AI Edits from How Fear Holds Families Back in Healing from Addiction.
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[00:00:00] All right. Families often falsely believe that they have to do everything just right. They have to do everything perfectly, ~not rock the boat, not they have to walk on eggshells, ~or they'll be put into the bad guy role or they'll cause a relapse. ~And this is false, y'all. ~This is a completely not true thing, but raise your hand if you've thought that and acted accordingly.
So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk a little bit about this 'cause actually ~what, ~when we act like that, it ~actually ~inadvertently out of love and fear and anxiety feeds the disease of addiction. ~So ~by the end of this video, you can have a clearer picture of when to engage, when not to engage with your loved one and feel more at ease in this process of staying in the relationship with them.
So there are clear green lights and there are red lights. So the red lights are. Pretty easy to see, but we fall victim into engaging with them. And those are when we hear any victim talk. When they are ~defense. ~Defensive, ~sorry. ~When they are gaslighting us, when they're attacking us, when we fall into the whole are they telling the truth?
Are they not telling the [00:01:00] truth if they're not listening, if we're lecturing, these are red lights, these are signs that you should absolutely. Figure out a way to disengage from the conversation. And I like to not just say, Hey, I'm not talking to you 'cause you're being a towed, but more say, I totally forgot I was meeting Jane for coffee and I have to run.
I'm running into a meeting right now and I'm gonna have to talk to you later, something like that so that you don't add more fuel to these red lights. These are not orange lights or yellow lights. These are red lights, so just get out of them. There's another red light that I think is under. Under talked about and not really recognized, and that is if we're just outta mental energy, you guys, if it's just, we're exhausted.
If we've had a bad day, if we are tired of this conversation, if we're tired of thinking about it. That's a red light. And I think we often are ignore and are told that we can't have that red light and that we have to, take every opportunity to convince them they have a problem or every opportunity [00:02:00] to redirect them.
And that is simply not true. One of the things about addiction is you don't have to get it right today 'cause tomorrow's another day. And so if you just are out of it today, it's okay to be out of it. So green lights are the opposite, and green lights are what tell us. That maybe this is an opportunity to engage with our loved one, and this is if they are confiding in us, if they may be telling us about their boss being a douche, that they had a, there's a coworker they don't like if they're reflecting on their life at all, ~if they're.~
If they're showing you that they are in the mood to talk about something, even if it's something silly and neutral, ~if they're, ~if frankly ~if ~they're just pleasant, then those are green lights and those are signs that I would say engage with them and talk to them. But I want you to be very careful in your heads.
This does not mean. That the addiction is taking a nap or going away, this does not mean that [00:03:00] anything you're going to say or do is gonna change the situation. So I think that you have ~to. ~To recognize that this is a moment. Okay? That's all this is ~just, it's ~just a moment and I want you to not get too jacked up about that ~and lead it into, it's so easy.~
Also, addiction loves to show us little glimpses of our loved one, right? It's such a smart disease and it figures out that we're like getting done. We are getting ready to put down an ultimatum or hold a boundary, and so it'll show us a little glimpse of our loved one that makes us think. Maybe it's not that bad.
Maybe it's over. I remember this so clearly 'cause one of my sons is a big cook, was a big cook in middle school and high school. And he came over once. ~He wasn't. ~He had very rarely been at home and he came over and said, Hey, I really miss making layer tie with you. I was thinking we could do that.
I immediately rush out to the Harris Teeter and get all the ingredients to make the layer tie and the whole time I'm like, ~I, we, ~I must be crazy. He doesn't have a problem whatsoever. Or if he did, it's long [00:04:00] gone because. Here he is. Here's my loved one. And so I got all jacked up and thought this problem is in my history.
And of course, the next day he was long gone and didn't see him again for days or weeks, I can't recall. ~But, ~so enjoy them for what they are, but don't put too much power on them and give them too much credibility. There are things that we can do. You guys there's two things that we can do.
One is we can. We can, what we call, we can be muted or we can choose to be quiet if we're muted. That's when they are. You don't know what you're talking about. You're stupid. You're a bad mom. You're the only wife that talks like that. That's like shutting down our conversation and that we call that being muted and that is not okay.
That is never okay, but we often don't use what is really okay, which is selective mutism, which is I am choosing. Not to say anything. I am choosing not to engage in this conversation. I [00:05:00] am choosing not to take the bait. This is where we get really smart because this is how we get out of the bad guy role.
