What do Alcoholics/Addicts Think When You Set A Boundary?
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[00:00:00] Do you want to know what your addicted or alcoholic loved one is thinking when you set a boundary with them? I'm going to go ahead and warn you, I'm going to tell you what they're thinking , but you're probably not going to like it. Heck, I don't like it myself, okay? But we got to look at the truth.
We got to look at when we say things what are they thinking? How do they react? And we're going to take a look at, maybe, when you have to set boundaries, we're going to try to figure out what's the Best possible way to set it. Sometimes it's not going to go well, no matter what you do.
But let's try to set ourselves up for. The best outcome that we could get. Okay Now i've been working with people with substance abuse problems addictions for a very long time You guys know this like 22 years or something. I don't even know a long time makes me old and The reason I know what they're thinking is because i'm the person that they talk to I'm the person that they tell their frustrations to and most of those frustrations are about their family members.
I'm not saying it's right, but I want you to understand how they [00:01:00] interpret The things that you say and that you do yesterday, I was I was listening into the the members only live group coaching call that Kim and Campbell do. I normally always have a one 30 appointment on Wednesdays, but yesterday my one 30 had canceled or for some reason that I didn't have one.
And I was listening in on their coaching call cause that's when the coaching call is. And it was so interesting not to be the one on the call, like answering the questions, just to get to sit and listen. It was so nice because those girls were getting some serious hard questions thrown at them.
And most of the time, most of the questions are about boundaries because when you're dealing with an addicted or alcoholic loved one, that's. That's like the biggest battlefield is it's the boundaries issue. So we're always getting those kinds of questions. And whenever I was listening to these family members, they're asking Kim and Campbell, the reason I love Kim and Campbell is because they're the ones that look out for the family members.
Cause I literally noticed that as Kim and Campbell were given answers, like totally solid, healthy, good boundaries, I was thinking, [00:02:00] yeah, but you can say this to the addict, or you can say that. And I was like, in my head, defending the addictive person. And then I'm thinking. What the heck is wrong with you, Amber?
I'm like, are you demented? And I'm like, you know what? It's not so much that I'm like overly empathetic with the person who has addiction. I am, but that's not really where I come from. I'm coming from a place of understanding how they're going to hear this and how they're going to interpret and what their response is going to be.
I know we say this a lot on the channel, but we literally cannot say this enough. But even when I say it and you understand it, you're going to have to go deeper and you're going to have to be honest with yourself about this, okay? Boundaries are for you. They are not for the person who has the substance abuse problem.
You can build a fence around your backyard. You cannot build a fence around your neighbor's backyard. That's the way I like to think of it. And, a lot of times Even family members that listen to us and they're trying really hard to do everything we're saying. They'll say I'm setting this boundary and they'll put it under the guise of to protect myself when I know that a lot of times it's really just a disguised sneaky [00:03:00] way to think that they're going to get some kind of leverage or control over the situation.
I just need you guys to understand boundaries. Do not make people with addictions change. Okay. Consequences do not cure addiction. Boundaries will not cure addiction. Boundaries are necessary, but they're simply there to keep you safe. So if you think about it, like it's a fire and you're a firefighter, right?
The protective gear that firefighters wear. That doesn't make fires go away. It doesn't do anything to deal with the fire, but it does protect the fireman. Okay. And that's what I want you to think about your boundaries. Your boundaries are your fire suit. Now, how do you fight the fire? You protect yourself in the suit, right?
But how do you fight the fire? You fight the fire with water. And that's another thing important to remember. You can't fight fire with fire. You got to fight fire with water. Water, right? We got to douse it. We got to smother the oxygen out. And when it comes to addiction, we got to like starve out the addiction.
And what does the addiction [00:04:00] need to live? The addiction needs secrecy. It needs darkness. It needs resentment. It needs self pity. And above all else, it needs a villain. And what you're going to do to get rid of this addiction is you are going to Not provide it any of those things if you can help it and mostly You're not going to provide it the villain role and it's going to be really hard because the Addiction is going to do everything possible to put you in that villain role, but you're going to resist it.
So If your goal is simply 100 percent like protect yourself and your family and there's nothing wrong with that You can set whatever boundary you want to like I'm totally cool with it. But if your goal is I'm trying to get through to my addicted loved one, I'm trying to fight this fire, then I really, I need you guys to like, think differently about this.
I feel bad when I say this, but you need to have the least amount of boundaries possible. You need to fight the least amount of boundaries that you absolutely can. [00:05:00] Because. Every time you have to fight a boundary and you have to hold it and you have to do this, you will be in the villain role and there's nothing much you can do about it.
There's just, it's really hard to hold the boundary and not be in the villain role because I'm, we're about to get to it. I'm going to tell you what they think when you set these boundaries and you'll understand what I'm saying when I say the villain role. So you do need to do that. You always need to do that when it comes to safety, right?
