How Recovering Individuals Can Unintentionally Impede the Recovery Process for Others
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[00:00:00] Today, we're going to be conquering a very controversial topic. In fact, behind the scenes, Brie and Campbell, I've made them nervous by doing this topic today. They're like, Oh, Amber, I'm nervous for you. We're going to be confronting the myth about, that you've probably heard, only an addict can help another addict or alcoholic.
You can put those words in there either way. You hear this over and over again, but not only is it not true. And before you. Leave all the comments. Just at least listen to my points and then leave the comments. Okay, hear me out first. Not only is it not true that only an addict can help another addict, but in a lot of ways being in recovery can actually hinder you.
Now, I feel like a lot of people in recovery make excellent counselors. They make excellent recovery coaches. They make excellent sponsors. They just make excellent friends and mentors. , but I don't really know that it's the fact that they're in recovery that [00:01:00] makes them, the ones that are good, that makes them actually good at it.
So I want to break down for you, what are some of the limitations roadblocks that being in recovery might bring to you if you're trying to help other people in active addiction, how to maybe circumvent those roadblocks, and then talk about what are the skills necessary and the background necessary To help somebody who is in active addiction and I'll just go ahead and put a spoiler alert out there.
It's not that the person has to have a degree. It is not that the person has to have big training It's not that the person has to be in recovery. It's something else entirely I know you're probably going to have a lot of opinions about this and I want this to be a conversation But let's just be nice about it.
Okay. All right so I feel like a lot of what I do in my recovery coaching with people is like damage control, some of the things that have been said and done by people early in the process or by people who are in recovery [00:02:00] trying to help people early in the process. And what happens is they have a really bad experience up front with maybe going to a meeting or a counselor who's in recovery or recovery coach or something like that.
And it turns them off from the whole. Process and then I feel like by the time they get to me, I have to spend half the time just undoing that damage and giving them a totally different experience because now there's a even bigger roadblock in this person who's in the early process. Now, they are really resistant to the recovery process on top of all the regular resistance.
I don't have a problem and I don't need to change, all the regular ones. Okay. They don't, they're resistant to the idea of getting help for it. And I want to tell you some of the reasons why. In the not so long ago past, in order to be an addiction counselors were all in recovery. And I still think for the most part now, most addiction counselors are in recovery. And it used to be that if you were in recovery, let's say you had a year or so sober, you could go through the state or whatever and get a certification and [00:03:00] actually It's not really a license. It's more of a certification.
Be certified addiction counselor and work in treatment facilities and some of these other things. Whereas to be a counselor, you have to go to graduate school. You have to do pass all these licensure tests, all this stuff. Okay. But the thing of it is this, when we say only an addict can help another addict, usually I think what we're thinking.
And what we're assuming is that someone in recovery is going to empathize and understand my situation better. The other thing I think sometimes the assumption that we make when we're standing behind this belief is that someone who's in recovery, they know all the sneaky things that the other person that you're probably going to do, and they're going to be well aware of what your tricks are.
So that's why you need to have someone in recovery to help you.
In my experience, people in recovery, get ready for it, are the least empathetic to people struggling. Let's talk about why that is. I think for the [00:04:00] most part, the biggest reason why that is, is because it's hard not to project your story onto the other person. And it's hard not to project all the bad things that you did onto this other person.
The lies you told, the sneaks you snuck, the things you stole. And so you're looking at this person in active addiction through, Your lens and through your story. And a lot of times that leads you to make a lot of assumptions about the other person. And even if those assumptions are correct, going at them super directly.
And I want to give you some examples of that, like that have happened very recently to clients of mine. It's not going to be effective. It's going to backfire on you. Okay. So in reality, I think what really happens is. People who are in recovery, it's almost like they're more impatient with the person.
