Behind Closed Doors: Secrets, Lies, and Heartbreak

Today we're going to be peeling back the curtain to look behind the scenes of what really goes on in addicted family households. There are millions of families struggling with this problem every day. And you may not even be aware of it because so many times on the outside, everything can look just fine. Everything can look perfectly normal and wonderful. We all have an ability to put on a mask and do what we need to do to get by and our public everyday life. But when you really peel back the curtains and you look at what's going on underneath the mask, you're going to see a whole lot of turmoil in addicted families. I want to take a look at exactly what those dynamics look like. What a lot of the struggles, the secrets, the lies, the tears, the shame. What's really underneath there, and how does it affect every person in that household? The addicted person, the family, the spouse, the kids, Everybody in the household is being affected. That's why they call this a family illness. It's not necessarily because the family causes someone to be addicted, but what it does mean is that when someone is addicted in a family, it affects the entire household. Well, it actually affects more than the entire household, but it definitely affects the people that are living with it, are very close to it. It's going to caus a breakdown of the family system. So I'm going to take a look at the five most common problems and difficulties that you're going to see in an addicted family. The first one, and you might anticipate this one, but you may not really sort of fully understand the depth of it, is the lack of trust in addicted family systems. It might be obvious that the people in the family may not trust the person who has an addiction, but it's really a lot more than that. What a lot of people don't realize is that the addicted person also does not trust the family, the family members. Usually it's at least one specific person in the family, and it's usually the person that's closest to the addictive person, whether it's the parent or the spouse. Maybe it's a grandparent, but whoever's the closest and most involved. There is an extreme lack of trust between those two people. And that lack of trust causes a ton of conflict, difficulty, arguments, silent resentment, and the dynamics between those two people trickle down and into every aspect of the lives of everybody else. Surrounding that system, you have this massive amount of trust. This person who struggles with an addiction is probably doing some sneaking, they're probably doing some lying, they're probably doing some shady things behind the scenes. So naturally, it causes the other people to want to figure out what's going on. So you get this cat and mouse dynamic that starts to build where somebody's trying to get away with something and somebody's trying to catch them doing it. And there may be arguments, pleading, begging, yelling, screaming, threatening any kind of desperate attempt to get this problem to stop. And you guys know the more that goes on if you watch this, if you watch these videos, at least you know that the more that goes on, the longer the addiction will last. Because you get caught in this dynamic where somebody's chasing and somebody's running. And as long as the person is running, which is usually the addicted person, they're not going to stop. Stop and look and be observant enough to really see truly what's going on. In fact, they get really immersed in defending their position and defending what's going on and defending a lot of times lies and secrecy. And every time that you have them say it out loud, it entrenches those defensive beliefs more and more and more. So the first step in untangling an addictive family dynamic is to get that thing to stop. And it's usually, like I said, between the primary person and the addictive person. There can be more people involved in it, but there's usually sort of a head lead charge of the family. Now, in addition to that, not only do you have that trust issue, which is kind of obvious going on, but you have these other little triangulations setting up where it's like, because you have this conflict between these two main people in the house, other people start to take sides, right? If there are kids in the house, they may align with the person that has addiction. They may align with the. The person that's the. The main family member that's in conflict and that this dynamic can go outside of the household to extended family members like grandparents, aunts, cousin, uncles, family, friends, co workers. Because each one of these two people that are in the main conflict start to confide in the other people that they trust. They're combining usually is how much the other person is doing wrong things or treating them badly, or controlling them, or nagging them or deceiving them. All of these dynamics they're confiding in these other people. So you get these triangulation systems going on because there's no trust here. The trust starts to go outward into these other little systems. And then there can be, like, camps around this camp or this camp, and there's a lot of fighting that goes on. Some of that you can see externally because there's, like, text messages and arguing and screaming. And if you don't see it externally, depends on the culture of the family. You know, the. The nature of the personalities and things. It's definitely there. Even if it's an undercurrent. You can feel the energy where sometimes people are really, really angry at this person who has an addiction. Sometimes people are really angry at this other person that they feel like is enabling. And then other people feel like the family's treating this addicted person unfairly. And you just get a mess of loyalties going in every different direction. So naturally, you have all these trust issues, these teams, these camps. One of the things that can be the hardest to overcome when someone starts to get into recovery is if the addictive person perceives that their main family member, usually it's one, but maybe possibly multiple, are going out and talking about their behaviors to everyone else. That's one thing that I see that addictive people really get stuck on and really have a hard time forgiving, even after the fact, because they feel humiliated. The problem is a family member is really struggling. I mean, a lot of times they're developing really real, major depression, real anxiety disorders, and they need someone to combide in more than just trying to make team and allies and get someone on my side, but