3 Steps to Take When No One Believes You About the Addiction

that notices addiction in your family, it's a bad place to be. It's a bad role. It's a bad spot. You pretty much have a— you're going to lose. So, and the reason for this is because it's easier for your family to think that you are crazy or to think that you're neurotic or insert any other word there than to admit and recognize that there is an addiction in the family. So when you're the first person, you tend to make very predictable mistakes. You tend to talk about it too much. You tend to try to convince, you tend And to try to plead, prove, all these things.

And that's the first thing we do.

Right.

So this first thing Kim's talking about is the first thing we want you to stop doing.

Right, right. And the second thing we want you to stop doing—

Is tending to it. And what we mean by tending to it is sort of this is where we fix the problems. We might— our spouse might be drunk so we drive the children to school. We might be not able to go to our in-laws' house for dinner so we tell a lie. The boss might call and say, where is he? We lie to it. We go to school meetings because your child's not going because he's out using drugs, and we go and say, I'll get him here. We ask them, you know, we ride them, we ride them to do their things. All of this is just to— for us to feel better about it so that it doesn't maybe unravel as much as it's going to unravel.

Right. And even another kind of sideways point when we tend to it is, if you're the first person in the family to see it, then you probably want to start doing things differently. But the other family members don't want you to do things differently because remember, They don't see the addiction. So, you know, teenagers will be teenagers, or he has a big day, or he has a big job, or whatever this might be.

Boys will be boys.

Right. So all of these things are gonna come at you as far as what the family members say to you. And so they, they don't want things to change because it disrupts the normalcy in the family. So tending to it also might look like, if I have a family member that isn't seeing the addiction the way that I'm seeing it, they may say, just give him the $20, Kim, or just pick him up, or just, you know, just do whatever, like get him— It's a cash paycheck. Right. So tending to the addiction means that you, that you fall into that trap as well, in addition to what Campbell had said.

And all of these things, the talking about the tending to it, and the last one we're going to talk about in a second, these things are actually enabling the disease because the other— what you're doing is you're, you're keeping the blindfold on the other people in your family, whether this is your mother-in-law, your whatever, because they're running into the defense mode.

Right, right.

And when— and so as we do these things, no one else can see it, which means the disease is just out there marching along its merry way, getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And we are only getting more talky, more tendy. And then the third thing we want you to stop doing is being pissed off.

Yeah.

Because that's not helping the situation. It is actually feeding it. And most importantly, and I think this is one of the things we talk about a lot with our clients, is When we are pissed off, sad, lonely, completely fixated on this, I call it dancing around the merry-go-round of addiction, is we're stealing from our own lives.

Mm-hmm.

We are not functioning well at work. We are not seeing our friends. We are depriving ourselves of pleasure. We aren't taking care of ourselves as well. We're not doing fun things because if I'm not at home to stop it, he'll Who use more, or if I'm not, if I go on a vacation with my girls, what will happen? I can't leave my husband with my children because he'll drink. And so we just, as we do these things more and more, we rob from us.

Right, and the other part we want you to stop being so mad is because you become the scapegoat in the family. And so when you're mad and you're always in a bad mood, it doesn't, and you lose credibility. And so remember, if you're the first person or one of the only people, when you have a bad attitude, when you're constantly talking about it, when you're constantly mad, Nobody wants to hear it. And so everything you say at that point becomes null. So you don't wanna give your power away. So what do you do instead? Like what, what do we do? Cuz these are the top 3, top 3 things to stop doing. So what should you do instead? What do you think the first thing they should do?

I think the first thing they need to do is recognize that you are not in control of this bad boy and you better figure out what you got going on. So I think you need to do like it, if we go back to like even Like in our coursework, so like we talk about the reeling stage, which is when we're doing all of these things that we're talking about. That's not a good feeling. The word reeling is negative in my opinion. Then we go to the learning stage, and the learning stage is become educated, figure out what's going on, be quiet, start listening to counselors, start reading, start figuring out. But, but be careful in the learning stage to not get conflicting advice.

Oh yeah.

And that is a huge problem. That's one of the things we talk about in the Beyond Boundaries course that we're launching later on this month is there's not going to be a one-shot-fits-all. Like, this isn't a— there's not one solution to solve addiction for every single family.

Mm-hmm.

