Drawing the Line: How To Stop Enabling Someone Else's Alcoholism/Addiction
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[00:00:00] What you think is enabling probably really isn't and what you think isn't enabling probably really is. In fact, by the end of this video, a lot of you guys who are watching, who are family members, who have addicted loved ones, alcohol, drugs, whatever, you're going to be thinking, Holy crap. I think I am enabling.
I need to get control of that, but we're going to have to learn how to think about it differently. Let me tell you a little story. I would say about six weeks ago, I was going to do a podcast, not on this podcast, but on someone else's podcast. I was talking to this guy who created this recovery app.
It was his podcast. The recovery app is called lucid. You guys should check it out. It's pretty cool. They have in there. It's like a great recovery community. Anyways, that's not the story. So I was talking to this guy who was sharing he's in recovery. He was like so much cooler than me.
People in recovery are always so cool. He had the cool, accent, the cool hat, the cool clothes, and then there's like me, anyways, He's talking about his own recovery story, and he's talking about how When he finally decided to get clean and sober [00:01:00] and this is the story that he tells and he saw it one way But I saw it Like a completely different way and I don't know the guy like literally I know five minutes of his story.
So what do I know? But He tells the story about how you know, he was addicted He was doing all this stuff, right and he kept getting arrested and he got arrested and he got put in jail multiple times and every single time his dad would come up and bail him out and he talked about what a sweet loving kind dad he had and he said but he was just enabling me he would come and bail me out Every single time and finally about I don't know like the fifth time he got arrested You know, he calls dad come get me or whatever and dad said no you're on your own I'm not going to bail you out.
And so this guy who's telling me this story. He says, you know My parents really just enabled for such a long time, it wasn't until they quit enabling that I decided to get sober I said Maybe, but here's what I think. This is just my total theory, right? My guess is if, when this [00:02:00] guy got put in jail, all the.
Four or five times before dad had refused to bail him out the first time Dad had refused to bail him out the second time what I think would have happened I don't think he would have got sober sooner. I think he would have stayed in denial Longer and here's why I think that because the first time he did I don't know what he did Arrested but the first time he did whatever it was to get arrested He's definitely not going to be thinking to himself.
I have a drug problem. I need to clean up my life He's going to be thinking of some bull blah blah, whatever, he's just going to have like a story in his head And i'm not telling you should bail your kid out every time But I just want you to learn to think of this differently, but the dad if the dad wouldn't have bailed him out He would have just built this big resentment.
I can't believe you let your kid rot in jail. What kind of father are you? That's all he was going to be able to think about, right? He's just going to be able to think about you know how My own dad did me wrong. My own mom won't come get me, right? And if they would have played that hard line every time, the whole time, what really happens, and you [00:03:00] know how I know this?
Because I'm the one that's sitting in the therapy room talking to people who are still actively using this. It's my job to help people want to get clean and sober and I know what they're thinking because I know what they're telling me. All they're talking to me about is their family and how mad at their family they are.
And what would happen would be they stay stuck in that victim mentality, they stay in this power struggle, like almost just like I'm refusing to do what's good for me, just Despite you at some points because they're so freaking angry at you because they feel like you've done them wrong. They feel like it's not fair.
They feel like you're trying to control them. They feel like you're always negative and criticizing them and hurting their self esteem and abusing them. I'm serious. This is what they think. What I think worked about this guy's story is dad played nice guy the whole time and I'm sure that was enabling to some degree, but when dad finally said no, guess what happened?
This guy knew Without a shadow of doubt it was him. He might have said it [00:04:00] but there is no way this guy is going to not realize what the problem is. See, most of you think that enabling involves giving people who have addictions money or giving them a place to live or bailing them out of jail.
And to some degree, you're right. That is enabling, but that's not the most enabling thing. The most enabling thing is when you allow yourself to get in this bad guy role, because that's the thing usually that's preventing the person from seeing they have a problem because they're so busy. Projecting all of their own shame and bad feelings and guilt.
They're projecting it out onto the people around them. It's usually the parent or the spouse, the mom, the dad, like the closest person. And they're just putting it out there. And they stay stuck in that zone until it's not just until the consequences happen. The consequence has to happen, but it has to happen and it cannot be [00:05:00] your fault that it happened. That's what we're trying to get to.
You guys know, I say all the time, like you don't have to hit bottom to get better. You just have to know you will, right? The thing of it is like. When something bad happens to your addicted or alcoholic loved one, but they associate that bad thing with you, it does not compute that it is the addiction causing the problem.
They will almost always feel like it's a wife problem. It's a parent problem. It's a school problem. It's a boss problem. It's something else, right? And so what you have to do is you have to like, not be in that bad guy role it's fine to let those consequences happen. I'm not telling you, I know I'm going to get some hate.
I can't believe, you got to leave him in jail and. I do think there's a time and place for that for sure. But I think if your goal is to get your loved one out of denial, I'm literally giving you the formula for how to do it. Yes, the consequences have to happen, but they cannot be consequences that can be blamed on you.
