How To Handle Relapse Without Losing Hope
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[00:00:00] Relapse is frustrating and heartbreaking for both the person who's had the relapse and for the family member and friends supporting them. It's easy for everybody to get down in the dumps and feel hopeless and start to feel like it's never going to get better or everything's ruined. We can get into that catastrophe thinking, but relapse doesn't have to be the end of the story.
I don't wanna say it's inevitable, because if you think it's inevitable, then you might be psychologically setting yourself up for relapse. But I will say that, hey, it happens and you can actually take those moments of relapse to learn, grow, and make you stronger. The key is not getting so down on yourself that you end up keeping yourself.
Or your loved one stuck in a relapse cycle. [00:01:00] The more you beat yourself up about it, the more panicked you get. The more you tell yourself you've ruined everything, the more likely you are to stay stuck in that relapse. In fact, all of that sort of beat you up thinking is really just your addiction, trying to convince you that you can't beat it and that you might as well just give into it and that it's just who you are.
But that's not really the truth. If you're in a relapse, guess what that means. It means that there's a time period where you weren't engaging in your addictive behavior, and probably if you're really upset with yourself about this relapse, it was probably a good significant period of time.
Messing up. But the key is we've got to figure out what was I doing right? What was going right? And you do have to analyze it and figure out what was going wrong, but not in the kind of way where we just wanna throw our hands up and give up on the [00:02:00] situation. That's really the worst way to respond to a relapse.
I call it. The efforts, you just get so mad, you throw your hands in the air, you think to yourself, I've already screwed it up, might as well take it all the way. I'm having to start over. I'm going to have to pick up a white chip, or everybody's going to be mad at me. But honestly, that's not usually the case.
And every day in my office, I work with people who have their ups and downs, and most of the time when they've had good recovery, they can pull themselves out of relapse fairly quickly. And almost always they come out. More insightful, more motivated, and even more committed to making recovery work for them, and for their family.
The key is how do you frame it in your mind? You can't just gloss over it and say, oh, it doesn't matter. It's no big deal you can't just dismiss it away that [00:03:00] easily because it's likely to keep happening if you don't spend a, at least a little bit of time analyzing what happened.
It can, maybe it feels like relapse happened just impulsively or suddenly in the moment, but chances are it was probably building up in some kind of way. Maybe you weren't conscious of it. Maybe you didn't even, you weren't even thinking about drinking, using gambling or whatever it is, but you felt yourself getting more and more stressed or more frustrated or you catch yourself feeling like you're missing out or that you're being left out of situations, or you catch yourself feeling resentful that you have an addiction problem and you can't do these things that you feel like everyone else gets to do and you don't.
Those are what we call relapse warning signs. When, I have a client that comes in who struggle with a relapse, [00:04:00] I like to really just get into our critical thinking minds and just break it down and hash it out. I did that a couple of times just today. I talked to someone today who I hadn't seen in several months, quite a while, actually maybe even a year or longer.
And first thing I said is, Hey, good to talk to you. What's going on in your life? And they told me like a lot of really great progress that they had made since I talked to them. I was actually super impressed, but then they said, but I haven't been sober the whole time. And they, you could tell that they just had this really guilty look on their face and they were expecting me to be all disappointed.
And I said, all right let's hear about it. What happened? And this person started describing to me a couple of relapses that they had, but in a time span of over. Over two years, there had been two relapses, each of which lasted about a day and a half or two days. [00:05:00] And what happens for this person and for so many people, it's I'm never going to get over this.
Why do I always keep going back to it? Why do I keep going back to it every time my family's back is turned? And what I did in that session was try to help that person realize okay, yeah, let's talk about what happened and why. Were you planning it the whole time? How bad was it? How did you get it to stop?
Did you tell on yourself? And we worked really hard on yeah, identifying where things were falling through the cracks, but also identifying all of the positive things about the situation. Like for example, it didn't last that long. How come it didn't last that long? And then. Having that person explain to me how they got it to stop and what they did and how they actually total themselves when they didn't even have to do that.
And we looked at how even when that person was in relapse, their recovery was actually still working. Because [00:06:00] here's the thing, and I was telling a client this just yesterday, client was saying to me, yeah, but I really wanted to relapse. Like I think I might have relapsed. If I didn't have that accountability, I think I might have relapsed.
And I said, Hey, you might have, maybe you would've relapsed. But here lemme tell you what would've happened because you have really good insight now and you have really good recovery. So here's the thing. If you had relapsed, it might have went on for a little bit of time.
It might have got bad and you might regret it, but the whole time, all that insight and knowledge and like the little ghost of Amber is going to be haunting you and you're going to know exactly what you're doing. It won't ever be the same again after you've had real recovery because you can't unknow what you know, and you can run from the truth.
But after you've had some recovery, it's almost it's almost like you're living in one of those shows where you're narrating yourself, like wonder years or something, and you'll be [00:07:00] watching yourself in this relapse and almost like a sports commentator play byplay. Okay. Yeah. There you did.
Oh, you said it again. It's almost like you have this dissociated view where it's really not that fun anymore because you don't get that like blissful denial and that excitement because the whole time is happening. You're mad at yourself you're arguing with yourself, you're beating yourself up, and you're.
You can't help but be honest about exactly what's happening. It's like you're watching yourself make these bad decisions, knowing that they're bad decisions the whole time. And so I was telling this client, I was like, it's too late now. You done got the recovery in you, so if it would've happened, it wouldn't have lasted long because here's what would've went down.
Here's what would've been going through your mind. And that person was like, yeah, you're probably right. And I think once we can view things through that lens, people get out of that mindset of, oh, relapse is inevitable and no one ever makes it out of this. If you [00:08:00] can put the things that you've learned back into play, the faster the better, obviously, because the faster you catch a relapse, the easier it is to get out of it.
Stop beating yourself up. Hey, let's just get in damage control mode here, and yeah let's talk about it. Let's figure out what went wrong. Let's process it and let's move on, and let's get back to doing whatever was working for you before. I do think it's helpful to have a conversation with someone else about it.
