Addiction in Family Systems (how to rebuild trust)

This video is all about rebuilding trust in addiction and recovery. Okay? So if you feel like some terrorist just came into your family and blew it up with a giant bomb, and it's a disaster, and it can never be put back together, you probably feel like that because that's kind of what happened. Addiction came into your family and blew it up like a giant bomb, but it can be put back together. Not saying it's easy, but in this video, I'm going to tell you how to put your family back together again. So if this is your first video with me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, founder of Hope for Families Recovery center, where we are committed to putting families back together after the disaster of addiction. Think of it like a hazmat team after a big old earthquake or something. That's what we do. We come in and we put families back together again. So before we begin this talk about trust, you know, I'd like to know, where is your trust at right now? So on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, I trust this person so much, take me to some team work camp, because I'll do one of them backwards. Trust falls. That's how much I trust them. And one being like, I wouldn't trust them to go in the kitchen and bring me a glass of sweet tea. So give me a number. On a scale of 1 to 10, where is your trust at right now? As you start this video, let me know in the comments, because at least I'll know where we're starting from. So if you feel like you need a little help with that, make sure you subscribe to this channel and you'll have your own personal hazmat recovery team. You know, sometimes the best way to put something back together again is to figure out what happened to it in the first place. So at Hope for Families, we have this unique process where we give the person in recovery, the addict or the alcoholic, they get their own counselor, and we give the family member their own counselor. And I'm not talking about, like, the addict or the alcoholic. They have to come, like, all the time. And the family comes for family weekend. I'm talking about you get a person, and you get a person, we call it lawyering. And the family comes as much, if not more, than the addiction. And the whole thing is a really interesting process, but it gives us a unique perspective into what the family's thinking and feeling and what the addict or the alcoholic is thinking and feeling. You see, at the beginning, when addiction first starts to creep its way in there, the family starts Losing trust little by little. It's like you want to give the person the benefit of the doubt, but everything inside of your body tells you not to. And it's really not just the family that loses trust. The person that has developed the addiction also loses trust. Because as crazy as this may seem, especially early on, the person that has the addiction is convinced, 100%, totally convinced, that the family is just out to make them stop drinking or using drugs as a way to control them. And they feel like they're overreacting and going overboard. I know that may be hard for you to believe, but remember how I just told you, like, we do the lawyering thing? I pretty much, in the office, like, always a defense attorney. So that means I'm usually talking to the addict or the alcoholic. And pretty much 100%, this is what they say, this is how they feel. They don't trust the family either. So this isn't just a process of the family learning to trust the addict or the alcoholic. This is a simultaneous process of the addict and the alcoholic learning to trust the. The family. And there have been so many burned bridges, so many hurt feelings, so many lies, so much manipulation on both sides. It's not going to be an easy journey, but it definitely can be done. You know, one of the first steps to rebuilding trust in a family system actually doesn't have anything to do with the other family members per se. The first step is learning when you can trust yourself and when you shouldn't trust yourself. So if you're the person with the addiction and you're in recovery, you probably got taught somewhere along the way, don't listen to your own head. You know, we have a saying, and that's your best thinking, got you here. And it's meant to say, hey, you don't have all the answers. It's time to listen to someone else. And don't necessarily listen to your own instincts. And I'd have to say the same thing goes to the family. So what I usually say to families is, it's okay to trust your intuition about what's happening, about whether or not we're headed in the right direction or not headed in the right direction. But do not trust your instincts on how to deal with the situation, because over the course of the addiction, everybody has developed some really bad coping mechanisms, really bad ways to deal with, with the problem. You've got the addict or the alcoholic who's learned to turn to the substance to deal with everything. You've got some people in the family who tried to control the addict or the alcoholic, and that's how they manage their fear. You've got other people in the family system who learn to put their head in the sand and just avoid it or minimize it. And that's how they control their