A YouTube talk by Amber Hollingsworth discussing family denial around a loved one’s addiction, focusing on 'magical thinking'—belief that a single change or ritual will fix the problem. She uses a clinical anecdote about adolescent treatment, describes common forms of magical thinking among family members, normalizes the reaction, and outlines that family behavior changes can help the addicted person recognize the problem and take responsibility over time rather than produce instant cures.
Chapters
You know, it's not just people with substance abuse problems who can be in denial about the addiction. Family members can be in denial, too. In fact, family members denial can be more complicated and difficult to deal with than dealing with the denial of the person who has the addiction. Now, several years ago, when I was running an intensive outpatient program for adolescents with chemical dependency. Oh, that was a mouthful. I got a phone call from one of the parents of the kids that were in the program. And this parent said to me, hey, I've got this friend. Her son is so and so, and he's got a really big problem. And I've given the mom your name, and so she might be calling you. And I was like, okay, thanks. And secretly, behind the scenes, I already knew about this kid because this woman who called me, her kid in my group had already been telling me about this other woman's kid. And, I mean, it was bad. This kid was doing all kinds of addictive things. Selling drugs, using drugs. You name it, he was doing it. In fact, he was kind of around ringleader in the scene. But naturally, of course, I couldn't say that to this mom. So eventually, I do get a phone call from this other kid's mom, and she calls and she tells me a little bit about what's going on. And, you know, secretly behind the scenes, I have all this inside information, but I can't be giving that out. So I just listened to her. And after she tells me everything that she's noticed, all the different, like, times she's called him, using drugs, all the different parenting things she's tried, I basically tell her, I'm like, look, I think this is probably a pretty progressed addiction, and it's not responding well to any of the things you've already tried. I think you may need to get an assessment for, like, residential treatment. And now, remember, I know the behind the scenes. So I kind of have an idea that this kid, it probably is gonna take that. So the mom, she just thanks me for her time, and I don't hear from her again. Honestly, I don't think that much about it. But about a month or so later, I was running our parent group, you know, our IOP parent group. And after that group ended, the mom, the one that originally called me about her friend, she came up to me and she said, did you hear about what happened to so? And so she named the friend's. I was like, no, what happened? And she said she ended up sending her son to some medical facility and paid $100,000 to figure out what vitamin deficiency he's suffering with, because she was dead certain that that's what was causing the problem. I was like, oh, my gosh. I felt simultaneously frustrated with this woman who's not listening to all the signs, plus anything I told her or her friend told her. But also I felt really so sorry for her because I know just how desperate a parent can be in this situation. Or a spouse or a sibling or a friend or a boyfriend or a girlfriend. When someone you care about has an addiction, it's a pretty powerless feeling. You try talking to them, you try natural consequences, you try boundaries, you try all these different things, and nothing seems to work. And during all that time, you're getting a lot of mixed messages from everyone around you and from the person themselves, which makes things ten times more confusing. And all that confusion really leads to our own denial about the issue. Now, that denial can come in many forms, but one of the forms I want to focus in on today is called magical thinking. Now, most of us have a little magical thinking from time to time, but it's really not that big of a deal. It can be kind of like a superstition. And as long as it's not running your life or causing a lot of trouble, then, hey, it's no big deal. But when it comes to having an addicted loved one, your magical thinking is not only keeping you stuck, but could be helping them stay stuck, and the whole family, for that matter. Some examples of magical thinking would be thinking to yourself, if they could just get rid of that one friend. I know this problem would go away. If his mother would just wake up and get it and get on my side, this problem would go away. If she could just get that new job, she'd feel so much better about herself. I know she'd quit drinking. If his brother would just stop mooching off of him all the time, he probably wouldn't need to drink because he wouldn't be so stressed. Those are some examples of magical thinking, Just to give you an idea about how that looks. Now, I don't want you to feel guilty about this if it's happened to you. It's kind of a natural reaction to a very difficult situation. Heck, you've tried everything else. You've done everything else. It doesn't make sense. You're all confused, and you really just deep down inside wish there was a simple solution or this one little thing that could happen or change to make things better. And that can even get all the way down to the point that you start thinking. If you do or say or don't do or say certain things that the magic is going to come in and make things things a lot better. A lot of times family members even develop little OCD things which could even include little rituals or sayings or behavioral tasks where you feel like you have to do something a certain way. Because if you don't, either something bad's gonna happen or if you do this, other good results gonna happen. Have you ever had magical thinking about your loved one's addiction? I would love to know some examples in the comments below. Not only would I love to hear your examples in the comments below, but your examples could probably be super helpful to some other people who experiencing this as well. Now you might even be having magical thinking about some of the things that you learn on my videos right here on this YouTube channel. You might be thinking something like if I could just be nice and quit pushing them. Like Amber says he's gonna stop using, drinking, engaging in whatever addictive behavior. But that's not the whole story either. All the things that I teach you on this channel are really more about how to get someone out of denial and how to get someone to start seeing the problem for what it is and how to them to start taking some action. Your changes won't make them stop their addictive behavior, but what your changes can do is help them look at the situation differently. Hugely increases the chances that they're going to take action and do something different. There's not any one thing you can say or do not say or not do that's going to make it all better. It's much more of a process and if you keep working at it consistently, you'll see small changes and that turn into other small changes that turn into big results. You want them to begin to see that life could be much better if they didn't have this problem. You need them to take responsibility for the problem. And then lastly, take action. If you really want to help your loved one conquer their addiction. I want you to watch these videos next. I've put together a short playlist which are going to tell you the steps that you need to take to get your loved one out of denial and taking steps toward recovery.