They rush the process and it can be I don't say this, but there's not, and I don't mean everyone in recovery, but [00:05:00] this happens a lot. There's this air of. I got my shit together. Why can't you? And so it's almost the opposite of that empathetic approach. It's almost the opposite of what people are thinking when they think are you in recovery?
I want someone in recovery. Because it's this, There's a little bit of a better than attitude there. Now you can get that from anybody. They don't have to be in recovery to give you that, but you see this a lot with people who are in recovery, trying to help other people, whether it's like professionally and it's their job or it could just be that they're like sponsor or they volunteer, or they're just trying to help a friend out or something like that.
You've got to, you've got to be able to separate. your story from the person that you're trying to help. And even if your story is exactly the same, having the same story as the other person doesn't necessarily make you good at Influencing other people because that's where the skill is. We'll talk more about that in just a minute. And I feel like especially people [00:06:00] who are doing, who are helping other people on a volunteer kind of basis, which is awesome they're even more impatient because they feel you, you hear statements a lot like, Hey, It's here when you want it, or you must not really want it because you didn't call me every day like I told you to, or something like that.
So they'll disqualify people super quickly instead of, when someone's on the edge and they're maybe ambivalent about getting sober, or they, maybe they're not sure if they're an addict or an alcoholic. Oftentimes people in recovery will rush to judgment and they'll say you're just not ready.
Come back when you want it. And you get that attitude when people are volunteering, not because they're bad people, but because, dude, I'm not getting paid for this. I'm trying to help you here. And there's a lot of other people I could be helping. There's some validity to that frustration and impatience. I totally get that. In fact, I had one of my Recovery coaching clients told me recently it's yes I have this recovery coach but I actually feel bad if I Like call him up or talk to him about my problems because I just feel like i'm putting that on him And I actually rather tell it to you because I know i'm paying you and I totally get that because [00:07:00] it's number one, I can tell you, cause I don't, he doesn't feel bad.
Like we have a time set, that's what we're there for. And he almost, even though he probably shouldn't have felt that way, he was just telling me he did feel that way. And I'm not saying that was warranted, but it was there nonetheless. Another thing that happens with people in recovery that can be pretty damaging is that they'll.
Repeat recovery phrases and advice that have been told to them. It's almost like a lot of times somebody's in with a problem and you don't know what the answer is. Somebody shares this big sharing group or something. And they're like struggling. And then all they can get back from the other people is it works.
If you work it. Keep coming back, keep it simple, stupid, right? And we just repeat these recovery phrases or almost like these little quips or sometimes even pieces of advice. And there's a couple of issues with that. Number one, sometimes that can feel a little bit insulting or frustrating when you're dealing with a very [00:08:00] complex and difficult situation.
And then somebody just throws this super like simplistic thing at you. Although most of the recovery phrases actually do agree with, and I think there's foundation. The other part of the problem is. Some of these recovery phrases don't even explain why it is or what it means or why it works if you work it, right?
So at least if you're going to throw those out if you can Explain to someone why I keep coming back why it works if you work it why I keep it simple stupid, you know Then people It makes more sense. And they feel like you took more time rather than just throwing some kind of slogan at them.
And I feel like that mostly happens when people don't know what to say, but it's actually okay to say, gosh, I don't know what to say. That's a tough situation. That's that in fact, that's the best thing you could say to a person in that. But you feel like you're supposed to have all the answers because you're in recovery.
You feel a pressure. And you just throw these things out, or you just give some piece of advice that someone gave you. And it's not that ever can't be helpful, but when it's just this pre packaged, quippy, [00:09:00] simplistic little thing, it can be a little insulting. So you have to be, you have to be careful with that. Another thing that happens is, Most of the time people in recovery, they don't believe anything you say, because they remember all the lies and the sneaks that went on with them. And they literally don't listen to you because they're just immediately assuming that you're being dishonest or that you're not humble or that you don't really mean it, and they are jumping to these conclusions. And like I said before, maybe some of those conclusions are correct, but the way it gets handled is pretty problematic. So I feel like people in recovery oftentimes just. They just struggle. They project their situation on which makes them more impatient, which makes them a little bit like better than and just because you're in recovery, you know what you did to get there, you don't necessarily know how to guide someone else there.