just someone to process with and to support them and to understand what they're going through, which is definitely a necessary part. But you got to be really careful. If you're the family member who you choose to be your person, your support person that you're combining in, because it is gonna. When that. When that relationship resolves, like when the person gets in recovery, there's the. It's kind of like when a couple breaks up and everyone takes sides. And if. If your best friend took your side and now you're back with your boyfriend or whatever, then your boyfriend and your best friend are not gonna like each other. So like I said, you get all these mistrustful, dysfunctional, unhealthy relationships. The other thing about that that happens is, is no matter which side, which camp that you're in is you're not getting the full story. If you're dealing with the addictive person, you're getting a very slanted point of view on what's going on in the family. And guess what? If you're dealing with the family member, you're also getting a very slanted point of view. And I know this because we've been working with families in this situation for a Very long time. And even within our team we have to work really hard not to get pit against each other. And that is easy for us to do. Even because it's whoever's your person, you're going to believe them, you're going to take their side. A lot of you know that that's how we work in our office is sort of like the addicted person gets a counselor. We call it like an advocate or a coach. The family member gets their own advocate and coach. And it's sort of our job to see our person's point of view and to help communicate that. And if we're not careful, we'll get drawn into this splitting and triangulation and camps. So you have to always keep in that whatever you think you know, there is more to that story. And it's not nearly as black and white and clear as we want it to be. Where there's like a villain and a good guy. That's not quite the way it works. Because when people aren't getting their needs met, everybody falls into dysfunctional, unhealthy, toxic type of behaviors. And it's, it's. It's very difficult to unravel that. Even when the addiction goes away, those dynamics will remain unless they're specifically address. Naturally, when you have those kind of trust issues, you also have a major breakdown of communication, right? A lot of times what happens is either you get a lot of aggressive communication where there's a lot of hostility, anger, loudness, yelling, fighting, that kind of thing where it's loud and in your face. And other times it's more passive aggressive and like little quick drive by statements that are very hurtful, little comments that happen in front of people that are hurtful. So even if it's not loud, it is there this, this undercurrent of unhealthy communication. And this happens because the addiction because becomes such a hot topic that families either learn they're going to constantly butt heads about it or they're going to constant avoid the topic. And just because you're avoiding the topic and you're not yelling and screaming about it, doesn't mean that that conflict and that tension is not there. And usually when we're suppressing all that, it comes out one way or the other, usually in an unhealthy way, usually like in a passive aggressive way or maybe a shutting down or falling into depression and anxiety and resentment, it's going somewhere. So it's such a difficult topic to communicate about because there's so many emotions around it. And that's Our next level is the emotional turmoil that's taking place in any family. You're going to have stress, you're going to have people that personalities that clash, people that don't like each other in teams. But in addicted family systems, you take that natural, you know, family difficulties and you're going to like multiply that by a thousand. And you have in each person a swarm of emotions. You have anger, you have guilt, you have shame, you have resentment, you have self pity. You have all this swarm of emotions. And it comes and goes in waves in all the individuals at any point. I think one of the overriding things that happens in any person, no matter where at in that dynamic, is shame. Because we feel ashamed of what's happening in our family. We feel like maybe we're causing it, maybe we're making it worse. We feel like we become ashamed of ourselves. Even if you're not the addictive person, you become ashamed of how you're reacting to it. Like you're watching Amber videos and I'm telling you not to be the bad guy. And then you, you know, you lose your cool because you're a human being and you do something and you feel like, I'm messing it up, I can't do this. And even the addictive person, they're trying to get it together on some level and they're falling back and then they're shameful about that. And that shame turns into anger and resentment because we start to project those feelings onto the other person. The shame is such a difficult, heavy, uncomfortable emotion. We sort of distract ourselves by getting angry and resentful and passive aggressive. Those are the ways that we're really trying not to deal with our own uncomfortableness about what's happening in the house. On top of that, you get a lot of role confusion in households. What typically happens is the addicted person is usually either an adult or close to an adult, even if they're like a teen or an older teen. But what happens is the other people become very sort of parentified over this person. Even if it's a spouse, let's say one of the people in a partnership is addicted to the other partner will start to have to take on more and more of their responsibilities because the addictive person is sort of dropping responsibilities. And then there becomes this real parentified, unhealthy role. Even if you're dealing with a parent and a child, like I said, a lot of times it's an. It's either a late teen, like an older teen, or usually it's like a young adult, but the parent starts to treat them like they are, like a young kid. And even in that dominant, when you do have a parent child relationship, the parentification is very unhealthy. If it's siblings, you may have the siblings become really parentified. You can have the kids become parentified over the parent. And that unhealthy dynamic where it's like we know best and you're the bad one, you're the scapegoat of the household and everybody's sort of against you and everybody's watching over you and trying to make sure you're doing right and trying to make sure you're going to school