Alcohol Broke Us...Can We Fix It?

When one person in a relationship develops an alcohol problem, it's almost like alcohol becomes a third person in the relationship. Well, at least the dynamic tends to fall out that way. Because what happens is as someone is developing an alcohol use disorder, they become increasingly attached to the alcohol and decreasingly attach, if I'm saying that, right to their part partner. And as that shift is happening, obviously the partner can sense that that is happening. And naturally the partner to the one who has the drinking problem becomes more and more desperate, upset, angry, resentful, all the things about the. About what is happening. And when that partner feels that way, they frequently deal with that feeling by chasing behaviors. And chasing behaviors includes lots of things. Can include spying, can include nagging, can include ultimatums. All the things where it's like the desperation of the one partner starts to try to fix the issue or try to get the other person to first see the issue and secondly get help for the issue. But the more that cycle goes on, the more the dynamics of the relationship get out of balance. And it's so much so that even after a person gets sober sometimes, sometimes there's so much damage in a relationship that the relationship won't even go back together after the alcohol is out of the picture because there's so much hurt, there's so much destruction, resentment, guilt, shame on both sides that they can't even get out of the relational dynamic cycle even after the alcohol is out of the picture. And that happens for a lot of reasons. It's sort of, sort of a domino effect because as a person becomes more attached to the alcohol and that partner is chasing them frequently, what happens is that they start to hide. So the partner starts to chase and the other person starts to hide. And in various ways, like in obvious ways, like they had their alcohol, right? Like they had it in the car all over the house, they had it in different places. But other ways they had it is a little bit more subtle. Like. Like for example, even if they're openly drinking in front of their partner, they're probably sneak drinking even more behind their partner's back. And the partner knows that, but has trouble proving it. So then they get into this cycle of trying to prove that they know that the other person is drinking or drinking more than they say or whatever. And then this cat and mouse situation just gets bigger and bigger and more complicated as we go. And layer on top of that, as if that's not enough complications, layer on the top of that. And when this couple starts to have this friction, everyone else that surrounds the couple Whether that's family members, children, friends, it. They start to take sides. So it's like this war between the couple, and then everybody starts to align with what side they feel is right or whatever. And so then it's more than just the couple at each other. It's. It's these whole teams of people that are in disagreement, and we'll start to sabotage each other and start to do even vengeful, hurtful things to one another. And it's a very tough cycle to get out of. And you could imagine after years of that going on, what happens to the trust and the positive feelings. It just erodes and erodes and erodes until sometimes there's nothing left. I've seen alcohol absolutely destroy relationships beyond repair. And I've seen alcohol take it to the brink and. And some people are able to make it back. And it usually happens, like, right at, like the moment where I think this is done, this is over, like this relationship cannot take anymore. It's kind of interesting to me because it feels like right when we get to that point, that's when things will sometimes start to turn around. And so in this video, I want to talk about how to get that situation to turn around, how to get your relationship back on track after alcohol has come in and destroyed it. How do you get yourself out of this cat and mouse game? Because as you're playing that game, one of the partners becomes more like a parent, and that throws off the romantic dynamic between the couple, because one partner is trying to control the situation or fix the situation. And not only that, but they're also trying to. Or having to more than trying to, having to pick up and take care of a lot of the responsibilities that the person with the alcohol problem is dropping, whether that's household responsibilities, paying bills, taking care of kids, just taking care of the relationship. And so the power dynamic shifts, and one person gets in this parentified role and this other person gets in this role. It's sort of like the scapegoat role is sort of like the bad kid kind of role that now their mission is to get away with whatever they're going to get away with. And the sad thing about that whole situation is that the person that's struggling with the alcohol problem, they get so caught up in trying to get away with it that it blocks them from being able to see the problem and blocks them from being able to even make the decision to stop. Because a lot of times when I get people, they. They've. They've already realized they don't Even like to drink anymore. It doesn't even work good for them anymore. They're sick of the cycle. But