Why Hating Yourself Won't Make You Sober

Why Shame Keeps You Stuck in the Drinking Cycle (And What Actually Creates Change)

You’ve probably heard that real change only happens after you hit rock bottom—that you have to feel enough shame and disgust with yourself to finally stop drinking. But what if that belief is actually keeping you stuck? In this episode, we challenge the idea that shame motivates recovery and explain how it often fuels the very cycle you're trying to escape.

We break down the powerful psychological pattern known as the Drama Triangle, and how it keeps people trapped in cycles of self-blame, emotional pain, and substance use. When you drink, shame follows. That shame leads to self-hate. And self-hate creates the emotional discomfort that makes you want relief—often through drinking again. It becomes a self-perpetuating loop that has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with identity.

This episode explains why lasting recovery isn’t about forcing yourself to stop through guilt or discipline. Instead, it’s about stepping off the Drama Triangle entirely and becoming someone who no longer needs that cycle to cope, escape, or define themselves. Real change happens when you shift how you see yourself—not when you try to punish yourself into being different.

If you’re ready to move beyond shame-based motivation and explore a strengths-based, identity-driven approach to recovery, this episode will show you a new path forward—one rooted in self-understanding, emotional freedom, and sustainable change.

Resources and Support:
Apply for 1-on-1 Recovery Coaching: https://www.familyrecoveryacademy.online/strengths-based-assessment
Learn More About Amber AI Coaching: https://www.familyrecoveryacademy.online/24-7-coaching-with-amber-ai
Motivation Support for Families in Denial: https://www.familyrecoveryacademy.online/motivation-unlocked-challenge

If you’re tired of the shame cycle and ready for a different approach, this episode offers a powerful framework for real, lasting transformation.

Episode Transcript

AI Edits from Why Hating Yourself Won't Make You Sober (1)
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[00:00:00] Hating yourself won't make you sober. In fact, self-hate is probably exactly what's keep ~you keeping ~you stuck in addiction, whether that's drinking drug use or whatever it is. I know that probably goes against everything you've been told. You've heard it a thousand times. You need to hit rock bottom, feel the shame, hate yourself for what you've become, and then you'll finally change.

I'm gonna show you today, while that approach actually keeps you trapped in the exact cycle you're trying to escape, and if you're watching this as a family member, this applies to you too, because every time you shame them, criticize them, or rescue them, you're actually reinforcing the very pattern that's keeping them stuck.

So grab your coffee, get comfortable, and let's dive in. ~Real quick before we get started. In case you don't know who I am, I'm Amber Hollingsworth and you're watching Put the Shovel down if this topic resonates with you. Hit the subscribe button. We post videos every single week about recovery that works, not the shame-based stuff that keeps people stuck.~

~And if you know someone that needs to hear this message today, someone who's been trying to hate themselves into sobriety and it's not working. Share this video with them. Sometimes we just need permission to stop being so hard on ourselves. ~All right, let's get into the shame cycle. Let me paint a picture for you that I see constantly in my practice.

Someone wakes up, hungover, they look at themselves in the mirror and think, I'm [00:01:00] disgusting, I'm weak. I'm a failure. They promise themselves, today will be different. ~I'm gonna white knuckle through this. I'm going to be stronger. ~Then they get to about 3:00 PM They're feeling proud, they're feeling strong, but then something happens, A thought creeps in about last night, what they said, what they did, how they failed.

Again, the shame floods in and by five o'clock they're right back at the bottle, the pill, the smoke, whatever it is. Because the thing that people don't understand is that. When you drink or use, you feel shame. You get onto yourself. You actually wanna escape that shame, which then just makes you wanna drink more.

It's like a vicious cycle. There's actually like biological and physiological things happening here. I call it. It's like the willpower drain. Your willpower is like gas and a gas tank. You wake up, your body is already in crisis mode. You're dehydrated your blood sugar's unstable. Your brain chemistry is a disaster.

You're functioning [00:02:00] on fumes, barely. You're making yourself go to work or do all the things 'cause you're already mad at yourself. And then you add this emotional component. You spend all day long beating yourself up. I'm terrible, I'm an embarrassment. That was humiliating. I have no self-control. I'm a failure.

But research actually says that self-criticism drains our willpower. Every time you beat yourself up, every time you shame yourself, every time you spiral into safe self-hatred, you are depleting your willpower, you're exhausting your brain. Think about it. You're trying to function during the day, while you feel physically terrible and emotionally terrible.

