Boundaries With An Alcoholic or Addict (about living with you)

Today we are going to look at the big question of whether or not, excuse me, whether or not you should let an alcoholic or an addict live with you in your house. Now, after I made the thumbnail for this video, I rethought about it and I thought maybe I should have named it, should you let them live come back to live with you? Because I made another video a while back about should you kick them out? If you have an addict or an alcoholic and they're already living with you, you probably want to check that video out and I will link it up for you here at the end. But if they're not currently living with you, like, let's say they're in treatment or they're out of the house for whatever other reason, and you're wondering, should you let them come back into your house and live with you? That's what we're going to cover in today's video. If you are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this is Put the shovel down, the YouTube channel exclusively to help you uncover, understand the psychology of addiction so you can beat it, get your life back on track and start living the life that you want to live. So if that sounds like something you need to do, subscribe to this channel and I'll make sure you have everything you need to make that happen. Alright, so back to our video here. So if they're already out of the house, let's say they're in treatment. We're going to take these by category. If they're in treatment and you're dealing with, let's say this is your kid or your grandkid or something like that, not your spouse, I strongly encourage that you not let them come back and live with you. I'm not saying this never works, but I am saying this. Hardly, hardly, hardly, hardly, hardly, hardly ever works. In fact, I've seen it work maybe once or twice in my whole career. And even that felt like it was like by the skin of his teeth. So I'm sure that there are people out there that are going to comment on this video and they're going to say, well, I did that and it worked. And I'm sure it does because I don't believe in nevers, you know, so I'm sure it does. But in general, especially if it's your kid and you bring them back into your house, it almost throws you and them back into the chaos of just the way it was before. It's going to be really hard for you to not be their parent. So when they're sleeping in too late. When they're not eating their vegetables, when they don't answer their phone right away, you're gonna feel anxious and panicky and you're gonna want to like, comment on everything about it. You're gonna want to tell them the right thing to do. You're gonna have all these conversations with them and it's just gonna throw you and them back into that old power struggle that hopefully if you watch these videos you've worked really hard to get out of, it doesn't even matter if they're like 30 and they're moving back into your house, because I think no matter how old they are, you can't not be their parents and they want to. And the biggest reason why you should really think about it is you don't want to have a front row seat to their life and everything that's going on. Because it's going to be really, really, really hard for you to practice all the other things that I'm teaching you. If you don't have a front row seat, you're going to have some time to sort of collect yourself, to think about how you want to act and respond to things and all that sort of stuff. So you're going to have way more success if they're not living in your house. Now let's move on and talk about if they are your spouse. If they're your spouse, there's probably two reasons why they're either not in your house, one, they're away in treatment, or two, you guys have separated and they're kind of like on some sort of probationary period where it's like either get it together or I'm out sort of thing. We see a lot of couples in that situation too. If your loved one is in treatment, put it in these two categories. If your loved ones in treatment, if they want to come home and they finish treatment and they've done really well and you've talked to their counselors and they feel good about aftercare plan, then okay. But you need to have a solid aftercare plan in place. This whole idea of I'm just going to come home and I'll get a sponsor and go to some meetings, you're going to need some more accountability than that. And you don't want to be the one having to be the accountability probation officer because that's going to set you back into those old dynamics of relationship. So you need some kind of system of accountability. Some aftercare sobriety monitoring or recovery monitoring, they call it. There's Some different ways to do that. You're gonna need something like that. Other than you having to watch them like a hawk, smell, check them when they come in the door, you know, constantly looking over their shoulder. Because you're not gonna be able to not do that if you know no one else is. And you already know that is not productive. And it keeps you guys in a good cop, bad cop kind of role. And it's not healthy for your relationship if your spouse is out of the house because you've been on a trial separation period, or, heck, you've divorced them, but now they seem to be doing better and you're thinking about getting back together and bringing them back into your house. I think you should think about how much sobriety time do they have, how much willingness do they have? Are they working a good program? You know, I'm a big believer in trust, your gut feeling. If your gut says they are not on track