Now, maybe that's your family member. Maybe that's your counselor, your coach, your sponsor, your best friend in recovery, somebody. I do think it's helpful to talk to somebody and say it actually out loud, admit it out loud to someone else when you've had a relapse. The reason why that's so important is because when you just keep it all in your head, it's real easy to.[00:09:00]
Get back into rationalizing, minimizing denial, convincing yourself, oh, I had that relapse, but you know what, it didn't. It didn't last that long. I must not be addicted anymore. There's a difference between looking at what's going right and what your strengths are versus trying to totally dismiss it and use a relapse as a way to convince yourself.
Maybe it's different this time and that's why talking about it out loud with someone else who's knowledgeable, who's not going to be overly reactive, who's going to keep their cool and help you think it through, can help you actually find the insight and the learning from the situation so that you can come out of the other side.
Now, if you're on the support person side, you're the family member, you're the friend this is going to be probably more scary for you. Than it is for the person that's had the relapse. You're going to [00:10:00] be questioning yourself. I think they relapsed. Did they really? Or maybe, they relapsed, but they're not telling you, and you're wondering, should I bring it up?
Should I confront them? Meanwhile, in your own mind, you're spiraling into devastation because you're like, oh my gosh, we cannot go back here. I cannot do this again. Because probably you are living in hell for years waiting on someone to find recovery, and you're still feel like you constantly walking on eggshells, waiting for that shoe to drop.
And if a shoe does drop, it's just like desperation. It's just like pure panic. And sometimes we can get ourselves into a hopeless mindset, but I have found that. When the family member can keep their cool, keep their head on straight and respond to it, that will help the person who's [00:11:00] had the relapse actually come out of it faster.
A lot of times these days when I talk to people who've had relapse and I'll say, Ooh, does your family know? And they'll say either, yeah, they caught me, or, yeah, I told them, or whatever. I'll say, how'd they take it? A lot of times these days, and I think it's I give credit to all these family members out here who are doing things different and watch these videos and do other things, they're like, you know what?
They actually handled it pretty good. They're actually pretty calm and cool and collected. And what that does for the person is it helps the first person feel more hopeful and encouraged that they can fix it. But also it keeps the person from getting way too far into defensiveness because when an addict, or really anybody honestly gets into.
That defensive mode, they spend all of their emotional energy trying to justify what happened, minimize what happened, blame somebody else for what happened because they're trying to protect [00:12:00] themselves and we don't want them to be in protect themselves mode because that's the opposite thinking that we want.
We don't want them to be defensive and be defending what happened. We want them to be able to look at a situation and learn from it. And empathy. When we can show empathy towards people, it activates the learning part of the brain. Now, I know that all sounds logical when I'm saying it to you and you're thinking, yeah, that makes sense.
I get that. But it's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy because in order to pull this off, especially as a family member, you have to have jedi mind control as far as controlling your own emotional reactions to be a stabilizing force. And it's going to be hard because of course you're going to be scared, freaked out, panicked.
And the other person is probably coming with an energy that's not so great either. And if we just let. Their [00:13:00] panic. And your panic and their defensiveness. And your defensiveness get all tied up together. We're just going to spiral. And the relapse is going to happen longer because when someone's in an addicted state, hey, they just want a reason to keep going.
And a big old argument with you is a real good one, a good reason to keep going in their mind because they're just so focused on being mad at you, feeling sorry for themselves. They may be saying, screw you. A lot of times they may go out and just keep it going, just 'cause they're mad at you and somehow they think that's going to punish you or it's you can't control me.
And they just get that defensive posture back up. So the goal is for both sides to be able to stay out of that mindset because it doesn't have to go all the way back to how it was. The longer relapse goes on, the more likely it is that we're going to. Go back to not great. [00:14:00] But these days I feel like a lot of people are able to catch it pretty quickly.
They're able to be honest about it because they have someone that they feel like they can trust to tell and talk through it and learn from it, and move on. And get back to doing what works. We all have mess ups, and the thing that I like to explain to people is it's not so much we wanna focus on how much did you use?
Or how much did you drink? It's what you wanna focus when you're processing relapses on the thought patterns, the processes, thought processes that were having before, during, and after, because it's in the thought processes where the wisdom and the knowledge is, and sometimes just asking questions.
Brings to the surface. Like maybe it's something that they know happened, but they're not consciously aware of it. And when you ask questions about what were you thinking? Leading up to that, had you been having cravings, had you been really stressed? And it helps a [00:15:00] person become more aware of what actually led to the relapse and then being more aware of how they felt during the relapse and after, and how they pulled themselves out.
It it brings us back to a logical, objective, sound thinking kind of place so that we can pull ourselves out. When we get into that emotional place, we start making emotional decisions and it's usually not right decisions. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. Okay? It happens. You cannot ever unknow what you've know.
So if you've let's say you've been in an addictive pattern. And you had two days without using or the behavior or whatever it is, and then you fell back into it. I don't even know that I would call that a relapse because it's probably really just a continuation of addiction. 'cause you really didn't have enough time there.
What I'm talking about when I say relapse is more someone's had a significant [00:16:00] amount of time, they've had insight, they've been doing really well, they've been using skills, they've been, doing all the things and then they fall back. Once you've had that kind of insight and knowledge and support, I'm telling you, you can't unknow it.
It will be right there haunting you, digging you out of that relapse even when maybe you don't even want it to. But you know it, because once you've accepted it, it's in your heart and you can't, you just can't run from it that far. And when you try to, it is just not even that fun anymore. So eventually you're just like, this are not even fun anymore.
Why am I doing this? Because you know exactly how it's going to end. Because you know exactly what you're doing. You're backing your same pattern, you're thinking your same thoughts, you're making your same mistakes, and you can see the catastrophe coming for. 20 miles ahead. And as long as you don't give into, get into that, throw your arms up in the air and just give out, give up kind of mindset.