~You're fighting through physical withdrawal symptoms. You're managing your shame and guilt. ~You're trying to keep it together at work with your family in public, and it takes massive amounts of energy and willpower to do that. So by the time you hit that crucial moment, the time of day when your body is used to drinking, when the habit pattern kicks in, you basically have nothing left in the [00:03:00] tank.

Your willpower is pretty much completely gone. You've spent it all just getting through the day and hating yourself, and then the craving hits, and then the trigger happens, and that's when you need your willpower the most, but you've already used it all beating yourself up. This is why the shame-based approach is actually just setting you up for fail, not because you're weak, you're failing because you're trying to use a resource willpower.

It's. Already been completely drained and exhausted by spending all day feeling like crap and being mad at yourself. If you're trying, if you're trying to drive a car that's outta gas, then blaming yourself for not making it to your destination. That's what shame is. It isn't motivating you to stop. The shame is actually literally draining the very resource that you need in order to stop.

So when you [00:04:00] feel terrible about yourself, when you're drowning yourself in self-hatred, what do you want to do? You want relief. Of course you do. You wanna escape, you wanna, you don't wanna feel this way anymore. And what provides that relief? The exact thing you're trying to quit. Now, in addition to all that biology, there's actually some deeper psychological patterns here, and I wanna talk to you about this, and I wanna show you a.

Basically like a psychological concept called the drama triangle. It's an old school thing. ~Kim and Cam? No, ~Kim and I actually have a video on this. It's a little bit old, but I want to bring it back and show you how it works. Here inside of our own head, there are three roles in the drama triangle, and it's called a triangle.

~You can picture it. ~Think of a triangle that's pointed like the pointing part is upside down. Okay, so that's at the bottom. At the bottom is the victim. ~Roll. ~Over to the right is the rescue roll, and the point up on the left is called the [00:05:00] persecutor roll. Let's take a look at the victim role. The victim role looks like I'm weak, I'm broken.

I can't stop drinking. For me, I'm a failure. Then the persecutor role sounds like this. It's that voice in your head or the people around you that are telling you're disgusting. You're. You're a failure. You should be ashamed. Then there's role number three, the rescuer. And in this instance, the rescuer is what saves you from those feelings of persecution, from the bully.

And guess what plays the rescuer in this situation? The drink, the smoke, the pill, whatever it is that rescues you from that bad feeling. So I'm powerless. I can't control this. I'm stuck. You're back in the victim thinking. Then you become the persecutor. You start beating yourself up. I'm worthless. I'm never gonna change.

And then when that persecutor, that bully becomes unbearable, you go [00:06:00] looking for relief. The rescuer, which is the addiction or the addictive behavior. This is the trap. This is the role that keeps you drinking the victim. You're powerless to change as the persecutor. You're creating the pain that you need to SCA escape, and as the rescuer, the addiction, you're using that to cope.

You go around and around this cycle and you're not getting anywhere. So we gotta get off of this drama triangle cycle. Traditional recovery just moves you around that triangle sometimes. You're powerless over alcohol. That's a victim thought. You need to feel the consequences.

That's a persecutor thought. Try these coping skills. That's a rescuer thought, but you're still on the triangle. You're just switching seats on the bus, on the wrong bus. ~And if you're family member watching this, you're, you can have this whole drama triangle thing going on inside your own head.~

I like to think of the roles. They're little conversations we have in our head, sometimes I call them monster mouths and sometimes I call them the committee. So when it's inside your head, you can think of the committee, right? You got some people on the committee, you got the victim, the rescuer, and the persecutor, [00:07:00] and all of them are dysfunctional.

None of them are really helping anything. So you can have that whole committee inside your head. You can actually have the whole committee playing outside, like with other people in real life ~like, ~like a real committee of people that's interacting with the system. If you're a family member. You can be accidentally playing one of these roles inadvertently one of these roles.

If you're, when you're mad at them and you're yelling at them and you're telling 'em, they always say that and they're always screwing up all the things. Then you're being the persecutor. Every time you try to fix it for them. You're playing the rescuer and every time you enable them because you feel sorry for them, you're reinforcing the victim role in all of it.