This is how we don't take the bait when they throw out those little fish hooks to have a fight or argument, which is really to mitigate their shame for what they have done or getting ready to do. ~And the other thing that we. Another thing that we do when we have selected mu is we just keep some of our peace, right?~
We don't have to get riled up or feed our anxiety or have an argument and get mad and let it ruin our evening or our day. We can just say nothing. We can absolutely say nothing. And if they come at you like, why are you not, why are you not? Just say, I don't really know how. I don't have anything to say right now.
I don't have a response. I'm gonna have to think about this. I don't, I hear your point, and one way I like to do this is maybe not just to not say anything, but just say, you may be right. So when they start a little fight or throw something out there that you can feel, it is just, it's just, it's an orange light, right?
It's definitely a yellow light. It is turning in, it's gonna be a red light is you just say, oh, you might be right. You have a point. I'll have to think about that and get [00:06:00] out of the argument. So I think ~this is a really, is ~this is a skill that takes some practice to hone, but it is a liberating skill and it is a skill that.
They won't like for a minute there. 'cause they're used to us engaging and fighting and arguing and lecturing and doing all the things that we do at the beginning before we figure out they don't work. Because those things actually in their little addicted heads, it flips the script so that I wasn't going to do this, but you said that I wasn't gonna do this but you yelled at me.
I wasn't gonna do this, but you argued with me. And so that's a lie. Alright. They were, they absolutely were going to go open that bottle of wine. They absolutely were going to go out and take those pills or smoke that weed. They absolutely were, but they're blaming it on you, which is how addiction works.
'cause addiction remember, is a shame-based disease. And so when we can mitigate that shame by flipping, then we feel better about ourselves for just a nanosecond. And so [00:07:00] that's what they're doing. So when you're like, you might be right, that's the point. Yeah, I can see where that would be. Then we are, they're not, they can't flip the script.
This is not changing their behavior though, you guys, this is not gonna stop the disease. This is not gonna keep them from using, it's just going to someday allow them to look in the mirror and see themselves. ~And meanwhile, more importantly. ~Allow you to have a little bit more peace, because that's what red light, green light is all about, is how do we get the peace in our day, in our heads, even if it's just for 10 minutes or an hour.
Take it. Little tiny points add up. The other thing we can do is we can choose to. Not react. We can choose to say nothing ever, or we can come back later and we can respond to a topic, we can respond to something that they said upon reflection, upon calming down upon thinking about it differently. ~So that's another thing that's not a selective mutism.~
It is just, I'm gonna put this thing on pause and I'm gonna come back so that I'm not gonna react, which is gonna add fuel to there. I wasn't gonna do it until you blinked, I think those are little [00:08:00] tips to help you get out of the red light zone. If we were in Amsterdam, I guess I'd say the red light district and then get more into the green, and the green is for your self-regulation.
The green is for you to establish a different atmosphere in your home and for you to not live in this way up here. Place of craziness, because you guys know. Addiction makes us absolutely crazy. So bear that in mind that these are things that are helpful for you. So there's another video that I did, I guess it was a couple weeks ago, I couldn't find the link to it, but it's called Navigating the Gray Areas.
If you haven't seen it, go watch it, because it also reinforces this like peaceful place. This is a really hard disease to navigate, ~as and so watching the gray or navigating the gray really is helpful. ~The other thing I would recommend is there's a link below in the description ~is.~
Join our membership because then you can be in a community of other people who get it. You can either ask blatant questions and get answers that will keep you out of the red, [00:09:00] keep you balancing a little more evenly. ~And if you don't wanna ask the question, you can just listen to what other people ask.~
You can watch the live stream later if you're not available, it's at one 30 Eastern standard time. And if you really are on the struggle bus with this and really cannot self-regulate or get into a peaceful place. ~Absolutely y'all. ~Next week Kim and I are launching a course, and this course is called Beyond Boundaries, and it is up all about our own relationship with ourself and our own relationship with how do we navigate with our, can we navigate, how do we navigate and how do we find peace if we don't navigate as well as we're being told to do?
There's a billion people out there telling. ~Any kind of, ~the advice about this is all, it can be very confusing. It can be very conflicting, and so lots of us get stuck in the, I don't know what to do, so I'm just gonna keep doing it my way, and my way isn't working, so that makes me. Feel powerless and hopeless and sad and lonely and all those things that we just don't want you to feel ~all right.~
We absolutely don't want you to [00:10:00] feel like that. So there's a bunch of resources. There's tons of videos. There's the membership, there's the course, ~but I. ~Please live in the green light zone. ~All right. ~All right. Let's see what questions we have. Carol wants to know how do I become part of the membership?