So that means you [00:06:00] have to step back out of the way. And I know it's hard. I know it's against your instincts, and we're going to talk more about that in just a minute, but if you can step back out of the way and view your role, which I know is, I know this is against your instincts, pretend you're the counselor or pretend you're someone's mentor or even just their friend, right?
When you're in that capacity of a mentor, a friend, a counselor, You have the ability to support people with your words and with your actions But you don't have any ability to punish people and you don't really have any ability to actually Bail them out of things necessarily either your job is to support with time sometimes with Niceness and caring and empathy and stuff like that.
If you can put yourself in that supportive role They're going to figure this out so much faster. I mean you wouldn't Some of you guys you're struggling with an addicted loved one who you've been going around these circles this blame circle For 10 years and i'm telling you if you will get out of that circle [00:07:00] if your loved one's in denial And really the reason they're not changing is because they really don't think they have a problem and you get out of that circle They're going to figure it out pretty fast It doesn't mean it's going to go away Immediately, but they start figuring it out very quickly So in my mind The most enabling thing you can do is put yourself in that bad guy role a couple of Other scenarios that came up this week, I had a couple of family consults and and it was really more than one because I, this kind of thing, it comes up a lot, but, families feel guilty a lot.
Let's say, maybe your kid is it's so bad. They're living on the street and. They're calling you, they're hungry, they're cold, they need money for x, y, or z, or whatever. And it, and so I frequently get like the questions about is it okay to give them the money?
Should I not give them the money? Am I enabling, am I keeping them sick? Or should I help them? And how much? I get all these questions all the time. What's usually happening when I, when the person reaches out to me is the person is usually giving them the money, but When they give them the money, [00:08:00] they're nagging them about it.
They're lecturing them about how they should be getting their life together and get better. And I'm not going to keep doing this for you and you're going to need to get, you need to deal with yourself. And what did you spend that money on and show me the receipts. Okay. That's the part right there that I want you to stop doing in my mind.
I'm totally cool if you don't give them the money cause that's going to help them be uncomfortable. Let them figure that out. I'm totally cool if you give them the money what you don't want to do is that middle ground thing Because now you're getting the double enable right now. You're giving them the money which is making them not realize that their life is unmanageable.
So you're reducing the unmanageability in their life and you're Increasing your status as the bad guy role as the family member, which is just like a big distraction for them to focus on. It's your fault. Somebody can be on the street homeless from drugs or alcohol and if you interact with them that way, guess what?
Their problems, the reason they're hungry and cold is because you didn't give them the money. And that's the difference in when you can [00:09:00] change the way that you interact it shifts the dynamic pretty quickly. Now, sometimes, in the story about when you have a kid living on the street or a brother or sister or something like that this getting out of the backyard doesn't necessarily fix it as quickly because they're not usually in denial that bad.
They usually know that they have an addiction, but by the time they've lived on the street, they've literally gotten accustomed to it. It's become their norm. And I know that is like crazy to think of but in their mind they just build tolerance. It becomes their norm and it doesn't quite get their attention.
And and in a lot of cases, it's it's not worth it to get sober once they get to that point. I actually feel like dealing with people in denial, that's the better situation. I'd rather have someone in denial because that can be fixed. Denial will go away because there will come a point where there is no mistaking it, where there is no confusion One way or the other there will be that point What you can do as a [00:10:00] family member is you can just decide whether you want it to happen faster or slower Based on how you react you're not controlling that person, but you can speed it up by how you interact with that person Let me tell you guys another story.
This is the amber origin story I was thinking about this and people always ask me about my origin story like when i'm on those podcasts and stuff and i'm like I don't have that best of origin story, which is psyche because most addiction counselors They have the best origin stories and i'm super Jealous about it, but my origin story isn't so much about why I became an addiction counselor.
I have a story but it's not that exciting, honestly. But let me tell you the story about how I Learned this method that I teach you guys when I was first an addiction counselor I really didn't know much about what I was doing I know i've told y'all that before and in my sort of first jobs It was working with teenagers that had substance abuse problems.
And then after that I worked on like an adult detox unit, but nonetheless I would be Dealing with these people who had addictions or their adults or kids and it was really hard at first, but eventually I figured out[00:11:00] How to build a relationship with them and I could get along with them Okay, Like I was probably better at it than most as far as getting like young people to actually even want to show up And come actually to like at the time was running intensive outpatient so the fact that I created a relationship with these kids enough that they showed up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for three hours at a time, even after they graduated the program, because I developed this mentor thing, and I said if you graduate, you're still doing good, you can come back and be a mentor, and those mentors would come back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for three hours to be a mentor, and that was purely nothing but the power of the relationships.
