Accountability Without Shame: How to Support Recovery with Compassion

Most of the time when you think about the word accountability, you imagine consequences and really more like punishment actually than consequences. It's sort of saying if this happens, then this other bad punishment, consequence, whatever you want to call it, is going to occur. And unfortunately, that's probably the least effective way to create accountability systems, especially when you're trying to help someone who's in early recovery. I do think accountability is probably the number one most helpful thing for people who really are trying to get on track. Now, if you're really not trying to get on track, that accountability is just going to be a pain in your side and something that you're always going to be thinking about how to get around. But when set up correctly and in a helpful kind of way, which I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a second, it can actually be used as a Preventative. So today I want to talk about ways accountability can be used, how it happens naturally, and sort of what to do and not do if you're trying to support a loved one who's maybe in early recovery or mid or late recovery who runs into an obstacle or has a lapse or relapse or a little fall or something like that. We'll kind of go through all of those things so we can talk about how to use accountability. Without trying to make someone feel shameful. And those of you who've been watching my videos for a while, you know that the reason you want to avoid things like punishment and purposefully saying things to people to make them feel bad is that what ends up happening is you end up hitting their defensiveness button, just because as humans, we're all like that. You can think about times when you've done something wrong, you've known you did something wrong, you got called out for it, but you were defensive about it because it's It's like a reflex, right? It's like a psychological protective reflex that we have. So helping someone in addiction recovery is, a lot of it is about how do you sidestep around and not activate that psychological defensiveness? Because that's probably the number one thing I think that gets in most people's way of being able to see the problem clearly and take steps to actually overcome an addiction and get themselves in long-term recovery. So it's all about how do I know exactly where those landmines are and not step on them? We're going to give you some good ideas today about exactly how to do that with accountability. Now, first I want to talk about preventive accountability, which I think is extraordinarily helpful. And then I want to talk to you about sort of a natural accountability kind of way. That's just as helpful, maybe even more helpful. And when you use the both together, you have double points in the right direction. Okay? So preventative accountability, I think this is things like when someone is in early recovery, they've made the choice to try to abstain, get sober, change a habit, whatever it is, then In an alignment kind of way, and you kind of need to put this in right in the early stages is the best time to incorporate this preventive kind of recovery is you set up, you ask them if they are open to setting up or if it would help them to set up an accountability system. In most cases, that looks something like some type of drug screens, alcohol screens, Technology, blockers, depends on what the addiction is. So we'll get into all those different things. But the key here to make it preventative is to set it up as an alliance. Not, you're not trying to catch someone being bad. That's not really all that helpful to you or to them. What you want to do in the best situations is try to prevent someone from relapsing. And when someone makes the decision to agree to some accountability protocol, they're actually making the decision to try to keep themselves from relapsing. I mean, when someone agrees to these kind of things, it's a major sign of willingness, commitment. Like they really mean it because you're voluntarily saying, yeah, I'm going to put these natural or these roadblocks in my way. I want you to help me put these roadblocks in my way to make sure that I don't fall back in the wrong direction. So let's start with if the addiction is some sort of drug. Okay, let's start with that. Then we'll go through some of the other types of addictions on how to do that. Now, for a while there was this company called Clearly, and I loved them because they did at-home drug screening and it was like spit test. But anyway, they went out of business, which makes my heart sad because I was literally a giant fan of them. But You can still create some home drug testing accountability systems. And I actually have a whole guide, like PDF I wrote about this that gives you all of my tips and tricks on how to do this, including what to get, how to set it up, what to do if someone says the test results are wrong, all that. It is in the link in the description below. You can get it. It's free. Totally download it. And because I've been doing drug tests for years and years and years, I've run into just about every scenario you can think of. And so in there you get all my insider guides on how to handle all those scenarios. So the first thing of which is in that guide is the pretense on which you set it up. It needs to be an alignment kind of thing. Sometimes people use these kind of things to say, well, if you're going to live in this house, you have to pass the drug test or something like that. And that can be tricky. I'm not a huge fan of doing it that way because some people can pass a drugs test and