AI Edits from The Difference Between Those Who Overcome Addiction and Those Who Don’t
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[00:00:00] The difference in people who make it into long-term recovery and people who don't is really just one small little tiny factor, and that factor is. Mindset. A simple mindset shift will change everything for you in the process. It really is the secret sauce to successful long-term recovery. It's all about the lens you're looking at this problem from, because when we change the lens, we see the problem differently.
We develop a very different strategy. So in today's video, I wanna show you exactly how to do that. It's a shift of heart, it's a shift of thinking, and it will change everything for you. ~If you've been trying to conquer addiction and you feel like you just keep falling back over and over again.~
It might be because of the way you are looking at the problem and the way you're going about addressing the issue. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth and you are watching the YouTube channel ~put the Shovel down and that, I know that's kind of a strange title or channel name, but it stands for you hit your Bottom when you ~put the shovel down.
You can put it [00:01:00] down anytime you want. You don't have to keep digging, and you definitely don't have to lose everything in order to overcome an addictive behavior. If you are interested in that for yourself or for a loved one, then you might wanna subscribe to this channel, because that's what we talk about on here.
I give you the science and psychology of the issue so that you can stay five steps ahead of it. Let's get into today's topic about the mindset shift that changes everything for you. The biggest problem that most people face, and I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've seen this ~over and ~over and over again, is they.
View this problem that they have in their life as. They view themselves in relationship to the problem as sort of like a woe is me stance from kind of a victim mindset of either feeling like it's unfair that they have the problem, feeling like everyone around them is being unfair to 'em, feeling like it's not fair that they have [00:02:00] to give this up, or it's not fair that they have to go to these meetings, or this is so hard, or this is terrible, or this is really hard and no one ever beats it.
As long as you are looking at the problem, through that lens, you're likely to continue to struggle. And even when you are sort of in sobriety or on good behavior, it's gonna feel really hard for you because you're gonna be looking at it through the, this is unfair. ~I hate this sucks lens, ~but what if.
You shifted that thought from, this is something terrible that's happening to me, to this is something that's happening for me. What I'm talking about here is shifting from a victim mindset to being able to understand your story and your life through the Hero's journey lens. You can rewrite that narrative and it really is a simple mindset shift of understanding that.
Conquering this problem is [00:03:00] your journey in life. Everyone has a dragon to slay in life. It's what makes us the hero of our story. It's what makes us stronger, better people. Sometimes we face it early in life, sometimes we face it late in life. Most of us face a few of these dragons. But right now, if you're struggling with an addiction, this is your dragon to slate, and it is in some ways a gift that's been given to you to help you develop.
The strengths, the muscles, the courage that you need to face the next chapter of your life. So once you start to look at the situation that way, I feel like you're gonna feel differently about it. You're gonna understand the not only. Can you beat this problem, but you're going to be better for it. ~Your enthusiasm for which you, ~your enthusiasm for how you're coming at the problem is gonna change.
Your ability to develop strategy on dealing with the problem is gonna change, and it's gonna have a massive effect on the [00:04:00] outcome and the results that you're going to get. ~Not only do I want you toand that ~this is your dragon to slay again, if you don't slay it. It is gonna kill you. And in the meantime, before it kills you, what's even worse than the fact that it kills you?
It's gonna make your life really freaking terrible in the process. It's gonna take everything from you, everything that's important. It's gonna take your relationships, your self dignity, your goals and aspirations, your dreams, your time, your money, your energy, your self-esteem. Everything. It's gonna take those things from you one by one by one, until it leaves you broken and dead or wishing you were dead.
~And I was kind of depressive, but it's the truth of it. ~Addiction is a terminal problem if you don't conquer it, because addictions don't really plateau usually. They just tend to get progressively worse and worse. And as it gets worse and worse, the unmanageability, the difficulties that you face, life becomes harder and [00:05:00] harder and harder.
It's like squeezing you like a vice. ~I know it's kind of down, isn't it? ~Not only do I want you to understand that, that this thing is gonna kill you and it's gonna make you miserable in the process. Maybe even more importantly is if you don't slay this dragon, it's gonna kill and destroy your family because it's not just coming for you, it's coming for everyone around you.