But so I could get them to come because I could get them be like, yeah I like to talk to Amber because they like because they show up they tell me how horrible you are I'll be like, I know man, that's terrible and they'll be like, I like that Amber. She gets me right so I can do that part But what was happening?
was Y'all don't get mad at me. Y'all know. I love you. But y'all be messing me up because I as an addiction counselor can't get [00:12:00] anywhere when You're behind the scenes sabotaging me and I know it's not your fault and it's not your fault and it's i'm not telling you to control it but what i'm telling you is you don't realize it, but you're literally paying for your loved one to go talk to these counselors, to go to these treatment centers.
Some of you are paying 30, 000 to make your loved one go to a treatment center before they're ready. And that's such a waste of money. Okay. And time. They don't have to really want to go to treatment, but they have to know they have a problem at least. And so you've got to at least get them to that point.
So what would happen would be, I would work with these kids every time something would happen. I'll get all these phone calls constantly from these. Parents, these spouses who are literally like telling me every bad thing this person did. I felt like I was like the principal's office, like teachers were just like sending me like, bad notes and it would just be like, oh, my gosh, what are my people done now?
My people are always in trouble and I'm constantly getting these reports and. It's not so much that I don't believe them. I know that the reports are true. Like I know it's happening But I know that the person that i'm dealing with [00:13:00] Has absolutely zero insight into why it's happening because all they see is that you're the problem and that's all they will talk to me about and so Eventually, I got so worried about this dynamic.
Most treatment centers and addiction counselors They don't have to deal with y'all family members and it makes it easy because i've learned how to get along with addicts they're easy Y'all are hard and even if what you're doing with them is not working.
They're not mad at you Because they didn't really want that to work. Anyway, so you get along fine with the people have the addiction problems It's you guys that are hard. You guys are calling me up. You're telling me everything you're like talking to me with your desperation You're telling me like my husband is he's traumatizing my kids.
He's doing all these things and my kid, you know all these things and it's like this pressure and i'm like You're putting this pressure on me and you're sabotaging me behind the scenes and I finally like That's it. I need some help here. And so that's when I Recruited some parents. I started to help train a few parents All right You know just secretly behind the scenes giving them scoop not the confidential scoop But I would say do this don't do that do this don't do that and they [00:14:00] got pretty good at it And then we developed the parent mentor program And so then these parents started mentoring the other parents and once we got that system in alignment Then the system starts working.
First it's just you got to get them to want to come. So that took me a while to figure out, but I did figure that out. But then in order to get them to want to get better, it's the family piece I needed to come into alignment. And I just want you to understand, please hear me when I say, I'm not saying that the reason they have this problem is because of you, but I'm saying the reason they're in denial about this problem, you could be contributing to.
I know you don't mean to. I'm an enabler to listen. I'm super codependent. Most addiction counselors wouldn't even have took y'all's calls. They just say it's complicated interest. I can't even talk to y'all, but I felt that pressure. I felt like I needed to do something, but I also knew that I needed some things to change at home.
So the people I was working with, the kids, the adults, whatever, they could like, see that there's a problem. And it wasn't until that family component, Came on board that really we started to see a lot of change and shift in [00:15:00] people getting clean and getting sober and these days because once I started youtube, You guys are figuring this out so much faster and it's so awesome So by the time like your loved ones call me up where they're in my office It's just awesome because y'all done all the work and I just get to sit there and be the good guy and there are like most of the time these days when people call like people get in our strength space program, they're usually already sober and if they're not, they've already decided to get sober because you know how they got there because you got them there because you did the work.
And and I'm not saying it has to be me. It could be any treatment person, any sponsor, coach, treatment center, whatever. It doesn't have to be me. I don't have room. I can't see all of them. But in my mind, if you can set me up for volleyball, I can spike that ball over. Okay. And if we can work as a team.
Then we can figure that out. And I think it also helps too, because without the family involvement number one, I can't make the changes that I need to make with the person that I'm working with, but also then y'all stay mad at me because y'all like, why isn't this [00:16:00] working? I'm paying y'all. They're not getting better.
Why are they not getting better? Why am I even sending them up there? Because you feel like it's not even working when once I got. Out of the treatment center facility and then I created the hopeful families model and then I got like a whole family counseling team. Now, we really had a good system going right?
So now I got Campbell and Kim on board and then we just did it like lawyering and I would work with the addictive person and they would work with the family and we would get both things happening simultaneously and it just works so much smoother. But these days, most of you guys are putting in the work beforehand.
And so literally by the time the person gets to me to treatment, wherever they're like ready. And honestly, addiction treatment, it really isn't that hard. People know what they need to do to get sober. That's not hard. I'll help a little bit with that. I might say I think this, you might be missing this or that or something like that.
But honestly, the hard part is just getting them to want to get sober. And I can do that, but it takes a long time. It's a lot of money to pay someone to [00:17:00] do all that motivational interviewing and stuff, which. I don't mind doing but i'm just telling you the system works a thousand times better if everybody's working in concert And I know I tell y'all that all the time this thing about not being the bad guy But and I feel guilty about it because I hear from Campbell and Kim how y'all are being treated.
