In this solo, English self‑help video Amber Hollingsworth explains that active addiction survives by constantly lying. She distinguishes “positive” lies (e.g., “you can manage this”) from “defensive” lies (e.g., blaming others) and shows how these lies are the engine that drives the disease. Using an extended bicycle metaphor, she maps the addict (rider), the addiction’s need (front tire), the lying pathway (chain), and the loved one’s steering (handlebars) to illustrate why caregivers often focus on the wrong part of the system. She argues that engaging with the lies—arguing, begging, making deals—feeds both the addict’s brain and the caregiver’s anger, draining emotional resources and reinforcing the addiction. The core recommendation is to stop interacting with the lying pathway, separate the person from the addiction entity, allow unmanageability, and adopt strategic, empowered responses. Practical next steps include seeking professional help, individual appointments, or joining a live‑call support membership, with links provided in the video description.
Chapters
Okay. Here is a statement that should not shock you. In active addiction, all we get is lies. Okay? Our loved ones lie to us. They blame us. They play the victim card and they gaslight us. And this infuriates you because you well know. I can't tell you how many times a week my clients tell me that they can take so much. But they absolutely cannot tolerate the lying. It sends them over the edge. But wasting our valuable and already diminished because of dealing with active addiction emotional energy on being mad about being lied to is just that. It's just a waste of time. It's a waste of vital personal resources. There are so many ways that addiction lives. Lies are just one of them. But they're the one that we're going to talk about today. These lies are necessary for the disease of addiction to live because remember, addiction lives in the survival part of our brain and it is a shame-based disease that humans cannot thrive or even function well under the umbrella of shame. So addicts retell a story or scenario to feel better. They twist the narrative. To be more innocent in it. And they, in that way, they're less defensive. And this eases in their mind their shame. Just like in sports, the best defense is a strong offense. And in addiction, it's just as good as pro ball. All right. Defensive behaviors experienced in loving someone in active addiction infuriate us and cause us to fight, yell, beg, cajole, make deals, argue, and basically turn us into the angry and hurt police, which Which is exhausting. We've been trying to do all of the above and frankly and honestly with frankly an incapable recipient. And this makes us a little bit, well, frankly a big bit insane. Our insanity drives us to focus on our anger and all the while we're angry at the wrong things. So everything I'm talking about up to this point, all the lies that incense us, We are wasting our anger on the wrong thing. Okay? We're focusing on the lies and the ability— their inability to apologize for their own actions or to own them. We cannot believe that our dearest child or spouse or partner could do this to us. We are in truth focusing on all the explainable and even slightly more tolerable aspects of our relationships or lack thereof with addiction and our loved ones. And this is how we get sucked in. It's like being mad at the steering wheel of a bike for getting us to a destination that we don't like, when the chain of the bicycle is actually the culprit for propelling the bike and delivering us to this destination. The lying pathway of addiction in our brain, their brains, is the chain in this metaphor. All right, imagine for a moment a picture of a bike. Let me see if I can get this bad boy added. This is huge for me. All right. So here's the bike. Okay. The rider, imagine there's a rider on this bicycle. The rider is addiction. The rider, the addiction is also the peddler. All right. The rider/addiction is the one who looks like they are making the bike move. This is important. It appears as if the rider is making The bike move. But understanding how the rider in addiction is making the bike move is the ticket to altering our engagement with addiction and therefore how we ultimately feel. And how we ultimately feel is directly related to how we understand addiction and the entity that it is and how we should in fact be relating to it instead of how we tend to relate to it out of anger. So back to this bike metaphor. Our loved one is the steerer, but they are steering from a false map. And the map we need to learn not to consult, right? The bicycle is the vehicle that propels the rider and gets them where he wants to go. The handlebars are the steerer, and the handlebars again are our loved ones. The front tire is the addiction's need and guarantee that it will arrive at the desired destination— procuring, using, getting, having. Drugs or alcohol or whatever they're addicted to. The back tire, however, is the one connected to the chain and the pedals. The back tire is this entity of addiction that I talk about all the time. All right. In this metaphor, the chain is the lying pathway in the addict's brain, and the chain is how the entity, the back tire, Feeds the addiction and controls our loved one's thought patterns and ultimately behaviors, which are steering the bike. So what we're focusing on is the rider when we really need to be figuring out how to get that back tire and the chain disconnected from the bike. Okay. Our loved one is steering the bike from an unworthy trust, unworthy map, and a chain with an agenda of its own. Okay. So our, it looks like our loved one is steering the bike with this map that doesn't work, but actually the chain is doing it. All right. So stay with me. The addiction is pushing on the pedals to get the chain to move, to force the back tire to rotate and propel the rest of the bike forward. The only way the chain can help the rider, the addiction, is to lie to the rider in the examples that I'm going to give in a minute. All right, now we're to the crux of it. In order for this whole bicycle thing to work, then that's what has to happen is that the lying has to happen because that's what actually makes the chain go. Okay. So when we can understand that addiction is truly an entity, that it comes from the survival part of the brain that overrides our limbic caring sweet brain and our frontal lobe, which is our caring, our smart thinking brain. It overrides that to get its destiny fulfilled. Again, get drugs, have drugs, steal money to get drugs, have drugs in our hands. Then we can see how that entity has to be a liar. Okay? And the initial person to whom it needs to lie is its host, our loved one. All right? So this is where it starts to get some strength because it's starting by lying to our loved one. Initially, all addictions actually work for our loved ones. And this is how they get fed from the very beginning. What I mean by this is when they first start using or doing whatever