If it comes to getting in the car with someone that's intoxicated and they're about to drive. I don't care what they think about that. I don't care if you're the villain. You're going to keep yourself safe. If it has to do with keeping your children safe, you always keep that boundary. And sometimes safety can also mean financial safety, right?
And emotional safety. But this is where we get into that gray area and where people get confused. Because maybe it's It's I'm protecting my financial safety. So I don't give my husband, who's the one that earns the money access to the bank account. And I just give him 10, 10 a day or whatever.
And you're saying that I'm protecting the [00:06:00] financial security, right? This is where it gets gray. And this is the part that requires you to get really honest with yourself because it's there is a need to keep your finances. Correct and safe. So probably you do need to figure out how to keep enough money to pay the bills and stuff like that safe And so but trying to control and give this daily allowance thing That's where I think you can be kidding yourself into saying I'm just protecting my finances but really what you're trying to do is you're trying to give them such little amount of money that they can't go and drugs or whatever it is.
That's, this is where it requires a lot of honesty. So let's take a look at when you set the boundaries, no matter how minimal, no matter how fair, no matter how low you like, literally you can have the bare minimal expectations. And they're not going to like it and they're not going to understand it. Okay, so you got to get okay with the fact They're not going to understand it.
They're not going to agree with it. They're going to be upset about it No matter how fair it is, just go ahead and prepare yourself for it That's why set the ones you got to set but remember every battle that you fight is putting you in the [00:07:00] villain role? So Pick the ones that are important. I've been working on the invisible intervention update lately.
I'm making the 3. 0 I'm super excited about it and all day I'm I've been keeping notes and because I'm making a video about which battles to fight which ones do you fight and which ones? Do you not fight? I'm going to go ahead and give you guys a little hint a little sneak peek. You do not fight about Grades.
You do not fight about whether someone goes to school or goes to work or brushes their hair. None of that. You got to get really clear if you are dealing with addiction. This is life or death and you're fighting the one battle and that is addiction and that's it and all the other crap. We're not doing that.
And it's hard because it is counter your instincts, right? We're not going to, we're just, but every time you fight a battle you lose a little bit of your power. If you're playing an old school video game and you can see the power control, like the life bar up there you need to save your life bar to fight the big monster.
Okay? All right. So when you set the boundaries, here's what they're thinking in their head. They're thinking,
They're all defensive thoughts most likely the first thought they have is that's a bunch of [00:08:00] BS. That's not fair. They're thinking Why do you always make such a big deal about everything you always? Catastrophize you always think the worst case scenario They're thinking why are you always so critical like literally you're always so negative to me All you ever do is point out the things I do wrong They're thinking you're overreacting.
They're thinking that you never notice any of the good things that they do. It's like, all you want to do is be on my case. I do all these other great things. I help with the kids. I do the dishes. I fold the laundry up, I took your mom to the doctor yesterday and this is what you want to be on my case about, right?
That's a big defensive thought. You want, they're going to be thinking. You know what? You're not perfect either. You always want to point out my flaws, but you got your own flaws too. You need to look in the mirror. They're thinking that. They're thinking, You're so freaking uptight. They're thinking, I can't stand you.
If they're your kid, they're thinking, Oh my god, I hate you. They're thinking that. Or they're [00:09:00] minimizing it. They're thinking, you know what? You're making a big deal out of this one thing, and it really could happen to anyone. Because normally when you go in to set a boundary, it's like after the final straw thing has happened, and so they realize that you're setting this boundary, they're connecting it something like, right?
They've asked you for money 400 times and you, and then you say, okay, I want to give this money, but this is it, they know that you're. Drawing this hard line in the sand because of some usually some specific incident and that's why they can minimize it away and make the one incident what they're going to do is they're going to look at that one incident and that's why they're going to be able to tell themselves like you're overreacting.
Okay, like everybody runs short on money every now and then, right? What they're not going to do is they're not going to be able to see the big picture. And there are a lot of reasons for that. And I have so many videos on here telling you biologically while it is psychologically while it is, this is not about beating up people with addictions.
This is about. Rescuing people with addictions. And in order to do that, absolutely must understand how they're going to think and how they're [00:10:00] going to react to the boundaries. One of the, one of the things I was doing this week working on the Invisible Intervention 3. 0, so I was going through all the.
Email consultations I've done this past year and I was reading through one of the email consultations and this email consultation was actually from a person with an alcohol problem. And they were telling me that they had a, they were like literally saying, Hey, I have an alcohol problem.
They were like giving me the whole history of everything that happened and how it got like bad in college and they've been through peers where they've done better and worse and how they were still functioning, but they totally knew that this was a big problem. Even though they had all of this insight and completely recognized that it's a problem.