still be in a relapse. There's a lot of ways to do that. I'm sure you guys are aware of that. And so it's one of those things that I kind of call like a home contract, which I'm not a big fan of. And I've got videos on that if you want to hear more about why that is, because I know a lot of people will tell you the opposite of that, but I'm not a fan. You want to say, would it help? Would you be open to? So you're not So you're in an alignment with them, you're on the same team and you're trying to help. So when I set up drug testing with clients, which I've done in lots of ways and lots of different settings, inpatient, intensive outpatient, regular outpatient, it's an alignment kind of thing. Not, I'm trying to catch you. I'm not your probation officer. I'm not here to try to get you in trouble with these kind of things. If you put a lot of punishment things on the end of these accountability measures, They're not going to be nearly as effective for you because what you're going to get is a lot more dishonesty and trying to get around it and pitching a fit, not wanting to do it. So it's not about if you fail a drug screen, this bad thing happens to you. Literally, the drug screening itself is the preventative measure. That's it. You're just putting it in place to help. Someone make the choice or help someone to not make a bad choice, I guess is a better way to say it. Like, for example, if you know you're having a drug screen or 2 every week, you are going to think longer before you make an impulsive decision. If you find yourself in a high-risk situation, maybe you have an opportunity or you're around some people that maybe aren't the best influence, you're going to have to stop and think about that a lot harder and longer before you just impulsively fall back into your old habits. That's what I mean by preventative. So you make an agreement with someone if you're going to use home drug testing. Like I said, all this is in the guide. It's in a lot more detail in the guide, but you can buy them at the drugstore, Walmart, wherever. I usually suggest to order them offline. I used to always just order them off Amazon because you can get like a box of them for much cheaper than you can get them in like the CVS or something. And I think I put the link to those down below too, just some on Amazon I've used before. But you don't even have to get those specific ones, but it'll just give you an idea about what I mean. They look— they work and they look kind of like a little bit like pregnancy tests where you have the lines. The one line means usually you— there's 2 lines that show up when you do these tests. It's all in there. But if you get 2 lines, that is negative, which is a good result, means the substance is not in their system. If you get one line, it means the substance is in their system. So you want to see all them little lines show up. You're saying, come on lines. Okay? So when you set this up with someone, you and that person make a decision that this is what you're going to do together to help them make a decision to not get in a bad situation. And I suggest that you do home drug testing. If you're going to do it effectively, you need to do it at least once a week. And every now and then you need to throw in a second one as good measure. And you don't want to do it always on the same day because trying to get ahead of addiction, which you guys know is our whole goal on this channel, is trying to outsmart addiction. You got to be thinking 5 steps ahead and knowing what's coming next. If you're drug testing someone, you always test them on Mondays. I promise you their addict brain is going to be doing what I call drug screen math and thinking about what drugs they can use and what days and how it's going to get out of their system. And so you want to make sure you're not leaving room for that if you can help it. So twice, depending on the drug they use, some drugs get out of your system a lot faster than others. You may want to do twice a week for a long while, but I'm going to suggest you do it at least once a week because what you're trying to do is prevent it. If you're doing random drug tests like once a month or something, that's more of an I'm trying to catch you. doing something you shouldn't do kind of method, right? If you're getting a test a month and let's say today's Tuesday and you went and got your test today, you got a bunch of days without a test. You're going to have a while and those sneaky thoughts are going to get in your brain. And that's what we're trying to prevent. We're trying to get ahead of the sneaky thoughts. Okay? And so that's why I say you need to do it at least once a week. You don't want to leave more room than that because those addictive thoughts, they get in there, they start doing drug screen math. Like calculate body mass percentage. I mean, they get real technical about it. And so you want to try to prevent that. So once a week, you want to get the person's agreement. And I'm going to suggest not to put a specific— I know you're going to want to call it consequence. I'm going to call it punishment because if you're the one doling it out, you're the one that is enforcing the consequence, it's probably punishment. So I'm going to suggest that you don't put that because like I said, it's just going to promote a lot more lying. The goal here is nothing more than to prevent it, and secondly, to bring things to the surface. So if there is a problem, the fact that it is known and it's on the surface, just that fact alone, the fact that they failed a drug screen and they know it and you know it, that right there is the most powerful deterrent. deterrent that