I feel like it's wrong of me to even say that to you. This person is treating you like crap They're like not holding up their end of the responsibilities And then i'm coming on here and telling you be nice to them and give them compliments And laugh at their jokes and stuff like that. And that's just completely not fair.
I was thinking about it. I was like, dude, I get mad when I feel like my husband's not helping take out the trash and I'm thinking like, I do everything around here. I'm just like building resentments up in my head when he's not like helping with the laundry or something. So I hear you I understand that it is completely 1000 percent not fair what I asked you to do, but hear me when I say it will work.
If you're still in that bad guy role They're going to keep fighting with you as long [00:18:00] as you let that fight keep going on and getting out of it's not that hard This past couple weeks we've been doing our No more, mr. bad guy challenge in our members only group.
And that was probably one of my favorite things we've done with the members so far because Every day, you get like a new little assignment and then people come back in and post oh This is what I said, and this is what they did and it was so fun for me to get in there and read those and probably it was like more exciting for me than it was for you guys who were doing it because You don't even know how powerful those little moves are and a lot of times you don't get a super huge reaction from them at first because They still don't trust you.
So even if they, want to smile at you, they're not going to because they're still a little mad at you. But I know when I read these comments, what you're really doing. So you're building that relationship, you're building that positive rapport, you're building that trust, and then you guys get excited about it.
And it's just little bitty small things like in the No More Mr. Bad guy challenge, it's like literally, And then I give you some instructions on how to do that, right? Like literally laugh at the jokes and I give you some instructions, right? It's [00:19:00] almost like this sounds crazy. This sounds bad, but it's almost like the way you might interact if you're dating someone, it's a little bit flirty. It's just Oh, I like you. You're funny. You're interesting or whatever. It changes their brain chemistry is what it does. So it's more than psychologically. They stop viewing you as the bad guy that happens but it also changes their brain chemistry and when you're dealing addicted loved one Their brain chemistry is crazy.
They can't get dopamines from anything. But if you can interact just right There's only one thing more powerful than addiction and that is connection And it's because of what happens in the brain chemicals. If you can get those little serotonins going, and those little oxytocins, and those little dopamines going, that will actually, believe it or not, override the high that comes from the substance.
And if they're addicted, what they're experiencing is that high is not even that fun anymore. So if this substance over here is not even that fun anymore, and My wife over here is actually great, she's wonderful. She treats me great. Love her She's fun or whatever Then what happens is they start looking at the [00:20:00] two things and they start saying i'm going to lose my whole family over this not worth it But if this family members this wife or whoever it is over here Yelling screaming nagging rightfully.
So people rightfully. So if you're over here doing this, they're looking at that substance thinking No, I'd rather have that. I'd rather have the alcohol. I'd rather have my weed, whatever it is. And you're like, how can you choose that over me? But you've got to look at the picture they're looking at.
What you're doing is you're just recreating the picture and you're making sure you're making it obvious for them, the choice that they're making. And they'll start to see it faster. They'll be like, I don't want to lose her. She's great. I don't, my mom, she's so good to me.
Like that, like the guy was telling you about from the recovery app. When that guy's dad finally did put the line down, because a lot of times, you're building the credibility. You're out of the bag already doing that. And a lot of times it does come to a point where you have to like, cash in your credit.
You have to call their hand. You have to put the line down. But if you've played all your cards right before that, you put that line down, it's going to work. If you, Don't have all your credibility built up and you haven't played all your [00:21:00] cards right and you put the line down It's going to backfire on you and then you're going to be super mad.
I can't believe they chose that over me, you know You're going to be super mad, but you got to look at what they're saying. You're mad. You're angry You make them feel terrible about themselves. And then you've got like The comfort of the substance over here And that's the choice they're looking at. So you want to shift that picture.
All right, I'm going to take some questions Let's see here getting married a long time says Going camping this weekend. How do I stay in peace when the friends get him? To drink with them close quarters. How do I stay out of the bad guy role while keeping my own peace? Once you can shift your mindset from I'm trying you just have to do this mindset shift You need to stop thinking I need to get them to quit drinking Okay and you need to shift your mindset to I need to get them to see and Decide and be motivated to quit drinking.
So it's not I need to get them to quit drinking It's I need to get them to see that they need to quit drinking and [00:22:00] so when you can make that shift and then they go and they drink and they make a total a hole out of themselves and You don't feel mad about it. You're like, okay, it's one step closer. One little piece of evidence for you to see and so what you want to do is you don't want to slow it down if you slow it down you get on the case and then he had and he only drinks a couple And here and there you just prolonged it like you missed an opportunity and once you flip that thinking You may want to like not be around them because they're like obnoxious or something So you may want to get some distance because you just don't enjoy it, which Is understandable, but the fact that they're drinking or maybe they over drink with their friends or something It's just not going to upset you because you're going to know that's exactly what we need to happen That's how we're going to get from this place to the next place.