In the email concept, it says, but my family member, they said the, they said, they think I'm an alcoholic, even though this person already told me they're alcoholic in every single way. And it's like all these defensive thoughts against the family. So even when they know you're right, okay, they're going to have these defensive thoughts.
It's a reflex. Okay. And you would do the same thing. People get on to [00:11:00] us and you're in trouble. You have defensive thoughts. It's just the way it is. And when you're dealing with someone who has an addiction those defensive thoughts are going to be even more irrational. So even in that email concept I was looking at, I thought it was interesting.
I was like, this person is completely owning every bit of it. But when the family said something to her about it, she was like, I can't believe you, it was like attitude in the email console. You could sell attitude even in writing, right? The defensiveness. Luckily, I think this person actually had insight into the fact that they had defensiveness, but I point that out just to really say even when they know you're right, they're not going to like it.
So don't be shocked when they don't get it. And for sure, completely, 100 percent, understand that they are not going to respect your boundary. Whatever boundary, no matter how minimal or how small or how, Absolutely nothing you ask of them, they're not going to do it. Like literally if it's you and you're dealing with an addicted kid, who's an adult or something and all you ask them to do is send you a text [00:12:00] once a week and just say, I'm alive, they won't do it.
They may do it once. They may do it the first week, but they won't do it consistently. And so it's if you lower your expectations, you lower the bar, you lower the bar, you lower the bar. And no matter how low you get, it's it's just I'm just asking you not to Curse at me.
That's it. I'm just asking you not to curse me. They're going to curse at you. Okay, so So just understand that is going to happen Which means when you set a boundary you need to be fully prepared for how you're going to hold the boundary You're responsible for your boundaries if your boundaries are getting broken.
It's not because they're breaking them It's because you're breaking them. It's your fence. You're responsible for your fence so you can't come and say that they're not respecting my boundaries. They're not following my boundaries. They're breaking my boundaries.
These are words that we use, but I need you to understand that only you can break your boundaries. So when you decide these boundaries, you need to understand. What you're going to do and whatever that is truly needs to be about [00:13:00] you. It does not need to be about punishment. Like sometimes it's maybe you're dating someone who has an alcohol problem and you're like I'm not going to be around you if you're drinking.
That's not a bad boundary to have. However, I want you to think about one of two ways. First of all, when you set that boundary, you're dang well setting it thinking in your mind that they're going to choose you over the alcohol. I'm telling you, like I told my client the other day, I said, you don't have to guess answers, I'm literally telling you the answers.
I'm going to tell you exactly what to say, giving you the answer. They're not going to do that. First of all, because they're going to think that's ridiculous and they're going to think it's not really going to know it anyway, and they're going to think it's only just a little bit occasionally, like they're just going to have all these minimization and rationalizations.
So what's going to happen is they're going to. Try to drink less and be around you and hope that you don't notice. That's what's going to happen at first. And then you are going to notice because you're hypervigilant and you're watching out for, and you freaking know, and they're not themselves. And then you're going to have to be fully prepared to not hang out with that person, which is probably going to mean [00:14:00] you're not going to hang out with them.
Either like only a tiny little bit or none at all because if you're dealing with someone who has alcohol problem they may not even have the capacity to not drink and be around you. So think through very clearly, am I ready, willing, and prepared to do this? Not if, when, you will have to back the boundary up.
So don't say something that you can't do either because sometimes you want to set a boundary. And you're just really not emotionally prepared to do it or you're literally incapable of doing it. Let's say this is your spouse and you say, I'm not going to be around you when you're drinking.
That can get a little hard. Can I, you can definitely go in your room. You can shut the door and depending on the other person and the personality and how they react to things they may follow you in there. You may literally have to. Leave your house. So if you set a boundary like that, which I'm not telling you can't set.
I'm just saying I just really want you to think these things through. And if your person gets aggressive when they drink or something then what you need to do is set the boundary around [00:15:00] the aggressiveness, not just the drinking. If what you're trying to do is help this other person get out of denial.
The reason is because in their mind, if they have one beer and then you're just like I'm just not going to be around you. You see what that does to your credibility? Make something. Oh my God. They're ridiculous, they're overreacting like it's one beer. Now. I know that it's not going to be one beer But they don't know that because they're being dishonest with themselves Because they have addiction and they're telling themselves it's going to be just one or two or something like that it's going to be more than that So when you say that when you set a boundary around that I might suggest you say I'm not going to be around you when you start getting in that aggressive state.
Or if I feel it come on, I'm just going to exit myself, right? And you're going to find a way to exit that situation. Because it's hard for even a person who has an addiction, addict or alcoholic, to think that's unreasonable. That you're not going to hang around when they get aggressive. If you tell it to them when they're super intoxicated, they may not get it.
