Addiction, Lies, and Manipulation

I think we have a really, really interesting topic for you tonight. And that is going to be the three main reasons why you keep falling for the lies that your loved one is telling you. And when I say loved one, I mean I'm talking to people who have a loved one with a problem, who have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Let me know if you can hear me or if you can't, because I'm trying to figure out this whole livestream on YouTube thing. I would appreciate that you can just put it in the comments and that way I'll know if I need to make a change. I think last time I tried to do this, I recorded the whole thing and everyone could see me, but no one could hear me. And I was like, and if you're just joining us and you think that you know someone else who could benefit from understanding why it is that we always fall for these lies, then feel free to share it out. My goal is to share recovery faster than addiction is spreading. And I think that is very possible with, with your help. So share it out. People need, families particularly really need the right information. And unfortunately there are not very many resources out there. So let's get right into our topic. So I'm going to give you three, and then if you stick around, I'm going to give you a bonus reason why that you might be falling for these lies. Okay, Reason number one is that, and this is a little bit nerdy, so just track with me here. Our brains, our human brains are made to assess and collect a lot of information really quickly. And first and foremost, our brains are assessing for danger. So and they're just made to process quickly. So when we see and hear and take in information, we scan the environment around us and we take that information in really fast and our brain just immediately connects it to something else that seems like a. This is what it is. And we actually interpret information from the world not necessarily as it is, but more as we are. So, you know, when you think about things like eyewitness testimonies, this is why you can have five people see the same thing and everyone tell you a completely different story. I don't know why this story sticks out in my head because it's just really kind of an everyday thing. But it's a perfect example of this. Several years ago, my husband and myself, we were visiting our hometown. We're both from the same hometown, a little b. Small town in Tennessee. And we were sort of all of his family lives there and we were sort of on some back roads or Something. I can't remember why, but we passed this pond out in this field, and I said, hey, did you see that swan? That was cool. And he said, no, that's not swan. That was like a plastic bag floating on the water. I was like, that was a swan. You're crazy. So we're like going back and forth, arguing about it, and he's like, we'll go see. So he turns around and goes back, and it was a plastic bag floating on the water. So guess who was wrong in that one? This girl right here. And so I was like, I was completely sure in my head that that was a swan, because I guess I saw the white and I saw the water, and my brain said swan. And so that's a perfect example of how our brain takes information really quickly without really getting all the details of it. And it just decides the meaning of that information super duper quick. So when and how that applies to the idea of having a loved one with a problem is that the people closest to us actually we. You can lie to the people closest to you in almost any circumstance. Better and easier than you can lie to people that don't really know you so well, because when you're dealing with someone doesn't know you as well, they actually pay closer attention to you because you're new and you're novel and they're trying to figure you out. And your brain is. Or their brain is assessing you for is this person dangerous or not? And so it actually takes in more details of the information because it's a newer situation. But when you're dealing with someone like that, you live with someone that you see all the time. Even when you're seeing them and you're interacting with them, your brain just translates that information. It connects it to everything else you know about them. And you're not really objectively taking in information, so your brain just automatically goes on what it knows or its history about this person. And that's why it's actually. You would think it'd be different. You'd think it'd be harder to lie to the people closest to you, but it's actually the opposite of that. It is easier to lie to the people closest to you. So that's one of the reasons. And so if that's what's going on with you, you don't have to feel bad about that. We're all like that. That's about biology. That's about the way our brains are wired. And it's not something that you're doing wrong, but it Is something that you may want to be sort of mindful about so that you can maybe pay a little closer attention so that you can get your brain on a little bit higher of an alert and notice what's going on. So that's reason number one, that your brain just interprets data so fast and people closest to you can lie to you. The easiest reason number two is because. Hold on, let me look at my cheat sheet. Oh. Is because we, we tend to not listen to our intuition. So most of us have the experience of having that gut feeling that knowing something's up. And we have this all the time, every day. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about our loved one's addiction. It can be like about anything. Like, it happens to me all the time when I'm like driving and I'm about to get on the interstate or something to come home in my brain or something inside of me just says, like, go that way. And then almost immediately I'm like, but the other way is so long. Like, I don't want to go the other way. And then I hop right on the exit and then there's a big old giant traffic jam. It's so easy to rationalize away or push away what your intuition is telling you. So in this circumstance, it's kind of like you sort of know on some level, but you, but you just dismiss it super easily. Because a lot of times what your intuition, what our intuition is telling us, seems either like a pain in the butt or it's trying to tell you something that make you do something that would be embarrassing, or it's just easy to push it away. There's just a thousand reasons why we just don't listen to our gut. Like, if you know what I'm talking about, give me a thumbs up emoji in the chat. I know I'm not the only one. It's