It's gonna mess up your family for generations. How many of you watching this video grew up in an addicted home and someone else's addiction is still impacting you today? Maybe that person's not even around anymore, but you know that that addiction is impacting you and maybe it's impacting you in a way that's changing you in a way that's impacting your children.
It's very important to understand that this thing isn't just coming for you. I know it's easy to tell yourself like, I'm just hurting myself and I'm not hurting anyone else. But if you have people around you that care about you or rely on you in any way, then you're being dishonest to yourself about that.
And if you don't have people [00:06:00] around you that care about you or that rely on you in any way, then it probably means that this dragon has done, took all those things away from you, and you need to deal with it before it takes. The last little bit of whatever you have left, right? So this isn't just about protecting yourself.
This isn't just about being a stronger person. Those are really important things. But it's also about protecting the people around you because addiction turns you into a person that you don't wanna be. ~You don't, ~it's not like you're a bad person and then you have addiction. It's more like you get addiction, which.
Slowly over the course of time turns you into a person who does bad things, who's not gonna be reliable, who's going to be telling lies, ~who's going to be ~manipulating ~who. It puts you in a position, and I know you don't mean to get there, but ~it puts you in a position to ~have to become, you ~have to get into ~this ~survival mode because the addiction requires ~more and ~more and more of your mental space, your money, your resources, your time, your energy, everything.
Around you a little bit at a time [00:07:00] and it just takes and takes and takes from you and you spend all of your energy chasing this addictive thing, whatever it is, while it's destroying everything around you. So ~you, ~you have a choice not to ~s ~take this, ~um, what I'm gonna call ~in the hero's journey.
They call it a call to adventure, not to sort of step up to the plate, but if you don't step up to the plate, the results aren't gonna be good. It's not just gonna go away on its own. It's not just gonna leave you alone. It's not just gonna plateau out and sort of settle in somewhere at some comfortable pace.
It's really just not the way this thing works. I've been dealing with this thing for a long time. And I promise you, it just is gonna progressively make your life more and more difficult. That's why the mission of this channel is to get people to put the shovels down, right? I don't want you to continue on this path of misery.
A lot of the people we see in our office still have a lot to lose. They're still very functional. They're still successful in a lot of ways. And if they would just put that shovel [00:08:00] down ~or conquer this dragon right now. ~They wouldn't have to suffer the prob, but most people, if they're not lost everything, then they wanna deny the fact that this dragon is at their door.
They wanna either deny that they have an addiction, and so because of that, they just are sort of. Closing their eyes, putting a blindfold on, refusing to acknowledge it, or they wanna acknowledge it, but they wanna act like there's nothing they can do about it. Or they wanna stay in like a victim stance of it's not fair and everyone's mean to me.
~And they only see the bad qualities about me and everyone's judging me and critical and they're trying to control me. ~And when you're in that state of mind, you're staying in a victim mindset, which is gonna disallow you from being able to see the solutions. ~That are right in front of your face. ~There are lots of ways to defeat this dragon.
There's lots of tools and weapons you can use. We'll talk about those a little bit more in just a minute, but you won't be able to see them, or at least you won't be able to know how to use them unless you shift your lens on this thing a little bit. So in your own story, realizing that I know it feels unfair.
I know [00:09:00] this thing is big and bad, and scary and difficult. And it's not easy, but everyone has their own dragon. This is yours. If you go to 12 step and you start saying, why me? You might hear someone say back to you, why not you? ~You know, you could say, why me? Why do I have this problem? Well, why does that person have that problem?~
Why does that person lose their child? And why did that person lose their leg? And why does that person have this difficulty in their life? So staying stuck in this why me stance? It's just not very helpful. In fact, when you stay in that victim mindset, you're actually just opening the door ~for this, ~for your addiction, for this dragon to be able
~to videos in more, more in depth and more at length. But like I. ~Bad decisions are almost always preceded by self-pity. And self-pity is almost always preceded by resentment. So the formula is this, I build a resentment 'cause something in my life is unfair and it's not right, and maybe it's a family member, a job politics, a situation, whatever I get [00:10:00] in this resentful state of mind, which then leads me to feeling sorry for myself, which then leads me to making a bad decision in relation to that.
