10 Common Statements You Should STOP Saying To Your Loved One In Recovery

This video is specific advice for families in recovery. We're going to talk about the 10 things, plus a bonus that you really need to stop saying to your loved one. Now. It's not because any of these things are bad. In fact, all of the things we're going to tell you are very natural. And I'm almost certain that you've been saying them or have said them or at least been thinking them. It's just that they're not productive. And as you know, this channel is all about helping you understand the psychology of addiction so that you can stay five steps ahead of it. And honestly, it's all pretty predictable. So we know if you do or say these 10 things that I'm about to tell you, that it's really not going to get you anywhere, and a lot of times can take you in the absolute wrong direction. If you're new to this channel, I'd like to invite you to subscribe, and I'll make sure you understand addiction backwards and forwards and that you are always five steps ahead of it. If you got a person in your family with a substance use disorder, probably there's a little chaos going on in your house, right?

I would say a lot.

A lot of chaos. This video is all about the 10 things that family members, parents, spouses, whoever, need to stop saying immediately. Right? Because these things are, like, counterproductive. They're not helpful. They're probably going to damage a relationship. What are the other reasons why they shouldn't say these things?

You could just make that person feel bad about themselves. And honestly, a lot of them are excuses to go drink or get high in my book. Like, when I was looking at this list, and, like, thinking back to when I was actively using, I would have used a lot of this as an excuse.

Oh, my gosh. That's such a valid point.

I can't believe she said that. I'm about to get drunk now, right?

Because I think the most enabling things that families can do is not the money, it's playing the bad cop, because that makes the person feel justified to go use. They're just like, forget it. You know? And then they say, screw it, and they go out and use.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

So My name's David McNeese, and I'm with Greenville Transitions, a founder here. And I've been working with men that struggle with substance use disorder for about six years now. And I've worked with plenty of them.

And I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor and founder of Hope for Families Recovery Center. And so this is the. This is our top 10 list of things you should stop seeing. Now, there's a bonus at the end. If you watch the whole thing, there's a bonus one. As we were talking about this, we're at Greenville Transitions, which is a sober living place. We're having this conversation, making the video, and one of the guys here was telling us. We were talking to the guys, and we were saying, hey, what do you think should be on this list? And one of the guys was like, oh, I got your whole list right here.

See my mom's text messages.

Text messages.

Well, I'm going to call out some of these things of what not to say, and then Amber's going to put a little spin on it, maybe a way to reword it or give you.

Some alternatives or what to do instead.

Yeah. Okay, so here we go with number one. We've got. Have you been drinking?

Who, me? Yeah, you. I always say, don't ask the question like, have you been drinking? Or have you been using? Or are you high? Because the person's gonna lie to you immediately. Like, it's a reflex. And here's what I say. If you live in the house with this person and your gut says they're messed up, they're messed up, your gut is gonna tell you pretty much straight. And you may not know exactly what, but you know something's up. And if you just come right out and say, have you been drinking? Are they're going to tell you no? And then you're going to be really mad. You're going to be even madder that they lied to you than the fact that they used. So don't set yourself up to be lied to.

Yeah. And again, you know, going back to the days when I was using, I would have just been like, did my mom really just ask me that? I'm about to go messed up now. I'm going to go buy a 24 pack right now.

Oh, I'm drinking now. Yeah. And so it sets the person up to be a victim. It gives them another excuse to get to go use. And you've set yourself up to be lied to. So in general, I tell families, like, if you have the gut feeling that something's up, then just say, hey, like, I'm thinking you've been drinking, or you look like you've been drinking. Just make a statement versus a question. And you may even want to wait until they're not intoxic. If you think they're, like, really intoxicated, just wait.

Because you.

You really aren't going to get anywhere. If you're dealing with someone that's, like, acutely intoxicated.

Yeah.

You can say, yesterday you came home, you've been drinking. Like, if you say it and they weren't, they'll tell you.

I like the concerned approach of, like, hey, I'm concerned that you're drinking again. Can we talk about that?

Another way you can do it is to say, and this is kind of like a Brene Brown thing, the story I'm telling myself. And so sometimes I'll tell families. If you think it and you're worried you're gonna be offended, say, like, look, I know I'm like, the crazy, hyper, vigilant mother, wife, husband, but my head's going crazy telling me you've been drinking. Like, I know I'm probably being crazy. Like, convince me you're not. Like, you can say it like that.

Yeah.

If you really think that maybe you're, like, you know, you're hypersensitive or maybe you're jumped, say that because it makes the person less offensive.

I do that a lot around here. Yeah.