or going to work or waking up on time. And that again creates a lot more resentment and power struggles and controls and passive aggressiveness inside families. You've got all those emotional dynamics. And then you layer on the top of all of that another very difficult layer. And that is usually there's not always, but a lot of times there's a lot of financial strain and pressure in addicted families. Because if it is the adult in the household who is maybe, you know, they're an income earner, that addiction usually impacts their ability to provide income the way they used to. Or if it's an adult child, the parents are usually overcompensating. You know, they're paying the bills for this adult child. They're going, taking it out of their retirement. They're not retiring, they're staying in work to continue to pay the rent for this adult child. And there's a lot of financial strain. Even if, even if there's plenty of finances to go around. And let's say the addicted person is the income earner, the other people feel trapped in the relationship because financially they can't leave. Maybe it's the spouse who works that's addicted and the stay at home spouse feels like they're stuck in it. They can't leave because they have no financial ability to take care of themselves or their kids. So there's this other financial pressure which really limits the options. Not in every case, but I would say in most cases. And not only do you have that, but usually if there's an addiction going on, there's a lot of treatment, there's in and out of treatment, there's in and out of counseling, in and out of sober living, and all of that cost a tremendous amount of money. On top of whatever a person is paying for the addiction, whether it's gambling addiction, substance addiction, sex addiction, there is a financial component going on. There and that strain it. It's. What that does is it just turns up the heat on all these other things like the communication and the trust and the emotional turmoil that's taking place. And you have sort of a swarm of negativity and difficulty. The crazy thing about it is if you saw any of these people that are sort of characters in this storyline out on the street, you, you probably wouldn't know it. Most of the families that we see in our office look great. A lot of them have great careers. They're upstanding citizens, they hold leadership positions in their church, they're athletes. They're all these things that look really wonderful on the outside. And you just, you would never even know how much heaviness that they're carrying inside, how much pressure and strain and difficulty that they're carrying around on a day to day basis. And they're trying to hide it, which takes up even more energy and more and creates more negativity because you've got it all going on and you're trying to pretend that it's not there for most of the hours of the day and it just takes over your entire life. I think when we break it down into pieces like that, it's really easy to see why addiction is a systems issue. That's why in our office we address it from a systems perspective. Instead of just saying, okay, there's this one person and they have an addiction and they're the person with the problem. We're going to pluck them out and we're going to tell them what they need to do to get better and all that kind of stuff. And that's going to fix. Really. It's by the time that that has gotten to the point of needing to talk to a counselor or go to treatment or something, it's affected the whole system. Many people feel like the only way to get the system better is to get the addicted person better. But that's actually not true. The family system, the people in the family can actually choose to start the getting better process first. You don't have to wait for this person to decide it. In fact, if the family decides to get better, it significantly, I mean, greatly increases the chances that the addicted person will start to get better. And it actually works a lot faster that way. The addicted person may or may not choose to get better on their own. And so if you're just waiting for that to happen, it may or may not come. But if the family takes those first steps, I think that when the family takes the first steps, the addictive person actually has a better chance of long term recovery, even more of a chance than if, if they're the ones that initiate it. Because if they start to try to get better, but the family's not getting better, it just sucks everybody back into the dynamics over and over and over again. And the whole system is keeping itself unhealthy. At some point we have to decide wherever you're at in that system, whatever part or role that you have in that you can choose at any time to break away from that unhealthiness. And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to break away from your family or cut anybody out or never speak to someone again. But you can begin your own recovery process at any point in that process. And not only is it going to help you, but it's going to help the other people in that addicted family system. I will warn you though that a lot of times when one family member starts to get healthy, the other family members don't like it. Because now you're not playing your role. Even if we didn't, we told you we didn't like your role before and we were mad at you all the time. If, even if you're the person and you start to get better and you've been the scapegoat, people won't like that anymore. People don't like it if you go from the scapegoat to the family hero. Even on an unconscious level, we try to keep people in the roles that we know them or where we're comfortable or where we're used to. And so we suck people back into this unhealthiness. And it's. A lot of people are shocked about how other people don't take their getting better well. Like some people will distance themselves from you if you start to get well. And a lot of times it's because you're having better boundaries. And people don't like it when you have better boundaries because that then affects them. Maybe you're setting boundaries with them that they don't like and you get some resentment. But it is the only way to start getting yourself better. Most of the time it does have a trickle down effect and it kind of. That recovery is is spreading. Just like addiction can spread and unhealthiness recovery can spread in a healthy way as well. All right, in just a minute we're going to take some questions and comments for those of you who are here live with us. So go ahead and get them in there. If you put, put question marks or