you can come up with. The punishment, you may want to say, you're going to go to jail. I'm going to tell your probation officer. I'm going to kick you out. Whatever punishment you want to put on it. And that is really just going to promote lying and sneaking. And that's why I'm encouraging you not to do that. There may be some circumstances where you're in a situation where you may have to do something like that. But unless you're in one of those situations, I don't encourage it because it's not going to make you alignment. So when I test a client and they're positive, What is the consequence? The consequence is we talk about it. I say, what's going on, man? Like, what's happening? And I get them to talk to me about it. And then we figure out what the trigger was. We go back, we process everything that happened and figure out maybe what went wrong, what we can do different, because I'm in alignment with them. Now, of course, it's uncomfortable to be positive. No one wants to be outed. No one wants to have someone else know that they've made a mistake or whatever. And so there is a level of embarrassment there, but I don't do anything to try to make the embarrassment worse. In fact, I do a lot to try to make it more comfortable, but naturally they're going to have some embarrassment. That embarrassment right there, it is the deterrent. So if you don't really have to put anything else on the top, and I promise you, if you put too many things on the top, you're going to undo the effectiveness of what you're trying to do here. Okay, so that is drug testing. You can get like a single panel drug test. I do not suggest that. I suggest you get at least a 5-panel drug test. And what that means is it's a drug test that tests for at least 5 things. The main core substance of abuse would be marijuana, which is listed as THC on the test, benzodiazepines, methamphetamines, cocaine, What am I missing here? I'm missing one. It's going to come to me in a second, but it's in the guide. So get at least those, but you can get like a 10-panel, a 12-panel, a 15-panel. I don't know that you need to go all that far in, but if you know that your loved one— oh, opiates. There we go. I knew that's a big one. Well, I don't know how I forgot that. If you know that your loved one tends to have trouble with a specific thing, then make sure whatever test you have, at least look for that specific thing. And with opioids, there's different kinds of opioids. Like for example, if someone is on a medication maintenance plan or something like that, you may want to test them. You may want to make sure that that drug is in their system. And you have to— usually that's methadone or buprenorphine, and you want to get a test specifically for that because it won't necessarily show up as opiates. So There's tips and tricks. Like I said, there's a lot to it. It's all in the guide. I even go into the guide about how, what to do if someone fails and they swear they didn't really do it and how to handle that without an argument and without being accusatory or anything, right? It's about keeping the alignment as far and as long as you can. That is much more effective. Now, if the substance is not drugs per se, but it is alcohol, Y'all know what I'm gonna say. Go ahead and put it in the chat if you don't want to say. I'm gonna say Soberlink. Y'all know I'm a huge Soberlink fan. Where is my Soberlink? Oh, let me grab it and show it to you. Got it. This is, um, an alcohol monitoring system for those of you who don't know what it is, and I am partnered with Soberlink because I am a huge fan. It looks like this. But it's not just a breathalyzer. You can get a breathalyzer on Amazon too. You can get a breathalyzer at the store, but this is a system. It's not, I mean, yes, you get the breathalyzer, but it's not the breathalyzer. It's the system that makes it so effective. So what you do in that situation is you, again, in alignment with you and the person, you set up a system where they get tested so many times a day. Research shows 3 times a day is like the most effective number, and that's what usually what I start with. So we do 3 times a day for a long time, and if things are going good, then we back it down to 2 times a day. And if that goes really well for a while, then I usually back it down to 1 time a day, and then they come off of it completely. It's not a forever thing, right? It's not about forever. I suggest people do it at least 3 months. A lot of people end up doing it longer, and they choose that on their own because actually they realize it does help them. To stay sober. And not only that, but it helps them to earn trust back faster with their family so they don't always feel like they're under the microscope or that you're constantly spying on them or smelling their breath or digging through the trash trying to find the bottles or whatever. And so it actually makes their life easier in those ways. And when I talk to clients about it, I say, listen, this is going to make being sober easier because it's going to get your family off your butt. They're going to stop trying to spy you down because they're going to know I'm handling it because that's the other piece of it is not only do you get tested so many times a day, but you can enter an accountability partner in there. My clients that see me, it's usually me. And so the messages go to me, but it can be whoever you want. It can be your family member. That's not always the best choice, but it's okay. I mean, that can work, but it could be your sponsor. It could be your sister. It could be whoever that is helpful. Now I say choose a person who's going to be supportive and they're not