Now you [00:10:00] may know how to walk someone through the steps. If it's a 12 step program, the way that your sponsor walked you through them. But a lot of times the missing part is how do I get someone to want to do the steps? How do I get someone to come to NAACA, whatever, long enough to get a sponsor, right?
And it's not their job to do that. They're there, they're volunteers. So this is not, this is not me beating up anybody. Because if you're volunteering your help and you're doing the best you can, I would, I don't blame you for having the attitude of hey, Come and get it if you want it, right?
Because it's not like you're getting paid to do this by the hour. And a lot of times people that have been in recovery for a long time, they may be sponsoring a lot of people. And it can be exhausting and it can be frustrating when you're sponsoring all these people and you get asked every day to be a sponsor, but then 90 percent of them don't ever even call you back.
Or they don't ever do what you say. And then you get compassion fatigue, which makes the whole situation even worse and more complicated. And lastly, what I want to say. is that I find [00:11:00] people in recovery misremember their stories. I know you're going to think I'm crazy for saying that, but it's after they're sober for a while, they'll rewrite the history about how and why they're in recovery.
And all the things involved in what happened when they got sober. And the reason is because if you're in some kind of traditional recovery program, you hear these narratives all the time. I hit my bottom. I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just decided I was done. I just decided I want it for myself.
I finally woke up one day and I was just like, this is it. And they tell their stories according to these narratives that are really just Partially the slogans and things that are just passed on and on. They're not doing it on purpose. It's almost like a subconscious rewrite of the story.
But the thing of it is in all the years that I've been doing this, I'm always, I'm usually always, almost always on the very front end of the process. Usually I start out by working with someone who's still actively using and not even sure. If they [00:12:00] want to get sober, maybe not even sure if they have a problem at all.
And so I'm pretty familiar with how the process works and it doesn't happen that clean. It doesn't happen because they just hit a bottom and they got sick and tired and they just wanted it for themselves. It happens with a lot of trial and error. It happens with a lot of family support. It happens with a lot of back and forth.
It happens after you hit 50 bottoms, not one bottom. It happens when you realize you're out of ideas and you're just going to give up and do it someone else's way. There's a lot more that goes into it, but when people share their story, they fit it into this narrative that gets passed on and passed on.
And the frustrating thing about that is. I think it does damage because people listen to that and they think oh, that's not me Like I must not be ready to get sober because I don't 100 percent want it In fact, a lot of days I don't want it at all and I tell clients i'm like, hey, that's totally normal You just have to take the days where you do want it and you have to implement a plan for the days that You don't want it the idea that you have to 100 percent want it all the time every day It's [00:13:00] ridiculous.
You're going to have bad days. There are going to be days where you want to give up. There are going to be days where you question it. And so when you hear other people's story, you think, Oh, I must not have hit my bottom or gosh, I guess I just went to rehab because my wife said she was going to leave me.
I'm like, that's a great reason to go to rehab. That's fantastic. You know what? Because it means you value your family. These ideas that get passed on over and over, like you have to do it for yourself. These ideas are not truth. They're just ideas that get repeated over and over. There's usually a little seed of truth behind them, but we just throw these slogans at people in a way that doesn't quite make sense.
And I've seen people actually give up on recovery or decide that may, they just can't do it, or they must not be ready or something like that because their story doesn't fit in that narrative. And I'm like, Listen, let me promise you that person who's telling you that story, their story did not fit in that narrative either.
You hardly ever hear people tell their story and they talk about all the things that their [00:14:00] family did. If they say anything about what their family did, they'll say, they finally cut me off and I was done. That you'll hear that, but that's about it. You don't hear about all the. tries maybe that weren't the final try.