Let's see here. RH says my Alcoholic loved one or addicted loved one is still trying to manage his drinking by cutting back And keeps talking to me about this in the past. I would tell him this isn't going to work Now i'm telling him he's doing great I like it. But am I enabling him doing this?
First of all, to answer your question is no, I don't think [00:23:00] you're enabling him. I think you're supporting him. And what you want to say is, and he may not be doing great all the time, but what you can compliment and reinforce and validate it you can say, I appreciate your willingness.
And you're like commitment to dealing with this problem because I know we're going to figure out one way or the other. Even if they're trying something that, is not working, and maybe they're sneak drinking and this and that, they're doing it, you might not want to say you're doing great because they're not doing great.
But what you want to say is I appreciate you being honest with me. I appreciate that. We can talk about this subject. I appreciate that. You're trying and see you're getting the good brain chemicals going, you getting in a good guy role and then. You have influence now there may come a point when he does this 25 times and you have to say okay That's it.
Like i'm going to need you to stop But when you call the hand like in poker when you call it You're going to be ready to call it and it's going to have a much better chance of working.
Let's see
Shristi says my addicted loved one says he wants to quit but can't stop Beyond day one has stopped seeing his drinking buddy [00:24:00] consumes recovery content joined cricket club seeing a doc He's not ready for rehab. He feels he might relapse even after how do I help him? Okay, dude, he's all over it. He's I call it circling he's not just got the change talk.
He is literally in like the action stages he's changing things. He's making moves He's just trying to figure out how to do it without going impatient and I get it but what's happening Is , because he's doing all that, he's really trying. Okay. And if he's not being able to get more than, a day or two put together, then it probably is a withdrawal issue and probably what it means, and I don't even know what the substance is, but probably what it means is it needs some kind of Help intervention, maybe medical help to detox off of the substance, because if he's doing all these things, he's really is putting in the effort.
He really is trying to change. And when people are really trying, but they just can't get there, it's in those 1st, few days. It's because they're like. They need help to withdraw. And so there are [00:25:00] occasionally doctors that will help you depend on the substance, do it on an outpatient basis. There are like executive programs where they'll come help you do it at home on an outpatient basis, but those are super expensive.
There are ways to do it, but sometimes they might have to go inpatient and. My guess is if he tries these other things, he's trying to do it without going inpatient enough times, he's probably going to come to terms with the fact that he needs to go in to give you medically detox, if nothing else. And yeah, it is possible he could relapse after, but that's not a good reason to not go.
He's doing all the right things. He just needs help with that tapering off, probably. Because probably, he gets a day, the anxiety goes crazy, he can't sleep, he's irritated everything goes crazy on the inside, and he just is Fallen back. That's my guess.
Sonja says my husband keeps sliding back. Can you help me understand why he keeps doing it knowing our marriage is in danger? I'm viewing it as intentional because he is aware of the state of our marriage. Should I? Not obviously sonny. I don't know your husband. I don't know your situation So anything I say on these lives is a guess.
Okay, but i'm just going to do my best [00:26:00] my guess is that either He still is has a lot of resentment towards you and honestly he's thinking whatever and might secretly like his addiction is telling him like I wish he would leave or whatever That could be happening but if you're not in that role and things are better between you guys then probably what is happening is He's lying to himself about being able to manage it.
So what could be happening is he's like telling himself, look, I'm just going to have a couple of drinks. She's not here. It's not going to hurt anybody. I'm just going to have 2 and then it gets out of control again. He may be like, not understanding that once I start, I can't stop and he's.
Figuring that out the hard way. So there could be a lot of reasons that's happening But that's my top two first guesses is that it's probably one of those, or he thinks I'm going to do it or whatever and it's not going to be that bad or i'm going to do it It's not going to hurt anybody i'm going to do it and she's not going to find out which is probably you know He could probably do it once and you're not found out but the unmanageability comes back so fast It becomes obvious pretty quick.
Is he choosing to disrespect me or my marriage? Probably not. It's on you [00:27:00] Probably he's figuring out his limits with the substances. He's convincing himself that he can manage it or do it different this time. And that there's a period where people go through all that before they figure out if I open this flood gate, it's going to be a flood.
It takes some trial and error to figure that out eli has a question here. I'm attempting to support a friend into recovery with your techniques. He can't make it more than two weeks every time and self sabotages. Let's see, there's more.
He, Tries once or twice a month, but slips every time is this still Active using or is this a genuine effort to quit? It's been on and off for six months now. I would say this is genuine effort if someone's getting more than Like more like what you're saying is just getting two three weeks sometimes a month and then sleeping if somebody's getting weeks at a time That takes some genuine effort.
