Amber HollingsworthRecovery Conversation Simulator, Amber's Recovery Practice Lab · Interactive learning tool trained on Amber methodoloy

Are You Setting Boundaries Right?

6 Nov 2023 · 1 min

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Amber Hollingsworth advises that people should set firm boundaries and remove chaotic, addiction-related behavior from the home when they truly cannot tolerate it. She cautions against using ultimatums solely to force a person into treatment, noting ultimatums often don’t work and that relapse or continued bargaining is common.

Chapters

Should you eventually draw the line and say that addiction chaos cannot be in this house? Of course you should. But don't draw the line because you think I'm just going to draw the line and then that's going to force them to do it because it doesn't normally work that way. When you draw that line, it's because, for real, you can't deal with the chaos. The chaos cannot stay in the house anymore. Not because you think you have to give them this ultimatum to make them go. If it does make them go, if they haven't gotten all their bargainings out, they're going to come back out and finish their bargains. They still have it in the back of their head that they can drink and they're fine as long as they don't do cocaine. And they haven't tried that like 10 times. It's going to come back. They're going to do it. I know that may seem a little confusing because some of you have probably heard me say, like, people can get better even if they didn't want to go to treatment, and that's true.