But other than that. They're going to realize it. Okay, that's fair. Okay. So there are some [00:16:00] ways to set these boundaries that are slightly more effective and that's one of them set the boundary around the behavior, not or not just the behavior as far as drinking or using or whatever, but the unmanageability the problems that are the result of the drinking or using.
So you're. wherever that comes into your lane, wherever their addiction starts to come in your lane in a way that it is absolutely not okay, that's where you want to set your boundary. And you want to make it about the lane crossing, not necessarily about the substance, because they're going to understand that better.
If you just say something like, and this is a common if you're going to smoke weed or whatever it is, you can't live in this house. Okay. First of all, again, I think when you say that you're being dishonest to yourself and you're thinking that they're going to like, give up that weed because they want to have a place to live.
I'm telling you right now, they're not going to. Okay. They're going to sneak it in your house. Best case scenario, they're going to be doing it in the car, in the driveway. And they're. It's going to be close to the house, but I [00:17:00] seriously even doubt that would be the case. It's going to be in your house.
So be prepared to back it up. What you want to do is you want to set it around the unmanageability. So if they're using that substance crosses over into your lane like it's messing up your finances, it's like destroying your house, it's like making them aggressive, it's like whatever, they're not getting a job, they're not working, whatever it is.
That's what you want to set the boundary around. And you can set your boundary around anything that comes in your lane, but I'm going to strongly encourage you to be very selective. Set it where you must set it because every battle that you fight takes your little lifeline down. It's your credibility and your relationship.
It is the weapon that you have to, it is the water. It's the weapon that you have that can destroy addiction. It's the only thing, okay? No amount of horrible, bad things will destroy it. It's like you cannot put a fire out by shooting bullets at it. It's not going to work. Okay, might make it worse. You need the Credibility and the connection the relationship.
It's the only [00:18:00] thing that can beat it. So so Understand you have a budget of it right and you have to build that crap up takes a while to do and so when you fight the battles you lose a little bit of it. I want you to literally see the Mario Brothers life on or whatever it is. I don't think Mario has the life on who has the life on the old school video games That's what I want you to picture in your head.
It's like going down, you're fighting the big monster. All right. So other ways that you can deal with these boundary issues is realize you don't have to set a boundary around everything. I love Kim on our family coaches and our membership program. She calls, she has this thing and she calls it the information update.
Some of you guys may have seen the video she did about boundaries on the channel. She talked about information update. You don't have to say if this, then that every one of those things. It's really, it's a rule you're setting. It's it's a boundary and you got to back it up and it's a thing. Okay.
What actually works more effectively than setting that boundary, if you can create the relationship and the connection is you want them to feel something and you want them to feel [00:19:00] something that's not anger and resentment, but those other emotions are helpful. Empathy for you or understanding for you or maybe even a little guilt.
A little guilt can be good As long as you're not trying to put the over guilt on them and they know what's up and it's making them mad But so let me tell you information update You can say instead of saying if you lie to me one more time i'm leaving whatever that's the boundary you could do that or you could say When you lie to me, it makes me not be able to trust you anymore.
That's the natural consequence. Anytime you can allow the natural consequence to happen versus a punishment from you or anything that can be perceived as a punishment for you, from you, it's better, the more natural, the more better. Cause you do want them to get uncomfortable, but you want that uncomfortableness to not come from you because every time it comes from you, it puts you in the villain role and that.
feeds the addiction. It gives it the oxygen. But when there's uncomfortableness and you're not in that villain role, then that creates these it does [00:20:00] create these uncomfortableness emotions inside of them. But if you're in the good guy role, it helps them to think through and understand what's happening to them better.
So it's like my kid said to me one day, he was young, he was like, He's not even at the age, this was like several years ago. He was saying he loves to play this. What would you do game? And I was like, what would you do? What would you do? And he asked me this big, what would you do?
And I'm like, I don't know. He says, what would you do if I snuck out of the house and went down to my friend's house, even though you told me no, what would you do? And I think, he's waiting for me to say, oh, you would be so grounded, you would lose your video games or whatever.
I said, I guess I just would lose trust in you. And then he says what does that matter? What does that mean? What does that mean for you to trust me? I said if I lose trust in you, then like when you ask me to do stuff, I'm going to be a lot more likely to say no, like I'm going to be a lot less likely to let you be independent, let you do things on your own.
Cause I'm going to think I can't trust you every time I turn my back, like you're going to do something sneaky. I was like, trust is the most valuable thing you have. You don't want to lose that. So that's what I'm saying. So instead of saying. You're going to get grounded. You're going [00:21:00] to lose your xbox instead of putting the punishment out there.
You just the natural consequences If you lie and you sneak, you lose trust, which you want to say something that's heartfelt and that's genuine and that's real. So it's for example maybe one of the issues is every time you go out with your spouse, they do whatever too much and it feels really embarrassing.