You can turn it [00:17:00] around even if it has gotten back as bad or worse than it was before, because you have the knowledge, the skills, the insight, usually even the supports in place, you've already dug yourself out of this hole. Once you know the map to get out, you have the tools to do it. You can dig out of it faster.
Don't convince yourself that you've ruined it and that you can't fix it and that you're never going to get it. Because if you had it once, you can have it again. Okay? Think of it like, like once you've sometimes think like once you've built a business, yes, something can happen. You could lose that.
But once you've built it once. It's going to be hard, but you know all the steps, you could do it again, right? It's the same way with recovery. You cannot unknow that stuff, so don't convince yourself of that. Use relapse as a learning moment, as a tool to get smarter and stronger and maybe [00:18:00] even more connected with your family.
You could use that to build trust by being honest and being vulnerable instead of defensive is the scariest part about it is talking to your family or your sponsor, or your counselor. That's really the scariest part because you already feel so bad and shameful and guilty. Just saying it out loud is so scary, but it's so important, and once you say it out loud, if it can be to a person who can respond to you in a positive way, you'll feel so much better.
It'll be like. A weight lifted off of your shoulders that you won't be carrying that burden around anymore, which is another one of the reasons why it's so important to talk about it now. If you either don't have anyone to talk to these kinds of things about, or maybe you have supports, but you don't always have them exactly right when you need them because [00:19:00] some, hey, sometimes these things happen at inconvenient times, then that's where it's a really good tool to have something like Amber ai, which is you.
If you guys follow me, you probably heard me talking about it a ton this week because it's launching this week. Amber ai, it's super exciting. It's an artificial intelligence that's been trained by. My methods, strategies and philosophies. And so if you're in a relapse and you're talking to Amber AI about it, she's going to talk to you exactly the way I would talk to you.
She's going to help keep you from getting down in the dumps. If you're the family member, she's going to help you know what to say to your loved one, whether you should tell them that or not know how you should bring it up. What encouraging words to use, because like I said, this can be a really emotional state, and sometimes it's really hard if you're in the relapse person and you're like, I need to tell my family, but I'm scared.
I'm scared they're going to throw me out or [00:20:00] divorce me, or take my kids away from me or send me back to treatment. Amber AI can help you figure out whether or not you should tell them, and if you're going to tell them how to tell them how much, to tell them how to do it without being defensive, how to damage control the situation.
It's just such a great tool to help you think through and make strategic decisions, especially when you're emotional. If you haven't heard me talk about Ambre or even see me demonstrate it, you'll probably get a chance to, if you stick around a little bit, we're going to take some questions and some comments and I'm going to answer some of them and we're going to let Amber AI answer some of them so you can see how that works.
And so we can see if her answers match my answers, right? We can see just how aligned she is and how she would handle your situation. The best thing about her, it's not just that you can ask her a question and get a amber answer, it's that she gets to know you, your feelings, [00:21:00] your strengths, your weaknesses, what works for you and what doesn't work for you.
The longer and the more that you work with her. The better she knows you. Just exactly if you were talking to me in person. The longer we talk, the better I know you. And it works. The same with Amber ai. It starts to understand you and your value systems and what matters to you most on a deep level.
And just like I would, she'll use those things to help find your motivation. She'll figure out what it is that you care about and help you reconnect to those things when you're in a bad place and when it's really hard or when it's the middle of the night or when the, what hits the fan and you're just not sure what to do.
That's the perfect kind of situation for Amber. I, and I'm not saying, that she's there to replace having a sponsor or a counselor or a coach or a, a group or whatever. But she can [00:22:00] sure be a helpful way to process those things. Either when you're scared to talk to someone in real life or you feel really embarrassed about it, or you're not sure you wanna admit it because it's an ai, you don't have to worry that what's going to get upset with you.
You don't have to worry. She's going to make you do anything. You don't have to worry. She's going to tell on you. It's like a safe place to process things, and it is. I just can't emphasize how important it is to process it. Literally, even just the idea of writing it out or typing it out or talking it out will help you make sense of the situation and figure it out so much faster than if you're just keeping it inside.
When we keep it inside, it starts to grow and snowball and get scarier and bigger, and it morphs into other bad decisions. But talking about it out loud is like. Turning the light on it, even if it's talking about it out loud to an ai, because it's allowing you to process the [00:23:00] situation and to have a sounding board and a system that can help pull you back on track, especially if you've been talking to her because she'll know you really well.
All right. For those of you're watching live, thanks for being here. I know it's in the evening and we've done some of these special lives this week because of the premiere of Ambria. And so it's cool because usually I do my lives on Thursdays at one and that's during the day, and so not everyone can come.
It's cool doing the evenings 'cause I see different names showing up here. We will still be doing our live tomorrow at the regular time, but it's cool to do it at night 'cause a lot of people maybe work or go to school and it gives you a chance to be here and join the conversation, ask questions and all that stuff.
All right, let's get to our chat. I have put in a description for you, the link to learn more about Amber ai. If you wanna try it out this week is the week to do it because there's like mega discounts because it's the launch week and that ends on Friday, so check it out. She'll still be there after Friday, but now will be the time to lock [00:24:00] in the good rate if you want to.
All right. Let's take some questions, some comments, some concerns. I see family Holly, here, you got lots of emojis going on. You got my attention with all the emojis. All right, let's say hello to people. Hey, Susan. Hey is it Pat? God Jr. Oh, I look like a vegan teacher. I used to be a teacher. Did you know that?
Before I was a counselor, I was a high school teacher for three years, worst three years of my life. That's how hard being a teacher is. It's harder than working in detox. I don't think I'd ever go back to that. That was so hard. But I never been vegan, so I'll take the teacher part, but the vegan part now I'm from the south.
It's just, I don't even know that I ever heard of a vegan until I moved to the city. I don't even think that was a thing where I'm from. All right, let's see here. Hey is it Tiara and Stephanie? Family Wahala. You got lots of emojis [00:25:00] here. Lydia's got a comment here about relapse. Let's see what Lydia's saying.