They're all going to be unique. They're all going to be different. But they are mostly going to have to do with your inner abilities and your ability to learn, to understand, To know what you have to change, to know what you have to do differently. It's super non-instinct, non-intuitive, and it's super scary and hard to do. So that's the first thing, is get out of the reeling stage, go into the learning stage.

I would say the second thing to do, be pleasant, which I know is hard. So if you need to go be mad and crazy somewhere else, do that. But be pleasant when you are in the face of those that you're trying to convince, because if you come in Just like I said before, if you come in angry, obsessed, all these things, you're not going to get anywhere. So if you come in pleasant, if you come in almost confused, like, hmm, I don't know how that weird thing, this unexplainable thing happened versus, oh, I can tell you exactly how it happened. You know, so you want to come in pleasant, even come in a little bit confused because the more you step back, the more the problems are going to bubble up and the more the family is going to see what's actually happening for what it is. And the target comes off your back and it goes on to the fact that, hey, we have a, We have a problem in the family.

That gets you out of the bad guy role, which feels so liberating in the first place. And it also takes the, I guess, the power of the addiction. Remember, addicts always come at it from the victim standpoint. So when we become pleasant, when we become curious, when we become quiet, then, then they do not have as much room to spread, well, I wasn't going to do it, but my mom's crazy. I wasn't going to do it, but my wife nagging me like, like Insane. And so that also, now we begin to unfeed the disease when we, when we become quiet.

Right, right. And the third thing I would say, as far as just figure out what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, and this really goes into know your boundaries. And so do not become rigid, which is what a lot of people want to do. We tend to want to be overly passive or overly rigid. We want to find that sweet spot in the middle. So I would say that third thing is don't become overly rigid. Don't declare these big, huge ultimatums. Because you're going to lose.

And you also may change your mind, and then you want to be able to do that. I think a lot of us tend to back ourselves into corners, and if you don't, then you can't, and then we have— then we're there and we have to do it. And often that's something we don't want to do. And I think with our clients, we consistently see it's things that they might want to do, but they're things they're not going to be able to do, right? It's better to have no boundaries if you can't hold any. than to have 5 that you're not going to hold.

Right.

So I think that's definitely a really wise point is, is know what you're— know that.

Yeah. Know what you're capable of. Know what you're going to do and, and just sit on the rest until you do know. So. Okay. I think that's—

Yeah. So stop talking, stop tending, and stop being pissed off. And we should start it with T. That'd been so much more fun. Don't be pissed off.

Right, right. Okay. Any questions, Bree? All right. You wanna read that?

Well, I need my shades too. Yes, I do.

All right.

My daughter-in-law, it's really small. My daughter-in-law is having drinking addiction, living with my son, her husband, and 4 children. Any suggestions on what I can do to help for the children feeling bad at being yelled at many times? Boy, this is a common theme. This is such a common theme, Kathleen. You said something yesterday in the live call, which I thought was really good about somebody in this situation, was to, depending on the age of the children, is sort of validate. You see what's happening in the—

To the child.

To the, directly to the child.

Right.

If they're old enough. And this little girl yesterday was 8, and we decided that 8 was definitely old enough, even probably 6. Like, I'm sorry that's happening. It's not cool. Um, but unfortunately I can't, I can't help you out. I can't get that to stop. I'm wondering in this question, Kathleen, what the, what the husband, the children's father's ability on that might be to sort of have a boundary of how much longer he's willing to put the children in that situation. Again, depends on the age and the severity of the problem.

Yeah, I, I think regardless of the age, unless I would say they're like, I don't know, 3 or younger, maybe even 3 depending on how advanced they are, talk to them, just say, hey, I'm really sorry that that happened, or validate it, talk to them, educate it, model different communication, go out of your way to make that child feel loved, supported, wanted, cared for. And you're not going to fix it for them. And you're not going—

you're—

I mean, whatever's happening is still happening. But you're giving them another memory, another experience in addition to this, this other negativity that's constantly coming their way.

And if you can, again, depending on their, their ages and your proximity to them, you know, have them spend the night with you every now and then so that that is replicated like by experience as well as by words.

Yeah, it's a hard spot.