It is perfectly fine to set a boundary of I'm not going to go to family functions with you anymore because I know you're going to drink And you're going to act full you're not going to say that part, but it's fine to say I'm not going to go to family functions But another thing that you can say that might be slightly more effective and it's not a boundary It's an information update as kim would call it is to say something like You know when that happens, I feel embarrassed, but actually more than that.
I just feel like Everybody's thinking that i'm an idiot and why do I put up with you? and It just makes me feel like a shame to myself. It makes me feel like I'm like, I'm stupid for staying, but I don't want to leave you and I love you. And, but then I feel like I'm just being stupid or I'm just being played.
So you're just going to be heartfelt and [00:22:00] genuine and honest. That is going to do a better job of getting through to them. You always protect yourself. If the fire gets too bad, you leave. The building, okay? But if you're still in there and you're still fighting this fire, these are the things that work better.
The heart belt, the boundaries that are really around the unmanageability, not the substance. That's going to do a better job of helping them to see. They're because they're just going to understand that's reasonable, right? If you set a boundary I'm not going to let you be around our kid if you're drinking, okay?
I understand that's appropriate boundary. I'm not telling you can't set that. But I want you to, I just want you to know what they're going to think. What they're going to think about that boundary is you're being ridiculous. Parents have drinks in front of their kids all the time. Oh my gosh, you have a glass of wine in front of our kid.
What is wrong with you? They're not going to see that. They're not going to understand that part that you understand, which is if I have one, I'm going to have 20, what you can say, that's maybe slightly more related to unmanageability is you can say, listen, if I [00:23:00] think you're getting too intoxicated, I'm going to take the kids, not take the kids forever, although that could happen but basically it's, I'm going to hire a babysitter instead of leave them, I'm going to do whatever I got to do to keep them safe.
If you if you're getting too intoxicated to watch the kids and it's not a good situation for them, I'm going to remove them rather than saying. If you do this, like they're going to think you're being overreactive. Cause it's if you just drink one beer, blah, blah, because they're not going to see the big picture.
Hopefully that's making sense. I know it's splitting hairs, but the splitting of these hairs really does make a big, huge difference. I'm going to take some questions from you. Here we go. Let's see. . Katie says, oh it's so hard to stay out of villain role. I get out of it again last week and then things are already 100 percent better.
See, I always say if you get out of villain role, it may not make them stop. the addiction right away, but it will fix the relationship pretty quick. The tension in the air will go down quick enough, and I appreciate you saying that, Katie.
Jennifer says, how do we get over failed boundary attempts? I thought I was creating healthy ones and they backfired. [00:24:00] Do I give it some time before trying it again another way? I guess I would want to know, like, how did it backfire? Did it backfire because it put you in the bad guy role? Did it backfire because you're, you just weren't able to hold the line for whatever reason?
If it backfired because you couldn't hold the line, it's not a matter of saying the boundary differently. It's about it's a matter of evaluating the boundary differently or creating a circumstance where you can protect yourself in some kind of way. So I need to know more. I need to know what is the failed boundary attempt?
And why did it fail? Shristi says, what happens when you practice craft? You're out of the bad guy role and your loved one gets abusive with you after drinking. You ask them to leave. Does it make any difference then? When someone is, gets abusive with you and they're dangerous, that's when you set the boundary.
Now, when they're intoxicating, you ask them to leave. I just want you to be This is definitely a boundary you need to set. So let me say that this is a boundary you need to set.[00:25:00] So don't question it. But what I'm going to say is you're going to say you want them to leave and if they're intoxicated, it may be very difficult for them to leave.
So you need to be prepared that you can leave and have a way to leave and an exit plan and a way out of the house and all that kind of stuff, because if they're drinking and they're aggressive, they're unreasonable. And it's not going to be easy to physically make them move. When I used to work on the adolescent unit in the hospital, if someone was, like, acting up crazy in the group or something, you could try to ask them to leave or remove themselves, and sometimes they wouldn't.
And if that happened, you literally had every other kid and yourself, and you step up, and everybody else removes themselves and leaves them in there. That's what you do. That's the boundary. The boundary is I am not going to subject myself when you're mean, when you're being aggressive, I'm just going to leave the situation.
I'm going to remove myself. So if it's, I can go to the bedroom and shut the door and that works, do that, but if it's, I need to leave, you need to figure out how to leave. And you may think that's unfair. Maybe they don't even work. You pay all those bills. It is [00:26:00] unfair, but you got to do what you got to do to protect yourself.
And she says, how do I join the membership? If you look in the description of this , there's a link to it talks about the group coaching and stuff, and you can join that. There's group coaching, there's advanced skills training, there's the challenges. Next month's challenge Campbell's going to do is about self care.
That's why I love Campbell and Kim because they just do a better job of looking after y'all. Look at me, I'm on here telling you, you can't even have your boundaries, your one thing left. They're better advocates for you guys. Let's see. Regina says, we went to counseling together.