What do you. How do you say it?

I mean, with different things, I'll just take that approach of, like, doubting myself first because it makes them less defensive. Kind of takes the guard down, leaves room for error.

Okay, awesome.

So, number two, did you go to a meeting?

Oh, good. One, why do you think they shouldn't ask that again?

For me, it's just like, one of those things, like, I'll show them. You know, back when I was using, of course, I would have gone to that mentality. And two, it's, like, not their business.

I feel like those two questions set the dynamic of immediately, like, boss and subordinate or probation officer and parolee. Or, like, I'm the good one and you're in trouble. I don't know. It sets the dynamic up in a, like, I'm over you kind of way, which immediately puts a person on the defensive, you know, like, principal's office kind of situation.

Yeah, definitely. So I think if you worded that a little different to say, like, you know, how are the meetings going for you?

Yeah. Or do you like your meetings? Or what's your favorite meeting? Or are there any of them that you really don't like, like, ask something out of curiosity, like you really care, like, how's it going? Do you hate them? Do you like them? Like, ask something out of curiosity. But the thing I usually say about it is, if someone's going to meetings, they usually bring it up on their own. And if they're not actively bringing it up, that's a pretty good clue that they're not going to. Yeah, because they usually want you to know.

Oh, they want everyone to know.

They want. So they're like, oh, at my meeting today, they just. It's almost like name dropping. Yeah. You know, they, like, drop it in there. So if they're not saying it, there's your answer. You don't even have to ask it.

Okay, so number three, we've got. What did you talk about in your counseling session?

Oh, my gosh. I see so many, like, husbands. I see all these, like, alcoholic dudes. One of the first things I prep them for them. Say, listen, when you go home from the session, your wife is going to either say. And if she doesn't say, she's going to be thinking, what did you talk about in your session?

So I have to talk about me.

That's. That's a big part of their worry. Yeah, it is. Because I think especially for married people, it's weird, you know? Especially if it's like your husband is going to talk to some other woman, and it's like, are you talking about me? And even kids, like, parents, where you're like, what are they saying about me? If it's a kid and parents, they're probably saying crappy stuff about you. But don't worry. We don't believe it sometimes. Don't worry about it. We know it's.

So what would you say is an alternative way to approach that?

I think usually there's two things families are really after with that question. They're worried that you're talking about them, because it does feel weird to think, oh, even if it's not even, like, addiction counseling, it's just like, your spouse or your kids going to counseling, and it's a worry that you have. So they're either worried about that, or they're just wondering if it's working. Yeah, it's not even so much like, I want to know everything you said. It's more of like, hey, is this working? Are you getting anything out of it? Like, and so I think that's a better question to ask.

Yeah.

What do you think about counseling? Like, is that Amber? She ain't good. Like, what are y'? All? Like, you don't have to say, like, they don't want all the details. They just want to know, is it helpful? Really? Yeah. So say that.

Awesome. Let's move on to four.

All right.

Why did you use or why did you drink?

This one's especially Happens after a relapse.

Yeah, yeah. It's a big one then. And man, is it like, that's a tough one to hear. For someone that did the using or did the drinking, I would know, what are you thinking?

Like, if you've had a relapse and the loved one says, like, why did you drink? Why did you use? Why'd you get high? Or whatever? Like, what goes through your head?

I mean, my first response would be to play victim and just blame it on, like, because I have a problem. Do you not understand all that I'm going through? What's wrong with me as a person? Do you know how fast my brain is working and the anxiety? So I would start pointing fingers in other places, I guess.

So they could be a victim of the question, like you're saying, or they could use something else, like, I'm just too stressed out at work or, you know, you're on my case. You know, they're going to have some kind of victim statement. And you don't want to. Like, in counseling, you never want to put someone in a position to say something opposed to what you want them to think. Because it's like, if you make them say it, it gets even more ingrained in their head.

Yeah, I mean, if you had, if you know that they used, I would. The approach that comes to my mind is like, hey, how can we support you around this? Like, do we need to increase counseling? Do we need to, like, look into server living options? Or, you know, again, it's coming out of a place of concern, not like.

A boss or someone over you changing that dynamic. Right.

I think that's the deal with most of these questions is like, when you approach it from legitimate concern, it just comes across in a much better way to the person.