like, how many times has something happened and you're like, oh my God, I knew it. Why? Why did I not listen to that? It's like after the fact, it's like, you know, you knew that was coming right in your gut and you did not listen. So I am like the hugest believer in intuition. Like, if a client is telling me something and I'll say, here's my advice. And I'll say, wait a minute, wait a minute. What does your intuition say? And they'll tell me, I'll say, hey, go with that. Because that's going to tell you, that's going to give you the best advice. Go with Your gut feeling. If gut tells you something's up, something's up. So not listening to your intuition is another reason why you're continuously falling for the lies that your loved one is telling you. Now, reason number three is probably the most important and most significant reason. And don't forget, we do have a bonus coming. But reason number three is because, I don't know, sometimes it's consciously, other times it's subconsciously. But we don't acknowledge the lie and the truth because of what it means, because of the consequence of what it means. So it's like if you've told your loved one, like if you use one more time, or if you do this, or if you have drugs in this house or, you know, if you have one more relapse, then X, Y or Z is going to happen. So a lot of times it's like you don't want to have to deal with the decision that you're going to have to make if you confront the truth. So it's, it's, it's a sort of a suppression of, like, it's almost like a. I don't see it, like, because I am not ready to deal with that. Like, maybe it's. You're married to an alcoholic and it's just been going on for years, and it's destroying the family, and you just want to believe that they're sober, because if they're not, you have got to make some very hard decisions, and there's just no easy way around it. So it's kind of like sometimes we don't see it because we don't want to see it. Now, sometimes we're just sort of consciously ignoring it. Sometimes we're just sort of dismissing our intuition. And other times we're doing that, but we're not really conscious that we're doing that. But, you know, this whole situation is based in fear. The family scared of death, the person scared to death. And essentially what happens is everybody gets held hostage by that fear, and that's what keeps people stuck. All right, let's move on to our bonus reason why you keep falling for the lies that your loved one keeps telling you. So the last one in the bonus one is a sort of different category than the other ones. That's why I made it a bonus. And that one is that we keep falling for the lies because you. You're not looking for the right things. So this one isn't because you're trying not to see it or you're trying not to listen to your intuition, but it's literally because you don't know what you're looking for. So let me give you an example what I mean, like, if you're dealing with someone that has an addiction to pain pills, that particular addiction I think is probably the hardest one to spot. And the reason is because when someone's addicted to pain pills, they really don't look intoxicated. It's not like when someone's drunk or even when someone comes in have marijuana or if someone's on Xanax, like they look intoxicated and you're like, dude, you're messed up. People on pain pills, for the most part, unless they're like seriously taking like a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, like end stage pain pill addiction, like overdose style, they actually function really well. In fact, for the first few years of a pain pill addiction, they function better than other people. Like they may be making straight days at school, they may be employee of the month. Like they're killing it for a while. Because for while those pain pills are working, it lets them sort of be more social, be more active, work longer hours. And for family members who really aren't, they don't know anything about this. You would think, oh, if they were doing pain pills, like you notice they'd be messed up all the time. Like there are some small, really subtle signs, like looking at someone's pupils if they're like real pinpoint. But you got to be like really looking for that. And most people don't know that that's what they're looking for. So if you have a loved one addicted to pain pills, usually the family when you think they're messed up is actually when they're not on anything because that's when they, when they're not on any kind of pain bill, they feel crappy. So they're acting crappy, they feel bad, they're not functioning well and you're like, you're messed up. I know. And they're not. That's when they're in withdrawal and when you think that they're good and that they're sober, that's when they're on the pain pill. So it's just like not knowing what you're looking for. Because so often it just looks very, very different than what we have in our brain. Even if it's alcohol, even if you can sort of tell when someone's intoxicated, if you're dealing with an alcoholic, they can drink a whole lot for a long time before you're ever going to tell it because they actually Need a pretty good lot of alcohol just to function, just to be able to talk, communicate, and get up and go to work sometimes. And so they don't necessarily look intoxicated until they sort of pass over, like a certain threshold. I like to say alcoholics are always like, sort of like, if here's the sweet spot, they're always like aiming for the sweet spot and they always like, overshoot. It's like, right here it is. And they like go like way past it. And it's like, dang, every time, you know, why does that happen? So knowing what signs you're looking for and you may very well miss it when you're dealing with a functional alcoholic, you can absolutely miss it if you're dealing with someone addicted to pain pills, because I'm telling you, you cannot see it until it is like late stage. And usually with pain pills, the way that even comes out, and it's usually been going on for years before it comes out, is in the money. You're gonna see pain pill addiction come out and show itself through money problems faster than you're going to be able to tell it because the person's intoxicated looking necessarily. So unless you're just like, looking for it, looking for it, looking for it, you're going to miss it. And so many families come to us and they're like, oh my God, how did my husband have this problem going on for eight years and I didn't know? Or how did my kid get this far into addiction? I never knew telling you if it