the word question and all caps or Something to get my attention. It's. It's helpful. I can see which of you are trying to have a question because there's a lot of conversation in chat and I don't know who's talking to me, who's talking to someone else, that kind of thing. If you're watching on the playback, we want to welcome you here as well. We're super glad you're here. We are live Every Thursday at 1pm Eastern. If you want to join us live and we'd love for you to join the conversation, jump in there, ask a question, give us some feedback. Those of you who are watching either the playback or live, which of these five things do you relate to the most? Is it the emotions? Is it the communication? The financial strain? The trust issues? Where, where in the cycle do you get stuck? Which emotion is the strongest one for you and causes you the most difficulty? Is it anger? Is it resentment? Is it guilt? Is it shame? Where do you get stuck in this cycle? Because realiz where you get stuck is the first step in starting to untangle that mess. No matter what role you play, you can start your own recovery process. All right, I'm going to have to put my, my glass, my granny glasses on to read yalls questions. All right. I will remind you too. There's always resources in the description. Oh and by the way, the invisible intervention 3.0 is out. So if you don't have the invisible intervention and you've been wanting to get it, you've been waiting for the 3.0, it's out. So you can totally get that the link is in the description. Our invisible intervention program is our, it's our step by step method for how do you get someone out of denial and taking steps towards change all the way into recovery. In that program we teach you the research proven most effective strategies for getting this to happen. And best of all, it's how to make it happen without arguing, yelling, without writing letters and confronting someone in a big secret circle ambush of those traditional intervention techniques. That's why it's called the invisible intervention because it's not this in your face confrontive method. It's a way of healing these family dynamics we've been talking about. It's a way of getting out of that bad guy roll of getting back to a healthy level so that someone can actually see where the problems are and we can begin to work on those link for that is in the description. Let's take some comments and questions. Let's see here. I don't have three with me today. So y' all hang in there, and we'll do the best I can. All right? Question from Robin. Comorbidity, adhd, and addiction. Is it possible to be hypomanic due to ADHD if it is not treated? Urine drug screens are clear. No access to illicit drugs. Okay, so for those of you who don't know what comorbid means, it just means someone has more than one diagnosis. Another word for that is dual diagnosis. So this is someone who has ADHD and addiction. Adhd, because of the hyperactivity part, can look kind of hypomanic, but it's different. You know, there's an excessive energy. There may be an impulsiveness, a lack of judgment sometimes, but. But hypomania or mania is different. Mania is typically what you see, like in bipolar disorder, where there's a mood disorder. One of the big differentiation factors for me is to look at someone's sleep habits, because with mania and hypomania, you're going to notice a difference in the sleep. Usually. And usually it is. The person starts to either need less sleep or eventually sometimes stop sleeping at all. And that's when it really gets wild and out of control. Because when people quit sleeping, they can. They become delusional, right? Like, they're. It completely messes with your mind and your ability to think clear. I mean, think about. Even if you've been on a long, like, road trip and you've driven too long, and, you know, you get to that point where you're kind of delirious, you could only imagine where. What would happen if you went for days without sleep. So to me, there is a difference. It does look similar, but. But there is a difference in it. And. And hypo. You know, when you deal with adhd, it's like someone's up and down. They're hyper, they're this, they're that. And with hypomania, it's like they're up. They're not way up here in full mania, but they're up, and they're just staying up, or sometimes just going up, up, up, up, gradually more and more and more instead of it just being sort of rocky. So hopefully. Hopefully that helps. What I think you're saying, Robin, is that you're seeing some kind of behavior that looks hypomanic. You know, it's not drugs. So what. What is it? If you've known this person for a long time and they have adhd, then you probably have a decent idea about their baseline. And if something's going on Abnormally, there may be a mood disorder or some kind of shift going on that you may need to see a doctor to figure out which is it. All right. Hey, Sally. Hey, Carol. Let's see here. Let's see. I'm looking for questions here. Here we go. Christina's got a question. I have been staying out of the bag I roll with my alcoholic partner for three months. It's amazing and peaceful, but making him feel more emotional and kind of sad. Every couple of weeks, it. I think there's more. Leads him to feeling heartbroken that we can't be closer and see each other more. He pushes until I admit that I don't want. I don't like being around the heavy drinking. And he tries to drink less, but it increases again. It feels like a loop. Should I just keep doing the same thing? Actually, Christina, when I read this, that my thought is, it's working. This is what you want to see. A lot of people get confused because I talk so much about getting out of the bag I roll using positive reinforcement, aligning with the person. But. But the thing that sometimes either I don't communicate clearly or gets lost in the shuffle or something is that you're getting out of the bag I roll doesn't make the addiction stop. What it does is clears the path for them to be able to recognize and see the addiction. And so when I read this, and I could just be reading into it or projecting here, but what I think you're saying is, you know, your alcoholic, he's getting sad. He's seeing it. He's missing you. He's wanting it to be different, and then he's cutting back the drinking. So it's allowing him to see where the problem is, and he's trying to fix it. And even though it's not being successful, you know, Christina, how I talk about there's so much trial and error involved. It means we're in process. The being out of the bag I roll doesn't make the addiction