ARE YOU IN DENIAL ABOUT YOUR LOVED ONES ADDICTION?

Are you in denial about your loved one's addiction? Yeah. It is true. Family members can be in denial too. It's not just the person with the substance use disorder. In fact, in my experience, family denial is worse than the denial of the person who actually has the problem. And the problem with family being in denial is if you don't know what you're dealing with, then you're probably barking up all the wrong trees as far as what the solution is. Because if you think it's something other than an addiction or a substance use disorder, you're going to be trying a lot of fixes that just aren't going to work. And you're going to waste a lot of time, energy and money barking up the wrong trees. So in this video, I'm going to give you the top seven signs that you could be in denial about your loved one's addiction. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel down, the YouTube channel dedicated exclusively to helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can recover your loved one and get back to living the life that you want to live. You know, the one you had before this addiction took over everything that one. So if that sounds like something you want to do, consider subscribing and I'll make sure you have everything you need to accomplish just that. Alright, back to our signs that you could be in denial. Okay, let me tell you this one story. This is like probably like the most severe story of family denial ever. A long time ago when I used to work at the psych hospital and I was in charge of sort of developing and running this teen or adolescent intensive outpatient program. Well, after a while, of course, I dealt with lots of families. And one day I get a call from this mom and she says, hey, I've got a friend and her kid has definitely got a drug problem. Because my kid is telling me everything her kid is doing and I'm gonna tell her to call you because she really needs to talk to you. And I said, well, okay, what's her first name? So I'll know if she calls. So she told me. And then, I don't know, some days or a week or so later, I do get a call from this lady and she says, oh, my friend told me to call you, I'm having some trouble with my son. And I said, well, tell me what all's going on. Now, I just want you to know the behind the scenes here before I tell you the rest. I actually had heard of this kid because I see A bunch of kids who do substances. And I knew that her kid was doing a lot of drugs because I had been hearing about this kid for months and months. In fact, I knew what he had done the weekend before and the weekend before that. I wasn't obviously going to say, oh, I heard your kid was doing this and that. So I just listened to her and I listened to what she said. She definitely gave me enough evidence that the kid, even if I didn't know any of that, I would have known this kid has a substance abuse problem. Just classic science. And I said, you know, based on what you tell me, I think you are probably dealing with an addiction. And honestly I think what you're dealing with is probably even past the point of outpatient, like what I do. And I'm thinking that you should like just bypass this part and probably go straight to some inpatient or residential treatment based on what I'm hearing. And so the lady was like, okay. I mean she was sort of confused but so I left her with that. I didn't hear anything else and I honestly didn't think anything else about it. Well, a couple of weeks later in our family group, the mom that initially referred the lady to call me, she was like, hey, did you hear what happened to so and so? And I was like, oh no, I haven't heard. You know, hope everything's going well. And she's like, oh, let me tell you. And she says she took her son across the country and paid like $50,000 for him to be tested because she is sure that he has a vitamin deficiency. And I was like, oh, you have got to be kidding me. Because I'm telling you, I knew this kid was doing all kind of drugs, he was selling all kinds of drugs, he was doing everything. But that is just how powerful family denial can be. And you can see how much wasted money and wasted time that was. So lets make sure that you're not going to make that really big mistake. Let's talk about the signs and symptoms that maybe you as the family member could be in denial. Sign number one. You constantly minimize the problem. You say things like, oh, I did that when I was a kid, or all kids do that. Or you know, it's just my husband, he's just stressed out at work and he's just relieving stress. And it's like you're constantly making excuses for the problem or making it out like it's not that big a deal or like it was just a one time thing, that sort of thing. So if the Family has minimized the problem consistently over and over. Sign number one, you might be in denial. Okay, Sign number two, now this is a biggie, so listen up. If other people in your life are frustrated with you and kind of like arguing with you and trying to tell you, hey, so and so has a problem, like you need to wake up and see it and you're constantly like defending that person, that's a big sign. Especially if it's maybe like more than one person. This is even worse. If this is going on, you don't even need to listen. The rest of these points I got right here. Just go ahead and say, oh yeah, I'm denial. If other people are calling you. Like the people that are friends with this person who might or might not have a substance abuse problem are calling you up and saying, hey, I'm worried about them. Like something's going on. Like their friends or co workers or their boss or somebody else. Like not in the direct immediate family. If somebody, someone is making that call to you and saying, hey, what's going on with so and so, dude, that person has a problem. Because for someone on that level, on the outside to pick up the phone and call you and say, I'm worried about, trust me, it's a big problem. Because usually the people who do this are like the using friends. And when you're using friends think that you're doing a little too much, dude, you need to listen up. Like that's a mega sign there's a problem. So if that happens, scrap the rest of this. You're definitely dealing with a problem. Alright, Sign number three, that you might be in denial about your loved one's problem. You constantly justify their behavior. Now this is different than minimize their behavior because when you minimize it, you make it out like, oh, it's not really that big a deal. But justifying is like, okay, they did this really bad thing and that was horrible. They shouldn't done it. But it only happened because, you know, it's like, well, it was Super Bowl Sunday and so they just got a little out of control. Well, you know, they're only doing that because it's the, their bad friends they're hanging out