just going to ignore it if you get positive tests, but they're not going to freak out. You don't want to— again, if you get someone that's going to freak out as an accountability partner, then you're just promoting dishonesty. So it needs to be someone that can handle whatever those results are. So the way it works is you decide on those times a day, you and the person. I don't suggest— you can set it up. There's some things you can do to make it sort of like random. But like I said, I'm not trying to catch someone, I'm trying to prevent it. So we say, I say, I want to do it just before you go to bed, pretty close to when you wake up, and somewhere in the middle, whatever works for their schedule. You're not trying to make things harder on them than it has to be, you're trying to make it work. Okay, so, so don't make someone test 40 times a day. You know, the good thing about it is It's portable. It goes anywhere. It can fly with you, whatever country you're in. It goes wherever. And you get a text message that just reminds you about your test. And then you get like an hour, really an hour and 15 minutes before it's considered late. So it's completely doable with work, school, all those things. If you're in a meeting, you can totally wait to get out of the meeting and step into the bathroom. It takes 5 seconds to take this test. Done. And if you're positive or you miss it or you're late or whatever, your accountability person gets a text message and/or email. However you set it up. Now, if you are using Soberlink, whether you're the— if you're the person that's the accountability person and someone you know is using Soberlink, what do you do if they show positive? Well, I'll tell you what I do. I usually text them and I say, hey, what's up? I saw you missed your test, or you're late on your test. Everything okay? Or, hey, I saw you got a positive. What's going on? That's it. That right there is enough. It creates just the right amount of uncomfortableness. And like I said before, when people mess up on their sober links, I feel bad because I don't want them to feel more bad when I text them. Now I do it anyway because then I'm always thinking that the person's going to be thinking she's not even watching this, which I totally am. So I just message them and I see what's up. And sometimes it's like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm just I'm in a meeting, I was running late, or I forgot my device at home. I'm taking it in 10 minutes or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool, no problem. I'm not freaking out about it. If it's positive, we're just going to talk through it. There are other systems out there other than Soberlink, and they're good systems, but the reason Soberlink is my favorite is because it is the most tamper-proof of all the systems out there. Inside of the device, it has built-in facial recognition technology, so you can't really cheat it. It just like your phone, you know, has facial recognition in it. The device has facial recognition, and so even if you're wearing a hat or sunglasses or something like that, it's going to pick up on that, and then it will alert the accountability person, hey, something's wrong, we couldn't verify the person's face. There's actually a human being, a real human being that works behind the scenes to verify if it gets triggered, the facial recognition. They'll verify that it's the person by looking at their main original picture. And if they can't, then the accountability person, which would usually be me, I can go in there and say, yeah, that's them. They're just wearing the sunglasses, whatever. So it is the most tamper-proof. Some of the other ones there are, I won't say what they are because I don't want to make sneaky thoughts get in other people's brains, but there are a few little ways to get around it. Soberlink is the most locked-down way of it. And that's important because what you're trying to do Is get ahead of the sneaky thoughts. And so you don't want to leave a lot of room for shadiness because then the sneaky thoughts come in. Okay? So if it's alcohol, I totally recommend Soberlink. I've got a link in the description. If you use my link, you get— well, first of all, if you use my link, I've got a whole video showing you everything about how it works, all the behind the scenes, everything. So go into detail about it. But you can also— there's a place on there and you get like a $50 discount too. So be sure and get that if you end up using it. I love Soberlink. Now, if your addiction is something like looking at things online that you're trying not to look at, whether that's inappropriate adult images or I can't say the word, I'm not shy to say the word, I just can't say the word because YouTube, they're super strict. Or if it's like gambling or something like that, then the best way to go about it is to Utilize the blocking technologies that are out there. Again, as with everything else I'm telling you, this is not behind someone's back. This is not secret spying on what someone is doing. That isn't helpful for recovery. What's helpful for recovery is preventing it, not catching it, because once the gate is open, it is really hard to get back closed. So you're trying to not let the gate open to begin with. So I don't want you to install anything on anybody's devices that they don't know about is what I'm telling you. This is a thing that you decide together. This is what we're going to do. Most of the time with my clients, we talk about it. They make the decision to do it. They install it on their stuff because it's not punishment. It is a team effort. I cannot stress that enough. That's what makes it