and he doesn't want them telling you all his stuff, which is normal. My so if it's not that reason it sounds like it's not if he's saying you can talk to the person in charge Then there's some kind of hurt feeling there's some kind of he perceives boundary issue There's something about the nature of the relationship That[00:31:00] I don't know, that's upsetting him.
I'm not sure why. Maybe he's just mad. I don't know if you're the one that's pushing him into doing it, and maybe that's why he's mad. And if that's the case, he'll just get over it. It may be a while, but he'll get over it.
Tara says, Hey Amber, the excuse I get is the counselor doesn't know me. How do they know my problems, etc? How could they possibly help? That's a good... Question. And the role of a counselor is to get to know you. When I have clients, what I say is, I say, listen, I know a lot about like this and that, but I don't know a thing about you.
So we're going to figure this out together. You, I know this, we're going to put our heads together. I don't know if your person's ever done counseling before, but it's not like you walk in, sit down and they say, all right, let me tell you what to do. Do this. This is if they do, they're not a good counselor.
So what they do is they get to know you and understand you. And that's the only way that counseling works. Cause Anybody can throw advice out there, but if they think you don't get them, then that, it wouldn't make any sense. Scarlett, my son is in Buffalo Alley right now. His second [00:32:00] ex wife has a degree in psychology and thinks she knows it all.
In her words, she's a professional, but she's a narcissist. She puts my son down repeated, repeatedly, is that what it is? Probably it just dropped off there at the end. I don't know if my son wants to be with her for the third time, but she is blocking me from talking with my son. Okay, this is, so this is the one I saw earlier, Brie, that you put up there that I said there's more to that story.
I knew there was more to that story. Yeah, something is going on with that because your son would be in charge of whether or not he would talk to you or the treatment people would talk to you. So there's something going on. Between the two of them. And I don't know, obviously I don't know anything about this situation, but the one thing I would tell you is that it is very common that when someone has an addiction, they split everybody against each other.
I don't know if it's happening in your case, but it is very common that they split like the parent against the wife. Or the parent against the husband and they'll say things like [00:33:00] they treat me terrible. They're controlling. They're mean they're narcissists They're all this and that and the other and that's because the spouse knows what's up That's because they're living with you and they know what you're doing and they're angry about it Spouses are angry Parents are desperate but think about what you want differently from your spouse than what you expect from your kid It's a different ball game And so I don't know If that's what's going on here, if it's that kind of splitting dynamic where he's telling the wife certain things about you, telling you certain things about the wife, or if it really is this kind of situation.
But either way, he's the ringleader. He's in the middle of it. He's the one that really pulls the strings.
Husband is... I'm guessing that's functioning alcoholic. We have a special dinner with my 24 year old daughter and her boyfriend tomorrow Is it okay to ask my husband beforehand not to drink at dinner? I don't know if you ever asked him not to drink at dinner before. How does he respond? So there's two pieces of it. There's a how's he going to take it? Is it just going to make him defensive and then [00:34:00] there's the other piece of is it going to work? It's not going to work either which way if you ask him not to drink at dinner, he might not drink at dinner, but he might drink a lot before dinner, especially if he needs to drink in the evening.
I'm not sure how well that'll work. But what you if what you can do is get an exit plan or something. And I don't know how much your daughter knows or doesn't know about it. But, if things start sliding, South, you can figure out how to tidy it up and finish it up. And because the big thing here is protect your daughter mostly because she'll just be humiliated and embarrassed and I'm thinking, so you can run interference, but that's a tough one. You can ask them. It might work. It might offend them. It might start an argument and he might would say yes, but do it anyway. So it's iffy.
Do you have any experience or knowledge with accelerated resolution therapy for addiction so they wouldn't have to talk? We actually did. Two videos on this recently, Crystal. The first video we did on this, and it was one of the live videos probably Two months ago. I want to say talk to this guy who's like an [00:35:00] addictionologist doctor down in Florida Who does that kind of training and he does it because he had it done on him And so he has a really interesting take on it.
You can hear from him and the second Video we did on this. We actually had the lady that invented it on here to talk about it. So it's really cool. And she talks about how it can be used for addiction therapy. But, yeah, definitely if people don't want to talk, that's one way to go at it.
The Daily Fire. My son who lives in another state has finally said the words, I'm addicted, in reference to his excessive, life destroying pot use. What can I do from a distance to help? If you, the best thing you can do is... Keep a good relationship with your son. And if he told you, Hey, I think I'm addicted, then there's some level of trust there.
And so when they finally say something like that,, if you're like me, my instinct is to pounce. I literally have to like, in my head, I have to think steady. I'm like, yeah, and I be like, okay, you should do this and listen to this But you have to hold that [00:36:00] back Because if they just said it they're probably nervous about saying it They definitely don't want to say that loud because they don't want to be forced into anything so you just act real cool calm and casual and you say what's making you say that?
Just be curious about it and let them be in control of the gas pedal.