fear. And what you've got to trust here is that everybody is coming from a place of fear. And if you can really know that on a deep down level, and at least you can approach the situation from an empathy standpoint, that's not saying anything goes. That's not saying that everything bad that happened is okay. But what it does is it takes a level of judgment and frustration off the top that will allow you to access those more vulnerable, deeper levels of trust. Here's what you can trust if you're an addict or an alcoholic. You can trust that even if your family did the wrong things or had bad reactions, they did the best that they could and they were reacting out of fear. And families, you can trust that even though the addict or the alcoholic did some bad things, that they did that out of fear and addiction. Now, if you haven't already seen my series on manipulations, that is a good starting place. In fact, it really should be like a prerequisite for this because that's going to take you through the types of manipulation, why they're happening, how to recognize them, and how to stop being controlled by all the lies and deceit and manipulation. You know, people only do what works. And so if you stop letting lies and manipulation work, they'll stop doing it. So both sides, both the family and the addict, need to make a commitment to honesty and truth telling, no matter what the outcome is. So it's easy to understand when you look at it from the addict or the alcoholic perspective. So that's, tell the truth, be honest. Like say if you relapse, say if you took money. Because oftentimes the family, their biggest hurt has to do with the lies and the deception a lot more than the actual drug or alcohol use. That's the part that hurts on that really deep level. But you've also got to understand that it's the same way on their side. They feel like they've been controlled and manipulated and forced. Forced into doing things that they did or didn't want to do. So families, when you have that instinct that something's going wrong and then you have that reaction or reflex to either start getting crazy about it or to start ignoring it, remember I told you, don't listen to that instinct. Just say the truth. If somebody, if the addict of the alcoholic Comes home and they seem sketchy. Don't say an accusation like, what have you been out doing? Have you relapsed? Don't say it like that. But just say, man, I was sitting here, my crazy was getting the best of me and I was making up all kind of stories about what was happening out there. Help me feel better. Just say the truth, Use some empathy, use some humor. And if you have the ability to do a little self deprecation and make fun of yourself a little bit, this will go way smoother. So if you're the person in recovery, it's okay to come home and say something like, oh my God, I thought about drinking all day today. Like, seriously, I pulled up in the parking lot to three stores on my way home today. Now, family, if you want your person in recovery to be able to say things to you like that, then you've got to be able to hear them. Maybe this will help you. When addicts and alcoholics tell me things like that, I don't get scared at all. I feel really glad that they told me that because I know that that's probably what I would expect to be going on in them. When they tell me I got this, it's no problem. It's easy, like, nothing to it. That's when I worry. If they're telling you things like that, then chances are they don't want to do that. If they were going to do that, they wouldn't be telling them to you out loud. So on both sides of this equation, if you want the other side to be truthful with you, you have to be able to handle that truth and hear that truth without being super reactive. If both sides of this equation can avoid being really emotionally reactive, can avoid trying to control a situation, an outcome, we can hold all that back. Trust will come into play. It'll come in a little bit and a little bit and a little bit, and before you know it, you'll actually be communicating like human beings again. Wouldn't that be nice? Doesn't mean you always agree, doesn't mean you always like what you hear. But the first step is developing an ability to communicate honestly and openly without fear of the bad outcome that's going to happen. I know it sounds really simple, but trust me, it's not. Because in the beginning it's like biting your lip. It's like family recovery is literally a process of withholding. That's just about the same amount of difficulty as it is for the addict, the alcoholic, and they feel like they're withholding, trying not to use. That's what it feels like at first. And that's okay, because you are going against your instincts here. But think of it like exercise. You know, when you exercise and it's uncomfortable and it hurts, you know you're doing something right. If you're uncomfortable and you're stretching different coping mechanisms then you've used before, then you might be doing something right. You know what? I'm guessing. I'm guessing you know someone else who could benefit from learning how to rebuild trust and addiction and recovery. And so if you know someone else who could benefit from this information, hey, share this video with them.