'cause basically we feel sorry for ourself and we let ourself off the hook. We lower our standards for ourself because we're in this. Woe is me mindset. We don't hold ourselves accountable to the same level. And the formula for this addiction to get you is resentment, self pity, bad decision. Like my job is really stressful.
I got terrible news today. I came home, my kids were rude and disrespectful. My wife, all she wants to do is tell me how I've ruined everything for them. Resentment. Resentment. Resentment. Self pity. Self pity. Self pity. Screw it. I'm gonna fill in the blank. Take that drink, call the drug dealer, ~um, ~get on the online gambling forum.
~Go on the websites. I shouldn't be on whatever your addictive thing is. You can fill in the blank with that. ~But that's how we get there. That's how we let ourself off the hook and we let ourself make this bad decision over and over again. You gotta realize that this dragon that's coming after you, [00:11:00] its weapon to towards you is to get you to feel sorry for yourself.
Because when you feel sorry for yourself, you don't hold yourself to the same standard and you make bad decisions. So once you can understand that that is the weapon that's using against you, you can put your shield up to that. You can think about it very differently. ~Um, ~if you're struggling with this, then this is your opportunity to do something different.
I see so many clients who like they may. Get sober for short periods of time and then fall back, and most of the time the reason for that is because either. Their initial decision to get sober for a short period of time. Sometimes they do that because they're in trouble and they need to get someone off their back, or they've got a legal problem and they need to stay sober for a period of time to deal with that or whatever.
Sometimes they stay sober for short periods of time because they're viewing it as a, let me just, prove to myself that I'm not ~an addict or an alcoholic, ~an addict or an [00:12:00] alcoholic. They couldn't go, 30 days without drinking. So if I can go 30 days, it means I'm not an addict or alcoholic. It means I can do it again.
That's so ~common. You guys super ~common. And guess what happens? They prove to themselves by staying sober those days. And then they go back to it thinking, oh, okay, I'm not an actor, an alcoholic, which means I don't need to give it up completely. They let this thing, this dragon sneak back into their life and then very quickly.
~Same old decision. ~Now, they may have circumstances to blame, but as they fall back into that you'll be able to see yourself. Or if this is someone you love, you'll be able to see that victim mindset come back ~more and more and more and more, usually ~pretty quickly when it comes to a relapse. ~Or ~sometimes people get sober for short periods of time because they feel like they're.
Stabilizing themself, right? Let me just get this under control and then when I bring it back into my life, it's not gonna cause me harm. But when you have that thought, I want you to think about, let me just bring this fire [00:13:00] breathing dragon back into my house and think it's gonna be better behave this time.
It's not gonna cause me problems. It's not gonna hurt my family. It's not gonna cause me to not live up to my responsibilities. That's not the case. If you let the dragon back in, it's gonna do all those same things again. It's the nature of it. So being honest with yourself is a huge tool to being able to overcome this thing and coming at it from the mindset of understanding you're gonna grow and be a better person.
All of my favorite people, I usually say all my favorite people are in recovery because in order to beat this thing you develop these. Abilities that other people don't have. You're more humble. You are more self-reflective. You are more honest with yourself. You have to live with integrity more than other people because it, because integrity is sort of one of these.
Shields or tools that you have that don't let the dragon in. If you live with integrity, you [00:14:00] tend to stay in a place where you feel really proud of yourself and you feel really good about who you are, and it's really hard to get into a victim mindset when you're proud of yourself and you feel really good about who you are.
~You can think of it almost like an invisible shield, right? ~Being honest, making right choices, doing the right thing when it's hard, being responsible, being a person that you feel good about, which basically is living in congruence with your value system will build that shield that doesn't let this problem back into your life.
Because it needs you. This is a problem that likes to sneak in when you're down. It wants to get you in that resentment mindset. It wants to get you in that feel sorry for yourself mindset, and if you're watching this as a family member, and I know many of you are, then this is important for you to understand too, because when you get yourself as the family member in the bad guy role.