When my son relapsed thanks to you, I kept my cool and asked him to identify what he was feeling before he relapsed and my son just said, I don't know, which. Shut down the conversation. Is there more? Is there more to it? It's I bet there's more to this. I story when someone says, I don't know, sometimes it means, that they don't know. And you can say yes, sometimes it just happens, right? But you can help say what was going on before it happened? Had you been thinking about it? You can ask questions sometimes if you have a good enough relationship, you don't want it to feel like an interrogation. You want it to feel like you're just walking alongside of them being like, Hey, let's figure this out together.
We're in this together. Not like a what happened? What were you thinking? And why did you do that? It's a tone thing, it's a trust thing, but sometimes I don't know means I don't wanna talk about it. [00:26:00] So sometimes when my, I'm talking to a client and they say, I don't know, and I know that they really do know, I say is it really that you don't know?
Or is it more that you don't wanna talk about it? Because you can totally say, I don't wanna talk about it. That's a totally reasonable answer. And and a lot of times when I say that, they may say, yeah, I just don't wanna talk about it, or I'm just not ready yet. Or they may say maybe I know, but not all of it.
And it can open the conversation, but. I love the fact, Lydia, that you kept your cool, because even if the conversation got shut down, guess what didn't happen? It didn't blow up, it didn't get worse. You didn't get into a giant argument and back into defensiveness and back into an old spiral. So I call that a win especially for you, Lydia, because it's hard not to freak out when that happens because the reason we freak out is because their bad decisions affect our lives.
And so we're freaking out because we don't wanna go back to living the way we were living before. So yeah, [00:27:00] it's personal. It's personal. On both sides. There's a reason why you have all those strong emotions. Is it Sherry or Cherie? She says, how do I contact Amber ai? The link is in description. If you're not signed up, that'll tell you how to get signed up.
Once you're signed up then you just log in from our website, which is Family Recovery Academy, do online. If you've ever done any of our online courses or anything like that, then you have a login already and it says, my library, you open it up and she's right in there. You just click on her and it'll walk you through it.
There's the first thing that comes up is just some information about how it works and tips and tricks. And then you hit the next little button and you move on and you'll see a little, it'll say start a conversation and a little bar pops up and you can actually verbally talk to her like you would on the phone with someone.
Or you can text back and forth talking with her, or you can talk to text back and forth talking with her. It's really easy. [00:28:00] And honestly, if you didn't know it was an ai, you wouldn't know it was an AI because it's, it doesn't. Feel like a robot, like it responds to you, your emotions, not just the facts of what you're saying.
It's pretty cool. It's actually mind blowing if you ask me. I feel like she's way smarter than I am. Let's see. Hi, bill. Hello, Missy. I don't feel comfortable with a computer knowing me. It is weird to think about it, right? Feels Star Trek land or whatever. If you've ever tried it, like even if not even just tried Ry, but like any kind of ai like like chat, GDP or even like your your maps that you use in your car to guide your directions, that's an ai.
Trust me. If you're online, like you're online right now. The computer already knows you. Google knows everything about you already, and they're just using that information to try to [00:29:00] figure out how to keep you on their platforms longer or sell you stuff. At least with Ambry, she's there just to help you.
So if you go online, there's a way to get around the computer knowing you how many times you been online and like maybe you looked at some cute shoes, and then later in the day you're on a different website and they're like popping up an ad right there. It's too late for that. We're in 2025.
Let's see here. When a Missy says, when AI takes over humans, this will not seem like a good idea. I don't know. I've seen all the scary movies. It's interesting. I'm not saying there aren't any drawbacks to it. I'm not saying it's not perfect, but think about when the internet came out. What did people think about it?
Think about when cell phones came out. What did people think about it? Anytime there's a new advancement in technology, our first reaction is to be scared and skeptical and nervous about it. And there, there are reasons for that. I think we do have to be thoughtful about how [00:30:00] we venture into new territory, but we also have to be open-minded.
Think about people who maybe were like, I'm not going to get on that internet. I'm not going to use email. There was a time not that long ago when that was the case and that was the feeling. We're here. Whether we like it or not, it's happening there. You don't have to subscribe to an AI for an AI to be learning from you On every website, on every social media platform, there is an AI behind the scenes already learning everything about you.
If you're on YouTube, it's already happened. If you're on Facebook, it's done. Done. Let's see. Hey, Beth from Virginia. Hey, Christine. And Lydia says, I love Amber ai. She's like having a supportive friend with you all the time. Thank you. I love Amber ai. That's why I'm excited about it. I've created a lot of things.
I've never been as excited about anything as I am with Embryo because it's pretty impressive and amazing what [00:31:00] she can do. In fact, before I did this video, I said, told her, I said, I'm going to do this video. Can you help me come up with an outline? And she literally spit me out a whole outline for you.
And it was right on target. Hey mj. First time in the live chat. Glad you're here. Welcome, Missy from Louisiana. Hello. Hello. Kristen is here. Kristen says, I think it's an amazing resource. I'm not sure I'll need it now, but thank you. You're helping so many. Thank you for your support. Kristen. Missy says, if someone has been a hard alcoholic for 25 years, is it a lower success rate when they go to treatment?
This is a good question. I'm going to answer this one, Missy, and then I'm going to let Amber AI answer it, but don't worry it won't have your name on it 'cause I'm going to copy paste it in there from me so you don't have to worry. My answer to that would be no. I don't think that a person having 25 years has a lower success rate.
Because a lot of times when it's gone on [00:32:00] long enough, then it's gone on long enough for someone to realize sometimes that it's. It's bad and long enough for someone to have tried a lot of things already to fix it, and maybe, and a lot of times it makes them more ready to do something about it.
Actually, I think it's a lot harder to get people out of it who haven't been in it long enough, because when someone's only been struggling like a year or two, it's really hard to convince them that they have a problem. When someone's been struggling for a long time, they're already convinced. So if you think about it that way in some ways that can be helpful.