All of it keeps them stuck on the triangle, keeps them drinking, smoking, taking pills, gambling sex, whatever it is. So here's the question. How do you get off of the triangle? I think we've already established that you don't get off of it [00:08:00] by hating yourself harder, not by hitting a lower bottom, not by feeling more shame.

You get off the triangle by changing your identity, you gotta shift out of those roles. You're not the persecutor, the victim, or the rescuer. Listen to me carefully. This is not about willpower. It's not about white knuckling it through the cravings. It's not about being strong enough. It's about becoming someone who doesn't need the drama triangle at all.

Like you don't need any of the people in that committee. Here's what I mean. The victim identity says, I'm an alcoholic. I'm powerless. I can't help myself Changed. Identity says, I'm someone who's learning to handle emotions without numbing. I'm building new patterns. I'm becoming who I want to be. Can you see the difference in the victim thinking?

Which only makes you feel worse in the sort of more like empowered thinking, the persecutor identity [00:09:00] says, I'm terrible, I'm weak. I deserve to suffer. The changed identity says something like, I'm human, I'm learning, I'm capable of change. The rescuer identity says I need something external to save me for my feelings.

The changed identity says I have the capacity to sit with discomfort, process my emotions in the healthy way. Do you see the difference? One keeps you trapped in the shame spiral and the other gives you an actual path forward. This is why self-hate does not work, because self-hate is the persecution. And persecution requires a rescue.

And for a drinker, the rescue is the bottle. For a gambler, it's gambling. You get the pattern here. You cannot hate yourself into becoming a different person. Bet you already know that. 'cause I bet you've tried it. Like a bazillion times. If you're watching this video and you [00:10:00] can relate to the cycle of waking up or something bad happens and you feel terrible, and you make all these promises to yourself and you try to remind yourself what a crappy, terrible person you are, put a little hands up emoji in the chat or in the comment so we know that it's not just us out there.

~There's more people with us. ~Or you could put a little amen or something if you want. If you're a family member. You've seen this process happen to your loved one? Go ahead and raise your hand too. 'cause you've seen it. You've probably been on both sides of it. In fact, we're not gonna go too far into this in this video, but as the family member, you got the same thing going on in your head.

You got the same committee. ~They got the committee. You got the committee. Y'all both got the same people in your committees, right? ~It's, you're really in a parallel process here, right? Because. ~You looked at your, ~you look at your loved one, and there are some times when you feel really sorry for them and you feel terrible for the consequences that they're experiencing, and you don't want them to not be able to pay their rent, and you don't want them to go to jail and you don't want them to lose their job.

So you jump in [00:11:00] there and you rescue them, right? You pay the rent, you make an excuse for them, you hire the lawyer. Whatever it is you do, you fix the external problem because you really don't want to see your loved one suffer. ~It reminds me, I started watching the show this week. Have you guys seen it?~

~It's like on Hulu, it's called Extracted. It's like that show alone where all of the people are like out in the wilderness by themselves trying to survive like with nothing. And they're like miserable and they're cold. They don't have food, water, nothing. Only extracted is like alone, except the family members are all like it, what they call like.~

~Like headquarters or whatever, and they're all watching the people out there. ~And then the, it's like hunger Games. So the family members are like back behind the scenes. They have to fight each other and do these contests or whatever to try to win supplies, to send to their person.

So it's like they're rescuing, right? And they're watching their person suffer. Like in the first episode there's like a black bear, like a giant bear that walks up on this guy. It's oh my gosh. It's pretty scary. And the family members, they can go up. If they wanna bring their person out, they can go up, they can hit this big extract, red button in the middle of the room or whatever, and then the person gets like taken outta the game, but they lose the game.

And I thought to myself, when I'm watching that, I'm like, dude, I couldn't let my family member sit out there for five minutes. If that was my son or my husband or my sister something, the first sign of like they're cold, I'd be hitting the extract button. I'd be terrible at that. 'cause I have a tendency toward the rescuer role.

[00:12:00] Of those three roles we play all the roles. We shift around the triangle, but we have, if you look at the psychological theory, they call it a starting gate position. Like where do you tend to enter this drama? And I usually tend to enter, I'm be honest, from the rescuer, imagine that a counselor entering as a rescuer.

~That sounds right. Huh? ~What happens to you if you're like the family member or whatever, and you're watching your person suffer, you have a natural instinct to make it better, and so you fix it, but then the person keeps doing it, and then you feel used and you feel taken advantage of, and you feel like you're treated crappy and you feel like you're holding all the responsibilities and you're sacrificing and they're not.