work. Otherwise, you're just going to get into a cat and mouse game and you're going to get exhausted. And I promise you, addiction is going to outsmart everybody else. Because that's what it does. So don't even try to get into the power struggle like that. All right, so those are the preventative, very effective accountability measures that really help people stay sober, especially in early recovery. I suggest if you are in early recovery that you set some of these systems up for yourself. If you have a loved one who's in early recovery, there is some better times to set these things up. Like if someone's in treatment and they're coming out of treatment, you want to have this in place, like rolling when they leave treatment, not a month later, not 3 days later, because right when people get out of treatment, that's a very tricky, high-risk time. So you want to go ahead and talk with the person, get the agreement, put all the stuff in place before they leave treatment is the best case scenario. If the person is not in treatment, then you want to set this up early on when someone is having that change talk, when someone is taking those first steps. If you wait and the person has been sober for a week, 10 days or longer, they're not going to see the point in it. Okay? So the timing is important. And like I said, the approach is important. So it's about Are you willing to do this? Would it help you? And you can say if your loved one, it would help me. And I know that that would help you because then I don't have to be a crazy woman on your back all the time. And then they'll probably secret smile and be like, mm-hmm, that's true. So just say that, say it with a little humor in your voice and see if you can get an alignment on it early on in the days. Now, I told you that I was also going to tell you about natural accountability. This is the best. This is actually really good to use early on, maybe before someone has decided to completely be sober. And this isn't trying to put— this is not putting any of this technology or any of these things in place. The best, most natural way of accountability is to allow someone to experience the emotions that come along with their decisions. What does that mean? That means if they make promises and they don't keep their promises, whether it's, I promise I'm not going to drink anymore, I promise I'm not going to do this drug anymore, I promise I'm not going to do it on these days, only on these days, whatever. Or if the promise is, I promise I'm going to show up to this event, or I promise you can count on me for this other responsibility, whatever it is, and they fall through on that, what I want you to do, the best accountability ever is To just let the feeling sit. Now, I do think it is helpful when they know that you know, because that'll turn the volume up on the feeling. But I don't want you to do much more than that. I don't want you to yell. I don't want you to scream. I don't want you to threaten. I don't want you to punish, nothing like that. Because when you do that, you hit the defensiveness button. And when you hit the defensiveness button, you block The person's natural guilt and remorse and desire to do different. It's a very gentle process as far as it goes from the other person. In fact, if you can manage it, be empathetic with them. Yeah, say, I know that really was a hard situation, and you know what? You've been doing really good for this long. I'm really proud of you, and you don't have to let this set you back. This This, we can get right back on track. Be empathetic with them. That's even better. But allow, if they promise to show up and they don't show up, I want you to— it's okay. Obviously you're going to have an emotion about that because you're going to be disappointed or hurt or maybe even angry. And it's okay to show some of that, but I don't want you to turn the volume up and be dramatic about it because like I said, When you get them angry and defensive, they bypass those emotions, those natural emotions, and those emotions are the ones that are going to make them change. People change when they're tired of disappointing everybody else and themselves. If you're just angry at them or you're just trying to catch them all the time, they just get so caught up in this power struggle with you, being mad at you, of trying to outwit all of your maneuvers. You got Tom and Jerry happening here. That it's just not helpful. So allowing the natural feelings and when possible, and I know it's not always possible because sometimes you're so hurt and you're so upset. I get it. So if you can, the best you can do is just be neutral and not throw a fit about it. That's cool. You're good. If you have it in you and it's the kind of situation where it's appropriate to be empathetic, even better, because you're going to allow that person's natural feelings to surface. It's kind of funny. It's like you want them to feel their own guilt, remorse, disappointment, but it has to be— it's kind of weird. It has to be at a level that's high enough to get their attention, but not— the volume can't be so loud that it's intolerable because they'll either distract themselves from it. And sometimes that means they'll just keep using to numb that feeling away. So it's like, Those subtle little seeds that you let, and they'll naturally happen. All you got to do is stay out of the way of them, is let those things take place. The person will naturally start moving into those stages of change. They'll start either bargaining and trying to cut back. They'll start different things to try to make the problem better. And eventually after they try all those things, they'll