Now, it's easy for someone to convince themselves, oh, I've always been this way, and you can convince yourself that makes it less likely for you to get out. But I see people get out of this who've been drinking since they were 12 years old. I've seen people get out of this who stop drinking and stop being alcoholic when they're 22.
Yeah, it can happen no matter how long it's [00:33:00] been, but I wouldn't say it makes it less. That's my answer. ~Let's sue Amber, ask us. See, I'm going to copy paste it over there. Gimme one sec.~
~Oh, it's not going to let me copy paste it. I'll just type it in. We'll see what she says.~
~I can think I can share the screen with you so you can actually see how it works in person.~
~Hold on. Just taking me a second to manage my tech here. I picked the wrong screen to share.~
~Here we go.~
All right, this is what Ambre looks like. This is what looks like whenever you're inside the chat. So I'm going to type in here what you wrote, Missy, and we'll see what she says. Let's see here. If someone has been a hard alcoholic for 25 years,
is it a lower success rate?
They go to treatment. I've never asked her this question before, so we're going to find out together what she's going to say.
She's thinking, see the little three little dots there it goes. She says it's true. Someone who's been drinking 25 years may face more challenges in treatment, but it doesn't mean that success is off the table. The longer someone has been drinking. The more ingrained those habits [00:34:00] are psychologically and defense mechanism, it's not just about the physical dependency at that point.
It's about unraveling years of coping mechanisms, thought processes, and emotional triggers. That said, success in recovery depends more on the quality and duration of treatment and the length of time, more than the length of time someone has been drinking. For example, staying in treatment long enough for the brain to begin healing, for rational thinking to kick in is crucial.
Short term programs like five to seven days might not be enough with someone with a long history of alcohol use to make meaningful progress. Longer term treatment combined with ongoing support can make a huge difference and also. Motivation plays a big role. Even if someone initially enters treatment reluctantly, they can still succeed if they stick with it and engage in the process.
Recovery is absolutely possible even for those of decades of heavy drinking behind them. It just takes the right support, persistence, and time. What is your biggest concern about this? Is this someone you [00:35:00] know or are you just curious? So you could continue this conversation back and forth, Missy, but.
Amber AI is exactly right. If you want like statistics and research as far as chances of long-term success, it's a lot more tied to if someone does actually go into treatment, it's a lot more tied to how long they stay into treatment than it is to what they were using or why they went, even if it was they because they didn't want to.
And like I said, I think sometimes when someone has suffered longer, they're more ready to get better when someone hasn't done it long enough. I think that's actually harder. That's my personal opinion. And 'cause I've worked with young people for a long time, bef in my early in my career. Let's see, Beth says.
I am having a hard time setting boundaries with my daughter as far as coming to see kids. We just got custody of the children. We want to be sure [00:36:00] she has not drank because she wants the kids to come visit at her apartment. Beth, do you want me to run this by Amber? I, because I will. She says this can be tough, especially, I think what you're saying is it's more than just she wants to come over to your house and visit.
It's like you, she wants the kids to come visit her at her apartment. Honestly, and we'll see. We'll see what every anybody else says. But I, and especially if you got legal custody. If you got legal custody, then you probably had to go to court and prove there was like a substance abuse problem or something happened or whatever.
A lot of times when you, when it comes to custody and there's. The chance that one of the parents has a substance abuse problem, they'll require some kind of ongoing monitoring like Soberlink, if it's alcohol or drug testing, if it's drugs. And honestly, that's probably what I would want to put in place.
When it comes to children, that's the thing that's going to give you [00:37:00] the best peace of mind when it comes to a situation like this. And I don't know if your daughter would be open to that. I certainly have a lot of people who have problems who are going through divorce, who that's exactly what they do because they don't wanna have supervised visitation and they don't wanna have everyone crawling up their butt every time they wanna see their kids.
And so they're like, yeah, I'll just do this. It's actually a much easier way to do it than to have supervised visits and all those stuff because it's like you can still be yourself and be a parent and it's being handled and monitored. But. Still have your own privacy and independence too. So that's my thought about it.
Let's see what Amber Ask says about it. I'm going to start a new conversation with her because she learns as you go. And if I just stay on this conversation, it's going to mix it in with the comment before. But if it was you and you're the same person, you can just continue the same conversation over and over because it is a continuation of the same [00:38:00] thing.
All right, let's type it in here.
Need help setting boundaries with my daughter and y'all. I don't know how closely y'all can see this, but I'm spilling everything around, but that's okay. She'll figure out what I'm saying as far as coming to see kids. We just got custody of the children. We want to be sure she has not drank
because she wants the kids to come visit it.
I see what she says.
All right, and Andrea says, [00:39:00] first off, I wanna say how much I admire you for stepping up and taking custody of the kids. It's a huge responsibility and it's clear you're doing everything you can to protect them. Setting boundaries in this situation is tricky, but absolutely necessary for their safety and wellbeing.
When it comes to ensuring your daughter hasn't been drinking before she visits, the key is to frame the boundary in a way that focuses on what you will do rather than trying to control her behavior. For example, instead of saying you can't drink before seeing the kids, you could say something like, if I feel like you've been drinking this, the visit will need to be rescheduled.
This keeps the focus on your actions and makes the boundary setting something you can enforce without getting into a power struggle. You might also consider using tools like Soberlink device, which can help provide real time alcohol monitoring. It's a way to rebuild trust and accountability without relying solely on judgment.
If she's serious about staying sober and being involved with the kids, she may be open to this kind of [00:40:00] arrangement. It's also important to have a plan for how the visits will be structured. For example, you might start off with short supervised visits and gradually increase time with kids as she demonstrates consistency in sobriety.
This gives her a clear path forward while keeping the kids safety at top priority. How are you feeling about these boundaries? Does this approach feel manageable for you? Beth, you can go ahead and answer that if you want to in the chat. If you're still here and watching with us. How do you feel about it?
Would this approach works? Because my guess is that there are some nuances to your situation and you might be thinking of some specific things, and if you are, you can add that information to this conversation because that's what makes it cool. This is not about just asking it one question, it's about having a conversation with the system to figure out what is the best way to handle it.