stop. The being out of the bag I roll gets helps to get them out of denial. And then they go through this trial and error process of trying to figure out how to get the addiction under control. So, to me, I feel like you're on course. There may be a lot more that story. But from this, this. This is what I would expect to see. And we're moving and making progress. Let's see here. Carol says he's in jail. How can I still be empathetic, validating and empowering? I'm trying to stay silent. While he's there, but it's difficult. I mean, I'm assuming, Carol, that you have ability to communicate. So I don't know what, on one hand you're saying, you're trying to stay silent. I don't know if that means, like, you're not talking to them at all, or it just means you're trying not to, like, bring up up his problems or something like that. I don't know what you mean when you're saying silent, but. But you can still just be caring, kind, and empathetic. Just be a good listener no matter what the conversation is. A lot of people think it's like, I have to get them to talk about the addiction, and then I have to be empathetic and empowering. But no, when they're talking about anything, maybe it's a difficulty of something that's going on in jail. Be a good listener, be empathetic, be kind, et cetera. You don't have to fix it for them. But what's happening when you do that is you're. You're gaining their trust. The communication lines are opening up, and eventually those conversations will shift over to the real problem. But you kind of have to prove that you're not going to jump, that you're not going to lecture, that you're not going to preach, that you're not going to judge. The more consistently you prove that, the more trust will build, communication will open, and then they'll start to, like, bring in the tough conversations. And then. And then you're really being tested because then you really have to not pounce and keep cool and keep, keep being a good, confident listener because your. Your goal is to tell them what they need to hear. Your goal is to clear the path so they can figure it out. Hey, Britt's my dad, for those of you don't know. I see you on here. Wendy has a question here. Wendy's addicted. Loved one. It's only week three, bender. Each week he stops, expects to come home to the house as usual. When I don't, he goes back on the bender, even though I will meet for coffee. He told me he needs to do different. Told. Oh, I told him he needs to do different for me to want. I feel like there's more to this. Oh, here it is. To go back to normal. A year and a half of this. He watches your videos and that's all he does. He refuses to do sober link in your program. He has no suggestions on how to help himself. Is this okay? Well, there's a lot There's a lot to this scenario that you're giving me is what you're. Is what you're asking is, are you saying, is it okay not to let him come back home and pretend like everything's normal? If that's what you're asking is okay, then I'm going to say, yes, that is okay. If that's. That's the boundary you need, especially if you guys have been caught in this cycle for a long time where he goes on a bender. Maybe he goes mia, doesn't answer the phone. You don't even know where they're at. And then, you know, then they're back in there. I'm sorry, I want to come home. And then three days later, they're back off to the races. If that's the, you know, if that's the constant cycle that you're in, for you to say, hey, I'm still here for you. I haven't backed out of this. But. But no, I'm not just going to keep participating in the same old cycle. We got to do something different. Yeah, I definitely think that that's. That's okay. I think that that's appropriate, and that's what I would advise you to do. All right, let's see here. Sarah's got a question. Questioning functioning alcoholic, functioning husband. Drinks every day about one and a half bottles of wine. For years. Bargaining won't do. Counseling. If I mention it. If I mention it, he will divorce me. Selfish, stubborn, and stonewalls. Any advice? I have some videos, and you may have seen some of them, Sarah, about why people really resist going to counseling. A lot of times it's because they're afraid they're going to be judged. Sometimes it's because they are afraid that they're going to be pushed into doing something that they don't want to do. And other times it's because, you know, they're just really embarrassed about the situation. Sometimes it's because they don't really believe in counseling. So when people are reluctant to going to counseling, then there's a couple of things you can do. One is see if you can just get them to listen to a podcast, watch a video. It doesn't have to be one of mine, a book that you think that they may like. They may be more of a person that likes to maybe if they have a. Have. If they're the kind of person, if they have a problem, they want to investigate and they want to learn everything about it, and they want to know why, then information they may consume better because Some people are sort of studious in that way, and they don't really want to talk about it, but they want to figure it out. So if the person doesn't want to be in counseling, they may want to do something like that. Maybe they think going to church is going to fix it. There's a lot of ways to address this issue. So find the one that the person is. Is open to, if at all possible. Let's see here. Sandra has a question. How do I deal with the shame about myself, towards myself, that I continue to care at all about my alcoholic boyfriend? I've held the boundary of him not living here while participating financially, looks like. Is there more? Is that it? Okay, so what you're saying is you. You're feeling guilty and bad about yourself because you still care about them and you feel like you shouldn't. I think that we get a lot of pressure. Sometimes it's actual pressure coming from people outside of us, and sometimes it's perceived pressure. Like, sometimes, especially if you're like the girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse or something, partner, whatever, you feel like you're an idiot. And I think that's what you're saying. You feel like, why. Why am I so dumb? Why do I keep caring about this person? Why do I keep believing them? Because you care about them, right? And there are good qualities about this person. If it was. If they were all bad, it'd be really easy, wouldn't it, Sandra? But they're not right. They're. They're really good. And they have this. This one bad thing. And that's why it's hard. You can't