And sometimes depending on what happened in the relapse or how it came out, I usually try to find some, like, silver lining in the situation. Even if it's a little something, it's sort of the opposite of what I said before. You don't want them to say something negative that you don't want them to think. So don't make something safe. Don't make someone say something you don't want them to think. Like, if you want them to think something though, you can sort of say, but you know what, I'm really glad you're admitting it, or you're getting. You're getting a hold of it really quick, or you seem to have a lot of insight into it. You can shift the thinking by finding something at least we Called it before you hit a bottom. Find something positive in that. And that will. Even if they're not thinking that, it will trigger them to think that.

Okay, so going to five. Do you love drugs more than this family?

What is the added alcoholic thinking when they get asked that? Because that's a super common one.

Yeah, man, I don't even know. That's a tough one. But it.

Are they ever. Are you ever thinking like, yeah, I think I do.

Yeah, I think I did think that before.

Yeah, especially. You might not have thought it, but when she got asked that question, it makes you defensive. And then you do think you're like, you know what I think I do.

Yeah. My best friend. Drugs and alcohol.

Right. It's way funner than you are. I think when someone uses us. Not what they're thinking, though, they may think that thought defensively when you ask the question. But that's not why someone is using.

Yeah.

The thing that thinking is they're thinking, I can. I'm not hurting anyone else, I'm hurting myself. They're thinking that, or they're thinking, I'm just gonna do it this one time and it's not gonna hurt anybody but me. Or they're not gonna know they're telling themselves some kind of lie that whatever they're doing isn't gonna bleed over. In effect, the other people, somehow they have a fantasy they can do it without hurting everybody else. So in their mind, it's not a question of either or. And in the family's mind, it's either this or that.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, thinking about a little more, at first I would have been defensive, and secondly, I would have just gotten really down on myself and internalized that and say, wow, like, man, what is my problem? Like, why do I love these drugs more than my family? And, you know, when I'm not receiving any help, I would have. That would have made me want to use more to cover up those feelings of depression. And you know what comes with that.

I just say, like, your addiction will play whatever it needs to play. Like, the first sort of card it'll play is it'll play something like, you're a grown ass man. Like, you can do what you want. That's what you're. And then once you do it, and then you feel bad about it, like what you're saying, then it starts telling you the next thing your disease will tell you is like, you're a sorry, low down sack of crap. Your family would be better if you just left them. Like, it's just Telling you anything, lie to try to get you to use. And that's why I think understanding the psychology of the addict is so important. If you as a family member can understand what's going to trigger what thought, that's what these videos are all about. You can circumvent, you can get five steps ahead of the disease. But these things are pretty predictable, I think, like if you say this, they're going to think that almost immediately. What's our next one?

So six. I mean, it's kind of close to number five. But don't you care about your future family or career? Like, are you willing to just throw, throw all of that away for drugs? And I think you said you hear that more with like a spouse or.

Yeah. And, and I think that goes back to. In the family's mind, it's a, you're choosing this, which means you're not choosing this. It's a one or the other. And that's usually on some level truth. Like you really, in the long run, you can't have both. But the addict, like in their mind, they're trying to have both.

Yeah.

They're not, they're not thinking, hey, if I smoke all this weed, I'm not going to have a career. Like, they're telling themselves like, oh, I'm going to do part of that self denial thing that's happening.

I can make this work. All right, number seven, have you deleted the contacts off of your phone or social media? And I feel like this one's more popular for like the parents.

Oh yeah.

Over the kid, you know, trying to control. And also just trying to control their friend groups in general. Like, hey, Jimmy's doing really well, you should hang out with him more. Or like Susie, she's not doing so hot, so maybe you should just steer clear of her. So watch that. Watch. Controlling the, the contacts.

What, what's the, what's the person thinking when the family member says that to them?

Oh, I'm just going against it.

It's like our role immediately in my head it's like, like immediately it's like.

You'Re trying to play the boss of me and my life. And I'll show you that's the mentality that I would take over a statement like that.

Right.

Have you deleted those contacts? Have you stopped hanging out with Julie or whatever it is? It's that I'll show you mentality and I'll hang out with who I want to. You're not the boss of me.

To me it goes back to that like trying to Control the problem externally because you think, oh, it's this one bad friend, it's that girlfriend. It's that one bad co worker. And you can run that person off, but there's going to be another one and another one, another one. You cannot control this problem externally. And I know it's hard because you think, oh, my gosh, that one boyfriend, he's just like, he's the reason for all this. I get rid of him. But it doesn't work that way. And for all you know, your loved one is the ringleader, you know, like. And usually that's the case with the ones we see. The families always think, oh, it's that other one, but it's yours.

Yeah.

So running the friend off, not gonna do you any good.

So moving on to number eight, we have scare tactics, and I'll let you cover this one more.

I hate scare tactics.