You might wanna say how old the kids are, how long the drinking's been happening, what happened that got you in a situation where you got custody. Is there any court ordered restrictions? There's [00:41:00] just a lot more details that you could go into, which will get you a better, more tailored answer.
Jax says Family here with a. With a loved one, struggling hard. I'm here for him and his relapse. You're a blessing. Truly, I'm so at my end. Tired. Everything, including local police, mental health intervention, looks like there's more. Let's see. Here's the rest of it. What do I do? If someone want, if someone's heart wants it, but they take little action to recovery because they never have an outside therapy group experience.
If they do, it lasts for weeks max. All right, let's put that into Amber AI and we'll see what she says about it. We're going to start a new conversation again,
[00:42:00] what to do if someone's heart wants it, but they take.
Little to no action to recovery. They never have an outside.
If they do, it lasts a few weeks max.
I put mass in, I said, of my,
all right, here's what she says. She says, oh, she's, hold on. She's keeping on talking. She's saying a lot. Let's see. She definitely goes into much more detailed elaboration than I would. [00:43:00] All right. It sounds like you're describing someone who's stuck in that frustrating limbo where they wanna change but can't seem to follow through.
That's tough to watch, especially when you know they have potential. The key here is to focus on building momentum and meeting them where they are, rather than expecting them until to leap into full blown recovery all at once. First, let's talk about why this happens. Addiction messes with the Brain's motivation center, so even when their heart's in the right place, their brain may not be fully on board yet.
That's why small, manageable steps are so important. Think of it like planting a seed. You've got to create the right environment for it to grow, rather than expecting it to sprout overnight. Start by encouraging them to take tiny steps that feel doable. Maybe it's like listening to a recovery podcast or watching a YouTube video, or even talking to someone who's been through it.
These small actions can build confidence and help them see that their change is possible. And when they do take a step, no matter how small validated, say something like, I think that's a great [00:44:00] idea. I'm proud of you for trying it. Positive reinforcement can go a long way. Another thing to consider is having options ready for when they hit moments of clarity.
These moments don't last long, sometimes just hours, so you've got to be ready to act fast. Research treatment options now. So when they say, I'm ready, you can move quickly. Think of yourself as the sweeper in a game of curling, clearing the path to make it as easy as possible for them to slide into action.
If you don't know what that game is, it's the game they play where it snows a lot. You can look it up. It's called curling. Like they don't have that in the south here. That's why I said you might not know what that is. Another thing to consider. Oh, wait, hold on. I got to the wrong place. If you've tried, if they've tried therapy or groups before, but it didn't stick with it, it might be worth explaining why.
What was it the wrong fit? Did they feel judged or overwhelmed? Sometimes it's about finding the right approach with the right person. For example, motivation or interviewing is [00:45:00] great technique for people who are ambivalent about change. It focuses on their motivation and helps them work through their fears and resistance.
Lastly, don't underestimate the power of your own influence. Family can play a huge role in keeping someone motivated, staying patient, persistent, and supportive. You're creating an environment where they can take those. Safe to take those first steps. It's not easy, but it's worth it. What do you think about the next small step they might be willing to take?
Let's brainstorm some ideas together. What do you think? Jax? That was a long answer. I agree with every single thing that was said there. I did have one additional idea that occurred to me as far as, and this is without knowing much, so if we were talking Jax, I would ask you these questions, but I would want to know something about maybe part of the reason it doesn't work is it could be that they need a higher level of care.
So if a person is really far into [00:46:00] addiction and the unmanageability is crazy and everyone they know is using and they're more in that. Non-functional range of addiction than just going to a therapy appointment once a week or just going to 12 step groups. They may not have enough stability in their life to even show up consistently long enough for those things to work.
So sometimes it's a matter of severity and is it the right level of care? Because if a person is just in it so far, they just can't get their crap together enough to even make the appointments. I dunno if that's the case, but sometimes that's the case of why it doesn't stick. Or it could be some of these other things like it's just the wrong fit.
And sometimes there's just some practical reasons. So I would wanna know more about why you think it doesn't work and why they think it doesn't work. Let's see here. Caroline says, Amber AI is going to be an amazing [00:47:00] tool. You're a genius for launching it. I did not come up with the idea of ai, but once I heard about it and heard that you can create one, I was on board.
I was like, oh my gosh, this is exciting. It, I was like, once I heard about it immediately I was like, oh, I'm doing it. This is it. This is the thing. But it's probably 'cause I have been using AI for a while, like chat GT P and other ones. And so I understood how it worked and how helpful it was. So I think that's why I was like, yes, let's do it.
Let's see here. Missy says, thank you. He starts treatment tomorrow. Hey, that's fantastic. That's awesome, Missy. Amanda says, first time first time I've been in live chat, but I love listening to your videos. And my husband is in rehab right now for the third time when his therapist called me the other day to tell me to listen to some.
Tell me to listen to some guy about, hold on. Brains own addiction. [00:48:00] I told her to listen to you and I know about it already. I sent you her link so she could listen to. Thanks Amanda. I like it. You're out there advocating for me. I love it. Amanda's I already know that. What else you got? That's right.
That's my girl. You researched up on it, you're five steps ahead. I love it. I think that's fantastic. Missy says it's a 28 day outpatient, five hours a day. Okay, so Missy, that's called usually what that's called Missy, is partial hospitalization treatment. They call it PHP. It's like day treatments.
It's like they go during the day, it's almost going to school and they're there all day, but then they come home at night and that is the level of care that's just under inpatient treatment. So it's like not all inpatient, that's why they call it partial, but it's the next closest thing. So that's a, not the highest level of care, but it's a medium high level of care.
So that's a good thing. Let's see. [00:49:00] Jack says, why does he think he can do it himself? He says he needs help, but seems little to no outside help because bad therapy group experience. Okay, so this is Jackson. You're following up on what you said earlier. Let's come back to that.