Yeah. And always, always, always, if you feel that children are in danger and they're not safe, then you— I would do an information update to your daughter that says, hey, this is, this is making me super uncomfortable. And if it continues, I'm, I'm gonna have to make a report. And probably nothing will happen, but you'll feel better. And it could.

Yep. All right, all right.

This is from Cindy. My loved one has BPD, borderline personality disorder, along with benzo addiction. It's a hard mental health issue when only 7% population now has BPD and 70% try suicide. Can't find help.

Yeah, or the DBT.

Yeah, borderline's tough.

It is. It's really, really tough. And you're right, there aren't that many providers that are really fully trained in DBT. But that is— research shows that that's your best option.

Absolutely.

So, and I do think though, for families also being able to get help, how do I want to handle this? What am I willing to do? What I'm not willing to do? And be able to really kind of get this internal knowledge of when you need to take a couple steps back, when you need to recharge, kind of in even maybe some deactivating strategies that you feel comfortable using. So if the drama, you know, the dysregulation starts to amp up, then how, how are you equipped to handle that?

And try not to feed into that chaos. That, that tends to be a chaotic mental health issue, and they thrive more in the chaos. The rest of us, if we get up here and we live up here in happy land, if we get down here in chaos or scary or bad, we We figure out how to get back up.

Yeah.

But often for borderline, it's the opposite. They live down here in this chaotic space, and if they mess up and get up here in good, good space, they'll figure out pretty darn quick how to get back down here. And that's dysregulating to us. And, and we don't like that, which I'm really super glad you said, like, take breaks, charge your battery, know when you've hit your limit on that kind of engagement. Yeah, I hate that.

The ages 8 and 13, 18. Okay, good. For Kathleen.

Oh yeah, those are old enough. Okay, good.

Definitely.

Good. All right, Melissa. Family gathering— I'm sorry, I'm leaning into you— will be happening this weekend. How should I handle my substance use disorder loved one acts out with a gathering? How should I respond by the overactive addiction problems in a public surrounding? Well, holiday weekends are tough all around in the addiction world, and Fourth of July is one of the best. What do you think on that?

I think, I think you, you know, without knowing anything about the situation, I think if you can bring your own car, that's always a good thing. I think for you to kind of prepare for your own safety and sanity before you even enter into the event is always good. So rather that's bringing your own car, having, you know, even having a conversation with yourself that says, hey, I'm giving myself permission to Uber home to do whatever it is if it gets out of control. And so I think one, that that's a good place to start, just kind of Getting that in check in your mind and in your heart before you even walk in. I think the other thing to do is if the acting up— unless kids are involved, unless it really is a safety thing, I think it's better to take your hands off and just let it happen, even though I know that's really, really hard. But kind of going back into tending, right? We don't want to tend to it because it, it, it's so easy when we tend for us to be blamed for whatever happened, or at least take some of the blame.

Or to feel that we're taking the blame, like, I'm so sorry he's doing this, like, I'm so embarrassed, like, what can I do to help? Instead of just like Get in the back of the crowd and pretend you don't know him.

Right. And, and even that question, I think that that's probably already starting, like, how do I do this? You know? And, and so it's, it's a very difficult place to be though.

Yeah. I, I would take your own car. I would know, listen to yourself. And when you've had enough, exit stage left. Just say goodbye. Thank you for having me. I, I need to go take a nap.

Yeah.

Just have to go home.

And if, and if anything that you do is going to be different, substantially different, or even, even moderately different, give an update. And let your loved one know, hey, just so you know, I'm gonna be taking my own car to this. Or, hey, just so you know, last time we went to this other thing and it was really difficult for me. So this time, this is what I'm planning on doing. And so you're just kind of updating, which does 2 things. One, it informs them that there's going to be something different, but it also starts to pave the way for you to give yourself permission to do something different.

You just said something really important. Talk about how this is— this, this change is gonna happen because last time it didn't go well for me. Not last time you drank too much, last time you were high. Don't go there. Stay on, last time I became overwhelmed, last time I realized I had stayed over a limit that I had wanted to set. Like, keep it on you so that you are not dragged into that victim in a fight. Yeah.

All right.

All right. Suzanne, my son— I have to read it in the blueberry.

Okay, here we go.