They leave all that out and they decide that those tries didn't work because they weren't ready and they didn't hit that bottom and they didn't want for themselves. But actually every single one of those tries was a very important step in the process to getting there to find in the long term recovery.
But we just erase those and that leaves people that are actively struggling and they're in that zone thinking that they can't do it or they're not doing it right. Or maybe it's not the right fit or maybe they don't have a problem because they're not fitting into that narrative that gets passed on and passed on.
Let me tell you a couple of stories that have happened very recently with some of my recovery coaching clients, I've got this i've got this one guy that I see and i've seen for a long time and this person's actually When I met this person, they were still in active addiction and they've been doing well [00:15:00] now for years actually.
And I still see them just for maintenance. But the way this person got to me is because they had, they were dating someone and that person they were dating started watching my videos and started doing all this stuff. And then, you work the process like the invisible intervention process and got this person to get help and went through the whole thing and he got better.
But meanwhile, this person's parents were not on board and they weren't really getting educated about what was happening. They were just ticked. But what they did do is the parents, they went and consulted some friend of a friend who was in recovery, who didn't even know. The person that's my client didn't know this person at all.
And this person who's a friend of a friend who's in recovery is basically passing on these kinds of things to the parents. And they're basically saying, you got to cut them off. You need to cut off anybody that's still enabling him. You need to play hard ball and was [00:16:00] giving them really terrible advice without even knowing this person.
Cause let me tell you what, if they didn't know this person, they know this person was a stubborn mule. And that was not going to work. And in fact, to this day, this person still does not and will not have a relationship with the parents because of how they handled it. And the parents still refuse.
to acknowledge that they handled it not great. And the whole thing was they were getting advice from someone who's in recovery. People in recovery tend to be a lot more hard ass on the situation. Okay. And that's not always, in fact, that's not usually the plan or methodology. That works. The only time that works is there's two, I guess there's two situations.
When you have a person who's like desperate to get better and they're really sure, and they're a hundred percent in, that can happen. But how often is that the case? Not much. They're willing to do whatever you tell them, and they're not going to question anything you say. And if you say jump, they're going to jump, right?
How often does that happen? The other time when that can [00:17:00] work, this sort of really hard approach is when you're working with people that are locked up in residential or inpatient treatment, because sometimes they're committed, sometimes they don't have anywhere to go. So you can push people in that setting harder, faster than you can if they have other options.
Because. They're basically locked up. So you can be super direct. You can go at it quick and dirty. And sometimes that can work, but it only works in those two situations. Other than that real hardcore harsh approach does not work. It makes people think. I don't want to go to a meeting. I don't want to talk to anybody about this.
I don't want to get help. It turns people off from the whole process because they feel completely misunderstood. Another one that happened real recently with a client was a client was early in the recovery process, was doing good, had been sober for, I don't know, a couple months or something like that, but was still having trouble with their spouse.
And this. Again, this was like a friend of somebody in the family or something [00:18:00] who's in recovery was going to try to like mediate between the person and the spouse. And what the person in recovery ended up doing was like going hardcore at my client by saying things like, you don't deserve your family.
Basically saying you're a low life lying, cheating, stealing piece of crap, and you need to repent. Like my person was already sober for two months. And I promise you, again, that was the worst possible thing way for them to come at the situation. It wasn't mediation at all. It was basically like projection of whatever their story was onto my client.
And then, like I said, then I have to have, then it takes me however many sessions to undo that mess, right? Because the person is just offensive. They want to give up. They're frustrated because they don't feel heard and understood. Good. Another situation recently was with a client of mine from recovery coaching who's also got a sponsor.
And I actually, this person really likes their sponsor and they [00:19:00] really like going to meetings. And I think this is fabulous. So I'm always like encouraging it and saying, Oh, that really helped you with this and that and the other. But several times in this process. Someone in the, their recovery group or their sponsor has really made a misstep as far as I'm concerned.