Guess what happens when you're thinking that? You are mad at them right now. You have fallen into the victim role, right? Like I've done all this for you. You keep promising. You're not following through. You said you're gonna pay me back and you didn't. Now you're victim role. Guess what you do when you fall into the victim role?

When we fall into the victim [00:13:00] role, then we're feeling sorry for ourself. We're feeling resentful and we give ourself permission to be mean and say, and do mean or passive aggressive things, and we move over to the persecutor role. Then we feel bad about what we said, and then we move into the rescue role and round, round we go.

So this whole dynamic is literally playing out in their head. In your head, and then between the people. ~I know that's five layers of cognition here, but ~just track with me because we all can fall into these roles. Do you tend to, where do you tend to start from? Do you tend to start from the rescue role?

~Like me? ~Do you tend to start from the victim role, the persecutor role? It's okay. It's not like any of 'em are good. They're all not great. So it doesn't matter which one you feel like you start from, but 'cause one leads to the next, leads to the next, leads to the next. When we feel victimized, what do they say?

Hurt people. Hurt people. When we feel victimized, we end up doing hurtful things and moving into that persecutor role. And then over to rescue. And around. Around we go. So the [00:14:00] point here is you cannot. Try to hate yourself sober. You cannot try to shame your loved one sober. It just doesn't work. And I know you've tried that enough.

~You don't even have to take my word. ~You can just take your own life experience. It's gonna tell you that you can only become a different person, seeing yourself differently first, whether you're a family member or the person with the addiction. Either way, you're both having addiction, right? One person has an addiction to a substance or behavior, the other person has an addiction to the person.

We could just have some grace for each other and realize like we're all battling the same thing. We do a lot better here. I know some of you're thinking, but Amber, don't I need to feel bad about my drinking? Don't they need to feel bad about their using? Isn't guilt and shame what motivates people to change?

~And my answer to this is this sort of a little bit, but not really. ~I think in the right doses, which is probably a dose, like a level, I call it like a guilt level. [00:15:00] It's like uncomfortableness that's tolerable. And I do think that feeling not great about something can motivate you to change, but when you're beating yourself up and you're calling yourself names and you're literally like telling yourself you're a failure.

You're this loser person or whatever, that level which is way more into the shame level. So extreme, it's not tolerable, and then you wanna rescue out of it. Either you're saying those things and you emotionally rescue yourself out of it by building a resentment towards someone else by distracting yourself, by drinking, using gambling, watching porn, whatever it is.

~Or you're saying that out loud and then the person's no, you're not that bad, and then they're rescuing you. It's like at the right level of uncomfortableness. ~Yeah, we need to get uncomfortable to wanna change, but when it's too strong. We just wanna do anything to make that feeling go away, and that's why you gotta get out of this whole cycle.

It just doesn't work. I really want you to understand that there is a difference between accountability and shame. Accountability [00:16:00] says I did something that doesn't align with who I wanna be, and I'm going to make a different choice moving forward. Maybe you even put some roadblocks and some people and some help in your way.

That's accountability. Shame says, I'm bad. I'm broken, I'm worthless. One of these things leads to change, and the other one leads back to the bottle or the pill or whatever it is. If you can acknowledge that your addiction is causing problems without hating yourself, you can recognize that you need to make a change without believing you are fundamentally flawed.

You can hold yourself accountable without beating yourself up, without being a bully. That's what identity-based recovery looks like. Instead of I'm a drunk who can't control myself. You would think something like, I'm someone who's gotten in a bad habit of using alcohol to cope, but I'm learning better ways ~instead of I'm weak and pathetic.~

You think something more like. I'm in the process of building new strength and new habits instead of, [00:17:00] I'll never change. You say, actually change is already happening. I'm actually cut it way back. I'm doing better already. This isn't lying to yourself. It's not like toxic positivity or anything. It's just stepping off the drama triangle into an actual transformation state.

It's about seeing yourself differently. I know it's like conventional wisdom to think the more someone suffers, the more likely they are to change. And it is true. People have to suffer a little bit and wanna change. Come on, that's, that's just like obvious, right? But the definition of addiction is someone keeps doing something despite consequences.