Then you're allowing this dragon to control you. When you get it, to get you to act in those ways that you know are not helpful towards your addicted loved one, [00:15:00] then it's winning because now your addicted loved one resents you. They feel sorry for themselves. They feel stressed out. They feel like this is their only thing that makes them feel better and they fall back into it.
I'm not saying that it's your fault. I'm just saying that this addiction is controlling you in that way and ~it, ~it needs this certain.
The show. It likes to in darkness, it likes to run on anger, resentment, self pity, sadness, depression. Those are the things that. Keep, you know, if you think of it, sometimes I think of it like a video game, like a old school video game where you have like yourself and then ~the ~the big monster you're trying to beat.
And you can see like the lifeline at the top, those, when those things are happening, I just want you to picture the lifeline of this addiction dragon or whatever. It's just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And you're getting weaker and weaker and weaker. But like I said, once you understand how this thing works, what feeds it, what protects you, you [00:16:00] can go about it differently.
So what are the practical steps you need to take in order to defeat this thing right in most? Hero's journey and all the good like movies and stories, right? If you think about Frodo and Lord of the Rings, if you think about Cat in the Hunger Games, if you think about any of those sort of classic stories that we all love, right?
There's this person who's. At first, they're just going along living their life, and then something happens and they're forced into a situation. Usually some situations they didn't necessarily wanna be in, right? But they're in it and they can decide how they're gonna sort of rise to the occasion or not.
One of the things that usually happens in the storyline is ~they get some, um. ~They get some supportive people around them. They surround themselves with helpful, other helpful characters, and that's important for you to do too. Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed. Surround yourself with people who bring [00:17:00] the best out in you, who encourage you to live with integrity.
~If you surround yourself with, ~if you continue to surround yourself with ~more using ~friends and people who are doing exactly what you're doing, they're not encouraging you to live that way. They're validating your resentment, they're validating yourself, pity. They're fueling the fires of that because they're right there along with you.
And when they make you feel better, they make themselves feel better about what they're doing. You know, like let's say your wife's on your case, she's yelling at you saying you drink all the time. You're not here for us. You're being a terrible father, blah, blah, blah. You're mad at her. You're stressed out.
You go to the bar, you sit with your friends, ~you have drinking, ~you're drinking. You tell your friend how your wife's critical of you. She tries to control you. She's telling you you're an alcoholic. What's your friend gonna say? A friend sitting there drinking with you, they're gonna say. What? You're crazy.
~You're a great guy. ~You're not alcoholic. I drink way more than you. Right? They're gonna fan those flames, which is not going to push you into the right direction, right? It's gonna increase that resentment and self pity, which is gonna leave the room for more bad [00:18:00] decisions. And then what happens if you're in this situation, you start developing this fantasy of well life sure would be better if I were divorced.
If I was single. I wouldn't have to put up with this crap. ~And then. ~And then it gets even sinker. You convince yourself, well, maybe she'd be happier.
Pity leads to banking. We trick ourselves, we fool ourselves. We get this delusional thought process. We talk ourselves into doing things that really are not the right decisions. And if we've stopped and think about it, we know deep down it's not the right decision. But ~it, ~it requires us to be honest.
So ~you, ~you surround yourself with people who. Bring the right things out in you. That's not me telling you. You have to ~go to a trust up meeting. I think it's great if you wanna ~go to a 12 step meeting. That's one way to find people, you know, having a sponsor, a sponsor is a person that's gonna be encouraging you to live life with integrity, working those steps.
It's a methodical process to integrity. That's all those 12 steps are. If you don't like them, something about that you don't like, that's cool. You don't have to [00:19:00] go that way. But you can find other people, a counselor, a coach, other family members, other people that have gotten sober, other leaders in your life.
You can join in other groups that bring the best out in you, but surround yourself with people who make you want to make right decisions, ~who are not going to feed in to that. Victim mindset who are gonna push you to be a better person. ~They can be in recovery or not be in recovery. I'm just telling you, you need this cast of characters to surround yourself with.