He takes Coke and alcohol and she told him that for stopping Coke, he should stop drinking for a while to disassociate both. He never followed her advice. Is it a boundary to say that I don't feel comfortable to keep the relationship while he doesn't follow what she says, knowing that he cheated on me because of being high on coke, because so this is several pieces to this.
First of all, the advice from the counselor, it's good advice.[00:27:00] Because most of the time when somebody has like a cocaine problem, it goes hand in hand with drinking. And usually what they think is they think I don't have a drink problem. I just have a problem with the cocaine and I just need to stop that.
What they don't recognize is they can't. They're going to keep going back to it as long as they're drinking because drinking turns off the part of your brain that helps you remember that you're not doing coke anymore. Okay, so that's why it just doesn't work and it's just paired together. The advice was good.
Now, In the long run, ultimately, this person would just need to stop drinking. But what this counselor is doing is meeting them where they're at. Now you're asking, is it okay to set a boundary and say that you don't feel comfortable staying in the relationship unless they follow the counselor rules?
I don't know that I would word it that way, because you're saying, I'm not going to stay with you if you don't follow and do everything. They say that's not going to make sense to your person. Okay. So what you want to say is. I'm not going to be able to really trust you and let myself be fully Like present in this relationship with you as long as you're doing cope because in my mind I [00:28:00] associate that with you cheating And it keeps me constantly triggered and I don't even know if you'd want to be in a relationship with me like that because I'm not the greatest to be around when that happens.
So what you're saying is it's information update. What you're saying is as long as you're doing that, I am staying triggered and it's going to be very difficult for me to stay in this with you. It's not going to bring the best out in me, which is probably going to be bad for this relationship because I'm going to be constantly worried.
That's what I mean when I'm saying making it about the unmanageability, making it about the counselor rule. You're what you're trying to do is you're just trying to set the boundary, but you're trying to make it the counselor's fault and then what's going to happen is y'all going to go to counseling?
You're going to know he's used he's not going to want to tell the counselor that you're going to tell him and then he's going to start to see the counseling going to the principal's office and then he's going to stop doing that so Just let him know that and you don't have to necessarily say I can't stay in this relationship But you can say i'm not going to be able to trust you and really be in this with you.
And as long as it's happening, and then eventually you may have to decide he's not going to stop. So I'm going to, I'm going to leave this relationship, but you don't want to [00:29:00] do is set this boundary, the way you're saying it, Regina, and think to yourself he's going to know business and he's going to pick me over that.
Like we said, this boundary be a hundred percent fully prepared. Not if, but when you will have to hold that boundary.
Let's see.
Barb says hubby is in denial about his marijuana use. He's been through treatment three times and each time he tells me he did it for me and doesn't understand why it bothers me so much. He doesn't feel he has a problem. I've, Few things to say about this barb. One is I personally think treating this specific addiction is the hardest because they really don't understand why it is such a problem.
They have a lot of unmanageability, but they don't connect that unmanageability to the marijuana use. So the other thing I want to say about this is he's saying, I did it for you. That's great. That's a wonderful thing. He's trying to make you feel bad. Like I did it for you and it doesn't count.
It's not going to work. Cause I'm only doing it for you. Listen, I think that's a great reason. Everyone always says you have to do it for yourself. And I say,[00:30:00] no, there's no bad reason. There's no bad reason to get sober. Don't care what it is. They're all really good reasons.
And in fact, I suggest you have. Several, if possible, most people do have more than 1 and I think. Doing it for someone else that you love and care about should be one of the reasons to do it because honestly, they don't care if it's hurting them, right? They don't care if it's hurting their health or their lungs.
So doing it for yourself isn't enough doing it because you want to be a good husband doing it because you want to be a good father and you don't want that to affect your kids. That's a really good reason. Don't even turn that on. You say, I appreciate that. You're the best. Thank you for doing that.
You just take that and don't even feel bad about it. And I would say, yes, that's awesome. You're good husband for that. What you're going to want to do to get him out of denial though, is you're going to have to let the consequences happen that he cannot associate with you because if all the boundaries and all the consequences are coming from you, it makes it look like you're just being ridiculous and uptight and overly critical and all those things.
Yes. Like I said before, when I said, what are they thinking? That's what he's going to be thinking. So[00:31:00] it's just hard with this substance because it takes a while for the consequences to come, but don't worry. They will, you just have to back up and let them, but don't let it be associated with you if you're trying to get them out of denial,
let's see here, Chance says. Can you explain the bargaining phase goes, you explained multiple times the thinking behind it, but how should. We expect it to be going well, the bargaining phase, the good news about the bargaining phase is annoying as it is to you, the family member. For you, it feels oh, my God, they're never going to get this.