~That's like the literal definition, right? It means bad crap is happening. It's not even worth it, but they keep doing it anyway. ~So this idea of consequences, whether that's legal consequences, financial consequences, relationship consequences, emotional consequences, beating yourself up, it's not going to cure addiction.

What does help people is to think, you know what life might be better without it. And to [00:18:00] start to see. There is life after addiction and maybe it won't be so miserable. And then you start to say maybe this won't be as bad, probably won't be as bad as that. You start to see yourself differently.

You start to envision a different future, and you have to have somewhere inside of you that has enough self-worth left to say, to pull up the energy and strength it's gonna take to make the change happen. When you, A way to do that, if you're struggling with that, is think about other hard things you've done in the past.

You have done all the other hard things in the past. I'm not just saying that to you. ~I don't even know you, I don't even know who's watching this video right now. ~You know what you've been through. You know you've conquered hard crap before. You've probably even conquered this addiction before.

You probably even already know exactly what you need to do. So stop beating yourself up. Start giving yourself a little pep talk and put one foot in front of the other. Your influence can help you Step off of the triangle first yourself. Stop playing the persecutor. That's shaming, criticizing and attacking.[00:19:00]

Stop playing the rescue, the rescuer that's fixing, enabling, making all the consequences go away. And definitely don't be the victim. The helpless, hopeless, powerless. ~It is. It's not if you're the family member, ~it's not your job to make them sober. It's not your job to shame them into change, but you can help by being a stable, steady presence who refuses to ride the drama triangle with them.

And trust me, if you guys have been playing this dynamic out in your family system, both of you, all of you, maybe there's more than two of you are gonna wanna. Trigger the other person back into those same roles. You'll pick a fight, you'll engage in your same old behavior, trigger the other person to keep doing their same old things.

And we don't realize this, but we can keep each other stuck. We don't mean to, but we do. And that's why we gotta bring all this stuff from the subconscious level into the conscious level because. Setting boundaries. We all learn to set boundaries with people we care about without [00:20:00] making it punishment or judgment or criticism.

We gotta learn if we're from outside and even to ourselves, how to offer support without rescuing ourself. How to hold ourself or our loved ones accountable without shaming them. How? Be honest without being mean. ~I hate it when people say I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm just being honest.~

Honesty should not be used as a weapon like. Honesty. Yeah, honesty is a great quality, but you can be honest without being mean. I feel like a lot of people hide behind that excuse of, I'm just telling the truth when they're really just being mean to someone else or to themself, and that's just not helpful.

Honesty should not be a weapon, so if you're using it to be hurtful to someone you're in the persecuted role. That's not the kinda honesty that's helpful. Create space for yourself, for your loved one to get out of this bad cycle. If you're in the family member role and you're watching this and you're struggling with it we just finished [00:21:00] our motivation unlocked.

It's like our denial, breakthrough challenge. We just. Finished it this week. It was awesome. I feel like it's the best one we've had so far. I added a super ton of material to it and we just finished it, so you missed that one, but we'll have it again in March. I will, after I get off the video, I'll try to put the link in the comments below because it's all about this.

It's how do I encourage someone, how do I support someone without trying to shame them? Because it only, shame only makes denial worse. And without enabling them. So if you're in the family member position, consider doing that. ~Go ahead and get your spot now if you want. ~How do you do that without losing yourself?

If you're watching this and you're watching because you're trying to overcome your own bad pattern and you want some kind of recovery coaching option, I'm gonna give you two possible resources. If this is landing with you and you're recognizing yourself in this pattern, then you might be ready to step off of this whole drama T.

And there's two ways to do that with us. There's a lot of ways to do that. Don't [00:22:00] involve us. It doesn't have to be with us, but you wanna work with us, you can work directly with me. I offer exclusive one-on-one recovery coaching that is strengths-based. It's not traditional recovery. We don't shame you. We don't judge you.

We don't tell you to hit rock bottom. It's more about helping you see who you really are, helping you get to the root of your own identity, to find your own motivators to get out of the cycle. If you're not ready to, step into that and meet one-on-one and be involved in all that, and maybe you're just thinking about it, but you're not sure what do they call it?