decide that it just doesn't work for them and that they want to do something different. That's That's the key. Accountability comes from the person. It doesn't have to come from someone else. I have seen in certain circumstances where people will say, like maybe to their sponsor or something like, hey, if you hear me say this or that, or you saw me over on this street over there where I don't need to be, call me out. And that is still coming from the person because they're asking you to bring it up. If someone asks you to bring it up, That's cool. You can do that because it's coming from them. It's just you don't want to get into the power struggle. You don't want to get into catching someone mess up, and you don't want to get into this idea of throwing a fit about it. Now, sometimes there may be boundaries in place that you put, or maybe you didn't even put, maybe the court put, maybe their boundaries had to be in place. Like, If you are drinking or you relapsed, you can't have the kids alone in your, with you for visitation or whatever. I mean, that's important, right? And so sometimes there has to be a consequence, like I said, and it's okay to let that consequence happen and even be empathetic about the consequence. The key is to not get over-animated about it. Because it naturally hits someone's fight or flight buttons when you do that. And like I said, then you're roadblocking every single thing that could possibly get this person to learn a lesson, to decide to do different, and all of those kind of things. It is counter your instinct. It's not the way you're going to want to do it. It's not the way you're going to feel inside. But I promise you, I've been doing this more than 20 years. It works better. In fact, Early in my— one of the first jobs I had in my career as an addictions person is I ran intensive outpatient for teenagers. And literally that's the hardest job I've had in this field ever. I got a million stories about that for you. But one of the very first things I figured out about how to make this work, which I got to tell you was a real struggle, I didn't know what I was doing, is I figured out I needed to connect to these young people and get them to Like me. And you know what the best way to get someone to like you is? To like them. And you like them first, they start liking you back, and then there's like a relationship there. There's a connection there. And they naturally get to the point where they don't want to disappoint you. And so all I literally had to do was build a relationship with them for the most part. And that makes them want to pass their drug test, want to feel proud, want to show me that they're doing great and that it When you just allow those natural things to come into play, it works more effectively. Like it's, it's in some ways it's less difficult than you think it needs to be. It's more natural. The more natural process works best. It's the thing that creates that, you know, when people say they have to want to change, it's the thing that creates the I want to change thing. That's what, that's what's going to come into place to get someone to want to change. All right. We are about to take some questions and comments from those of you who are here live. Thank you so much for showing up. It's so nice not to— to know that you're there. I feel like we're in a conversation together and I'm not just talking to the camera, which is helpful. We're going to take some questions and comments. If you put question marks or a capital Q or something in front of yours, that lets Bree know that it is a question that you'd like to get answered. And in the meantime, there are links in the description, sober links down there, my insider's guide on how to pull off drug screens down there. There's a link to some Amazon drug tests so you can see what I'm talking about, whatever. All that's in there. Recovery coaching, family coaching, whatever. All that's there. Let's take some questions. My addictive loved one fell behind in his vehicle payment, rent, et cetera. He was five months behind on vehicle payment. He worked hard and caught up. I encouraged his wins and told him I was super proud of him. However, other things piled up. For example, his tags expired, and he found out online that his license was suspended and he cannot renew because he failed to keep his auto insurance. He says he's gonna have to wait until he gets the money. Also, last night, one of his Truck tires has a bubble in it and needs to be replaced. He is driving to work 45 minutes each way until it gets fixed. He owes me money and says he's going to pay me when he can. How can I support him without enabling him? This is tough because I can, well, I don't know for sure, but I get the impression, Crystal, that you're wanting to kind of step in and help him financially. And I'm not 100% completely opposed to that because it does sound like he is working hard to try to help himself. And so my rule about enabling is if they take a step, you can take a step. They take 10 steps, you could take 10 steps. So if you want to step in and help with like the tire or something, you can. The problem is he's in such a big hole. Like it's going to take more than just helping with the tire or the one thing. There's a lot of things here, the auto insurance, the getting the license back, the fixing the vehicle. There's a lot of things here. So if you want to help some financially, as long as he's helping himself, then I'm okay with that. And I would call that helping. When you're doing everything or when you're doing way more than they're doing, that is called enabling. So that's how you know the difference. But you don't