they're so caught in this defensiveness against their partner that it blocks their vision and it blocks their ability because it becomes your pride gets in the way. And pride starts to get in the way on both sides. You start trying to prove these things about each other. You're trying to prove that one of you is an alcoholic. You try to prove that you know what's really going on. And then on the other side, you're trying to prove that your partner is a controlling, nagging maniac. And usually both sides are sort of true, right? Usually both people are right to some degree. What you have to do to get out of this cycle, you have to get out of this blaming the person mindset and switch to understanding it as an objective problem. Like, like sometimes it's helpful to blame the disease of alcoholism, if you want to call it that, Blame the alcohol versus blame the person because. And the reason why, not only does this help to get out, but the reason why it's legitimate thing to do is because it's so predictable what happens to people when they develop an alcohol problem. I can tell you the behaviors that are going to happen, like 1234 ABCD, without knowing the person, without knowing how old they are, their background, their. Their family history, how much money they have, their race, anything. Because that's what alcoholism does to people. It causes you to think and behave in a certain, very, very predictable way. And, and guess what else? When you have an alcoholic or addicted spouse, you start to also behave in a very, very predictable way. And so once you can realize that, once you can realize that the behaviors are a symptom of the alcohol problem on both sides, and you can kind of separate that from how you view that other person. Now you have the beginnings of the ab to heal the trust. And it is a decision that you make. It's a conscious decision that you make to let go of your right to revenge about whatever it is that you believe this person has done against you. If you want the relationship to survive, you have to be willing to move forward from all the hurt and the damage. And it's easy to cling on to that, especially, you know, when you're moving forward in the relationship and, you know, some new regular couples issue pops up and, and gets in the way. It's immediately we go back into those old roles and those old mindsets. Even if alcohol is not in the picture, this idea of this power dynamic being off kilter, this lack of trust, this power struggle basically between the two people. Another piece of that dynamic is all too often the person with the substance abuse problem in this situation, alcohol. One of the things that they do is they develop this fantasy about being a. Being single or free or at least just being free of the. What they perceive as the controlling behavior of the other person. And they start to think, maybe I would be better off if I weren't in this relationship. Maybe I'm with the wrong person. It just isn't meant to be. Maybe life would be better, easier or whatever without this person. And that, again, is the addiction sort of in your ear. Because it's this other person that keeps any amount of gate on the addiction. So that addiction wants to run off this other person. And that's why I say it becomes like this third person in the relationship. Because there is this fantasy of, man, if I could just get rid of this person over here and I could just run off and be this fantasy of me drinking like I want to drink and no one interfering in my way. It's. It's very similar to if. If the. If somebody was having an affair, right? It's this fantasy of how can I just make this person, this. This issue, this dynamic go away? And there's a lot of magical thinking involved in that. Sometimes people tell themselves, if I weren't with that person and they weren't nagging me on my case all the time, I probably wouldn't drink. Sometimes that's the fantasy. Sometimes the fantasy is more like if I didn't have the other person on my case and nagging me all the time, that I could just drink like I want to drink and everybody can leave me alone and everything will be fine. Because the real problem is this other person's reaction to the drinking. And so all of this magical thinking happens. And when the family member starts to, you know, come at the person with a substance abuse problem with, you need to pick. And the ultimatums and the why do you love alcohol more than me? They don't always say it, but they're pretty much always thinking it is that they do pick alcohol over you. And the reason is it's not just because they're so addicted to it. It's because of all the relational dynamics that have taken place usually over the course of years to get to that point where, you know, they. They don't like you anymore, just like you don't like them anymore. And so when. When you throw out the ultimatums and you throw out the. You Know, maybe be better off if I left. Don't be surprised if you don't get. Don't be surprised if they don't fight you about it. Like if they just let it happen. Especially if you're dealing with somebody who's very conflict avoidant. Then a lot of times a conflict avoidant person has been having this fantasy, has been wanting to kind of exit, but they don't want to say it. And so they start to sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously, like run. Sabotage. I can't think of the word sabotage the relationship hoping that you'll get mad enough and leave. So that's another reason why those ultimate. And that drop, drawing the line, the sand thing doesn't work. At least it doesn't work if you, if the partner is still perceived as the bad guy because the other person just wants the bad guy to go away essentially. Now, I had this moment last week where it, it dawned on me I'd had several, several clients. It was for one of my days where I see clients, I see clients on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and because I see all just in two days, I see a lot of them on those days. And I realized all of a sudden that I had talked to several clients all, I think it was like last, it was like on a Tuesday or something, who told me how great their spouse was. I didn't even know what to say. I didn't even know what to do. And so I'm like, I'm not, I'm so not even used to this. And they're telling me how guilty they feel for what they've put their partner through and how they don't want to lose their partner and how they're so upset with themselves and they got to figure out this alcohol problem because they don't lose their partner. That is such a 180 degrees difference from what normally happens. It's like mind blowing on my end to hear and to see and I know exactly what has happened when, when someone is telling me something like that, it means that the partner has figured out how to get themselves out of that bad guy roll. And, and when you get out of that bad guy roll, the person starts to see things more clearly and their own natural regret, remorse, guilt, you know, their own natural sort of self monitoring will kick in most of the time and they'll start to see like, man, that I have been treating this person badly. Now it doesn't get, it doesn't happen immediately. It's not like day one when you get out of the bad guy roll that happens. It happens over a course of time where it's like the person with the alcohol problem experiences these negative moments or consequences or whatever you want to. Bottoms, whatever you want to call them. And if. If the partner is not in the way or in that role or perceived role of playing the bad guy, then they have to, like, think about what they did. It reminds me of, like, you know, when you're young or something, and. And your parent says, go to your room and think about what you did. It's like the worst, right? Whereas if the parent comes in and is just like, yelling and screaming and threatening and putting out all these, like, punishments and all that kind of stuff, all you're thinking at that point is how unfair. What ridiculous rule this is. How you're uptight, how you don't understand me. You see, you see the difference. It's like it allows the person to actually learn from their own mistake, right? And. And actually be able to own that mistake and then be able to make the decision to do something differently. So I just want to say, you guys, they're out there watching right now. Especially guys, you know, you're watching live, you're watching the playback, you guys are getting it, like. And I can tell just by what I'm hearing on my end. And I only, you know, I'm seeing the tip of the iceberg of what you guys are doing. You know, I only have a few clients, so I don't. I don't see the massive shifts that I know are going on. It's like, if I'm just getting this big of a sample size, and in, like, one day, I had multiple people talking to me about their partners with. With genuine regret and not blaming their partners. I just can't tell you how different that is than what I normally hear and how the success rate shifts dramatically. Because you know how people always say they have to want it? This is. This is how you get someone to want it, is you stop trying to force it and you get yourself out of that bag. Adderall. And then all of a sudden, they feel differently about it and they feel differently about you. And you, when you can both have empathy for the other person, that creates the foundation that will start the trust and the healing process. So being able to have empathy instead of only judgment towards the other person, it doesn't matter which side you're on of this equation, is going to help you see things through their lens, obviously, and it's going to help you to take more accountability on your own end when you do that. So I hear it these days when I'm talking to clients, like the clients that I have in our strength based recovery. I can hear it in what they're telling me. I can tell that the partner got their own recovery going months and months before I talked to this person usually. And they've laid the groundwork not only for their own relationship to heal and not only for this person to decide to get better, but. But it's like you've paved the way for the person with the alcohol problem sometimes to get better. So it's like when they come see me, it's like we get right down to business and it's so cool. Like we can get down to solving the problem versus complaining about the partner, which is where so many people get stuck. And I just wanna say I'm impressed with you guys. Cause I can tell that you're doing your homework and it's working on both sides and you're having empathy