just say, well, I'm done with you. It's a lot more difficult than people think. But we. We beat ourselves up because we think that we're supposed to just let go of it and we should just write them off and turn our back and not care. But it's not. It's not that simple. I think you should feel proud of yourself because even though you still care about them, you're holding good, healthy boundaries. So to me, caring about someone you shouldn't really feel bad about, I mean, you're a caring person. You can't just turn that off. If you could, you probably would. But you're holding healthy boundaries, so be. Be proud of yourself for that. And. And also just realize you're a human being, right? You're doing the best you can. Let's see, Adina and George, there's a question here. My son just started rehab. And is there more to this? I don't see the rest of that. If. If there's a rest of that, Adina and George, let me know and I'll try to come back to it. Chan has a question. My husband says he wants to get sober and needs help, but never hops on the train. We are separated for now because of his addiction, alcohol. And since he shows empathy and understanding and acts better. But let's see, there's more. But keeps using. Am I confused? What could this mean? He becomes even more functional. What that means is you're hearing change talk and you're hearing somebody that is probably very close to being in the active stage of change, maybe even in what I call, like the. What's called the preparation stage of change. It's almost like they're circling is kind of a phrase I use for. It's like they're really close to taking an action step. A lot of times for people, even when they say I need help, I encourage the family or the support people to have some help steps in place, maybe even help make the phone calls, help check the insurance, do some of those administrative things that you can do to clear the path. And actually the best thing to do is have those things ready for when the person says they need help and say, all right, I got you appointment on Wednesday. Because if they say I need help and you're like, well, maybe you should call so and so, or you need to call your insurance, you're just going to lose that window. Because they get lost in the mix. Right? Because the unmanageability comes back. So, yes, that is very common. If you want to be helpful, then I would have some things I call it in your back pocket. But ready and. And done some research and have some ideas of what kinds of help is out there and see if he's willing to. To attend an appointment and whatever parts that you can do behind the scenes to clear the path, I say do it. Other people will tell you not to. Other people will tell you they got to do all that. But usually addicted person, there's. So they're not. There's so much unmanageability in their life. They literally cannot do all those pieces because it is kind of a pain in the butts. Usually a lot of phone calls, a lot of arranging, coordinating, and they just don't have their crap together enough to do all that. So help them out. If that is the case, I will say that it is really difficult to do it when you're living on your own. And I'm not saying that because I'm saying Oh, you should let them back in or whatever. Like, I get it. If you're not living together, there's probably a good reason, but I find that a lot of times when I get a new client and their spouse has like, put them out and they're like, go talk to Amber. Get your act together. It's really difficult because one of the main triggers for people is, is, is what I call the coast is clear, like, no one's looking. What that means is you constantly have to like, use your willpower. You 24, 7. You have to say, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And at least when there's other people around, it creates a lot of accountability, which helps with that coast is clear trigger. I think it's very hard to get sober when you're living on your own. Is it impossible? No. Is it much more difficult? I would say for most people, yes. Yes, it is, because you need that accountability. Too much privacy, too much free time. I'm not telling you that to make you bring them back. But, but it is sort of a, it is part of the, part of the issue. Let's see here. Question from Lazy Sundays. The question is, I'm dealing with a meth addict. I've had friends who broke free from the addiction. However, the one I'm dealing with is 41. My friend told me after 40, he's a, a lifer. Is that true? That's ridiculous. No, no, that is not true. I see people get sober from all kinds of things at every single age. That, no, if you're still alive, you're still in the game. I, I don't, I think that's, I don't know where the person's getting that from. I think it's actually a little easier to get people in their 40s sober than it is to get people in their 20s sober because they're, people in their 40s are much more likely to realize, like, this ain't cool anymore. You know, they're, they're easier to get out of denial because seeing that they're not functioning as a 40 year old should, it's quite, it's a lot more evident than when you're 20 and you're 20, you can tell yourself, oh, I'm just being young, I'm just partying up. That's what everyone does and you get away with it longer. So. No, I, I don't agree with that statement. Emily says. Emily's got a question. My husband is still in denial. It's pills. I'VE been working to stay out of the bag. I roll for several months. I have seen several sober attempts. And then I can tell he's back to the habit. Anger is my problem. It's really hard, isn't it Emily? Because you get your hopes up, right? They do better and then they do worse. But realize that that is part of the process. It is part of the learning process to do better and do worse. One of the questions that family members often ask is what's going to be different this time? Which I think can be sort of a double edged sword. I can understand why you want to ask the question because they've tried it a million times and it's not working. At least it's not working long term. But. But oftentimes they don't even know what the answer to that question is. I can't tell you how many clients come back to me and they've had a relapse and they're like, my wife wants to talk to you. She wants me to have a plan. You know, you want some kind of something in place. But maybe if you can look for what's different and you can maybe identify what was working, hey, you did really good, you know, or have them identify what was working. But it takes people more than one try at this thing. I've