They call it sober. There's a word sober, curious, like you're sober, curious or something you're not sure where you fall and all that. Then there is, and this is super modern, right? But there's an AI version of me. Amber ai. ~We've actually past two weeks just done a lot of software updates and making things better, even better than they were in there.~

And it gives you privacy without judgment. You could talk to Amber AI 24 7. It's a lot less expensive than scheduling one-on-one sessions. So there's a couple of [00:23:00] different options for you. Either way. What I want you to know is there's a better, more effective, easier way to stop this cycle than being mean to yourself and to the people around you.

Have some grace for yourself. You'll be a lot more likely to change. Alright, Brie, I've been talking for a long time. ~My mouse getting dry. ~I bet we got some questions and comments back there. Let me change over so I can see the comments. ~I'm gonna change my screen one second here. They're. ~Bree's back there moderating for us.

~I'm just changing over. I have to change where I can see him. ~Okay. Thanks Brie. Alright, our first one says, my husband was just diagnosed with fatty liver from alcohol abuse. 35 years of drinking. Why doesn't this scare him? Can this progress? Thanks. Great question. And I feel like there's probably several different pieces to this.

This happens a lot. We think that when they finally get that like lab report, that doctor tells 'em like it's gonna hit home. And for [00:24:00] some people that are super, like health focused or health conscious, it can weigh in heavier. But a lot of times for people, even when they, it does hit them hard.

When they're talking to someone external about it, especially if this someone is like the family member who's been on their case and they're feeling like an I told you so vibe, then a lot of times they'll just act like they don't care when they really do care. So it could be that's one thing that could be happening.

It could just be that they can't feel the uncomfortableness of that 'cause they're drinking to rescue themselves from the uncomfortableness of that. The way I like to think of it in my head is like, the addiction is an anesthesia. ~So it's like when you go to the dentist and they're like drilling in your face, you know they're drilling in your face, but you're okay with it because you're under anesthesia.~

So if, especially if they're constantly drinking or using, they're under anesthesia, so they just don't feel or hear or understand the weight of that. So it could just be they're too shameful to. Admit that they care. It could be that it, they've gone on and it's gone on so long that they've gotten to this like stage where they're just [00:25:00] like, they really they just don't care.

~Like an end stage addiction. ~People get what I call like passively suicidal. Like they don't have a plan to hurt themselves, but like they get so depressed and down on themselves that they basically just don't care and they secretly wish that they just wouldn't wake up tomorrow. That's probably the worst state and the hardest place to reach someone through.

So it could be they just won't tell it to you. ~It could be that they're just under anesthesia and ~it could be that they've gotten so far in that they just got the efforts. It could be a number one of those things. And does it progress? Yeah, the physical. Liver problem will progress and the denial can progress.

So if you're trying to get someone out of it, remember these techniques like the hitting the shame button isn't gonna help.

All right, here's another one. It says, I have C PTs slash pt. I'm on day eight sober. Let me first, 'cause some people might not know what that means. Most of PTSD is post traumatic stress disorder. CPSD is complex post-traumatic stress disorder. [00:26:00] And the difference is that usually, like regular PTSD comes from like an event, right?

Like you got assaulted, you were like in a war somewhere you got shot at, like you were in a tornado. Something like that. It's like an event that happened. See, PTSD, the complex version is not like one specific major life-threatening event. It's like. Ongoing things that happen over and over again.

If you grew up in an emotionally abusive household, right? It's like it's not one thing. It's like maybe it happened, it went on for years and years. You were in like a super dysfunctional, unhealthy toxic environment or something. That's CPSD. All right. Now that you know what that is, it says, I'm on day eight sober.

Hey, nice work. ~Very impressive. ~Eight days, you're like past, you get past the week like. You are getting past the hump. Nice. I've also learned that addiction, alcoholism is a brain disease. I wouldn't hate myself for having heart disease, so wow. [00:27:00] This, right? That's one way to think about it, right? Like we all have something and in fact, we all have some kind of bad pattern mistake that we fall ourselves in.

Maybe we don't call it addiction. All of us have some kind of maladaptive coping skill that we just keep doing over and over again. Maybe it's getting angry and screaming. Maybe it's getting chocolate chip cookies. That'd be like me. Maybe it's going back to the same terrible relationships.

So I feel if we can just understand that we all have something like that, we can give ourself a little grace. ~I completely agree with you, and congrats. Very nice. ~Amanda May says, question, he relapses or pushes me away when things start getting better between us. Is this the shame? Telling him he doesn't deserve it?

