Advice for Parents Addicts (2020)

Hello. Welcome to our talk today on financial boundaries. And we have special guest for you here. I know I'm sitting in the short chair. I put you in the short chair. You're tall. We have special guest with us, family recovery expert Campbell Manning. And if you haven't seen or met Campbell before, she is the best. She's qualified in several ways. She's obviously. She's a licensed addiction counselor. She's a licensed professional counselor. She's got all those professional qualifications, and she's got two sons in recovery. So personally and professionally, she has been through it. And she talks to parents every day. And a lot of those conversations are about money. Right, right. That seems to be one of the biggest problems that families have. Right. It's the financial.

It's a problem because they don't know how much to spend and they don't know when to spend it. But they also have all the emotions that come with if they spend it and it doesn't work or if they don't spend it and it doesn't work, they just. So that just gets so meshed, I think.

So I think there's some categories, right, because there's like, how much should I spend on treatment? That's a category.

Definitely. There's a how much money should I give them, if any. When those questions are asked, like in.

Early recovery, you mean?

Or trying to get them in recovery, like, should we withhold money or should how much should we, like, allowance? Or I have the conversation about gift cards versus gas versus phone all the time with family. So they get super picky and detailed about it when it really doesn't matter.

They get in the weeds about it. They get in the weeds because people really do worry a lot about enabling when it comes to money, obviously.

Yeah.

And then also when it comes to, you know, things like should I pay to bail them out of jail, should I pay for the dui, lawyer, should I pay for the treatment? And if so, you know, how much should I pay in that kind of.

Right, right.

So let's go through those one at a time. Maybe let's talk about, like, money that you give them an active addiction. Money you give or don't give an active addiction. And then so to me, there's sort of that money when they're not doing well. And then there's the messes. They create money for that. And then there's treatment, and then there's treatment and recovery. So I put it in, like, four categories. All right.

So if they're, well, I mean, so used, if they're actively using. A lot of times parents come to me, myself included, and we don't know that they're actively using. We just know something's not cool. Like, our own money is being $20 here, $5 out of your wallet, and you're like, what's happening? But eventually, as you sort of piece together something's not right. Whether you get drugs or not drugs and is. I just sort of am the I will give. I encourage parents to support their children in recovery. And when things are going well, if they're not going well or they're not in recovery, I don't advocate supporting them financially. It's not going to kill you to give somebody $5 to go to Hardee's. Like, that's not gonna make or break an addiction. But, you know, hey, I need money to go out with a John and Steve this weekend. We're going to a movie. No, John and Steve are not going to maybe in the first place.

What about, like, paying for their cell phone? That's a big one, right?

I personally think you should pay for cell phones because if and when your child decides that there's, you know, they want to stop or they're out and they need help, I want to be able to talk to my child.

A lot of parents feel that way, and they. And they don't know whether, like, that's okay or not, but it's almost like you're doing it because you need it.

Yeah.

And that's a good reason.

A lot of times parents will come and they'll say, you know, they going through their phones, and so they're finding, like, the illicit purchasing of drugs or selling with drugs on the phone. And to me, that's a boundary that if you're paying for the phone and, you know that's going on, you can stop paying for the phone, but it's not gonna stop the selling or the buying. So to me, the phone's not the biggest deal breaker.

Gotcha. What about if they're an adult and they're out living on their own and they need help to pay the electric bill or something like that, like a.

Living experience in general? I don't think that's a good idea, because I think what it does is it. It propagates the notion to the child or the young adult that I really can't manage it without myself. And so to me, that's a drop in serotonin, which, you know, is a chemical for pride, which is gonna let, like, dopamine have more power. Dopamine comes with drugs and alcohol. So to me, I don't think it's a good idea. I think you should say, I'm sure you can work it out. I hate that for you. If it's a one off offer and someone says, good God, I need four new tires. I just found out I can't afford it. I'll give you the money for four new tires. Right, but I would do that for any child. Right, but not habitually.

Not like it's every month you're paying.

And especially what I found through stories in my own life is that the stories would get sketchier and sketchier. Like you said you would pay for this. No, I didn't. And so I'm like, no, this is, this is getting dark. So to me it's sort of like, how does that feel? As it's going downhill is it's going to start to feel more and more manipulative and more and more lies that you're just thinking, why can't. Why do I need to?

That's the point. Like checking in with your own gut instinct about what it is that they're saying or asking. Because you guys know we're big believers in the gut. When you get that bad feeling, it's not good.

When your heart tells you there's a problem, there's problem. There's a problem. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

So what about when they get in the big messes? Like let's say they get the DUI or they get the possession charge or they get something even bigger than that. What's your thought on that?

Not popular. My thought on that is if you buy one DUI lawyer, you're most likely going to buy a second one. I don't believe in that. And to me that's just, that's the ultimate of what I would call enabling is I don't want anything bad to happen. So I'm gonna fix this. But it's just letting the disease roll.

Fixing the consequences.

Yeah, it's just letting the disease roll. I've never seen, never seen it work where it stopped the problem.