Let me tell you a couple of them. One of them was my client had, she had four or five months sober, I think. And she had. And she had told me like, I'm scared to tell my sponsor because I'm afraid my sponsor is going to drop me or make me start over or something like that. And I talked to her and I said, I don't think that's going to happen.
You guys, you have actually had a really good working relationship with this person. She was friends with this person at this point. They were really close. Her and the sponsor and I feel bad because I was like, no, I think it's good for you to come clean. Otherwise you're going to be holding this secret and then your sponsor is going to be saying, oh my gosh, I'm proud of you.
You got one year, but then you're going to feel guilty and you have a secret. And so I encouraged her to tell it. She tells it to the sponsor. And the [00:20:00] sponsor gets all you got to start over. You got to pick up a white chip and just started going hardcore. I don't necessarily know that she was like really mean about it, but she was really firm about it without any flexibility and sometimes telling people you got to start over, you got to pick up that white chip, it makes people feel defeated and it makes people actually just want to give up.
Whereas what I usually tell people is. Dude, it was one day. You sobered four months. We're not, oh, we're not starting over. We're picking it right up. Definitely not, we're not starting over. In fact, I'm just like, oh, absolutely not. And they usually like that idea better, right?
Because I'm like, our work is still there. You still know all the things. You still have developed all these skills. We are not starting over. That's my philosophy on it. Sometimes if someone's in a relapse for like months and months, It really is like starting over, but when someone just has a lapse and you tell them you got to pick up a white chip and you must have not worked your steps right and it's because you didn't call me every day or something like that.
Which it [00:21:00] wasn't because of any of those reasons. It's just frustrating and it turns the person off and away from the entire recovery process. Not only that, but it makes it where this person definitely doesn't want to tell the truth anymore to their sponsor. What's the chances if this person has another relapse, they're going to tell that sponsor.
About none, right? So now you've closed off the trust in the relationship. Now, if the sponsor might have said, Hey, I think it'd be good for you to pick up a white chip. Here's what I'm thinking about it. You don't have to, came at it a little bit more like flexibly. It might've worked out fine. This same client the one I was just talking about at one point in the recovery process had to go to the dentist and get some dental work. I don't know. Had a root canal or something big that was going to require like anesthesia and probably a little pain medicine after. Now this particular person was addicted to alcohol.
She was just telling the people in her group about this and the whole group was like, If you go and you do that and you take that medicine, you're going to pick up a white chip [00:22:00] again with the whole like, You can't do that. That's bad. And now you have to start all over. And Even after the meeting stopped, people were just like, and I know that they're doing it because they're worried about relapsing.
And there is a concern where anybody who's had any addiction to take any addictive substance, I'm with you, I'm concerned too, but I'm telling you it is not the way to go about doing it. Because again, all that does is make the person, make sure that person isn't going to tell it again. Make sure if that person does relapse and they do need help, there are a lot less likely to divulge that.
And divulging it is very important for the recovery process. A lot of you have heard me say addiction only lives in the dark. And if you're doing things that prevent people from being able to put the light on things, then it's harmful. Here's what you, here's what really makes someone good at helping people in recovery in early, in the early processes of,
What needs to be there, whether this person's in recovery or not, this person [00:23:00] needs to be somewhat wise about human behavior. They need to understand human behavior, not just addiction, because that's not the issue. Anybody can look at a drug addict and tell them what they need to do to get better. You don't need to be in recovery.
You don't need to be a counselor. You don't need any training, because the answer is, Just freaking stop. And ultimately that's the thing. You just got to freaking stop. That is the answer. But if you don't have skills at getting people to want us to hop or keeping people motivated to stop when it gets hard, if you don't understand human nature, you're not going to be good at helping people period end of story, no matter what the situation is, addiction or otherwise.