have to help financially. Like as a counselor, when someone's in that situation, I can't give them money. I'm not going to give them money and I can't because that would be inappropriate and Weird on the boundaries, right? And so, but what I can do is be empathetic and understand and normalize the situation and do what you've been doing all along, Crystal. That is the best way to handle it. And the most important part here is the empathy. If you end up deciding you want to give him money, but you know you're going to be resentful about it, or you know you're going to be freaked out of it because he already owes you money, then don't do it because that's going to ruin the relationship. And the relationship is the most powerful Helpful thing that you've got going for you. So keep that in place. Don't put yourself in financial jeopardy. Like, do not miss one of your payments or your bills to fix his bills because that is going to put you in an emotionally bad place and it's not good. You're going to end up with resentment and that would be enabling. So hopefully that's helpful for you. My M Organized Organized with Kelly says, my husband has to go to rehab. Work is requiring it. He's on cocaine. The paranoia is terrifying. He plans to go wait for a bed and then he gets into a paranoid state and doesn't go. At a loss here. So what's happening is he needs to go to rehab, but whatever specific rehab he's trying to get into, There's a waitlist for, and I don't know where you live, Kelly. I don't know what the situation is, but if there's other options that he could get in right away, that is very important because when someone has agreed to go to addiction treatment for whatever reason, they need to make moves right then. Like today, I say, don't pass go, don't collect $200, don't stop and say bye to friends. For sure, don't stop and say bye to friends. Just go. And so when you have to wait, these kind of things happen because they're going to use during that time because it's going to be, well, I'm going to rehab and it's going to be a whole lot of one last times and that's keeping them in the cycle. So if there's an option to get him in somewhere else sooner, take it. If the treatment center is maybe like out of town and they're going to have a bed in 2 days, And it's feasible for you, or it doesn't have to be you, Kelly. It could be a friend or family member that's supportive and helpful. Put them in the car, go stay at a hotel close to the treatment center for 2 nights while you wait. Get them out of their current circles so that they either don't have access or there's less chances of whatever happening. So get them there as fast as possible. I don't know your situation, so that may not be it. It could be he's required to go to a certain It could be there's only one option where you live, but if you can get him in somewhere faster, when he's— when next time he gets agreeable, have that bag packed and put him in a car and get him there. Would it be helpful if an alcoholic has been sober for 7 months and they haven't been doing Soberlink due to financially— due to difficulty moving out of state? To previous employer. Really nervous about him staying sober while away where he had previous struggles. Put that, Bree, will you put that first part back up there? Okay. Would it be helpful for an alcoholic who's been sober 7 months and hasn't been in Soberlink due to financial difficulties? Okay. So what you're saying, Sherry, is they've already been sober for 7 months. Would it be appropriate to recommend Soberlink if the situation has changed, as in the time they've been sober for 7 months, they've lived in this one place and now they're going to this other place? I do think that's appropriate because it's a new beginning of getting through a new situation. So sometimes people will be doing well when they're in with me, But maybe they've taken some time off work and it's like 2 months in, they've decided to go back to work, and especially if they have to travel for work, I might recommend putting Soberlink in at that point as a help, not as a punishment, not as I'm trying to catch you. The way you set this up is so important. So yeah, I think that that would be appropriate. If he's already been 7 months in that environment and he's been sober, it's just not going to make sense to him. Would it have helped? Sure, it probably would help, but it would be hard to sell someone on the idea of doing it because they're like, I got this. I'm fine. What are you talking about? So, but the shift in situation might be an opening to do that. Suzanne Smith says, my son who is 30 just started a 28-day program after a non-fatal cocaine fentanyl poisoning last week. This scared him so much that he finally decided to go to treatment. He also has bipolar and OCD and anxiety. He wants to come back home after this program. Any other suggestions for being a team to support him staying accountable? He wants to continue with cannabis, but give up the cocaine and alcohol. All right, so we got good news here and we got difficulties here. The good news here is this overdose has really gotten his attention. Being willing to go to a 28-day program, that's To me, that's a sign that someone is serious about it. They're not just going in for 3 days as a way to get someone off their back or something like that. That's a commitment. So I see that as very hopeful and encouraging. Now, to your questions about supporting him and staying accountable, you didn't quite ask this, but you implied it, Suzanne, when you said he wants to come back home after the program. So I don't know if you're asking me if If that should happen, but I'm going