Okay, so definitely don't pay for those kinds of big messes that they do.

No, because the disease says Cs. We don't have a problem whatsoever. Like you can drink and drive, you can get caught with marijuana, you can, you can do all that. Cuz it's no problem.

What about college?

What do you mean?

Like classes at college. Like let's say you got a kid and they're in school and they fail first semester or pretty Much fail. All for a semester and maybe even second semester. We see that a lot.

Well, again, not popular. I think that every single student should go to college with some skin in the game, whether you think there's a problem or not. First of all, I think it does a couple things. It lets them realize how much this costs so they're less likely to sleep through their 9 o' clock Friday class. And second of all, it changes the dialogue you have with the child in college, period. You know, when my daughter was in college, if she told me, you know, going out on a Thursday night and I knew she had organic chemistry on Friday morning, I just said, what are you wearing? Because she had skin in the game, she had those loans. Now I pay those loans back with grades being A's and B's. I 100% C's. I said I'd split them. She didn't get any. So I don't really know if I would have paid them. But to me, I like to do it like that. But if you think your kid is like bad grading it things, you think something's going wrong, I would absolutely not pay for any more college. There are loans. This kid can go on their own, and if they do well, you can reimburse them on the spot. But I would keep the loan process rolling.

That was almost like an investment issue. That's what I always say. Would you put money into a bad investment? You know, like, is it working? Is it gonna return for you?

And you're going to hear, you know, oh, that teacher was foreign. I couldn't understand them. Oh, that teacher didn't like me. Everybody failed. I had the flu, so I had to withdraw. You're gonna hear all that and you're gonna want to believe that, but the bottom line is still the bottom line.

Poor grades, that can be the case for one class. But if they're not showing up and they're flunking, almost all of them, and they made 1D and 1C and 3F's or something like that.

Yeah. I can tell you this. I did not have a drug or alcohol problem in college, but I did have a problem with having too much fun because I'm seven. So it wasn't until my father said, you're paying for this semester, that I went and got every single class and had a 4.

0. Okay? And I.

And I frankly wish that he had done it earlier. Okay, Might be a doctor.

All right, now, what about treatment? Because treatment can be very expensive. And the truth of the matter is no guarantee they're probably gonna need it more than once, whether it's an adult, a young adult, whatever most people need. If they do treatment, they're gonna need. Even if they do it once, they're gonna need, like, levels of it. So they're gonna be different sort of phases of it, which costs money. And then a lot of times it takes more than once.

So.

So what's your thoughts on making those decisions?

I think you have to have a pretty frank conversation with yourself and your spouse is, how much money in total do we have to put toward this? And I don't know that you'll know that answer at the beginning because you won't know how bad the problem is. So I'm a big believer of do. What's the cheapest? Well, I'm a big fan of getting help from a professional to sort of figure out where is your child, what stage of change for us? You know, we sort of went for Iop through the Carolina center, and then you recommended we try the free place because he was saying he was ready, but he wasn't. And then we, we. Then we played our bigger gun card, which I think worked well.

So that's. So that's. So that's a good point. It's like, it's almost like with substance abuse, it's like timing. And so you want to. A lot of times people throw a lot of money into it right out the gate, maybe too soon. And I always say, like, treatment's almost like an antibiotic. It's like you don't want to give it to them, like every time they sneeze. You want to do it, like, in the right timing now.

But you also don't start out with rocephin or vancomycin. You start out with amoxicillin.

Right, Exactly. But two. I mean, when you look at treatment, there is, I mean, there's a wide range of treatment. You've got free, and then you've got $100,000. And so there's. There's a lot of in between. And it's not necessarily the more expensive.

The better, but how much, how ready are they? And it doesn't. This goes back to. I don't think you have to want to get well. You have to be leveraged. If your life is so unmanageable that you'll just agree to go, that's fine. That's totally fine. So if they're ready to go for whatever reason, that's when I would do my investment. But I would really, I would. I see all the time parents make this decision and they usually don't get it. Right. I think, I think it's pretty important to find someone who understands addiction and has at least laid eyes on your child to sort of help you say, yeah, now, now's not the right time.

Okay.

Or yeah, this is it.

Right. So it's not that you shouldn't spend money on treatment, it's just that you should make wise decisions like strategically, when to spend it, where to spend it, when to spend it on.

And what is your ability to withstand when they start the emotional pleas of come and get me. Because if you spend your, if you, you shoot your big dollars and then you go get them three weeks in because they're gonna want you to. And you're. If you're not ready for it, then you've, you've blown it.

Right. So like, one thing I see people do a lot is they'll sort of spend a ton of money on residential treatment. So like 30, 60, 90 day treatment. And then they don't have any money left to pay for like sober living afterward. That's a huge, huge mistake.

Or bring them home, period. So again, I think that's. If you're going to spend that kind of money, then you better work with someone to build your aftercare plan so that they go to that next level. So that. Because I always say you can't go out of the kitchen door and get to the patio until you go onto the deck and then down the stairs. The same thing for recovery is you don't go to big boy treatment and then come.