Get yourself some tools. One of the biggest tools that you can get is keeping your mindset in the right place. ~'cause we've already talked about how it builds like this shield around you. ~Another tool is accountability. Make it really hard to make a bad decision. That's gonna help you keep your integrity in line you hear me talk on here, tools like Soberlink, but the drug screening, those are ways you can do it, but also just having accountability people in your life, just being honest with the people in your life about the people, places, and things that you don't need to go around.
Like put it out there so that you can't, those sneaky thoughts can't creep in and cause you [00:20:00] to think I'm just gonna do it this one time, and it just make it really hard to make a bad decision. Set parameters up around you. ~And there are tons of ways to do that. ~These are all tools that you can use. To overcome this dragon, like I said, I don't care what tool you use.
Maybe you use a slingshot, maybe you use a sword, maybe you use a rifle, whatever, but get a tool and get people around ~you. They're gonna help support ~you. You're gonna have to do this by yourself. There's no other way to do it. But having people around you to encourage you, to help you make decisions to think through situations, that's very helpful.
They can't do it for you, so it's one of those issues. They cannot fix it for you. You're the one that's gonna have to do it, and you have to do it because ~you, ~you don't get the muscles, you don't become the hero without doing it yourself. But you can definitely find resources, tools, people that will help keep your mindset.[00:21:00]
You're struggling with this. I wanna give you a task to do for today. I want you to take some time, sit down and write your thoughts out about this. ~Um, ~I want you to talk about what your dragon is, what it's doing to you, why it's so important that you overcome this, and how you're gonna be stronger when you do.
Writing things down forces you to get. More into the logical place of your mind and out of the emotional place in your mind. And it really helps you to get clarity. So talking about it can do that too. So if you have someone, if you don't like to write, if you have someone you can talk to out loud about it, you'll get more clarity.
But writing forces your brain to work in a way that provides you more clarity. So. My challenge to you is to sit down and write this out. Write this storyline out for yourself, and then include in there what are the tools that you have to overcome this? Who are the support people? How are you gonna set up accountability?
And the main [00:22:00] thing I want you to focus on is your why. Why is it important?
~You strong on the, all right. So ~if you don't have someone to, if you're not gonna write it down, at least talk it out with someone. It's gonna help you get stronger and stronger in your conviction to know what to do and how to do it. All right, we're about to the point in our live video today. If you're watching live, then go ahead and put your comments, your questions, your thoughts in the chat section.
Brie is back there behind the scenes being our moderator, and she's gonna be picking out some questions. ~I was telling the, I was telling Campbell this week that, do you guys remember, um, you guys remember that, um, home improvement show with Tim, the Toman Taylor? ~I said, Brie is like the neighbor that's like behind the fence that you know is back there, but you don't ever really get to see her.
She's back there. I can see her. Like Wilson, I think is the neighbor's name. ~That's what Brie's ~she's back there. She's keeping the whole show together. So put your questions and your comments in the chat and Brie will put 'em up here if you put little, ~um. ~Question marks or something in front. It helps her to know that you're asking a question, not just talking to someone else in the chat, and she'll put it up there In the meantime, while you do that, I'll remind you that as [00:23:00] always, there are resources in the description.
~Um, ~one of the things you can do, I've got Ambre AI down there. I haven't talked about Ambre in a while, but if you don't know what that is, it's like the chat GPT version of me. It's Ambry AI is an artificial intelligence that's trained by. All of these videos I've made, all the content I've ever made, written, filmed.
It's trained by sessions I've had in the past, consultations, and so you can~ have that sounding board. One of the tools you can use is ~have that sounding board. And what I love about Ambry, it is so easy to, to just be really open and honest. I find that people are more open and honest with Ambry than they are with me.
~Because. ~There's still this little thing inside of us when we're talking to someone else that worries about judgment or saying the wrong thing or hurting their feelings or whatever. You don't have to do that when you're talking about emre. So you have this sounding board that's gonna come from a perspective that knows how to help you, but it's not gonna judge you.
It's not gonna tell [00:24:00] anybody. Not that I would, but ~you, ~you don't have to worry about any of those things that you have to worry about when you talk person. ~So. ~Are struggling and you don't have a person, or you have people, but you don't wanna bother them all the time. That's another cool thing about Amber.