for each other. You still mad at each other, you're still frustrated at some things that have happened, but you, but you have some level of understanding about maybe why the person made the choice that they made or acted the way they did. And I'm not saying that you should just put up with anything or forgive anything. I have videos about that, about where the line in the sand is. But if you want to get better, you're both going to have to make a decision to have that empathy and choose not to throw it in that other person's face, whether they deserve it or not. It is a choice that you make. And it's not even a choice that you make one time. It's a choice that you're gonna make multiple, many times because it's so tempting. But as soon as you do that, I call that a relapse. As soon as you relapse back into your old relationship dynamic of behavior, whether the substance is there or not, when you start getting back into that cat and mouse power struggle thing, your relationship is in a relapse. And when one person goes back to their behavior, the other person goes back to their behavior almost immediately. Because it's hardwired into at that point. It's like, you know, it's like once you learn to ride a bike or something, it's like, oh, we're back in this deal. And it's, it's hard because you can see couples shift back into that old dynamic in a millisecond, right? Because we talk about triggers for drinking and stuff, but we don't talk enough about triggers for the. For the person and the relational dynamic. Triggers of. Maybe somebody did something that reminded you of the old cycles you used to get in, and now all of a sudden you're falling back into your old behavioral patterns and it's just so freaking hard to get out of. And it's about resisting that urge to slide back into the old ways of handling things. Whether that's resisting the urge to slide back into yelling, screaming, controlling, or resisting the urge to slide back into avoiding and shutting down and lying and secret keeping, whatever your old pattern is. And it can fall into a lot of different ways. Maybe your old pattern is to get mad and leave and go MIA for four days or. Or to get mad and leave and go stay at your sisters for three days or whatever it is that is your old. If. If you're gonna let the relationship heal, you've got to make a commitment not to just not going back to the substance, but not going back to treating each other in this power struggle kind of way and forgiveness of what's happened in the past, and even little lapses that could happen going forward relationally. Little lapses that happen. If you under. If you understand this dynamic, you've been caught in this dynamic on either side and you're watching this video, write the word me in the comment box or in the chat box. So I know that. I know that I'm talking to the right people and that y' all are following what I'm saying. One of the. One of the things that you can do to bring trust back the quickest is to put some accountability back into the relationship. And the accountability in a way that takes it out of the spouse's role. So what you want to do is you don't want the spouse to be the one that's constantly having to monitor, check, control, because as long as the spouse is having to do that, you stay in this parent child dynamic. And then there's resentment on both sides. And as long as that resentment lives, there's this passive aggressiveness or direct aggressiveness, one or the other coming towards each other. Because the one in the parentified role doesn't like being in the print five role. They don't want to be the cop role. And the one in the other side, they don't like that either. They don't want to be controlled. They don't want to be treated like a child. And you cannot get back into a partnership when the. When the dynamic is like this one side or the other side. And so putting some other things in place either some systems in place or something else in place to create that accountability somewhere outside of let somebody else be the probation officer in the early recovery, whether that's the person's counselor, coach, whatever, let someone else be the accountability person. Or in the situation when the. When the addiction is alcohol the thing that I like to use most. Guess what I'm going to say. Some of you might know Sober Link is my favorite tool for taking the accountability off of the spouse or partner's role. We try really hard to get the partners out of that probation officer role because it keeps you in the bad guy role, number one. And number two, it just keeps you in this parent child dynamic. And that's not healthy for relationship. You cannot be in a healthy relationship when you've got that kind of situation going on or there's not sort of mutual respect for each other. In order for the partner, though, to get out of that role, sometimes in order for them to like, let go of those reins, they. They need something that gives them some kind of reassurance. And that's one of the things that silverlink does so well. If you haven't heard me talk about serverlink before, it's basically, I'm gonna show it to you here, I'm gonna show you one. It's an alcohol monitoring device. Actually, I shouldn't say just device, because it's an alcohol monitoring system more than device, because