not seen anybody get it on the first try. It takes a few tries at it. And just because they're trying and it's not worked every time doesn't mean it's not going to work. Work. It's a learning process. Let's see. Megan has a question. Using the invisible intervention, but can't get him to the final step of going to treatment. He has the change talk. He's more truthful and confides in me. Any suggestions to get him over the final hump? Maybe start with some. Like when you're saying treatment. Usually when people say treatment, what they mean is like inpatient treatment. And I don't know if your person, Megan, needs inpatient treatment, but that's a really big step. And it's really hard to get people to take that big of a step because it's pretty scary. So I would try to get them to take a smaller step, a less intimidating step. And, and sometimes they take the smaller step and maybe that works and we're done and, but, but sometimes that helps them get up the nerve to take the next bigger step if it's not working. So find a smaller ask, less intimidating and start there. Rich has a question. What happens when a person assemble and has medical emergencies but hospitals refuse to help. And then finally another health issue brings them to the ICU and they help detox. Hold on, I'm confused. Let me read that again. What happens when a person symbol and has medical emergencies but the hospitals refuse to help? I think what you're saying, and I'm not, I'm not 100 here. Sure here, Rich, but I think what you're saying is I'm getting the impression that maybe this person has showed up to the emergency room a lot of times. Maybe they're in crisis, maybe they're in withdrawal and the hospital is not helping them, but they're showing up. Maybe they have needed a surgery or something, which is true. Like sometimes people show up for another medical issue and then it comes out like they need detox. And the hospital is going to have to address that to keep you safe while you're there working on the other issue. Is there a question part of this? Is there more here? I'm going to look out and see if there's more, but I don't see the rest of that. Rich, Lynn says I'm a stay at home wife of an alcoholic husband. Is there truth in my thought that I'm taking advantage of him financially while he's in active addiction? I don't, I don't think so. I mean is that Yalls arrangement that he works and you stay home? I mean I don't think that's uncommon in a marriage that that one person stays home and one person works. So if that's Yalls arrangement, I don't, I don't know where this, like I'm taking advantage of him. Like, like almost like he's an active addiction and he can't, he doesn't have good judgment and so you're forcing him. Is that. I mean I don't, I would have to know more details, but I wouldn't necessarily think that. But what I would tell you, Lynn, is that you're putting yourself in a dangerous position to be completely financially reliant on someone that has an addiction. I don't advise it. Do I think you're taking advantage? No. Do I think you should, should probably protect yourself and have better financial security because if somebody has an addiction, you don't know how long or how stable the financial income will be. So I might would change that. I don't. But I don't think it means you're taking advantage necessarily. KM says cheating under the influence. How to forget and forgive your spouse. Does the resentment ever go away? This is a really great question, Cam. At some point, I know this sounds crazy, but at some point, you have to decide to let it go. It's a decision that you make. And I know that that sounds crazy, and you're like, I could just decided. I would have. But actually, it. What it is, is you'll feel yourself, what I call going into the pit, remembering, spying. You'll find yourself working it up. Okay? And when you feel that happening, you have to decide, I'm not. I'm not doing it. It. I'm not going to check the phone. I'm not going to feel the fire, because I don't want to feel this way forever. It's almost. It becomes like a drug when you've been betrayed like that, and you get obsessive and you get crazy, and you think about it, and you hash it over and over and over in your. In your mind, and it becomes very, very obsessive. And it creates a lot of physical problems in your body. It creates a lot of emotional turmoil. You have to decide, I am not gonna keep fueling that fire. And it'll be. You'll decide it over and over and over, and then it'll. It'll come less and less and less and eventually sort of peter off or kind of go away. But. But you have to decide not to engage that resentment. It's a decision that you make a bunch of times until it gets better. I hope that helps. Let's see here. Michelle says, my emotion is fear. My son's girlfriend just got an abortion, which is killing my son. She claimed my son's behavior was very ugly, although he denies it. Is there a question here? Okay, here's some more. I think it's the rest of it. And now, because I'm asking him if he behaved that way, he's cut me off and blocked me. What should I have done better? I don't think his girlfriend's very stable either, but she does not use drugs. Okay. So the question is, is what should I have done better? I mean, I don't. I don't know that you. I don't know that you could have done it better. But the fact that you asked that one question and now he's cut you off leads credence to me that the girlfriend's probably telling the truth because he sort of. Of behaving badly and treating you badly for asking a fairly legit question, it sounds like. So it only gives more evidence that maybe what the girlfriend is saying is true. And maybe he. He does that. He cuts people off or he yells or he screams as a way to force people to stop asking questions they don't want to answer or into doing things he wants them to do. So if, if he's doing that as a manipulation to make you fall into alignment, then I would say I wouldn't let that work on you. Like, is he giving you a silent treatment to teach you not to ask certain questions or something I would need to know a little, a little bit more. I'm not sure you should have done anything different, though. Let's see. Question here from my AUDHD journey. The question is I have a blog about what it's like for people who have. Have ADHD, autism and ADHD, and my cousin's wife is following it. My cousin and his wife are both addicts. I think I've. Let's see here, where's the rest of that? And I was wondering if there were some subtle things I could integrate into my blog post to help pull, if not