Why does he think he can do it himself? And he says he needs help, but seems little to no outside help because of bad therapy group screens. I would wanna know, Jax, if I were working with this person, I would wanna know, tell me about that. And let them tell you specifically about the bad experiences.
And what you don't wanna do is try to be defensive about whatever they say because that's probably what you're going to be thinking. And I say that Jack, 'cause that's what I would be thinking. You still need to go, or whatever, I'd be thinking about that. But I would say, yeah, what went wrong?
And then when they say something that's credible, you can be like, yeah I could see where you come from. That probably wasn't very helpful or whatever. When they say something valid, you can also, but you can say this question Jack, you can say, was there [00:50:00] anything about it you liked? Did you ever work with anyone?
That was helpful. What about it did you like? Because almost always in any situation, it wasn't either all great or all bad. So if you let someone talk about what they didn't like, they feel safe, right? And they feel like they don't have to have their guard up. So when you ask that next question was there anything about it that you liked?
Were there any people there that was helpful? Then they'll start. It triggers them to start to think I did meet some cool people there. We did have this one counselor one time who was really neat because, and it starts to get them to think, and then you can say, okay, we need to find something that's more like that, right?
And so you're listening to what they think and using what they think is going to work for them or not work for them to help guide them into a situation that might be more helpful or relevant, or that they're more at least willing to consider Modern Monarch says. Question. I like your question marks here.
It says, Amber, my partner, a veteran, relapsed back into [00:51:00] alcohol. He says he's willing to go to rehab for 30 days. He says, I'm his motivation, but he won't make the call to the va, which they make the arrangements. Is he just manipulating? He's been drinking for 20 years and says it's really hard to quit. He has.
He was sober for a month and he has periods where he stops drinking. Okay. This is a great question. I got an answer for you. When someone says they're willing to go, if you are allowed to call the place and schedule an appointment, if there's anything you can do to make it easier for him to take that step, do it.
Now, other people will tell you they have to make the calls and they have to do all this and that, and I'm going to tell you different, okay? If there are pieces of it, you can, you can't do recovery for him. But you can call the veteran center and find out what the benefits are and what he needs to do.
There's a lot you can do to help [00:52:00] logistically. So if he says he is willing to go, then you can say, great. I'll call and find out what the deal is and then you'll come back to him and you'll say, Hey, this is what the deal is, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now if he's just manipulating, when you say you'll do that, he'll start backtracking.
So you're going to know whether he is manipulating it based on how he responds to that. But the fact that you said he is been drinking 20 years, it's really hard to quit. But the fact that you said he was sober for a month and he has periods where he stops drinking, what that tells me is that he does want to stop.
No one gets a month without being pretty serious. And it was a month of where he quit drinking. Totally. Not just cut back, but quit drinking. Totally. So there might be some ambivalence about it, but there's definitely some real change talk here, some real motivation. There's a big piece of him, a growing piece of him that.
Wants to do this. And so sometimes you just wanna make it easier. You wanna lower those [00:53:00] barriers to entry. To me, that's a lot of what Amber AI's about, like right? It's if I too nervous to talk to someone will you talk to Amber ai? It's like, how can we make it easier for people to access what they need?
Because when it comes to addiction, you're just fighting an uphill battle. You're, you have a lot of ambivalence, you don't feel good, you can't think straight. So we don't wanna make it any more complicated or hard than it can be. The good thing about being a vet is he probably does have resources.
The difficult thing is there's probably a bunch of processes and procedure and hoops that's got to be jumped through to put it in place. And if the, like the veteran center or whatever, if they'll let you do some of it, sometimes they won't. Sometimes they're like, no, he's going to have to call. But if they'll let you do some of it, do whatever part of the process you can do, even if it's just the research part.
Let's see here. Stephanie says, shout out to Slayer Sober if he's [00:54:00] watching. Nicole says he's had two DUIs and continues drinking. He doesn't drink daily anymore, but uses going to friends to work on farm stuff. I wanna say farm stuff. That's the way I'm reading it as an excuse to drink and get drunk and then drives home.
I'm worried he's going to blow up our life again. We are getting married soon. All right, let me read that again Nicole. He's had two DUIs and con. Tanya's drinking. He doesn't drink daily anymore, but he's going to friends on the farm to do farm stuff. Excuse to drink. Okay, so this is probably, I know I don't have much information here, but my first thought, Nicole is just somebody that's still functioning pretty well, isn't drinking every day, but is over drinking when they do drink.
I call that's usually somewhere in like stage three. And the whole going to the friends and farm stuff is not uncommon at all. Most of the people I [00:55:00] see, they have these nice little systems set up like that. Every week they work in the yard and they love to work in the yard because not only do they have a good excuse to be in the yard and drinking or whatever it is they do, or being hanging out in their man chat or whatever, but they.
They get to feel good about it at the same time because they're like, look at all this. I got done. And it's the perfect setup. And it sounds like that's the case with your situation. It's like I'm helping my friend, but really it's like I'm helping my friend and I'm having a bunch of drinks.
The drunk and driving home part is definitely the scary part. I can't believe he's had two DUIs and doesn't have one of those devices in his car. ~I call they, they have a better, it called an interlock. I call them like a blow and go or something like that. That's what my clients call them or something.~
~But I'm surprised he doesn't have that ~in most states. If you get one, you're like pretty much required to have that.
Stephanie says, Amber, what makes a person not make even one attempt at sobriety? It's probably either that they don't think that they need to attempt sobriety because they don't, they either don't think they have a problem or they don't care that they have a problem. That's [00:56:00] one option, or that they realize that they have a problem, but they've convinced themselves it's so severe, there's nothing they can do, and they just wanna throw their hands up and give up, and they just give into it.
That's actually, that second one is actually, I think the more difficult one to deal with when someone's just in denial, eventually we're going to get out of denial because eventually it becomes clearer and there is no denying it. So denial will be worked through at some point. So my guess is it's probably going to be either one of those two things.