Brie, I'm gonna just go ahead and speak out of turn and she can just shake her little head at me over, off, off screen. But you can call the office at (864) 901-2395 and then give Bri your email and she can ~send you the link or. We may have your email, don't know. And if so, she'll just ~send you the link. But that's how you get it.
And then you just create a Kajabi login and do it. There you go. Look at that, Brie. Thank you. Yeah, it's easy sneezy. And it's super good. Not only does it have the live call, but it has a ton of content, a lot of information that Kim has generated that I've generated, and we put out quotes like it's a pretty good, it's a, I find it very helpful.
All right. This question is from Mel, this relapse. I tried to hold my peace and stay calm, and he took it as rejection and that our relationship was [00:11:00] over. How do I stay outta the chaos when whatever I do, he takes it the wrong way? So a couple tips on that. One would be maybe it's addiction. And remember, addiction always has to be the victim and it flips everything around to be the victim.
And if that's what's going on. Don't worry about it, stay a step out of it. Do what I just said in the in earlier, which is say, that's not what I meant, darling. I'm sorry you feel like that. I'll try to say it differently tomorrow. The other thing you can do on that would be to reflect with him, why does he feel like that?
Like where's that message coming from? Is that coming from an old narrative? Is that coming from something that you're saying incorrectly? And try to have that kind of conversation with him. I feel like in early recovery or certainly while they're using, they really, they just always have to be the victim, and I'm probably thinking that's what's going on with that Mel.
Just stay calm. Remember, there's a difference. You can be the bad guy by using the wrong tone, the wrong time to have a [00:12:00] conversation. The wrong affect, the wrong time, the wrong topic. You can be the bad guy, but generally we're dragged into the bad guy role by the flip in their head of what we're saying to make them feel less shameful.
~So two ways to look at that.~
~Jeanette was looking for the five day get outta the bad guy. Role challenge. I can't find it anywhere. Can I help you? That's something that Amber put out and I don't know where it is, but we'll look for it and we will. Shoot your email up there, Jeanette, and we will email it to you once we figure that out.~
~I know what you're talking about. I just don't know because that's a, that came from an Amber thing and I don't know where that would be stored right now.~
Okay. All right. Where do I begin? My son who's an addict became physically violent toward me. He has been living in my home rent free. I pay all of his bills to help him get on his feet after being homeless off and on.
~How I, ~how old do we know How old the son is? Is he old enough to not let live there? And how do you feel about that would be. Some questions if you could pop those answers in. If he's physically violent towards you and you don't feel safe, safety trumps everything. You guys, you always call 9 1 1. You always make sure that you are safe, especially in your own home.
He's 47. I think you could also, you could sit down once it's deescalated and say, listen, that is not okay. And if that happens again, you won't be able to live here. And if I have to take [00:13:00] eviction. Steps, I will, but the biggest question I'm gonna ask you right now is, this is all like black and white advice I can give you based upon what makes sense.
But your heart does not have to make sense and your heart is what we need to put into the factor here to tell you what to do so that, because this has to be something he you can tolerate. The other thing you could do, because he has no job, is you could say, look, it's July 17th, starting August 15th, September one, you'll need to pay rent to live here.
That gives him plenty of time. That's a feasible timeline that's viable and doable. And at that point, if he doesn't do it, then it's either gonna be because he can't get a job because he is using. He's entitled and won't get a job 'cause he thinks you won't kick him out or he can't keep a job. One of the, or he can't save his money.
So at that point you would have a lot of information that might help you be able to say, yeah, living here [00:14:00] is not an option. But when we don't charge rent, we set the stage that they won't get a job. And if we don't charge rent for an adult, we absolutely set the stage that if they have a job, they can use their money for substances.
So again, ~this is all, ~this is your relationship with yourself and your ability to have a boundary. ~Or not have a boundary to know what those are, ~that's what the course is all about. ~Because I can tell you this would be what I would do, but I have so many boundaries and I'm so self preed that it's pretty easy for me to do these things, not.~
Not super easy, but easier than for someone who is the more one-to-one driven or more socially subtype or isn't very good at boundaries or was reared in a home where there were no boundaries or was punished by having boundaries. So I, all I can say to answer the question today is if he is violent, then you just need to call the police and extinguish that behavior.