I'm afraid to try again. It's like a gut punch every time. It could be without knowing your situation, obviously. ~It's hard to answer questions on the lives because I'm just taking one or two sentences and trying to get context from it, but that could absolutely be it. It could be. ~That they're unsure if they can make it the whole distance.

And they're afraid to like, let you get too close or to [00:28:00] promise that it's never gonna happen again. Or because they're, they feel vulnerable, like they don't know for sure if they're gonna make it the whole way. It could be a lot of different reasons. Cindy says if someone is ambivalent. Would it be okay to send them this video? I think I, anytime you send one of my videos of someone, I think you need to wait till you have a good window opening. So this particular video, I feel like is a fairly good one to send to a lot of people, especially when they're really down on themselves and they're having a hard day and they're having one of those I can't believe I did this again.

~They're in the promises, they're in the cycle. ~This video might help someone but always say, Hey. I saw this crazy lady on YouTube. She sounds rednecky, whatever you wanna say, but she has this kind of cool topic, can I send it to you? Just ask permission, right? And then just send it over.

Be casual. Don't feel like you're, don't make it feel like you're pushing it on them, and they'll be more likely to not only watch it, but be open to it. Yes. Messy. Mary does it again, says, my husband [00:29:00] doesn't think he's bad enough to go to aa. We run a business together. So I pay the bills, I run the household, I take care of everything.

And it seems like he has his life together. Boy, I've heard that story before. ~Is there a ques, is there more to this one, Brie? Is there like a follow up question? ~If not, I'll just comment on the situation. Maybe, there's a few things here. What's happening is you're saying he feels like his life's together, but his life's together. 'cause I'm basically holding all the pieces together, which is the case a lot of times. So it could be that you have to let some of the balls drop and quit rescuing 'em so much so that they can feel the consequences of that.

That's one way, but you can also. Approach someone by saying, if they say I'm not bad enough, you say, I know, right? I'm so glad you're figuring this out before it gets that bad. You're not gonna go that far, like you're really smart because you're like addressing this before you need to do that.

So you can actually just run with what they're saying. Lean into it instead of trying to fight against it ~and try, instead of trying to say, yes you are and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ~That's just gonna make someone be defensive to you. [00:30:00] And these are the exact things we talk about in the challenge.

So if you haven't come to the challenge and this is your spouse, the challenge is for you. He's in counseling but keeps relapsing. There could be a lot of reasons for that. I don't know your situation, so I don't know if it's an addiction counselor. I don't know if the counselor has the whole story.

In my experience, no one ever really tells the whole story even when they're trying to, because we all have our own, like version of the story, sometimes counseling can make things worse. E, especially individual counseling for someone who has an addiction, because, and I know this because it happens in my office every day, is they come in, they're not always trying to lie to you, but they're telling you the story from a certain perspective.

And as the counselor, you can only go with what the person's telling you, right? And so sometimes you're giving wrong feedback or wrong advice because you're not getting all the information. ~So I dunno if that's happening or something else. It could be something else. ~It could be just as in the bargaining phase.

Elizabeth says, we are giving rise to our son for his PHP program, which is [00:31:00] a a treatment program. It stands for partial hospitalization program, and it's usually like they go to treatment during the day. He's always late and then gets so verbally abusive in the car. He blames us for everything I am lost.

What advice would you give me? Advice I would give you, and I'm even thinking more specifically advice Campbell and Kim would give you 'cause they're on your side, is that I probably wouldn't drive someone who's mean to me every day. 'cause that doesn't make sense. That's not naturally, can't be nasty to somebody and then need a favor.

And so I would probably set a boundary on that, right? I wouldn't say quit yelling and screaming at me. I would say, I'm happy to drive you as long as you're. Somewhat pleasant as, as long as you're not being nasty to me. That's reasonable, right? Yeah. I wouldn't wanna drive someone who's nasty to me.

You wouldn't drive anyone else who was nasty to you. It doesn't make sense. So that might be a boundary situation.

[00:32:00] Kathy says, question, what do you recommend with a young adults? I have an 18-year-old son. ~I'm out of the bag roll. Nice job. ~I hold solid boundaries, extra. ~Nice job, double points. ~We have let natural consequences happen. You've got the right setup here, you've got the right formula. ~I'm liking it. ~He hasn't graduated, isn't able to keep a job, but I don't shame him and try to see any positive steps.