She's there 24 7 to help you think through a situation to make a better decision about how to handle a situation. She can do things like help you. ~Um, ~practice a hard conversation, help you come up with the right text message to send someone, help you figure out what to say and deal with friends who may be pressuring you in a higher situation.
So all that's down there and more, check those out. Let's take some questions, some comments. Brie Stephanie says, how do I deal with my loved one who cancels on all the plans we make and can't commit? ~Simple daily things. ~This is super common, Stephanie, and obviously I don't, I don't know, but my guess is, is that your loved one is like most people, it's like when they agree to it, they mean it.
So they're not necessarily just flat out lying to you or they don't know that they're gonna cancel, but their addiction is [00:25:00] causing so much unmanageability in their life that maybe ~they, ~they. Mean to do it, but then they can't, they just can't show up. They're constantly late because their addiction is to the point that it's requiring all their energy and effort to keep this whole thing going all the time.
~And so things are falling through the cracks. ~I honestly would put yourself in a position where you're not relying on them, ~um, ~in a way that makes you vulnerable. So it's kind of like if you've asked them to do something or show up, if they do, it's great, but if they don't it, you're not putting yourself in a position.
Like if they don't pay you back the money, don't put yourself in a position to give someone money and now you can't pay your bills. Or you know they're supposed to. It's your husband and they're supposed to be there to watch the kids and be sober, but they didn't show up or they showed up and they weren't sober, and now you don't have someone else Don't.
~Don't ~put yourself in a position to have to rely on them in a way that's gonna really hurt you if they don't come through. That's just about being, I hate to say it, but that's just about being honest with yourself about it, and maybe even stop putting yourself in a [00:26:00] position to be set up for that disappointment by asking them, by getting them to commit.
Because every time it happens, you're let down, you're disappointed, you're frustrated, ~then you. ~Then you feel sorry for yourself, then you make bad decisions too. It's not just the person with the addiction, resentment, self pity leads to bad decisions in general, not just with addiction. Good question. I know you're not the only one struggling with that.
What else do we have? Bri Grizzly Bear says, I've learned amazingly invaluable insights from watching Amber's videos for years and getting into Amber ai, a great tool that can help 24 7 anytime I need help. Hey, thanks for the positive reference for Amber ai. Encourage y'all to subscribe to Amber ai.
Thank you, grizzly Bear. I personally talk to Ambry AI every day. She helped me come up with the outline for today's video. She helped me come up with a title. She's pretty helpful. Sarah says, thank you, Amber. As a mother of an addict, it's been so hard at times to step back and not play the victim ~a yeah.~
I hear you, Sarah. 'cause it, it does [00:27:00] suck to be in the situation, but you're going, just even being on this channel and learning these things that you're learning here is making you a better person because these things don't just apply to how to deal with an addictive loved one. These are just good relational skills.
Good. Self skills, so you're gonna grow stronger too. Sarah says, how should I look after my addictions son's wages for him when he gets paid? Okay, good question. I don't know that you should do that. Oh, oh, well you definitely shouldn't do that. You shouldn't look after their wages unless he asks you to look after the wages.
And even then I want you to proceed with. Caution. 'cause it's common. Sometimes a person with an addiction, they'll say, I want you to take all my money and don't gimme any money no matter what I say, or, or I want you to manage my prescription and just don't give it to me except one a day no matter what I say.
But then, you know, three days later they change their mind and then they're like berating [00:28:00] you, and then they're mad at you and they're putting you in the villain. Real. So what if your person has asked you to do this? Then you can say, okay, I'm gonna do that for you as long as. You want me to do that? And as long as you're not mad at me about it.
~'Cause that's not fair to ask you to do that. And then, and then all of a sudden you're the bad guy. ~There are some other ways to do that, but like I said, do not do it unless they've asked you to do it, because then you're immediately in a villain. Real, there's something out there called a true link, which is, ~um.~
Which is a debit card that works just like your regular debit card. But and it's made for situations like this, ~um, ~like situations where someone has an addiction or maybe a really bad mental health problem or something like that, and there are parameters you can put on it, like they can't get cash back or they can't buy alcohol or other certain things with it.