So when you're trying to figure out who, It's going to be good to help you or who's going to be good to help your loved one. This is what you're looking for. Now, sometimes the person in early recovery, they'll actually have the thought this person can't help me if they're not in recovery. But actually, if you get them in front of the right [00:24:00] person, it is a non issue almost immediately because the right person is going to know how to build rapport, help this person feel heard and understood and trusted.
For example, one of the things that, that like we teach in our Invisible Intervention course and that I always do is it is very natural for someone who's very early in the process, they're going to have some ambivalence. They're going to have some outright resistance to some things. They're going to have some roadblocks and limitations.
And anytime a person in this situation verbalizes any of that, Their family and everyone else tends to say this is more important and you just need to forget about work for a while. And they just jump into pushing them into Getting rid of or ignoring or dismissing any of their hesitations, roadblocks, and resistance.
It's the worst thing to do because they feel unheard and now all they can think of is those roadblocks and resistance and now they're thinking you don't get me and I don't want to talk to you. What really does [00:25:00] work is for you to acknowledge and even agree with and empathize with their roadblocks, ambivalence, and resistance.
And when you do that, you know what, they almost always immediately say, yeah, but I really need to put this first. Yeah. But. I need to figure out how to make it work. Like they start to overcome their own roadblocks and resistance. If you can just acknowledge them, that's what I'm talking about.
When I say skill, understanding people and human behavior and how things like that work, you have to have skills at understanding motivation, understanding sort of psychological defense mechanisms. It is. Helping anyone make a change. The process is pretty much the same, whether it's addiction, getting out of a bad relationship anything. It's about these processes. It's not addiction specific. It's not knowing every single lie that's being told to you. In fact, you guys know, if you watch my videos, I say I don't even encourage you to call out all the lies. [00:26:00] Selectively pick the ones you're going to call out and have a reason why you're calling it out.
So I've seen people who were helped more. by people in their life, family members, who maybe never even knew that the person had an addiction, but they were a mentor or they were an influence and guided them and gave them advice and love and caring, empathy and all that stuff. And that was more effective than they even know there was an addiction.
And it helped the person make the choice to get better with their addiction. So I know that a lot of that flies in the face of this traditional thought about what's going to help. The traditional thought is it has to be someone in recovery. I do think if you're in recovery and you have these other skills, you definitely have a leg up.
Now you got you really good. If you can be in recovery and you have these skills, that's like Primo, perfect combination. But if you don't have the people skills, the recovery doesn't matter. And in fact, the person early recovery will just feel resentful towards you. They'll just feel like that you're looking [00:27:00] down on them.
They don't feel like you're empathizing with them when you don't have the people skills. It doesn't matter what you've been through, whether or not you understand them. Any of that, you have to be able to make people feel heard. If you can just stop and empathize with whatever this person is telling you, put yourself in their shoes, acknowledge their fears, frustrations, roadblocks, resistance, without freaking out yourself, you'll work much better.
The thing is you have to control this impulse inside of you that You have fears for them. You're scared of what's going to happen to them. And you're trying to press it too quickly. I do this too. And when I mess it up, it's almost always because I do this because I'm, because a lot of times I'll know one more time and the wife's leaving or the parents are done, they're cutting them off, something like that.
And then I'll push too fast because I'm like, Oh, I get nervous. And then I'm trying and then I mess it up. So it's not necessarily coming from a bad place, but there does need to be a level of. Self [00:28:00] insight, being able to separate your story from theirs, being able to hear things that maybe you don't even agree with, being able to acknowledge people's roadblocks resistance.
Like when someone says I just don't think 12 steps for me and maybe 12 steps away, you got set over being able to just hear that and be like, Hey, maybe not and be cool with that. The person is actually a lot more likely to accept 12 step if you can do that. As always, there are links and resources in the description. If you want to figure out how to work with us, or if you just want some free resources or. It's all in the description.