Yeah. So when you're, when you're gonna spend that kind of money on treatment, when it's time to do that, if you're gonna do that, then do it well. Do it well. I always say it's kind of like, what's the saying? It's like buying a really expensive car and then not changing the oil. Like, you know, make sure you do it right and follow all the different like, and levels so that the money is worth it.

Yeah.

So it works.

And I don't think that there's a right or a wrong amount of money to spend on it. I don't think anyone should tap into the ira, put a second mortgage on their house.

I do think that you should. If it's your kid, I think you should, you should use their college fund for it.

Absolutely.

I've told parents that a lot.

I tell parents that every day. Yeah. Yeah. Or if they've got stock, sell their stock.

Because I know a lot of the kids we see, I'm like this kid. If this doesn't stop, like they're not going to college or if they did go to college, it'd be really bad. It'd be really bad. So.

And then again, you know, parents, well, what about college? And my child is living proof that when you're in recovery and doing well and you decide what you want to do, you go get your own student loans and you go back to college and you get a huge amount of serotonin and a home run and everything's good.

So when Campbell says you get a huge amount of Satan, that means you feel good about yourself.

That's just like they feel great.

Nerdy talk. So then let's talk about. Because this is, this is where we get a lot of it is an early recovery, right? It's like, so they're sober, not for a super long time. And most people are gonna need some help getting on their feet right out the gate because, you know, they're gonna have to really probably start from scratch.

Honestly, a lot of times they don't even have a car.

Right. You really are a lot of times, like just getting started. So what's your thoughts about money, finances, how much to help that sort of thing in that circumstance?

I think it's fair to sort of set what you think is a fair amount, sort of set a budget and then for X number of months, not that many. Maybe you have a hundred percent, maybe one month you 100% it, the second month you 70% it. So that they now have a job and like a taper plan, like a taper down plan. And so ultimately within four or so months, I think the child should be independent.

Okay.

So I like the dial down. You're not throwing them out into the water, but you're putting them in the water in a little boat. And then you're taking a little boat away and they have a life preserver and then they've got flippers and then they just have to swim.

What about. I can think of too before, like about young people we've had in treatment. And it's the question of like, what are they going to do after maybe sober living or something like that. And then it's like, are you going to pay for their apartment? And sometimes I've had, you know, we've had parents who'll say, well, I'll help you pay for an apartment, but you have to have a roommate in recovery or something like that. Is it okay to put that guideline on?

I don't think so. Just because then we almost flip recovery back into the box. Performing a chance, checking the boxes, performing monkey syndrome. And I don't like that. I think it's better to work with the child on a taper down program again so that we get that pride and we get that tag. You're it. Message of you. You gotta stay sober to pay for the. Your car insurance to pay. And if you don't, then I'm not gonna be as mad. I'll be sad, but I won't be asthma because all my money went into it while you were behind my back.

Do you put any conditions on it?

I don't believe you should put conditions on it. You just know what to look for. You know, when they begin to isolate and all those addictive behaviors and then you decide what boundaries you're gonna hold. But I don't believe in conditions.

Maybe, maybe a vague condition like as long as I think you're doing well.

As long as I think you're doing well.

Yeah, then I'm gonna. As long as I think you're helping yourself out.

Definitely not. How many meetings you go to? Definitely not clean drug screens, Definitely not meet with your sponsor. Those are. That's not our side of the street at all.

Right.

Yeah.

So those should not be conditions or limits.

No, you just can set boundaries for what you're willing to contribute and then the rest is on them.

What's the opinion? Biggest or most frequent financial question people come to you with?

Buy a car or pay the rent.

Okay.

And buy a car. I'll support buying a car as long as we're within the pretty low budget car, like it'll get us around safely.

But it's not like five, six thousand dollars.

But then I think the child should have a kid. Whoever we're talking about should have to pay their own car insurance, their own gas, that they should be on that. And then I would just give them the car. I don't, I don't like it when people own the car and then they track it or they watch where it goes and they put parameters on that. Again, I just think that's not the side of the street.

Plus, it's good not to have it in your name. It's great not to be. You don't want it in your name in case something does go wrong. Yeah, yeah.

And rent, I'm not a huge fan again of prolonged rent paying for kids. In fact, I am like known in the office for. If you are not a full time student and you live at home as you pay your parents a minimum of $800 a month to live in their house.

She is like hardcore about it.

I'm very hardcore about it.

But it keeps people sober. She is.

I am. I am a Nazi about that. My parents are like $800. I'm like, well, $100 they can find in your sofa cushions, for goodness sakes. You'll find that in the group room here.

Okay. Well, if you are struggling with any kind of these questions or have other questions about boundaries with a loved one, whether they're in active addiction or early recovery, Campbell is the specialist. And if you'd like to talk to Campbell, she does phone consults. Right, sure. And I will put, after we get off of here, I'll put some information in the description on how you can talk to Kimberly if you want to or need to.

Great. I look forward to it.

All right, see you next time.

Bye.