My son just completed a 28-day inpatient, is returning home to us, mom and dad. He's returning to his outpatient program. Do you feel we should have any say in doing 90 meetings in 90 days, or is inpatient counselor suggesting, along with some tight boundaries for a while regarding car use, etc.? He doesn't want us to talk to his counselor about these suggestions before he leaves his inpatient program because he says he knows what he needs to do, but we are still scheduled to talk today. Oh, Suzanne, I hate this for you. I'm curious as how old the son is, but, um, yeah, I definitely think everything you want to do is right to do, but I don't think you can do it because those are sort of rules. You have to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I think you should just instead look back, and those are rules you can't enforce, right? He could say, sure, I'm going to go and be lying and be at the mall.

Mm-hmm.

We can't manage someone else's recovery.

30.

Okay. We cannot manage anyone else's recovery. We can only set boundaries of what we will and will not do anymore. So if he comes home and he doesn't do the 90/90 and doesn't do the things that he's agreeing to do, which would be 100% likely that that's gonna happen, then you just have to be able to say inside, if he relapses, if this becomes a problem, he can't live here. Like, you're good. That's where that goes back to what Kim said earlier is you gotta sort of know what you will and will not do. Because that's where your work is going to be. You— we can't tell them what they have to do. It's just not possible. If you don't think he's sober, I would not let him use your car. It's just that simple. But I would not not let him use the car because you don't want him to go get drugs.

Mm-hmm.

So I think you have to look at your ulterior motive in having a boundary. Um, remember, rules are not ours to enforce, and he's 30. He's absolutely not going to follow any rules he doesn't want to follow. So the fact that he doesn't want you to talk to his counselor and he's coming to your house, right there's a red flag in my opinion. Um, I would have said you could not come back home. You can— we'll help you with sober living. We'll help you with good quality sober living. 28 days is a great start, but if, if recovery was 10 miles long, 28 days is an inch.

Yeah.

So it's just, we don't even have brain recovery till 30 to 45 days of sobriety. So I, I think you're probably in for a little bit of a bumpy ride. So I would put my energy in when will we know that it's too bumpy for us? And then what will we do once we learn that it's too bumpy for us now?

And I, to piggyback on that, I think being able to say whatever you're comfortable with before he comes home, like, hey, just so you know, we're not comfortable with you using the car. So yeah, if that's, if that's where you're at. You know, just an example. Whatever that is.

All right. I'm trying to understand why I'm so heartbroken. I'm getting divorced from my addict ex, but I have to protect my peace now. That is sad.

It is sad. There's a ton of grief in in loving somebody that has addiction and or struggles with addiction, and sometimes a lot of times that grief isn't discussed. It's not validated. It's not understood. So you're. I mean, you're losing something huge.

This is a serious loss of dream, you guys. Addiction is a loss of dream, whether they, they, we leave them and we don't have anything else to do with them again, or we have to mourn what could have been, or mourn where we sort of saw things going. And this is true for spouses, partners, as well as children, kids, because, you know, nobody walks down the aisle so they can be married to an addict, and no one has a baby so they can have an addict child, right? So it's just, it's a very, it's huge grief It's not talked about very much in addiction. It's also a lonely grief because when our mom dies or our dog dies, there are cards and casseroles and the church is around and there are services and there are, there are processes that let the grief sort of dissipate out into the world. And with addiction, there's none of that.

Mm-hmm.

There's good support groups if you can find them. There's, there's support for us, but it's, it's not necessarily around the grief. And so that's what I call disenfranchised grief, which means it doesn't really have anywhere in the world to go. So it sort of sits right here. But you're just gonna have to mourn it because it's sad. I'm sorry. All right, this is from Diana. My eldest daughter, who's 15, does not want to have any contact with her father who struggles with substance abuse, alcohol. I separated from him when she was 3, and he has lived overseas since. They have not had much contact over the years. Now she wants to cut off contact completely. I'm worried that she might regret this decision later on in life.

She might not.

She might not. She might.

Yeah, I think it's— I think the fact that you're concerned about it just shows your commitment to her. But I think as far as she's 15, she's making the decisions that she's making. She may or may not regret it. So, I mean, it sounds to me that she, she unfortunately hasn't really had a relationship with her dad. And so it's easier to— I don't know how to word this, but if you don't have something, you don't really mourn it.

It's easy to not miss it.