with. Well, you know, probably only drinks that much because his wife's a big old pain in the butt nag. It's like, you're just fine. It's like, yeah, yeah, the behavior is bad, they shouldn't be doing it and it's a problem. But it's only because if you're doing some version of that consistently you're justifying it over and over. You're finding a way that it's like you're not maybe not saying that the behavior is okay, but you're saying, well, it's only happening because you might be in denial. Number five, you're going around and fixing all the problems and messes that your loved one is making. You know, like they get in trouble at work or at school, or they run out of money or they wreck their car. And you're going around and you're fixing it. And listen up. If you're going around and fixing it and then hiding it from the other people in the family, like you're giving them money or you did their homework or you called in a work excuse for them, but you're not telling the other people in the family you're doing it seriously, that's a problem. Because now you're sneaking around because you're fixing their messes. Not only is that like you're trying to keep them out of hot water, but you're sort of double doing it because you're fixing whatever mess they're in that they've made. But then you're also fixing the mess that they're in with the other family members or friends or whoever, because you're protecting them from that as well. So if you run around fixing their messes, then you're probably not quite realizing that you are dealing with an addiction. Because if you knew you're dealing with addiction, you probably know, like, that's not very helpful. So you must be telling yourself, well, that was this one time thing, or minimizing it. Because if you knew it was addiction, you wouldn't keep trying to hide it from everybody. At least I don't think so. At least I hope not. If you are, you better watch some more videos. Okay, number five, sign or symptom that you might be in denial about your loved ones problem is this. You keep making up these arbitrary rules and you think that's gonna make it go away. So sometimes comes in the form of home contracts or if then statements or not in the house statements. Because what that's telling me is you think it's just as simple as you're saying, okay, like, here's the line of sin. And if you draw that line of sand and you're really serious about it and you mean it, they're not gonna cross it. If that's the case, you either don't realize that you're dealing with addiction because addiction always crosses that line, or you're in denial about what addiction really means. So maybe you realize they have a problem, but you don't really understand how addiction works. But there's some level of denial in there because you think that this one little simple solution is gonna fix it, or they're gonna wake up and get it, and it's just gonna sort of magically go away. It's almost like they're on bad behavior. And you think if I put this boundary rule, whatever, down, that that's gonna fix it. Like, that's a really good indicator that makes you know you're dealing with addiction. Because I usually say, like, if you've done all the regular stuff and nothing has worked, and they just keep doing it no matter what happens. Dealing with addiction. Okay, number six kind of connects with the last one. Number five, because this one is. You're shocked every time you find it again, and you're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you did it again. Like, we talked about that. Like, you can't believe it. And you just keep like, it's happened, like, a dozen times. And you are just like, what the heck? I thought we talked about that. It's a little bit connected to that last one of, like, you think that thing is going to fix it. So it's happened over and over and over. And you're like, I didn't see that coming. What that means is you're viewing the incidences that have happened in the past as these sort of isolated events or circumstantial events or something like that, and you think that it's just going to go away. No. If you found it over and over and over, you've done all the stuff. It's not going away. It just keeps coming back. Definitely dealing with addiction. And the last one, number seven. Now, number seven is great because it really is almost like a good way to almost, like, sum up. Like, if you could put everything else in one category, it would be number seven. I call number seven magical thinking. So it's kind of like the story I told you at the beginning of the video about the mom and thinking, if I get them the vitamin, that that's gonna fix it. And a lot of times we have these irrational beliefs in our head that if this one thing could work out, if they would just finish school, if they would get on the football team, if they would just finish this one project at work, if they didn't have to deal with this one boss. It's like this magical answer that you keep waiting on, thinking that that's going to solve the problem. And so the problem with this is you keep running after all the wrong solutions because you keep thinking, okay, this is going to be it, or this is, and you keep getting let down over and over and over again. If you're doing any of these seven things, especially if you're doing, like, several of these seven things, then you might be in denial about your loved one's addiction. And chances that they're going to get better before you get better are not that great. If you get better and you start really realizing what it is, then you can make some strategic decisions about how to deal with that, how to set boundaries, how to motivate them to change and do different and all that kind of stuff. You can get this show on the road, but the first thing you got to do is open your eyes and be honest and realistic with yourself about, yes, it's a problem, about the magnitude of the problem, and here's the bigger thing and what it's actually going to take to make that problem better. Because I feel like even families that we see that they get us a problem, but they literally have no clue what it really takes to get someone in recovery. So there's, like, all these different levels of denial. You know, sometimes it's like you're ridiculous. Not a problem at all. Sometimes, like, well, that's not that big of a problem. And another time it's like, okay, it's a big problem, but we're gonna go talk to Amber one time, the counselor, and she's gonna fix it. Like, mm, mm. So there's different levels of denial you can be in. If you feel like you've really struggled with some of these, then my guess is you've probably been being manipulated to some degree. So the next thing you need to take a look at is my series specifically on manipulation, lies, tricks, all that kind of stuff. So I'm gonna link it right up here in the corner, and all you have to do is click it.