They said this 10 times. Can't they see it's not going to work. The good news is that. When they're in a bargaining phase, it means that they're aware on some level that there's some level of problem. They just don't have the solution just yet. So bargaining phase usually looks like the, let me cut it back.
Some version of I'm going to cut it back. And then it looks I'm only going to let myself do it on the weekends. And then it looks like only on special occasions. And then it looks [00:32:00] like let me just do a 30 day reset, right? These are progressive ways that people try to manage it.
If it's drinking, it's usually, let me just not drink this kind of alcohol. But, It's okay if I drink this kind of alcohol, like not the hard stuff, but just this, something like that. And it'll just be several attempts to manage the substance. And you don't want to try to stop that necessarily, because people have to prove to themselves that it's not going to be manageable.
So when someone is bargaining, the worst thing you can do is help them let that bargain work. So for example, If someone says to you, I think it'll be fine if I only never drink more than three beers at one time, okay? The worst thing you can do, are you listening to me? Y'all listen close, okay? Looking at you.
I'm giving you the lasers. That's what I'm saying. I'm giving you the lasers. If they've ordered three beers, you're at the restaurant, and they're about to order that fourth, it's for you to stop them. It's literally the worst thing, because what you're trying to make happen here, is you're trying to get them to see they're not sticking to their own [00:33:00] limits.
Don't help them stick to the limits. If they say, I'm not going to drink the hard alcohol anymore, and then they go back to, you need to let it happen, so they can see. That's how you get on the other side of it. It's, they can prove it themselves. So don't try to like, Manage their bargaining for them.
You're literally making the denial go longer. You're keeping on denial. You're putting yourself in the villain role. You're giving them distractions so that they don't learn their lessons. So I hope that helps a little bit. I can't tell you how long it will last. It depends on the person. Some people that are super self reflective will catch themselves doing it fast and they'll be more honest with themselves and they'll figure it out faster.
And other people, they just have a higher pain threshold and they have a lot more excuses and it takes a lot longer, but. It will go faster. If you don't try to make them keep to their bargains, what you want is for their bargains to fail and fail quickly. So we can get to the next bargain.
We get all these done, check them off list so we can get to the, okay. Like this just doesn't work for me stage. That's where you're trying to get.
Let's see here.[00:34:00]
And she says, my son is supposed to get up inpatient today or tomorrow. I want more on how to communicate so as not to trigger raw spots. I'm not sure how much support he will have from wife and daughter. I have a whole video on this but it's when someone's newly released from treatment or something like that, like how to interact with them There is a whole video on it. But essentially what I would say is just don't be weird Don't talk about it all the time. Don't be Acting all nervous around them. Just be cool. Just be yourself Just be regular because they're uptight and the last thing they need is to sense your uptightness and your over seriousness And your over worriedness it's going to they're going to feel all your anxiety and they're going to take that on so the best thing you can do is just Be regular, be casual, send messages that's you got this, but in a super casual way, I'd be like, dude, you got this.
I know you do not like a, I know you can beat this, honey. Don't do that. Then it just feels icky and it's just anxiety producing. So just be cool and casual and. And say, what do you need? I got you. You need a ride to the meeting. You need me to, whatever. If there's something you can do to help [00:35:00] support the recovery, then do that.
But just don't be weird about it. Let's see here.
Candace says Amber, how do you address the family dysfunction as the main cause of the client's addiction problems? Family refuses to accept their role in the trauma related to the addiction. Candace, are you an addiction counselor? Your wording makes me think that you're an addiction counselor because it just sounds like super clinical the way you're saying it.
Which is awesome. Here's the thing. If you're an addiction counselor, they're going to be talking to you about the family dysfunction. What you need to do as a support of this person is you need to not let them make that their excuse to keep using. Whether it's true or not, right? Number one, if you're talking about like family of origin dysfunction, even if they came from a F'd up family.
You're not doing anybody any favors by over sympathizing for them and saying, your family's not acting right. You can have that empathy for them, but. You can't put that responsibility on the family. In most cases, a lot of the family dysfunction that's happening is a reaction to the addiction.
So the person will come [00:36:00] and tell you like, my family's this, my family's that, like i've literally never dealt with a husband who did not tell me their wife was a crazy, controlling, always thinking the negative, worst case scenario, critical, doomsday, control freak. That's the story I can write it for you.
And a lot of times, That is the story because it's a reaction to the problem. And if you're trying to come at families by saying, you're the problem, you got to stop. I know you wouldn't say it that directly, but they don't want to hear that. It takes them off. It's insulting. It's almost like sometimes when you say you need to go to Al Anon, it can feel insulting to do that.
I can tell you the trick that I use that worked for me. It took me a long time. This was a lot of years for me to learn this when I used to say families. Hey, you need to get in here too. Because, you need to work on your stuff and just never work. Even if I said you need some support to, someone to care about that never worked either.