Right, because you never really had it. So I don't really see it as a— I mean, I do see it as a loss for her in the fact of what could have been had her father been different. But who her father really is and her actual experience of the father-daughter relationship, she hasn't really lost much because she never really had much.

And that's not to say, like, let's just fast forward 10 years and she's 25, and maybe, maybe the miracle of miracles occurs and he gets sober and he can reach out with humility and willingness. You know, she's not— she's cutting him out of her life, but she's not killing him. So if that were to happen, then, then she could. And you can leave that— like, you can say, if that's what you want to do for now, that's up to you, darling. You're 15 years old and you're old enough to make this decision for yourself. If you change your mind at any point in time in the future, just give yourself permission to change your mind.

Yeah.

I think that's— that would be the best momming thing to say to her.

Yeah.

All right. This is from Mel. My husband has been struggling with alcohol use for several years. He is making recovery efforts but relapses every 3 to 6 months. I usually notice something is off when he starts drinking. Oh yeah, we can always tell. The fact that he can make it 3 to 6 months is pretty good.

Yeah. There's an explanation.

Oh, there's more? Sorry. But he gets very defensive and angry if I say anything and says I'm policing him. Should I just ignore it until it becomes a problem, or should I bring it up when I notice it? I usually ignore it. I would ignore it because exactly what's happening is you're going— you're getting put into the bad guy role. He's viewing it through the lens of the, of the victim, which is fueling the, the lapse or the relapse. I would ignore it, although Kim would say you could say, I noticed that it seems like you're drinking again. I just want to let you know I saw it. You could give an information update or something like that. I don't see the point. I'd be real curious, Mel, to know what stops it again. How long does it go? What stops it again? Like, I'd be curious to see that. Like, if he's stopping himself, like if this is sort of bargaining denial, which I would totally let happen, or if some precipitating external event happens that he says, oh, I have to stop.

And just a little plug in there for the information update. Most of the time that's for you as the spouse. Because there comes a point when we are in this cycle long enough that we start to feel muted. When we feel muted, our body shuts down. It's terrible for every single piece of us. And so by simply giving an update that says, hey, I don't want to play this game anymore. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But it seems like you're drinking. I'm going to go for a walk. I don't want to do this right now. And that's just an update.

Mm-hmm.

But what you hear on that is there's— I'm not being muted. I'm not minimizing anything that I'm experiencing. I'm also not picking a fight. They may want to pick a fight back. I don't have to engage. And so I do think that it's a, it's a really delicate place of do I update? Do I not? With the bargaining, we want to be able to let that bargain play out so that we don't get pegged as the bad guy. But if this is just a cycle that is just kind of a repetitive cycle, you may need to say something for you.

Yeah. I would like to know more on that one.

Until it becomes a problem. Last time I had to ask him to leave the house until he could come home, until he could come home sober.

Okay. That's good.

Yeah. All right.

Do we have one more?

One more.

4 more minutes.

There we go. All right.

This is from Lillian. Hi there. Is it dangerous for me to refuse money to my addicted 36-year-old son when he doesn't have meds? In place, please.

I think it depends on the meds.

Yeah, me too.

Um, I think it really depends on the medication and even money. I would say no. If, if you want him to have access to the medication, maybe you go to the doctor and somehow facilitate it that way.

Or pick, pick up the prescription.

Yeah.

And then you know what it is. All right, Leah, my brother offers to switch from alcohol to marijuana. He gets angry with alcohol. Is this a window of opportunity, a move in the right direction, or just another manipulation? What do I say? It's just a trade-off of what I'm going to be addicted to.

Yeah, it's a bargaining tactic. So I think on that, what I would do is I would say, hey, you know, I'm really glad that you recognize that these bad things are happening with alcohol, um, and I don't really think marijuana is going to be much of a difference. To me, it just sounds like a shift, but it's not my decision to make. I hope you find what you're looking for. I would say it with Much more kindness than what I said, but the message is there.

Definitely a little bit better tone.

Yeah.

Softer words. Yeah. That that's just that's just either manipulation or bargaining, and neither one is positive.

Yep. Yep. So acknowledge acknowledge that there's efforts. Don't put too much hope in it.

Yeah.

All right.

That's it.

All right, guys. Well, thanks for joining us, and we hope you have a good day.

All right.

Perfect.

All right, what time do you want to meet tomorrow?