their addictive behavior is, the beer makes them less socially awkward. The opiates allow them to get more done. These are things that the addiction lies to our loved ones with. The coke makes them stay up later, get more done. The weed lets them relax and have fun. Starving themselves makes them thinner and they look better in their clothes, feel better about themselves. The Xanax? Makes them less anxious and more able to function, to go to school, to go to social events, to go to parties. The gambling solves their money problems. What all of this has in common is the ability to function better for whatever reason. And their narrative tells them that they need the relief. Okay? So the addiction is lying. This means that as it tips into the less successful realm, the more problematic reality, the The addiction has to now lie pervasively to guarantee its survival. And then this is why our loved ones lie to us, because now the addiction has hold of them and it, the entity, needs to survive. And remember, addiction lives in the survival part of the brain, the old brain, the reptilian brain, which guarantees it instinctively is fabulous at survival skills. In the case of addiction, Lying. There are words addiction uses to lie to its captive, our loved ones. These are positive lies. It's not that bad. You've got this. You can manage this. You're different. You can control this. This time it will be different and you'll control it better. No one really notices. You're doing fine. Life's actually better now. Ignore what you're hearing from your mom and dad or your partner. These are the positive lies. Then there are defensive lies. Okay, defensive lying is, I wouldn't do this, but— and now we're flipping into the victim stage. So you can see how addiction gets all the nastiness that it gets from the initial lying that it has to do to itself to get going. I wouldn't do this, but my wife is nagging me. My partner is trying to control me. All the teachers are against me. My parents are jerks. The cops are trying to fill a quota. I would have gone to school, but my mom ragged me about my grades. Everyone's against me. My boss is a toad. They just don't understand. Everyone else's wife is fine with drinking. We hear that a lot. And so on and so on. So you can hear positive lies and defensive lies, but they are all lies to guarantee that the addiction Gets in there, gets traction, and propels itself. All right. You know, you've heard it, that this is where we can change and why we need to look at this differently so that we don't get sucked in. If you can learn to recognize when you're talking to, hearing from, dealing with the entity of addiction and the lies can cease to be the focus of you and therefore the enemy, You can therefore start to learn to separate your loved one from the entity. And now we're getting somewhere as far as changing you and how you're not getting sucked in. You can stop being angry, frustrated, resentful, combative, angry, and yeah, crazy. You can then change your strategy to see how you can allow the unmanageability they need to see in order to stop or attempt to stop. There are lots of ways to change your strategy, but the main one that's directly related to today's video is to stop engaging with addiction in all the intuitive ways that you're doing it: arguing, yelling, begging, making deals, babysitting, controlling, managing— all those things we do, right? Don't pretend you're not doing them. I did them. You're doing them. So let's go back to the bike metaphor. Okay, hang on. When you respond to the lying, gaslighting, refusal to acknowledge, What's happened or is happening with the blaming victim mentality, you are actually engaging with the chain. Okay? You're just engaging with the chain, the lying pathway, which is not going to hear your voice or recognize what you're saying is true, or it's not going to validate you. It is going to up its game. It's going to do all of the above bigger. Louder, more complexly, more confusingly, because it has to live. And as this happens, we are going in the opposite direction of where we really want to go. We're truthfully now, by engaging with the lying, by getting sucked in, by dealing with this stupid chain on this bike, we are truthfully now fueling addictive thinking patterns again. When we, when we fuel lying, we are inadvertently feeding their addiction and completely going against our goals. Just as importantly, fueling our own anger and other non-helpful emotions. We are now sucked in. This is big, you guys. Fueling our own anger and non-helpful emotions is actually providing space and grace for addiction to grow and flourish. Don't listen to the lies. Do not listen to what the addiction is telling us to focus on. As Shakespeare said, know thine own enemy. Okay? Acknowledge addiction. Learn about it. Learn about it until you understand it and then respond to it differently. Okay? Don't get sucked in. Get help. Get something to help figure out how to engage with this more productively. Figure out how to allow unmanageability, how to engage with it differently, and how to be more strategic, how to feel more empowered, and ultimately how to encourage a better outcome. Whether if it's for your loved one and yourself, or maybe just yourself, at least in the short term, you will feel more equilibrium, more strategic, more intentional, more in control of your own mental health. I think this video is really about you and why not to get sucked in, sucked into the abyss that leaves you feeling completely empty. Lonely, exhausted, tired—all these things that you guys feel. Why not to waste time and resources and effort and fruitless conversations in your emotional stability is sort of what today is about. We have lots of videos on how not to do these things, but I'm pretty sure we have not yet clearly delineated prior to this video on why. And in my opinion, until we know the why, it's really hard to consistently hold. Onto the how concepts. So if you need specific, tailored, personal ways not to how interact or engage with the addict or addiction, you can make an individual appointment with me. But hopefully this will teach you not to get sucked in. If you need an appointment, the link is in the description. If you need ongoing live call support to hear how others are trying, succeeding, or failing, and being able to sort of apply that to your own scenario and Mull it over, then our membership is probably the great option for you. And that also—that link is also in the description. Thanks you guys so much for watching. Let's see if there are any questions on this topic or just in general. Maybe not. Okay. Well, we don't have any questions, so we'll just make this a short video, which will be easier to watch for you guys. So hopefully this has helped. Remember, when you get sucked in, you're fueling addiction. Do not do that. Try to remember you are getting sucked in to fuel the addiction, and that's not, that's not where you want to go. All right, guys. Thanks a bunch. All right. Bye-bye.