So check that out. You can go to the True Link website and if it's something that they wanna help manage or set up, then that might be a good tool to use and let. You can kind of help manage the true link parameters on the back end if they want you to, but then it allows [00:29:00] the true link to be the bad guy more than you, which is always better when you can have someone else doing it.
Pisha says, our therapist said My alcoholic husband is too comfortable. He needs to be uncomfortable to change. So I told him to watch intervention and give him, so I was told I. ~Okay, hold on. ~My therapist says my alcoholic husband is too comfortable and needs to be uncomfortable to change. I could agree with that.
So I was told to watch intervention and give him an ultimatum, and that's the only way Thoughts, really good question. I'm not opposed to like the traditional kind of intervention, the kind that they show on the show intervention in a certain circumstance. And that circumstance would be if you. If your husband knows that he is an alcoholic and he knows that it is [00:30:00] messing his life up and not gonna go well, and you put him in a position whether from an intervention or some other kind of leveraged way to force them into treatment ~for.~
A good amount of time, probably like at least 30 days. That works sometimes. Sometimes you can force people into getting help or you can force people into getting sober for short periods of time, but if they don't know that they have a problem or they think somehow they can still manage it, they're gonna go back to use.
So forced or leveraged treatment definitely can work because sometimes people just have to get sober for their brain to kick in and be able to make good choices, but it won't work if they have it in the back of their head that you're ridiculous. ~They're not really an alcoholic. They can cut it down or they can control it, or it's fine as long as you don't know about it.~
They'll eventually go back. So you need to ask yourself, where's your husband in that continuum? Is it like he knows he has a problem, he is just so outta control that he can't stop and he needs to be pushed into stopping. If so, fine, if not, then I really don't advise that route because [00:31:00] you might get a short term win, but ultimately I don't think it's gonna fix the problem and it will cause even more resentment and frustration in the relationship.
I agree. When your therapist says, needs to get you more uncomfortable, but the more that uncomfortableness can come from somewhere outside of you, the better. When you do it, the person perceives it as punishment. If the world does it, then they're able to connect the dots between their choices and their behavior.
It's a consequence in that realm. They'll start to. Put those dots together. But if it's something that you control or push onto the person, they typically see this punishment. So yes, they need to be uncomfortable. So just back outta the way, let the world make 'em uncomfortable if at all possible.
Pamela says, my husband said he wanted to be sober after a series of ~embarra ~embarrassing events that he calls embarrassing events. That's a consequence. He did something he was embarrassed by. Perfect example. We got backtrack and he was diligent with [00:32:00] it for a few weeks and then wouldn't take a test later in the day because he said it would be positive.
At least he was honest, he was drinking later in the day. At least I asked him to have someone else monitored besides me so he could have more accountability, but he doesn't want to, not sure how to encourage it. Okay, so there's a lot of pieces of this, Pamela. Let's break it down. ~Okay. So ~he got uncomfortable.
He had the embarrassing moments. He decided I've gotta do something to change. He got the backtrack and he did good for a while. For whatever reason, he fell off the wagon, probably fell back into denial on some level and was like I'm okay if I just do it every now and then, or if I just do it this once or if I just do it in occasionally.
One thing that I hear people say, Pam. A lot. The bargaining statement is, ~as long as I don't drink before a certain time of clock, like ~as long as I don't drink before five o'clock, as long as I don't drink before seven o'clock. Because in their mind they think I really get in trouble when I start drinking early in the day, like when we go to the lake or Saturday or whatever, and then I [00:33:00] drink all day.
And then that's when the bad things happen. So they start to convince themselves, if I just don't let myself drink before a certain time of day, I'm gonna be fine. That's a bargaining state. And so if that is what's happening. With your husband. I don't even know that it's gonna help to have someone else be that accountability partner.