you can get alcohol breathalyzer anywhere, ranging in price from anything. This is what a soberlink looks like. It's about the size of your phone. Let's see. Yeah, so you're smaller than your phone, but it's wider. And the way it works is you. You and your accountability person, whoever that is for you, hopefully not your partner. Sometimes it does have to be the partner, but hopefully not you set up a schedule for when you want to be tested. And the goal of soberlink isn't to catch someone being bad. The goal of soberlink is to prevent a relapse and more importantly, to rebuild trust with the parents. So some. Some clients I have, they do Sober Link purely because it helps them make the decision to not drink. And some clients I have, they do Sober Link because they're, for the sake of their relationship, because their relation, their partner, needs that peace of mind to know that it's being handled. And that allows the partner to let go of all the snooping and the spying and the controlling kind of thing. So once you set up this schedule for when the person's going to be tested, they get a text message, it Just says, hey, you have a test. And I usually advise, put you're making an agreement with the person of what the schedule is going to be like. You're not trying to catch them, you're not trying to trick them or throw them off. They know that they're going to be tested at whatever time. And the recommendation and the research shows that three times a day is, is the optimal point. So when I use Soberlink with clients, I like to do it in the morning when they wake up, right before bed and then somewhere in the middle of the day that works for their schedule. And it can be different on different days. Like, you know, if a person works on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and they need a certain schedule on this day, but a different schedule on the weekends or they sleep in on the weekends or whatever, you know, all of that can be arranged and changed as needed. If someone's gone on a work trip or vacation and the schedule needs to change, that's fine too. But, but they know they're going to be tested at a certain time and then they take their test, which takes all of one minute. You can take this device wherever you have a whole hour window to do it. So if you're in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of a class, in a situation, middle of a restaurant, we can't just take it right that second. As soon as you get the text, it's no big deal. You, you wait for optimal time within the hour, you excuse yourself, you go to the restroom, you take the test. No one ever knows it happens and it's over. And the thing that makes it a system is not only the schedule in place, but if the person misses it, if they're positive, they're late, then their accountability person gets a message and that just lets them know they missed the test or they're positive or whatever. Now there are other systems out there that, that do alcohol monitoring, but soberlink is the most tamper proof system that's out there because it has this facial recognition in it. That's part of the reason it has this facial recognition in it. And you can't cheat it. If you tried to have someone else take the test, it's going to pick that up. If you tried to like get air into the device some other way other than like this way right here, blowing into the device with your mouth, it's going to pick that up, it's going to know it. And so all of that allows the partner to have this sense of peace of mind and relief because they know it's being handled and without this, this is the tool that I've seen get partners relationships out of power struggle dynamic the quickest because it, it almost fixes the dynamic almost immediately and because it allows both people to now move back into being able to independent adults who have freedoms can go to target by themselves. You know, it's like, you know, we, we can get out of this babysitting kind of situation and that allows the room and the space for the relationship to heal. So if you want to know more about soberlink, I'm. I've put the link in the description of this video for you and if you follow that link you'll go to that site and I go all into soberlink, all the behind of how it works and you can kind of see how the scheduling works and all that kind of stuff. And then also too if you use that link, I think for, for people that come from this channel that use that link, you get 50 off, which is a lot. So use the link, go and figure out more about it. Even if you're not sure you're ready, at least just go learn what it is. Because I'm telling you helps people to get sober and I videos we're talking about that. But it helps the trust come back super fast because it immediately allows someone to let go of it. And because it's soberlink and you know it's tamper proof, you, you can sort of rest easy not worrying that the person's trying to trick it. Now one of the things that I tell partners is anyways whether they're on a sober link or not. Like you don't have to chase addiction. You don't have to spy it out. You don't have to know the second a person messes up. Because if it is addiction, it will show itself. The unmanageability will surface relatively quickly. You don't have to chase it down. So I tell people just let