Because I don't want that because I don't want to have to go talk to one counselor, pay more money. This person's dang problem. What does work is this, what does work is if you say, Hey, I'm going to need you to [00:37:00] get involved because I'm going to need the real truth. And I know I'm not going to get the real truth.
So I'm going to need you to come up here and talk to my counselor, Campbell, my counselor, Kim. So I know what's up. They will come up and do that, like on two wheels, like tuck and roll out of the car so fast to come and tell you that. And then you can slide the other stuff into the back door. Yeah.
Don't just like what the person has an addiction. You want to build a rapport. You want to hear them. You want to have empathy. You want to give them the information they need, but through the back door. That was a long answer. I hope it was helpful. Lauren says my husband is not drinking. And is not working a program. I feel like I can never tell him small issues we're facing. He's overwhelmed so easily. Any ideas about how to communicate more effectively. I might make a process comment about it. It sounds like maybe the person is newly as sober.
I don't know. But you want to say, lately, I feel like every time I tell you something, it upsets you. It makes me feel like I can't. Tell you things I'm worried about how you're going to react. It's a process comment. And it might make them more aware of how they're just jumping or [00:38:00] getting irritated or, not handling it.
Whenever you bring small things to them. So I would do like an information update. Casual, nice tone, inquisitive a little bit in the way. It's I don't know what to do. Is it the time of day I approach you? Is it , my tone? Is there something I can do to do better? It's not so much because you really need the answer to that, but more you're trying to bring this to their awareness.
Emily says our 18 year old son lost his driver's license and it will cost him around 500 and he has not done anything to get a job. We will not bail him out. Any suggestions on what to do to encourage him? I don't think I would understand what you're saying. First of all, let me say good job for not paying the money.
Nice. You get a plus all stars for you, Emily. You don't want to like encouraging him to get a job. Isn't going to work or be effective. Okay. The only way someone. Is encouraged to get a job is because they need money and whatever's going on with your son it's not even worth the money and the time to be able to drive which tells me there's a problem here because who doesn't want to be able to drive [00:39:00] right if it's a 500 obstacle for most young adults like that between them and being able to drive They're going to figure that out one way or the other even if they don't like to work They're going to figure that out and he's not figuring it out.
So it makes me think You're on this channel for a reason. The only way to encourage someone to get a job is to let things get really uncomfortable for them and put their responsibilities on them. Let the world say you're going to have some money if you're going to function in this world.
So you got to back out of paying things for them, I guess is what I'm saying. That's the only way you're going to do that, but you are doing that with the driver's license thing, but. If he's addicted to something, that may not be enough. It might have to get more uncomfortable.
Let's see here.
Matt says I have been doing the CRAFT. That's the CRAFT method. That stands for Community Reinforcement and Family Therapy Training. For those of you who haven't heard this I do have some videos on the channel about it. We teach it in our Invisible Intervention. There's some books you can get about it.
For those of you who don't know what that is. Matt says, have been doing this method and hearing some change talk. Very nice. But my alcoholic is so afraid to face the mental [00:40:00] health issues that she's been masking. What type of help should I push her towards? When I see an opening to talk about it.
Okay, first of all gold stars for you Matt You're doing the craft method and it's working and I know you're doing it because you use the term change talk Which means you're like following along you get it. You're understanding the principles and This part right here, Matt, this is also why I know you're doing good, because you said, and I see an opening for it, which means that you're getting it.
You know that timing is so important. So first of all, you're doing awesome. Very good. Okay. The thing is this, when someone has trauma or anxiety or depression or all these other things that go along with addiction, the addiction is making it 450 times worse in a lot of cases, in the majority of cases, when people address the addiction, the mental health stuff like goes completely away or way down to manageable.
Okay. There are some cases like, we're dealing with PTSD or something like that, it doesn't go completely away, but it [00:41:00] reduces by a big giant percent. You cannot treat the mental health stuff and leave the addiction going. Cause some, sometimes it's easy to get in your mind and think They're addicted because this horrible thing happened to them in childhood, right?
I don't know that I would agree with you about that. Most people would agree with you about that. I don't know if I would, but it doesn't matter. What I can tell you is that you could go to every kind of trauma treatment, every kind of trauma intervention. But if somebody's pouring chemicals on their brain, it's not going to take.
So you have to address the addiction first. When you're saying, what am I pushing towards? What am I aiming at? You're aiming at addressing the addiction first and then or simultaneously if you want to, but you can't do the mental health before the addiction. It just doesn't work. Great question.
All right, everybody. We are out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you your questions get better and better every week. And I can literally tell you guys are following this advice. You just need a little tweak a little how do I apply this every now and then I can just Tell by the comments are just[00:42:00] on target and the language you're using and all that.
It just makes me excited. It makes my heart so happy.