or they've only been on track for five minutes and you don't trust them, stay on track, then maybe not yet. I'm not saying not at all. I'm just saying not yet. If they've done really well, they're working a program, they have some sort of accountability, then that's another question for you to consider a little differently. So in general, I guess I would say my big answer to this is if it's your kid and they're old enough to not be at the house, like 18 or over, then if there's any way for them to be in a sober living house, recovery house. And if you want to know more about that, I'll put a link to those kind of resources at the end of this video, too, because I have a lot of videos teaching you about those things so you understand what the options are, what they cost, what's good, what's not, all that kind of stuff, stuff. So I'll link that up for you. But coming out of treatment, going into sober living, if you're. Especially if you're dealing with someone that's addicted to drugs, is your best, safest bet. Because being in treatment is great. Almost anyone can get it, get or get sober in treatment. But coming back home and being sober in real life is like a whole different kind of situation. So you've got to learn how to live sober and go to work and go to school and deal with family stresses and all of those other things that take place. So if there's a way for them to do treatment and then step down into some kind of, like, recovery house situation, where they're not like, locked up or anything, but they're sort of dealing with the stresses of life and getting on their feet and stuff like that. While being sober, that is your best bet to give you the best chances. If you're dealing with someone that's an alcoholic and they're going to come home either after treatment or after a separation. There is something that we do in our office called sober Leap monitoring, and that provides really great accountability, and it allows people to have the structure and accountability that they need to make sure they stay sober but also function, go to work. In fact, we use that in our office. A lot of people are able to get sober from alcohol without ever having to go away. We love the soberlink. There's a video on my website about that, which I'll put a link in the description below in case you want to see more about that. But we found that to be extremely successful. A thing that we do sometimes for recovery monitoring for drugs is we use something called a drug patch. And it is. It's like a band aid. Really. Like, there's no. I know. It's a drug pageant. You think, oh, is that like drugs? Is that like medication assisted treatment? No, not that at all. It's literally a band aid that we put, like, on their shoulder or back here, here, something like that. And it collects their sweat 24 7. And then we take that off. You know, like when you see a band aid that center, like, soft, like cloth, like part. We take that part off and send it to the lab that's collected their sweat, and they can wear it somewhere between 10 days and two weeks and get that tested. And then we put another one right back on. So it's 247 monitoring. So if you're gonna let somebody who's been out of the house come back home, you need some sort of accountability. So plan A, it needs to be, having done a lot of treatment, make sure that they're ready to come back home. Plan B, once they come back home, you want some accountability. And hopefully in a way that you're not the one necessarily having to police all that, because that's just gonna put you guys right back in the same old relationship. Now, here's another caveat that I want. You think about if they're in treatment and they're trying to leave early, like against medical advice, and you're thinking about bringing them back home, don't do it. If they're not being successful in treatment and that is just not going well, or if they're got into A conflict. If they're being kicked out, if they're begging you to come pick them up early, that is a sure fire sign that things are not going well. And the biggest reason for you to not bring them back into your home. I guess I should have said this at the beginning. It isn't for them, it's for you. I'm not saying don't let them live in your home because you're enabling them. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not saying, like, if you let them live in your home, they're going to use drugs. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is don't let them live in your home because it is going to throw your life and anyone else in the house life way into chaos. So this boundary for me is way more about the family than it is about the addicted person. Because you guys know I'm not one of these people that's all like, oh, you can't let them live in the house. Like, you're enabling and that's terrible. And you're gonna kill them. Like, no, it's not about that. It's about balancing their needs with your needs. Sure, sometimes, you know, they've got to learn to walk on their own two feet and they need that for their own recovery. But the biggest reason I'm saying this is for you, especially if you have other children in the house. If you haven't seen my video on how addiction affects like siblings and the other people in the house, definitely watch that because that would go for like children if it's your spouse or brothers and sisters, if this is your kid, but they have other younger ones at home and stuff like that. So you've got to balance the needs of everyone in the family and hopefully that helps give you a little bit of formula about how to make those decisions.