We have a good relationship. He does think his use is a problem, but he seems stuck. His friend group is so important to him that they, and they also use. Maybe less problematically. He had success with craft method in your techniques, especially with daughter, but taking longer with, so suggestions is the addiction.

Marijuana. ~Kathy, you said 18, so I'm just jumping to that conclusion. I don't know if it is or not, but I know that one is harder. ~I feel and I've seen so many young people over my career and adults, not just young people that struggle with that and that it's like their motivation is just turned off.

The friend group, you're probably spot on because he's marijuana and alcohol. Yeah. So I figured, so the friend group probably is a big piece of it and it's, I, in [00:33:00] my experience with coaching people and counseling people is it's harder to get people to be willing to let go of the friends than it is the drug.

'cause a lot of times they'll be ready to let go of the weed or the alcohol. It's, that's a big step letting go of that to think I'm gonna have to lose my whole friend group too. Especially when you're a teenager and that's like your whole identity. It's scary. So I would have empathy for that.

And then since you're outta the bad guy role and it sounds like he's able to talk to you about it to some degree because you know that he knows it's a problem. So there's some conversations happening. If you can tolerate it and create a safe environment where he can actually talk to you, what happens when I see a teenager, they come talk to me and they say, yeah, I was with my friend and this happened.

~And I'm like, oh man. ~And then we just talk through it till they figure out for themselves I'm gonna have to create some distance. And the, with those people and the way that I wear that is I'm like, I'm not saying they're bad, you're probably bad influence on them. So I never try to attack the other people.

'cause for all I know my person's bad influence is probably the case in most situations. So I'm like, you just need to get a little [00:34:00] distance. You just need to take some time. It doesn't mean you're not their friend. And I even encourage them if they're gonna take some distance just to tell the person, because they feel guilty 'cause their friend and I say, Hey, just let 'em know.

~Hey. I'm working on this. ~I'm trying to stop smoking, so you might not see me around, but I'm not mad at you. I'm cool. ~I'm just working on and their friends will be like, dude, I'm proud of you. That's great. ~Like their friends, if they're real friends, will actually be supportive of that. But it's about loyalty and it's about fear of loneliness.

And so you wanna validate that. Amanda says, what are the signs? Someone is still controlled by shame. Even when they say they're trying to change, how can I help them face it? Without them being defensive. I think, change doesn't happen all in one shot. It's not like I decide I get a problem and then everything's uphill from there.

It's like I decide I have a problem, I make a step forward and a step back, and then two steps forward and a step back, and then three steps forward and a step back. And so when people are in that change process, I try to help them manage the shame of ~the. ~The setbacks, right? And I damage control those setbacks for them.

And [00:35:00] I've got several videos, Amanda, on what to do if you're in a relapse or someone you care about is in a relapse or something. And it's a lot about damage control. So that's some things that you can help them do to help face the shame. Like for example, a lot of times when someone relapses their whatever, like the people around them, like maybe even their sponsor, someone will say you gotta start over.

~You got a pee of white chip. And I'd say. ~Oh no, we are definitely not starting over. We done come way too far. We're not starting over. We're picking it right back up. And then I'll say, I know you already know all these things. We are not going back to square one. So I take an opposite stance, right?

Like I'm saying, it happens. Let's figure out we learned a lesson, right? What do we learn? Okay, moving on now. And so that's what I mean when I say damage, controlling it.

All right. Bri says, we are about out of time. You guys ask excellent questions. ~I feel like y'all get better and better questions and comments every week. Y'all keep me on my toes 'cause y'all are smarter and smarter. I love hanging out with you guys. ~Thank you for all of you who show up live. ~It sure does help not to feel like you're talking to yourself 'cause that feels awkward.~

And thank you for those of you're watching on the playback. ~I know some of you're working, you got things going on and I appreciate you coming back. ~Let me know what your experience with this shame cycle is with the drama triangle. I bet if you [00:36:00] think about it, you have a little experience with Drama Triangle.

I know I do. And if you want those resources I've got ~'em in a description and I think I've got like some of ~'em in a description and I'm gonna go back and put the rest of 'em right as soon as we get off of here. So y'all have the links. Thanks everybody. We'll see you next week. We're live every Thursday at one.

If you wanna catch us live and join the conversation, bye.

Why Hating Yourself Won't Make You Sober

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