He will either get tired of the police coming. Or eventually they'll tell him he has to be removed from the home. Something but you, for you to live with someone who's raging, [00:15:00] angry for 15 years, that's just not fair. This is not our dress rehearsal to life. This is our life. Like you gotta claim it.
All right. Would the Vivitrol shop work for a 30 year plus alcoholic? How long would it take to work? He was in it for seven months before, but it didn't work. Vivitrol shot, generally, yes, it would work for someone with a 30 year history of alcoholism, it usually starts to work right away because it's a 30 day injection, so it's actually pretty maximum at the beginning and then tends to wane right there.
~28, 29, 30 days. We hear it's like fades a little bit. ~I'm wondering, and some people it just doesn't work well on just chemically, their brains are just different and some people will drink on top of it. So if it didn't work once before, my guess would be it wouldn't work again. But I'm wondering if it age, does this person wanna get sober?
And if so, maybe the backtrack or the sober link would be a good option for them or an abuse. And so Naltrexone and Vivitrol. [00:16:00] Which are the same thing. One's just pill and one's shot. Those work to decrease cravings and abuse is old school medicine. That makes you ill violently ill if you drink. Most people will not drink on an abuse.
~It's serious. Good old alcoholic that has zero intention of stopping. Absolutely. Have a quick throw up and keep drinking, but most people won't. In fact, ~most people on anabuse are super like nervous 'cause they don't want that nauseous feeling. And they'll even like scan at a restaurant. Does this have any, like any liqueur in the whipped cream or is there anything in this?
They're very careful about ~their ~their deodorants, their lip gloss, their things like ~that. They're usually the opposite of ~that. But if it didn't work once. My guess is it won't work again, but it's certainly worth the conversation with a doctor to see what they think.
All right, so this person whose son is raging says I had to call the police who advised me to begin the eviction process. I'm in the process of eviction and you guys like, that's a tough spot to begin. ~Like I, ~we almost had to get in with one of our children, but luckily he. Left on his own and then tapped out and went to treatment.
[00:17:00] But it's a really difficult place to have to evict a loved one, but if it's a safety issue. You just have to, and ~I'm assuming, I don't know, but ~in most states, the eviction notice is a 30 day process. And in that 30 days, ~if you could, ~if you want to and you financially can, or he'll even listen to you, you could say, look, I'm getting ready to evict you 'cause I can't live like this anymore.
But if you are interested in sober living or. Treatment on some level. I could talk, have that conversation with you so that you're not homeless. That choice will be yours. But I don't want you to be homeless. I don't want you to not have anywhere to live, but I just can't live like this anymore.
That also gives 'em time to get a job and. Find somewhere else to live. My guess is he won't, but since he has no job in here, two, four is he'll play the, he'll play the card. And by that I mean as you get closer and closer, he's going to go into that emotional blackmail mode. Oh, I can't believe you're doing this.
If you love me, you wouldn't do this. I don't know what to do. I'm gonna be homeless. I hope you feel good about [00:18:00] yourself. I don't even have a car to live in. Those kinds of things. And those are gonna be tough to hear, which is why I always say, if you can. Again, if you want to, and you have the money, is I would say, look, this makes me really sad.
This is what I have to offer. Or, I'll be happy to take you to a shelter, but this is not an option. And that way you feel a little better that you gave him a couple options. ~Don't think you'll take him, but you'll at least feel a little better.~
Have I heard about neurofeedback helping addiction from alcohol or reiki? Yes, I have heard about it. I actually had an interesting conversation with a client who lives in Japan today, and he was telling me about hypnotherapy. I'm a big fan of all, anything. There's not one way to get sober.
And I say if it works, yes, if it, if the person is just using it to kick the can down the field to placate you. If you say you have to do something. Or you can't live here, or I'm not gonna stay married to you, then I don't know that they would work if the person is absolutely determined to get sober [00:19:00] and will use them and do them well and take advantage of it and follow it all the way through completion.
~Yeah, I don't know how much research is out there for the long term successfulness of it, but I'm not opposed to trying anything. ~There's Ozempic, there's a bunch of theories out there. I don't know that we have enough. Research-based scientific evidence that they work long-term or even work at all.
But people are always trying, people are always coming up with new things and I'm all about it. Like I, there's not just one way and it doesn't have to be AA or na, it doesn't have to be old school. It can be whatever works for the person. Yeah.
Any more questions? I.
Come on y'all. Someone has to have a question about what's a red light? What's a green light? Is this a red light? Is this a green light? What do I do if.
Okay. All right, that's it for today and I hope this was helpful. See you next time. Bye-bye.