go of it. Don't worry, you don't have to be constantly looking for it. It's going to put itself right in front of your face in a way that you could never possibly miss it, I promise. Because that's what always happens. So you don't have to chase it. But even knowing that I know some of you have a hard time letting that go. You have this illusion that somehow catching it or you know, knowing the second it happens is, is protecting yourself somehow, which it really isn't. That's why you really want to prevent it, not catch it. You're not trying to catch someone being bad because what are you going to do at that point? I mean. Yeah, I mean, at that point, you got to go into, like, damage control mode. But it's hard to put the lid back on the container once it's out off. And so you want to prevent the lid from coming off, not catch them with the lid off. So when you get in that kind of mindset, you're moving more into this teammate kind of role. And it's like, together we're beating this issue instead of trying to beat the other person. Right. It's just a bad place to be in. And I've seen couples get stuck in it for years and years, years. And it is misery for both people and everybody else that loves them. It's just misery. And I highly suggest you get out of that pattern one way or the other if you're in this alcohol relationship dynamic. In just a second, we're going to take some questions and some comments. Bree's back there. She's our moderator. She's looking for questions. She tries to look for ones that go along with the topic, so those questions are most likely to get picked up. You can help her know that you're asking a question by putting, like, question marks in front of your question. That'll help her to visually see really quickly who's trying to ask a question. Re. Do we have any good ones back there? Pishaw says, are you for marriage counseling during alcoholism? Don't know how to get out of the bag. Add a roll. Have you ever seen it impossible for a wife to do. Okay, so there's. There's a few. There's a couple questions here. So I'll answer the first one first, which is about marriage counseling during alcoholism. I can't say that it's never helpful, but I've seen it backfire in a lot of situations because what ends up happening is. Is either like, sometimes the person with the alcohol problem will say something like, look, if we're going to go and that's all you're going to talk about is the alcohol, then I'm not going to go. And so if you go and you talk about other things, you're not talking about the alcohol, then what's the point? Point. Because now we're just chasing all the wrong leads. Right? So that can happen. The other thing that happens is you go and then you're talking about the alcohol all the time. And a person that has the alcohol issue feels like they're in the principal's office, basically, and that they're in trouble. And they usually Just stop going. So it's like if it gets talked about, it sometimes doesn't go well. If it doesn't get talked about, it definitely doesn't go well. And if it doesn't really get anywhere anyways, and if you're in the relationship and you're trying to solve all these relational issues without trying to solve the alcohol issue, you're just not going to get anywhere. It's just not. This is not going to work for all the reasons why you might think so. Normally, if, unless you're doing it maybe simultaneously as working the alcohol problem or something like that, then it can be helpful. But just to try to fix the relationship without trying to fix the alcohol problem, I think that's a waste of time. Now, the sec. The other part of this question is don't know how to get out of the bag at all. Have you ever seen it impossible for a wife to do? Yes, I have seen it be impossible for the spouse to do. And that can be for a couple of reasons. One could be because there's so much hurt and trauma and, you know, water under the bridge that, like, the spouse just cannot stop engaging in the bad guy behaviors. Like, because it's just, it's just too much. Right. And then other times it's just because the person with the. The alcohol problem refuses to let the partner out of the bad guy roll. Even when they stop doing the bad guy things, they just refuse to see that the person has changed. So, yeah, I've seen that happen for lots of reasons. Yes. Ashaya says. I don't know if I'm saying that right. It's a new name. Hey, welcome to our channel. Welcome to Alava. Shaya says even after forgetting everything, does a new thing to make me more mad. How do I deal with that? That's a good question. Because what happens when they do a new thing is triggers up and it sort of adds on to the past things. It's like you move on, but then something else happens, right? It's like, yeah, I can move on, but when they relapse, we're right back in it. It's hard, but if you can contain it and keep the current thing just to the current thing without attaching everything from the past, you'll be more in your logical state of mind and you're more likely to be able to communicate more effectively and work and work through it. But it's a choice that you make. It is a just like it's a choice people make when they're in recovery to not go to the bar. It's a choice that you make to not go into what I call the pit. Like, go into your