both of them, at least my cousin out of it with my cousin's wife. Following the blog, I think you, I think you've been on here and asked this question before, or maybe there was just a similar situation. It sounds like you're thinking that your cousin is addicted. I'm not sure if you think your cousin also has ADHD and the other stuff, but I think talking about your own journey, talking about what it was like for you, what happened that made you decide to change, or sharing other people's story about what it was like, I think those are the best ways to connect to someone because it's just relatability. Right? It's like I relate to that. Oh my gosh, I felt that way too. Or yeah, that happened to me. And that can give people hope. So just sharing stories that a person might relate to can be the most helpful. That's what happens in support group meetings, is people share their story and then other people like, man, I can really relate to that. I really felt that way before too. And that that creates a connection and an openness. So that's. That would be my suggestion. Stephanie says, what is the best way to deal with parentification issues, especially when coming from my daughter who is now in recovery. I'm wondering, Stephanie, is it your daughters tries to be parentified over you or parentified over their siblings or parentified over your spouse? I'm not sure. It might be a little different depending on that. But I, I would probably be kind and respectful and say, hey, I appreciate you looking out for us, but. But figure out how to set a boundary in there, you know, But I'm an adult and, and I'll figure this out and I'll make my decision. So I would say it like that, to be really kind. And if that didn't work, I've tried that a few times, probably. And if they're just not picking up what you're putting down, then I would say, hey, like, I appreciate where you're coming from. You've really grown, you've really learned a lot. I have a lot of respect for you, but I feel like you might be overstepping the bounds. Like, if you've got to outright say it, then out, then. Then you can outright say that out. Let's see here. Married a long time says, how do you stay out of the chaos when they are deliberately trying to bring you into it? Like at dinner, they act out and your instinct is to protect another from them kicks in. I think what you're saying is they're trying to start arguments or drama, which is a, which is a thing. The first thing I would try with that is I would call it out. If the person is intoxicated when it was happening, I might not call it out right then. I might would wait until they weren't and I might would just say, hey, it feels like you're. You're trying to start an argument. Or it feels like last night you're trying to start argument. Like, what's up with that? You know, let them know that you see what's going on. You're calling attention not to whatever it is they're saying, but to what. What is really happening. On a higher level. I call it a process comment. That's. That's the first thing I would try. Simone says. He mainly communicates through music when he's drinking. He sends me songs on YouTube about relationships, love staying together, but won't pick up the phone and talk. It's very. It looks like frustrating. I don't know if there's more to that or not, but that, that is. It's not uncommon for people when they drink, to reach out. Sometimes they reach out and they want to call and talk. Honestly, it's probably good that they don't pick up the phone if they're doing it while they're intoxicated. Because if you pick up the phone and you talk to them while they're intoxicated, you're not going to get anywhere. And so what happens when people, people drink specifically is they were. They rehash old memories or old hurts or old wounds or Old loves. And that's why they do that. They, you know, they call their ex, they send the love songs, they, they get sentimental about things, they express regret. And then when they're sober, it's like none of that and it's very confusing to the other person. But, but I wouldn't try to engage the person when they're intoxicated because they probably won't even remember it the next day. You may feel like you have this like great, wonderful, like life changing discussion and they don't even remember and then you're really going to be ticked. So I would try to engage the person when they're sober if you want to talk to them about the issue. Jessica says, when going through a divorce with an alcoholic, how do you keep him from spiraling down? We have children. Divorce on its own is stressful and I can't imagine an addiction going through this process. Also, he is the one who wanted to divorce, but resents me. He has been sober for three years, but I don't know how long he has been drinking. He says it's only been two weeks, but he drank whiskey. I don't think that there's a lot you can do while you're going through a divorce because like you said, it is stressful. I mean, I think even in a divorce we can do our best to try to treat another person respectfully and fairly and with kindness. But if you're all, if you're doing all that, you can't necessarily like continue, make sure that he doesn't spiral. All you can do is keep your side of the street, try to be kind and respectful. But if divorce is, is where you're headed and you're sure and that's what you want to do, I don't think you should sort of like change your mind on it just because of that. That. But a lot of times all that resentment builds up and self pity and then that results in relapse and bad choices. I've got a lot of videos on that, like how to protect yourself from relapse. Stay out of resentment and self pity because that's what gets you there. And I'm sure that that's a lot of what's happening here. All right, everybody, we are about out of time. Thank you so much. You guys ask great questions. They get better and harder every week because I feel like you guys are like students and y' all are getting smarter and smarter. Y' all bringing me harder and harder questions. I'm gonna have to up my game. You guys, are you guys are awesome. Thank you for those of you who showed up live. And thank you for those of you who watched the replay. There are plenty more videos. There's a video on this channel about why is it called a family disease that goes more into the roles and. And we talked about that a couple weeks back with the children roles. If you want to know more about it, check out those videos. And there's more resources in the description. I'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.