That's not easy if somebody's like drinking and they take one day off and then they drink it back for it like that either means they're not trying or it [00:28:00] means that they're stuck in a withdrawal and they can't like we were talking about before But he's still in that active addiction, but he's also still probably actively trying and figuring it out.
It takes a bunch of time. I have never seen anybody figure this out on the first time, even the second time. It takes a minute. So probably he gets three or four weeks in. And maybe the issue is he's telling himself it's going to be different. Maybe the issue is he's not wanting to give up the people, places, and things.
And he's keeping himself triggered all the time. There could be a lot of reasons, but if somebody is getting weeks at a time, then they are definitely trying.
Let's see here.
All right, TeeFlo, finding heroin bags and needles in my place and lying about it though I was a drug user before, not H but other types. I told him he embarrasses me and I'm ashamed of him because of what he does and he brings it up all the time, but dang why can't he understand the truth and do something about it.
Now, TFLOW, if you had an addiction before, which is what you're telling me, is what you're saying here you have [00:29:00] more insight into this. If you were in your active addiction and someone was telling you, I'm embarrassed of you, , they're telling you all these harsh things, is that really going to make you see it faster?
Is that really going to make you want to change? It isn't. I understand that's not fair. And sometimes people in recovery, , can be the hardest hard asses. And it's crazy because people with addictions, they think, oh, I need someone who's in recovery to help me. But actually because some of those people who have already figured it out, they have less patience because they're like, Figure your crap out.
I figure my crap out, you figure your crap out. Because it's harder because you know exactly what's going on. You're watching it and you're like, yeah, this thing will work on me. And it's just insulting that they even try. But if you think back to your mindset when you were in that place, you would have done the same thing.
You would have lied when it was obvious. You would have done the same thing because that's what they do. I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just saying, if you're trying to do something about this problem, you got to think strategically, not emotionally. It's not fair. Do they deserve to hear it? Yes. Why can't they say the truth?
Because you don't have the [00:30:00] truth wrapped in the right wrapping. If you put the right wrapping on it, sometimes they open it up themselves. Okay. It's not fair, but it's true. Let's see. Nancy says, I found something positive and I acknowledge what he's trying to do to tell my son whenever I see him and he responds with a positive attitude. Yes And i'm glad you said that nancy because literally if nothing else happens If you do all of my techniques and the person never chooses to get sober You're still going to be glad you did it because you're going to have a clean heart You're going to know your side of the street is clean You're going to know that you've treated yourself and the other person with dignity and respect And in the end, if it doesn't work, you're going to be able to lay your head on the pillow.
So these techniques , it's going to give you the best chance of this other person get better, but it's definitely going to make you better. And I love that you said that Nancy.
Let's see here. Here's a question. Nana juice says, would you mind telling me the name of the recovery app again? Thanks for writing. Yes. This particular recovery app was called lucid. [00:31:00] And I think you can just download it right from the, like the recovery app, this, not the recovery app store, the app store on your phone or device or whatever and it has all these podcasts.
It has all these like chat conversations and support of one another. It's really great It's really grown to this big thing. I think it's awesome Eliza says, why does she insist it's not the drugs, it is everything else? It's either because it's either because she believes that, and if she believes that, then what we're talking about here is the way to go about getting that picture to clear up, or it's just because she's just saying that to you To deflect or just to deflect the responsibility.
Like she knows it is, but she's just deflecting, but it's one of those two reasons.
Toe tagger says, how do you approach a situation where you're in conflict between your head, your heart, and your intuition? You are awesome. Thank you. You're awesome too. Your head usually leads you right. Okay. And so I would listen to your head. I would think strategically about whatever it is, whatever decisions that you're having to make and [00:32:00] your heart will catch up.
Okay. So a lot of times you just have to fake it till you make it. You have to do the right things until the feeling comes along. But if you're going to choose, go with your head, your strategic knowledge. As far as intuition goes, if it has to do with dealing with your loved one You can probably trust your intuition that is happening or not happening.
Like you can trust your sensors Okay That there's a problem or not problem or they're in the good or they're in the bad But what you cannot trust your intuition on is how to interact with that piece of information so I want you to listen to your alarm bells as far as Something's happening.
Okay, there's a fire in the building,, but when the fire alarm goes off, it doesn't tell you what to do about it. Okay, that's where you got this to your head, which says proceed calmly to the nearest exit, right? You can use the sensors to tell you there's a problem, but use your head to just tell you what to do about it.
Child trustee says, what if an adult child is on the spectrum, not addicted to a substance or alcohol, just lack of communication and I always help. I need a little bit more [00:33:00] to really give you the best answer for that. But what I can tell you is that all the things I teach you guys in here, they're not special related to addiction.
They work in any situation. These techniques, if you'll do it the way I'm telling you, these techniques work to help. To help people change in general. Now, if you're dealing with someone on a spectrum, it's going to be even more difficult for this person to change. And you have to decide to like, when you're dealing with someone who has a real disability like that, like sometimes they just cannot do for themselves.