to tell you what I think about that. Don't do that. If you have any other options, Suzanne, don't bring him into your home because it just, it's going to put you in the, it's going to put you in a hypervigilant state of watching him. You're not going to be able to help it. Of course you are. And that's going to be uneasy for him. It's easy to get set up in the Cat and mouse game. The best case scenario for someone coming out of 28-day treatment who's 30 years old is to go sober living. So that is what I would tell you first and foremost is to try to set that up. If he just started 28-day, you may want to sort of look into this behind the scenes, but if he's on day 3 or 4, don't bring this up right now. You're just going to make him freak out. Like wait till we get a little more settled into it, talk with the counselors, get some suggestions, and then figure out when's the best time to approach the subject. That is your best case scenario. Other than that, if he's coming out, I personally would rather you help him get into a living situation that's not in your home if at all possible. It only brings chaos into your home. It only puts you back in the bad guy role usually. It makes things really awkward. It just, there's a million reasons. But we just don't recommend it. Sometimes it's, that's the only option. And if that's the only option, I understand. But if you can help it, don't do it. What's next, Bree? All right. We are selling our home and I have said that my husband is not moving with me and my 2 boys if he is still drinking. Have I said the right thing? He does keep trying, but not really putting everything into it like I think he should be. This is hard because what does still drinking mean? Means, okay, today's my day 1 sober. It's moving day. The moving truck's here and I'm sober today. And so I'm moving with you. Is it like sober for a certain period of time? All that kind of thing. But Colette, this would be a good situation for a sober link. Because if you feel like he is trying and he is making efforts, asking him to do a sober link might give him a way to prove himself and also make you feel comfortable that you're not just totally caving in on your boundary or going against what you said. If someone agrees to sober link in and of itself, it's a huge step and it shows a massive amount of willingness and seriousness. So, and if Soberlink for some reason isn't in the cards for you, something similar. So if you're going to let them move with you, this is a perfect opportunity to ask if the person is willing to agree to some kind of accountability system. And with, if it's alcohol, that's the thing, Soberlink's the best version. Done and now and sober living on a scholarship. He said they teach each Wednesday. Can he drink on Thursday and pass the following week? Okay, so first of all, I don't even know if they test for alcohol because it's not in a standard drug panel test. You can get alcohol tests, so they could be doing like alcohol tests as well. That's highly possible. The question is, if he drank on Thursday, could he pass on the following week? Yes. Alcohol's only going to stay in your system for a couple of days as far as in your urine. And so that will be completely out by Wednesday. However, in sober living, there's other controls. Like, I don't know, depends on the sober living, how much other things are in place, but there's a lot of other layers of accountability in place too. Like a lot of sober living, you don't go anywhere by yourself for the first While, or there's other things to monitor. So I don't necessarily know that only testing once a week is going to fail for this because sober living has probably like 10 nets in place to catch these kinds of things more than just the test. But yes, he could. And most drugs get out of your system long before 7 days. So, and that, that, so that would hold true for most substances. Underneath it all says, question, how do I show up for a teenager who moved out and is in addiction that is verbally disrespectful and doesn't know how to communicate in a healthy way? I cut contact and offered counseling. As much as I am supportive of people that have addictions, people who are in active addiction, people who are trying to get out of an addiction, I never suggest that you put yourself in a situation where you're being abused. I wouldn't professionally or personally. So your needs matter too. And so the first thing, if you're going to continue communication with him, which I don't know that you need to, is you need to train how to communicate with you. Because if he's being verbally abusive and disrespectful and nasty, then I would just disengage the conversation. So the boundary is, the boundary is not you can't talk to me that way because you can't What you can enforce is if the situation starts to get heated, I'm going to get off the conversation or I'm going to leave the room or the situation or whatever. And if that doesn't work, the whole cutting it off completely is okay too. Never allow yourself to be abused. You're not doing them any favor or yourself. Yes, you can be helpful, but your safety and your— and that includes your psychological wellbeing— needs to come into play first and foremost. All right guys, we are out of time for today. You have asked really great questions. You guys ask better and better questions every week. If you're watching the playback, we are so glad you're here as well. All the links to all the descriptions that we talked— all the links to all the resources are in the descriptions, the ones that we talked about today. And I look forward to seeing you guys next Thursday at 1 Eastern. Bye, everybody.