All right, Rhi, what do we got? Glendi says, it sounds as if you may be suggesting that support groups are not so supportive. No, I'm really not suggesting that. It really depends on . The personalities of the people in the group, groups are almost like people, like a collection of people, forms of personality.
And you can go to two different, maybe Al Anon groups or something and get a totally different experience. And so when my [00:29:00] clients come back and they say, I hated that meeting and say, Oh, it must not have been the right meeting for you. Maybe this other meeting would be best for you. So it's not that I don't like support groups.
It's just that it depends on the attitude. And the beliefs in the people in that support group and how they either try to help or not help. Ashley Roberts says, if the addict doesn't have to get sober for themselves, how could they maintain long term sobriety if they feel like they're doing it for someone else?
This is a really good question. I'm glad you're asking it. Most of the time, almost all the time, people get sober for an external reason. And in my mind, there's no bad reason to do it. If you're doing it to avoid going to jail, that's just smart thinking in my book. If you're doing it because you don't want to lose custody of your kids.
Thank you. That's awesome. If you're doing it because you don't want to lose your job, whatever it is, people. usually get sober because they're backed into some kind of corner. Now, after they are sober for a period of time, they actually realize they like it better. They actually realize the grass [00:30:00] is greener over here.
I'm really glad I did this. And then at some point, They do start staying sober for themselves, but the initial, what brings people in the door or why they're making the choice is usually because they're back in some kind of corner. And that's cool. In fact, a lot of times that's helpful because early in the process, there'll be days where they don't want it.
And if they're only doing it for themselves, that's the thing least likely to keep them there. But if they know they're going to get thrown in jail, or they're going to lose their kids or their wife's going to leave or something like that'll hold them solid on those hard days. So early in the process.
I think it's totally fine when it's an external reason. Question. What are good signs that someone is taking recovery seriously, even if they aren't doing a 12 step program or is that a thing? That is definitely a thing. People, there's a lot of ways to get sober.
You do not have to do 12 step. I'm a 12 step fan. I'm not against 12 step at all. And most of the people I know personally that are in recovery did it through 12 steps, so I'm not against it. But I think. You can [00:31:00] tell someone is serious because. They're taking any kind of action steps. They clearly have insight.
They're changing their behaviors. When people are changing their behaviors, even if they want to admit it, they're taking it serious. Sometimes people just don't want to admit it that they know they had this problem because they told you a hundred times that they did it. So they just don't want to admit it to you.
But when you see behaviors start to change, they're taking it serious.
Mail says, it's so true. My addicted loved one did not go back to AA because someone cussed at him saying he needs to change himself first. He didn't even go back after that day, which was disappointing. Cussed at him? That doesn't usually happen. Wow. Yeah, that's not good. Debbie says so basically what you're saying is stay empathetic no matter what.
Yeah. Yes And if you're if you can be empathetic and you're in recovery You can be better empathetic because then you can say yeah, man I've been there before and then you give a story about how not that your situation is same But you felt like they felt I remember when I first [00:32:00] started going to meetings, I hated meetings too you can say something like that. So if you can combine the two, now you got the sweet spot. Robin says, question, son is dual diagnosis. Now he is willing to do therapy. He has bipolar disorder in addition to addiction, for which he is in recovery. Addiction counselor, okay. This is a good question, Robin.
Almost all addiction counselors if they went to counseling school, like if you get somebody who's just in recovery and maybe they have a peer support specialist certificate or something, probably not. But if you're dealing with a real counselor, most addiction counselors, know how to deal with depression, anxiety, ADHD, because almost everyone who comes into recovery has those, has some kind of other issue going on.
Bipolar is, it would be somewhere in the middle about whether or not the person knows a lot about bipolar, but for the most part, I want to say, okay, usually a counselor will tell you [00:33:00] when something's out of their league because they don't. Want something, don't want the liability of something falls through the cracks.