Or a third option could be they actually do make attempts. They just don't tell you because they're afraid that they won't be successful. And so they don't want to create that kind of like embarrassment if they're not, or accountability. So usually secretly people have more insight than they let on, and they secretly are trying some things long before they ever admit it out loud.
So [00:57:00] I guess it would be one of those three.
Bill says, in my experience, court ordered structured treatment works well. I agree, bill, because court ordered usually means it's going to last long enough. It means someone's leveraged in there, so they're likely to continue going and complete it and do all the time and the accountability. I agree. I'm with Bill.
Stephanie says what changes they make aren't related to drinking? That's a good question, Stephanie. A lot of times it's part of the bargaining. You've probably heard me Stephanie, talk about bargaining where people say I'm just going to drink on the weekends, or I'm going to drink less, or whatever. Try to cut it back.
Sometimes bargaining before they even try to control the drinking, they try to control other things. Maybe it's just this terrible job I have and I need to change job. Or maybe it's just these certain friends, but what it indicates is that they realize there's a problem somewhere and maybe they want it to be those other things and not want it to be the drinking.
But it's probably like the beginning of the [00:58:00] bargaining. It actually is bargaining. We just haven't gotten to the maybe it's the drinking and I should do something about that. It, so it's in that bargaining state is my guess.
I. Let's see here. Tiara says, my daughter's father struggles with alcoholism and passed up the opportunity to go inpatient twice in the past six months. He tells me he stopped drinking and agreed to Soberlink. Do you feel his sobriety can last with not having any support in place at all? He said that him working is best as a distraction.
The fact that he is willing to do soberlink is a big step. What that tells me is that he is serious about it and the fact that he has stopped drinking also tells me that he's serious. So I think all the intentions are in the right place. It is a little uneasy because you just wanna make sure that the person's gaining some insight and like learning what their relapse triggers are and working through some of that.
But [00:59:00] everybody doesn't have to go to treatment to get better. The research shows that most people get better without going to treatment. I do feel like his sobriety can last. I'm not saying for sure that it will, but I am saying that those are two really big steps that tells me that he's serious about it and that it's a real true effort.
So yeah, I think it can. And the longer he is sober and the longer he is on that sober link, the clearer his thinking is going to be and the more insightful he's going to be. Let's see here. Amanda says, you got me five steps ahead. Thank you. I love Amanda. So proud. This is a chess game. You got to be thinking not about this move, but the next moves, Zach says, let's see what Zach says here.
Last year, my world came crumbling when my partner of three years was arrested for crystal meth. I had no idea of any of it prior. I was shellshocked. And the last year has [01:00:00] been very rough. He did a 30 day program and is currently still doing his outpatient therapy. I had been very difficult to adapt with my emotions whenever I see a needle.
I just wanna thank you for your videos because they have helped me so much and have taught me so much. I am sure that was especially hard, Zach, if you had no idea and then all of a sudden these are arrested for crystal meth, which is huge. I'm guessing you have some serious betrayal trauma going on, that it has totally shaken your confidence in.
What happens when you have such a huge secret come out like that, it messes your mind up, Zach, because you're like, how did I not see that? Is everything they ever said is a lie? Like you just, your own internal sense of safety and trust and just trust in yourself [01:01:00] gets crumbled. Especially, it's not like it was like building up and going on and slowly and you knew it over time.
That's not great either, but when it's I. I was with you for three years and I had no idea you're doing crystal meth. That's going to shatter your sense of just trust in the universe. So I am sure you are struggling. It is good that he did a 30 day program and that he is still an outpatient therapy and the fact that he got arrested means that there's some leverage over him.
And just bill said earlier that court ordered stuff can be helpful. That leverage is helpful, that accountability is helpful and I'm glad that these videos have been helpful for you. And I'm, that's a big, that's a big curve ball to find out all at once. So yeah, I feel for you.
Zach says he keeps sliping, but getting, he keeps slipping, but getting back into counseling sometimes I wish he was on the obvious side of the scale, so I know what I'm dealing [01:02:00] with. I. Yeah, it is. There is a lot of back and forth, especially in the beginning, and it's it's a lot of ups and downs.
It's a big rollercoaster. And it's hard to keep your self emotionally stable when you're tied to someone who's, on the rollercoaster, you feel like you're constantly waiting for the shoe to drop and you're on eggshells all the time is tough.
Nicole said he had to interlock the first time, and the second time he had to blow three times a day while on probation. Okay. So I, that's the one I said, why doesn't he have it interlock? Okay. Michelle says, I think I need to go back and watch your videos on when to walk away. I have zero trust in my husband anymore and no faith left.
Yeah. Even though I'm on here every day talking about how to be supportive and help someone who has an addiction. There is a time when enough is enough. And just [01:03:00] because I say that these are the things that work, doesn't mean I'm telling you that you should do them. Okay? Because your life matters too.
Okay? And sometimes you, if you hang in there too long, you're just going to drown with someone. So I know I'm constantly talking about being positive and encouraging and sticking with them through relapse, but that's me telling you what they need. But I need you to also consider what you need into the equation too.
I never would blame anybody and I will tell you all the time, I would probably walk long before you guys would walk probably. 'cause I would know all too well what I was dealing with. So don't. Don't feel bad about that. And yeah, go back and watch those videos. 'cause it does. I never tell someone to walk away.
I always say you'll know. But it helps you to think through, is it time? Yeah. And there's two or three really good videos on that.
Daily Orange peel says off topic, but your [01:04:00] new style looks refreshing and younger. Hey, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate the comments. Thank you for everyone who showed up with me here on a Wednesday night. Kinda late, not super late, but late for a live, right? This is fun conversations.
I've seen a lot of different names here. We will be on here tomorrow and on Friday. I am going to do a big long ask Amber one of these where we're not really necessarily going to do a lesson, we're just going to take question after question. So if you've got more questions, show up with it and let's have a conversation and we'll see if we can help you.
You wanna learn more about Ambre Eye link is in the description and I'll see you guys soon. Bye everybody.