If you are the spouse, you probably have the most weight of any possible accountability partner. Although it's not fun for you to have to be that person, you have the most weight, so you make them the most accountable. So I don't know that switching it. Someone else would make them more accountable unless it was like their job ~or something.~
~Or unless they were like probation officer and they're gonna go to jail ~or something. You're probably the most leverage. And also if they, if he really is in that bargaining state, then as much as it sucks, you're gonna have to let him do this bargain. 'cause we're not gonna get back to the fact that I need to be completely sober until I, until he figures out that this.
However he's framing it to himself. If it's like the, I can be fine as long as I don't drink before a certain time, we're not gonna [00:34:00] get there until he tries and fails at that. ~So if that's what's going on, ~if you can get him to be honest with you about it, get him to say what he's thinking, which is probably something along that, or maybe it's if I don't drink hard liquor, it's some kind of bargaining statement.
Get 'em to say it out loud to you. Say, okay, I understand where you're coming from. Let's try that. And if that doesn't work, can we go back to the backtrack? Get him to agree to that, but let the bargain play out because he's just gonna be sneaky. It's just gonna keep happening until we check that box.
Sandra says, question, my husband went to rehab for 30 days in 2023. He drank two days out after the drunk driving last week. He does not want to have access to, am I just prolonging the time? ~It is there more of it? ~Okay. So basically he went to rehab. He didn't stay sober, but two days and then it's escalated since then.
He had a Dr driving accident [00:35:00] last week and he's saying, I don't wanna have access to the vehicle. So he's saying, don't let me drive. And I'm guessing what you're saying is, should I go along with that plan or not? It depends on why he's saying it. ~If he's saying. ~If he's saying, I don't trust myself to drive as in, not just, I don't trust myself not to drink and drive, but if I drive, I'm probably gonna go to the store and buy it.
Like I don't need to go anywhere by myself. And ~he's, ~he's asking for that support from you because he is trying to get himself not to drink. Then I would go along with that as long as it doesn't put you in the villain role. ~Kind of like the control and the money question. ~But he could, it could be that he is not saying that.
It could just be he's saying, yeah, I'm gonna keep drinking as long as I don't drink and drive, I'm cool. And in some regards there's truth in that because that damage, just that damage controls the drinking and driving issue. But it definitely doesn't put any gait on alcoholism whatsoever. It just damages the, it just controls the one.
Possible outcome, the drinking and driving thing, but it won't solve the alcohol issue. And [00:36:00] Sandra says, no, I haven't given him access to the vehicle. He wasn't in an accident. ~So let me look at that question again. ~Husband went through every 30 days, drank two days out after drunk driving last week. He, oh, he doesn't have access to a vehicle.
~I gotcha. I read it wrong. My problem, I, I didn't read it correctly. I thought you said he doesn't want to have access. He does not have access to vehicle. I'm not giving him, he wasn't in the accident. Okay. ~Is it, ~so you're, ~so he was drinking and driving. You decided you're not giving him access to the vehicle. And so you're, I guess you're asking my thoughts on that. ~Um, ~my thoughts are
why are you not giving 'em the vehicle if you're not giving 'em the vehicle because it's in y'all's name and the insurance is in y'all's name, and you're like, I'm not having that liability on me. I could see that, that seems reasonable if you're not giving him the vehicle because you think he won't be able to go get alcohol and not be able to drink.
If he doesn't have a vehicle that probably won't work, he'll get it somehow or another, he'll get it delivered to the house or any other way. ~Um. ~Or ~if you're not, if you're, ~if it's your vehicle and you're saying, listen, you're not gonna drive my car because on my conscious I don't feel good about letting you drive, then I'm okay with that.
So I guess what I'm saying is not giving him the vehicle might damage control [00:37:00] the drinking and driving issue to some degree, but it won't fix the drinking issue itself.
All right, guys. Bri says that we are at our time limit for today. Thank you so much for everyone who showed up live. I love seeing you guys here. If you're watching the playback, I'm glad you're here too. We go live every Thursday at one Eastern. If you wanna jump on here live and, and have a question or join the conversation, we'd love to see you here.
Don't forget, there are resources in the description, and don't forget your assignment for today, which is to do some journaling or at least some talking about this dragon that you're saying. All right, I'll see you next time. Bye everybody.
~I.~