own head and start remembering all the bad things and working yourself up. You have to choose, and it's tempting. It's like an itch that you really want to itch. It's a choice you make not to go down into that rabbit hole. Not just the choice to not say the things, but it starts with a choice for you not to let yourself go into the thinking rabbit hole. Because if you go in there too far, you're gonna say, I don't care if you want to or not, because you're gonna be so worked up. Debbie says, in the case where both people are alcoholic and one quits, what's their chances of making it? Well, sometimes one person quits before the other person, and that. That can work out. If one person quits and the other person never quits. I don't really know statistically what the chances of the people staying together are, but I can tell you that the relationship will be an unhappy one. So I don't know whether they're going to break up or not. But I can promise you unless. Unless both people start working on it, it's. It's going to be unhappy. They stay or they don't stay. What's really funny, Debbie, about this situation is, is even when both people have had an alcohol problem and one gets out of it, guess what the person in recovery does? They do all the same things. They do all the bad guy things, even though they know it didn't work when someone was doing it with them. It's just really interesting. And that's why I say it's symptomatic. So being mad at your partner, whether the alcohol side or the partner side, I'm telling you, it's, it's, it's. It is a symptom of the problem. It happens always. You get into that role. Even when you recover yourself, you'll find yourself in the spying and the controlling and doing all the things that you know in your heart doesn't work. What else we got, Bri? Emily says my husband was in a cycle of being able to get sober throughout the week, but still getting very drunk every day of the weekend. His tendency to save that take me a few days to recover from. I lost my cool after last weekend, and he's gone back to drinking every day of the week. Do you think that we'll be able to get back on track of making real progress fairly quickly, or are we back to square one. I feel like we're friends again, but now I might be back in the bag. I roll. Okay, that was a long one. I got. I gotta process that for a second. Okay, so your partner has an alcohol problem, and they had gotten into a item where they weren't drinking there in the week and they were only drinking on the weekends. And that. That a lot of times is a bargain. So if you've heard me, Emily, talk about bargaining in any of my videos, I talk about a lot, but it's. It's. It's an action step. It usually doesn't. But it is an attempt to fix the problem. But you're right. You make a really good point, Emily, in that even if the person can keep it to the weekends, number one, it's going to be a lot during the weekends, and they're going to be feeling crappy for Monday and Tuesday, probably. And so it's like, from the partner's point of view, it's like, well, you're out of commission. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday. Is that really getting us in the relationship on track? Do I feel like I have a partner when it's really five days that you're out of commission because you drunk three of the days and you're feeling terrible two of the days? And so when. When you're in that stage of trying to convince yourself, well, I'm not drinking during the week, I'm only drinking on the weekends, then you're probably not being 100% honest with yourself. I can't tell you how many clients I've had. And they talk about this, and it's like you can hear the pain in the voice. And they talk about, like, the Sundays. What happens to people on Sundays where they're trying to pull it back together because they know they have to go to work on Mondays. It's like the worst day of the week. And they talk about how painful it is. The. The Sunday blues of trying to, like, get over the hangover, not drink, get back on track. It's a terrible, awful feeling. It's bad. Do I think you can get back to square one? If you feel like you're best friends again, then something in the relationship is still in play. And you might have lost your cool and you might have gotten into the bag. I roll. But I would do, if I were you, is I would just acknowledge that and say that. Say, hey, I know that. Not that you were in the wrong, but more that maybe you handled it away. You. You wished you hadn't. That, you know, you Lost your cool. The part about losing your cool, you can say, hey, I did not communicate very hopefully, and I really regret it. And I know that you really had made a lot of progress, and you really had gotten it to where you weren't drinking during the week. So own the part. You can still say your point of view about feeling like. But for you, it feels like it's five days and not three days or whatever. But the tone. So you're acknowledging that you didn't communicate your thought in a good way. And that helps because you're showing humility and vulnerability. The other person shows usually almost all the time. They start to show some humility and vulnerability, too, and then they'll be able to see your point of view. So, yeah, you can get back out of that fairly quickly if you