And when you're doing something they cannot do for themselves, I don't consider that enabling, right? When you're doing something that they can do for themselves. That's where you can get into the mess up line. And I don't know the dynamics, but you do. So you can probably maybe use that formula to help figure it out.
Daniel says me and my alcoholic boyfriend broke up Sunday. He was on a month bender and I couldn't take it anymore. I'm devastated. But do you think there's hope he will realize his. At some point he will realize it for sure. Denial always clears itself. I just don't [00:34:00] know how quickly because I don't know all the pieces to that story.
I don't know all the dynamics or what he's tried and hasn't tried. How far he's in to addiction, what he's addicted to, what your role is, but. Yeah, he will eventually figure that out.
Jennifer says, We all need a little amber in our ear reminding us of these tips. We've had enough and forget our own program. Can we get an app for that? I'm working on it. I'm working on it, right? We need an app for that. Some people tell me it's like a little amber ghost on their shoulder bothering them.
A lot of my clients, even the ones like trying to battle addiction, they'd be like, Oh yeah, I heard you little voice in my head bothering me. And I'm like, good. I sent the little ghost out there on purpose.
Rachel says, can I gradually implement not to give my homeless son money without being the bad guy? Yes you can. And if you. Been doing it all along. Probably gradually pulling it back is the way to do it. I call it like a taper plan, taper them back. Campbell is really good at that. If those of you who have an adult kid who you [00:35:00] feel like you're financially enabling too much, which would be a lot of people Campbell is the expert on that.
She is the boss mama for how to get a good taper plan in place on that. But yeah, I think tapering it back would be the right thing to do. But if you're not, hop in our membership and talk to Campbell about it, or make an appointment with Campbell, because she's the boss at this. She's really good at it.
She's better at it than me because I have too much of a heart for the addicted person, and then I cave. And then I like, probably enable them because I take up for them. So listen to her, not me, on that.
Minglin says, how do I bring up the strengthening program to my husband when he has an intention to stop drinking, by the way, your techniques totally work. And I believe what he did before about being his enemy. First of all, thank you for the sweet words. The the way I would do that is if you're wanting him to be in the strength program, like the strength coaching program with me, what I would do if I was you is I would say, Hey.
Don't know I don't know if he knows who I am if you've ever said like I watch this [00:36:00] lady's YouTube videos or Whatever. So if he already knows that you can say hey, you know that lady I watch her videos right there She has this like cool free like 30 day jumpstart series and sign him up for the 30 day jumpstart series It's free and that'll just be a little message that comes to his either You can have it go to your text or you can have it go to your email or whatever.
And it's just like a little like three minute recovery video. And it is just helping to keep them motivated and help them overcome roadblocks. And so hopefully he'll be able to do it by himself and that'll work. But if it doesn't work, like if he's not able to do it himself for whatever reasons, then he'll feel like he knows me a little bit already.
And he'll probably feel more willing to take that step and be like, all right, she's not that bad. I'll talk to her.
My AB just finished a bender. I told him I won't see him until he does something more than what he's doing for recovery videos. How can I navigate this? Other than sticking to what I said
instead of telling somebody like You can't live here unless you're in treatment or i'm not going to be in a relationship with you until You do x [00:37:00] y or z recovery thing like attend a meeting every day or get a sponsor something like that I wouldn't say that because what you're doing is you're setting up like the box checking which They can just be compliant with okay, they're showing up to the counselor or they're going to the meeting or they're doing whatever, but they're not really trying.
I would say I need you to figure this out and I need you to get this under control so it's not affecting my world. Your unmanageability is seeping over here into my life and I need you to figure that out one way or the other. So when you figure that out, then we can talk, I would say it nicer than I said it.
I can be sarcastic. Say that, but say it kind. That's what I would do. But I wouldn't make it contingent. I wouldn't tell him what he has to do to figure it out, I'd just say. Figure it out. They know what they need to do. Okay, if you could make them do all these things and it might not work, but deep down you're just saying hey fix it And they may try some things that won't work, but they know they'll figure that out pretty quick and they'll fix it if The motivations there.
This is from Torino. My addicted son lives at home in a separate [00:38:00] living space. It's cold here, but he's not working. And my mom does his laundry. He doesn't plan to work or stop using. I don't know what to do.
Let's see. He's too comfortable. So we need some consequences. Now, the consequence could be putting him out or making him pay rent or just allowing all the other unmanageability to come into his life. But I think what you're asking me mostly here is is it okay that he's like living in my house?
What you're saying is I don't want to put him out because it's cold. He's in the house or whatever. Is that bad? Yes, it probably is enabling but I would say I would want to know before I coach you on this too far as I would want to know What does he act like in the house? Is he kind? Is he humble?
Is he helpful in some kind of way? Is he a jerkball? Is he abusive to everybody? Is the whole house walking on eggshells? If those things are going on then you need to deal with Him not being in the house because of that other stuff. So there's ways of making that decision. Like I said, Campbell's the best at this.