is pain pills and you can very, very easily miss it. And so if you are dealing with a loved one that has a drug or alcohol problem and you're tired of being trapped in the lies, in the manipulations, and you're sick of being held hostage by fear and you're ready to get out of it, then you may want to consider, or I'd like to invite you to consider taking part in our invisible intervention program. It's actually a newer online program. It's kind of like an academy that we've created for people where we take family members through a step by step process on not just how to get your loved one sober. I mean, that's a big piece of it. And we use what's called the craft method to do that, which is, as of today, it is the most statistically proven, most effective method for intervening in an addiction with your loved one, whether that's drugs or alcohol. It uses the science and the psychology of what we know about addiction to actually get the job done. So it's sort of a combination of boundaries, positive reinforcement and connection. And when you put those three things together in the right amounts, in the right time and combination, that is effective. But the invisible intervention is really, that's just the first part of it. The next part of it is if you're trying to get someone to go to treatment, it's to help you understand every single thing about treatment. The ins and outs, inpatient, the outpatient, the free treatment, the paid treatment, the religious treatment. Every single aspect we want you to understand, because let's say you work really hard and you want to get a loved one to go to treatment, but then you don't have anywhere for them to go. And so they finally say, like, okay, I'm ready. Like, I know I got a problem. Ready to go. If you're not sitting on ready, if you don't know exactly, like, the three top places that you want them to go and what you're looking for, like, that window is gone. It's only going to last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. And you've got to be ready to act. And getting someone into, like, big treatment is not easy, and it doesn't happen quickly. So you kind of have to do, like, all that prep work behind the scenes leading up. And so in invisible intervention, we teach you how to understand treatment options, how to pick the one that's going to work best for your situation, and how to get all that lined up, sitting on, ready to go. And we tell you everything from who to call, how to make that phone call, how to get them there. Because you may think, okay, you got all that ready? Well, who's gonna drive them? Well, let me tell you, what if it's the mom or the spouse? That may be a very bad plan in some situations. So it talks to you about how to transport them to treatment, and then it'll talk to you about, like, how to interact with the treatment providers once they're in treatment, how to interact with your loved one. And as a huge bonus in the invisible intervention, we go through, like, all of the roadblocks and pitfalls that you may run into or you will likely run into as your loved one goes through those early recovery stages, like, for example, like, how to handle money if it's your kid, how to deal with it if they've got a toxic friend or a toxic boyfriend or girlfriend, how to deal with school issues, how to deal with work issues, how to deal with, you know, trusting them, driving themselves around. All of these things are Questions that every family has, they're good questions or normal questions. It's like, should I make them go to meetings, should I make them sign a home contract? Now? If you haven't watched my YouTube videos, you should know the answer to that. If you don't know the answer to that one already, you better go back and watch my YouTube videos because I have a lot and I'll talk about that one quite a bit. All of those questions, you know, what do you do if they relapse? How do you know relapses coming, all that kind of stuff is all outlined in a step by step sort of from a, you know, dealing with someone in denial all the way to how do I get and deal manage someone into long term recovery? It's all invisible intervention. And right now we're taking beta testers because it's, you know, we've been doing this in our office for years and years and years, but the demand for people all over the country is just getting more and more as we do more and more online stuff. And so people are wanting our help but they can't come to our office. So we want to be able to offer our Hope for Families model and all of that to people in an effective way, in a way that you can get it no matter where you're at and in a pretty cost effective way. And right now, since we're taking beta testers, you can be a part of that program for a serious fraction of the cost. And all we're asking is for you to give us feedback along the way so that we can improve it, make it better. Because like I said, we're new. We're not new to doing this. We've been doing this a long time, but we're new to doing this with people across the country and across the world. And trying to figure out what translates on in a course and on a video is a little different, even though it's the same information. But how to make it translate well in that format versus the in person format. We're still working through that. So if any of you are interested in that, if you want to be a beta tester, I'm going to put some links to that. It's called the invisible intervention. I'll put a link in the description and then I'll go back in the comments after we hop off of here and I'll put a link in the comments as well. Just so you know how to get, you know how to get access to that and look into it if you're interested. I hope you got something out of today's the five or the three reasons and one bonus why you keep believing the lies that your loved one tells you and hopefully when you're aware of these blind spots, you know, then you can look out for them. It really is like a blind spot in your cards. Like, you know that right there in that one spot spot if someone's in that like right beside you, a little bit behind you, right beside you, you know you gotta double it, you gotta turn your head all the way around because they can be right there and you won't see it. So that's what I've told you today. These are your blind spots. You better double look don't trust your instinct. Like turn around, turn your head all the way around. Look hard because if it's right here in a certain spot, you're gonna miss it. So thanks everybody. I hope this live stream worked and I'll see you next time It.