follow those steps. It's probably the quickest way back out. Dale says, can marriage counseling be a tool to get a loved one to address the addiction or help get out of the denial stage? Mmm, I'm sure it can be, Dale. But it's kind of like the question that we had earlier about, is it helpful? A lot of times it just makes a person more defensive because now they're getting in trouble and they're getting in trouble in front of someone else. And so that never feels good. So I guess it could be helpful. I've seen it be not helpful more times than I've seen it be helpful. I guess that's. That's my answer. So if you had the right person, counselor, it might. Could be, but. But usually it works better in other ways. In our office, we like to do. We like to deal with families, but we like to give each person their own counselor so that. Or their own coach so that they have the privacy to say what they want to say without worried they're going to upset or hurt the other person. But then the two coaches work together to kind of help the couple and the relationship move back into a together place. But a lot of times there's so many hurt feelings and resentments and stuff like that that it's just either the two people get in the same room and no one says it because they don't want to get in fight in front of the counselor. Or they do say it, and they get in a big fight in front of the counselor, and then they leave feeling madder than they were when they came. And then they're like, why are we. Are we doing this? Why are we paying this money? So be careful with it, is what I'm saying. Burrows, that's a new name too. Hey, welcome to our live I don't think I've seen that profile name before says how many chances can you give to allow for change, broken promises, hope shattered rather than getting out to save yourself and your children? That's a really great question and I don't have a number for you, but I'll tell you that, you know, when you get there. The suggestion I do have for you is not to set a number on it. Especially to the other person. Don't say like if you drink one more time, that's it, I'm over. Because you end up backing yourself into I got videos where I talk about that. I also have a video that is called when to Walk Away and that's the video that you need to watch because it talks about when these four things are happening and they're not getting better. It's probably a time to consider doing something else. So check that video out. But it's not a number of relapses, it's four specific situations that you need to back away from. Check that video out. I think it'll help you. Dep says, I just started reading Beyond Addiction, which is for those of you don't know. It's the book that's about the craft method. He is in counseling and making progress. He's not sober yet, but working on it. Ptl. Any tips? What does PTL stand for? Bri I'm not cool. Pretty. What? I don't know. Okay. I don't even know Any tips on how I can regulate my energy and response when he drinks? I love this is a really good question and the reason I love this so much is because you're saying how? Oh praise the Lord. I didn't know that. Thank you very. The reason I like that question so much is because you're saying how do I regulate my energy? Which is even better than how do I even respond to this person? Because you're recognizing your own triggers and what's happening to you emotionally. One thing is to not go into the rabbit hole into the catastrophe thinking the best that you can. The more you let yourself go into that spiral of negative thinking, the worse your energy is going to get and the harder it is to come out of the pit. The other thing you can do is when someone's in the bargaining stage, which it sounds like maybe your person is because you're saying they're still drinking but they're working on it. You want the mess ups to happen because it's when they figure out that the bargains aren't going to work. That's what gets them to the point that they want to stop completely. So actually when they, you know, say, okay, I'm just going to only drink four beers and I'm not going to drink more than that, and they end up drinking six or 10 and they act a fool or something, in your mind you should be thinking, yes, because now we're getting there. What you really want is you really want it to happen quickly. And once you have that mindset shift, your whole energy will shift about it because you'll see it as progress and not, not backwards movement. All right, Bri says that we're about out of time for today. Thank you so much for everyone who showed up. As always, there are lots of resources in the description. There are still two or three spots open for May for recovery coaching. So if you want, if you're interested in that, make sure you apply to get your spot. The stuff about sober links in there, I'm telling you guys, if there's one thing to put relationships back together, it's. It's literally this. If it was marriage counseling or this, this. People, if it was counseling or this, it's this. I'm telling you serious. That's my recommendation. So check it, check it out. Alright, everybody, I'll see you next week. We are always live every Thursday, if you're watching the playback. And we would love for you to join us and be in the chat. See you guys soon. Bye, everybody.