If those of you who have young adults or even adult children, and you're trying to figure [00:39:00] out this financial thing and this living thing, Campbell's your girl.
Eliza says I cannot deal with the abusiveness. Adult daughter has gotten physical with me, so I had to draw a line. Thank you. That's exactly right, Eliza. Anything I tell you goes completely out the window when it comes to safety and abusiveness. Never allow someone to do that. I know that People who have addictions don't treat you great, but there's a difference between that and being physically abusive and being super verbally abusive.
I would never tell you to put up with that. Safety comes first. So says my son is 31. He's finally serious about getting clean. We're going to let him move in with us. What should we watch out for? And could you please explain boundaries? Oh, Lordy, sir. I don't want to get when they move back in with the family. I think that's a recipe for disaster. I know sometimes that there's no choice, but if there is any other choice, it's probably a better choice than letting them move back, but.
Sometimes when people come to me and they have the question, are they starting with counseling with us? They've already told them that and you're already in that road. So since you're already on that road, I would say we [00:40:00] have a thing in our office about no home contracts a lot of times in these situations what people do is they say, all right, you can come stay here, but These are the rules.
You have to go to a meeting every day. You have to do this. You have to do that. And they set up these home contracts. And I strongly advise against doing that, even though you could probably find a hundred other like addiction people to tell you to do that. But the reason I'm going to advise you against doing that is because that will always backfire on you.
Because what happens is If somebody has an addiction, no contract is going to make a whoopty do to them. Think about okay, I signed a piece of paper or I verbally agree to do something is not going to stop them or keep them in alignment. But let me tell you what they will do.
They will hold your butt to the contract. So what happens is it backfires on you because, maybe you know that they're using but they're passing their drug test and that was . The agreement you made with them or whatever they're like i'm passing my drug test. That's what you said What you're going to go back on what you said, they'll hold it against you They'll hold you to the line, but the contract won't hold them to line So I would not put any kind of contract in [00:41:00] place.
I would put more of a general statement out there That says hey, we love you. We support you. We're so proud of you for getting control of this problem But we're going to tell you we're not going to let that unmanageability come here and take over the house. So, we're going to need you to figure that out, know?
We're going to need you to be pleasant. I don't want you to put in a contract or a rule or anything or, we see parents that they go in these things and they're like, you have to take the trash out four times a week. It's like literally like this big giant long contract. Don't do that. You'll put yourself in a deadlock, not them.
And we have a whole boundaries playlist. So too. So check that out and you can see all the boundaries videos and it goes into more detail about all that stuff.
Let's see here.
Robin says, When someone is doubling down on drinking and saying they don't want to get sober. Is that just the process of them getting to bottom faster? Or is this an indication that they don't ever want to quit? Oh, listen everyone I've ever seen at one point or another said, I'll never quit.
I'm never going to rehab. I'm not going to do all this. I call that the big talk. Don't worry about that. Everyone says that it doesn't mean nothing. They can say that [00:42:00] today and tomorrow be crying on your shoulder and say, I need help, that's just big talk. Don't worry about it. I'm not saying don't worry about the problem.
I'm just saying like that statement should not bother you Like no katie. Is it okay to ask my husband what his plans are after his drug test happens later in the month? He stopped smoking marijuana early in december so he could pass the drug test He also cut Out on alcohol for now. Okay. So this is interesting.
So he stopped the one substance so he could pass the test I think you can ask him. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking him, but i'm trying to think through it. But
What I would ask him instead is how do you feel now that you stopped? I'd say, have you noticed any difference? Do you feel physically better? Because what you're doing when you're asking that question is you're calling his attention to his improvements. And so what you're doing is you're like pulling along his thinking in that direction.
And also this last little statement you have in here that he's cut back on alcohol tells me that he's realizing On some level, one or both of those substances is a problem because he doesn't need to pass a drug [00:43:00] test for the alcohol to get a job. There's some kind of level of insight here. So what I would do is just validate that he's made this change, ask him, does he notice a difference?
Is it as easy? Is it hard? What is it like what you thought it'd be? Just be curious about it because what, if you get him to say the right statements, like literally he's selling himself on staying stop, he's convincing himself, which is. So much more effective. All right, everybody, we are about out of time.
Oh yeah, Bri did ask me to tell you guys because she's the one that manages the calendar. We only have one spot left for the month of January for strengths recovery coaching. So if there's anybody out there that wants to be in the strengths recovery coaching program yourself, your loved one , our calendar so full that we've had to get it where you have to fill out like a little application and you can do that for your loved one if you want to, but there's one spot left for January and I think there's three for February. So if you guys interested, the link is in the description. You can fill out the application if you think you or your loved ones ready to do that, but you got to get the spots because they're gone. All right. We'll see you guys next time.
Thanks.