So they'll say, Hey, I can help you with this, but you need to see somebody else for this. They'll usually tell you. So
Allison says, how can you help someone who's had a bad experience in rehab with all the things you mentioned about unhelpful volunteers and recovering addicts, but no people skills. The best thing you do is you just empathize with that situation by saying something like, dude, I know you tried. That was a big freaking step.
You went in there and you got treated like crap. I don't blame you. So if you just. Acknowledge that roadblock, that reluctance or resistance and have empathy for it. They'll start to figure out how to overcome that resistance because they'll be like I got to do something, right? And maybe it's not go back to that rehab.
Maybe it's go somewhere else or try a different method or something like that. But the first thing to do is just acknowledge don't try to push against it. Don't try to say, but not every place is like that. And, don't, Fight it, just go with it, and the person will overcome the objection.
Megan says, question, husband's first week of PHP, [00:34:00] which stands for personal hospitalization program, for cocaine addiction. He has already used. How big of a deal is this, or is it normal? It's not abnormal. It's definitely not abnormal. People early in the process are still struggling.
They're still figuring out how to get sober. Some programs deal with that better than other programs, though. It depends on the philosophy of the program. And the other thing it depends on is whether or not a person's continued use puts other people at Because when you do Things like PHP and you have people in groups, you have to think about the safety of the group.
Is it a pretty normal thing to happen? Yes. How the center will deal or not deal with that depends. Shristi says, my husband read ups after six months of sobriety. He did have a few slip ups, but never liked this one. He's been binge drinking for three or four days. He's asking me To lock him again. Like last time when I leave for work, everything was [00:35:00] better, but now I just feel disconnected. What do I do?
Is what you're saying is they're asking you to baby, to basically sit home and babysit them while they, Get sober. I think that's what you're saying. Like they're asking you to take leave from work and sit with them. I think that's a double edged sword. Sometimes we have people who like literally they decide they're going to detox like once a month and then they call their loved one in and to sit with them and it's a horrific process and it becomes ridiculous for the family member.
And so at some point you may want to set a limit on that because. It triggers you, it's exhausting. It makes you scared, all these other different things. And usually it's not very pleasant. They're not great when they're in that period. So I don't know whether or not you want to do this, but I would take the idea that he's asking you to do it as a sign one of those like change signs that we talk about on this channel.
Like it's a sign that they're trying to figure out how to get sober. So it's a good sign that he's asking you to do that. But you may want to think about whether or not you're going to do that.
Emily says, I was in Al Anon for several years. [00:36:00] At first, I was mad that I had to do the work when my husband had the problem, but Al Anon was so supportive, and I learned a lot about myself and strengthened. Yeah, and it's totally normal to be mad about that. In fact, the first thing I say to people, family members, I'm like, isn't this completely messed up?
You're coming to counseling, and they're the one causing the problems, and when you Meet that resistance. If you verbalize that to someone, they'll get over that hump super quick because now they know that, and now we can move on from it. So yeah, people usually will move forward, but that's totally normal and valid feeling.
So you got to, and I want you to remember that feel that thought and feeling when your loved one resists something about recovery, when they don't like something, just be like, yeah, totally valid. I get it. My daughter, Is in crisis and mentally unwell. She's living with addicts as she left three weeks ago. She's been high functioning addict who lost everything. Will she want recovery again? She lost her marriage and hasn't seen her son and loves him immensely [00:37:00] in in six months. This is when a situation, Kat, like people talk about, like you have to hit bottom, like she's hitting bottom.
I don't necessarily know that makes. a person more likely to get recovery. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but in some incidences, when they get really hopeless and they've lost everything, it's harder for them to get motivated for recovery because they tell themselves like, I've already messed it up.
I've done the damage. I've burned the bridge. I've screwed my life up. And then they just want to give into it. So I can't say, I'm not saying that she's not going to want recovery again. But what I am saying is the further, the more people lose, the harder it is to motivate them, which is the opposite of the sort of standard thinking on the topic.