Yeah, I didn't have much experience with this.

Oh, your family didn't do scare tactics?

Not really. Not too much.

Families will actually call and try to do scare tactics through me. Like, via me. They'll call me and be like, amber, did you tell him that smoking weed can do this to your lungs? You know, they're like, they'll be doing at home and then they'll want me to smoke.

I definitely get it at work. I don't think my mom did that so much.

Scare tactics just don't work. It's just a logical thing because you're thinking, oh, if they knew this bad thing that could happen to them, they wouldn't do it. That's what addiction is. It's. I'm doing it despite the fact I know that these bad things can happen to me. And early on, you, to yourself, you think, oh, yeah, that could happen, but that would never happen to me. And then later on, when you're really addicted, you think, I don't really care. Like, it's worth the risk.

Yeah.

So it just doesn't work either way.

And if you get to a really bad place, it's like, I want something bad to happen to me. So bring it on. Just in a slow, steady way. Like, you know, I wanted to smoke cigarettes. I wanted to take pills because, you know, I wanted something to happen. I wanted this madness to stop.

It's kind of like a. In the end stages, people get to what I call like a passive suicidality. So it's not like an active plan necessarily, but it's just like a. I'm living reckless. Like, I don't really care if I don't Wake up tomorrow.

Yep. Let's speed this process up. I know, I definitely got to that. That state of mind.

Yes.

All right, so number nine, we have comparisons, like to siblings, to friends. We kind of brought that up with controlling contacts, but I mean, we've definitely seen that around. Our program is like, man, why can't you be more like. Why can't he be more like his brother or her sister or.

I think there's comparisons that way. Like the whole, like, why can't you be more like. And then there's comparisons like the scare tactic way. Somebody said, like, you've always got that one uncle, right.

Yeah.

Who tried LSD and he's been crazy ever since or whatever. So you can compare that way. And especially when you do either one of those, I think the obvious response is like eye roll. The person is going to immediately disqualify everything you say because they're like, oh my God, like they don't get it. They're just such an idiot. Like they're just gonna think, alright, number 10.

So these are statements that get made. As long as you're not doing drugs in this house. Or if you, if I find drugs in this house, I'm calling the cops on you.

Okay. You know, I put this on the list. David, I'd love to know because this is what families do, especially parents, once they feel like it's gotten like pretty far and they've lost control, they'll say something like, well, I better not find it in this house. Let me tell you something. If your kid has an addiction to drugs, they're doing it in your house. They have it on them all the time. They're not going these long, extensive time, days and nights, like, and not doing drugs. So don't lie to yourself and think, well, they're not bringing it in the house. If they're not bringing it in the house, they're probably not an addict. Or we've had some kids and be like, they get told down. They're like, okay. And they have it like literally buried in the backyard. And they're standing in the backyard, it's like they're loopholing you, right?

Yeah. And it's like another form of a scare tactic. Like, if I find drugs in this house, I will have you arrested. And then, boy, do you look bad. When you do find drugs in the house, you're not. They don't get arrested, you don't call the cops.

Except our one client. If I find drugs, I'm going to call the cops. Is because most of the time. People aren't really prepared to do that. And they think if I say that, they're going to know I mean business. And they're definitely not going to do that. If you are dealing with an addict or alcoholic, they are going to do it. They are going to do it in your house. Not saying, don't call the cops. You can totally call the cops. I'm just saying you don't have to threaten it first because you might. You might or you might not. Sometimes parents think they would and they would. They won't. Yeah.

And you don't want to have to go back on that.

Right. It's not telling. You can. I'm just saying don't put the thread out there.

So that wraps up the 10 knowing when to tap out of these conversations. So do you want to explain that a little bit or.

Yeah. Like somebody. When we were having this conversation, and you might have been on the porch, but they were talking about how they were in group and the group did this, and families do this too, but this person is making a decision that the group didn't like. And even in group therapy, the rest of his family, peers were like, on him and on him. And there was just nothing he could say that was gonna be right. And they just kept pressing it. And this happens in families a lot. It's like, you get locked into this argument, you keep saying the same thing, they keep saying the same thing. The whole thing's escalating. You gotta know when to just step out.

Like, yeah, there's no winning that conversation.

You've got to know when you've just hit the wall. It's not productive. And when you feel yourself escalating and you feel them escalating, you need to step out immediately because all you're doing is causing more damage to the relationship. And in the end, the relationship is the only power that you have to be able to affect any change. And so it's like you just gave away all your superpowers when you do that. So know when to hold them, know when to fold them.

That's right.