Building a Meaningful Life In Recovery

The key to living a happy, joyful, meaningful life in recovery is learning how to look for enjoyment instead of pleasure, learning how to look for satisfaction instead of pleasure, learning how to look for connection, meaning, purpose. Because those things are all pleasurable. They're all nice feelings, but they don't leave us the next day or after the fact, feeling worse about ourselves. That's the problem with pleasure. Seeking pleasure alone, it can't possibly stay. You can engage in a behavior or use a substance, and you get this big spike which feels pleasurable inside your body and your mind, but by its very nature, it can't stay. Whatever you had for the two hours that substance was in, you felt good for those two hours. But after the fact, you usually feel worse because of all those neurochemical changes, all that homeostasis stuff that we talk about in the videos. But not only that, but you usually feel kind of bad about yourself for whatever happened that got you that pleasurable feeling. Or a lot of times you do, especially when you're talking about an addiction. So you're left feeling neurochemically worse, psychologically worse. And eventually you get to the point where you can only experience happiness, pleasure, satisfaction from one place. And that one place is that substance that you're addicted to. But the problem is, is that one place, it's your only source of pleasure, but it's causing you so much pain on the back end, and you feel absolutely stuck. And that leads to feeling alone and isolated, which leads to feeling depressed, which leads to feeling usually shameful about the behaviors that you've done in order to continue the addiction. You know, the. The responsibilities that you've let go, the people you've disappointed, you've disappointed yourself. You've not attained your own goals. And so you get filled up with shame. And then naturally, the people around you, they're kind of mad at you because you haven't been holding up your end of the bargain on things. So they're getting on your case. So you get full of resentment. Chasing pleasure in an addictive way only leads to the most unsatisfying, the most dark, depressing, lonely, isolated place. If you have been there, and you know what I mean, or you can relate to that. Put a little hands up emoji in the comments. So I know you're following. For me, those are like, like amens or something. I know you're here. I know you're listening. Now, if you want to get on the other side of that, it's more than just quit using the addictive substance behavior, whatever it is. I mean, that's the first thing that's got to happen, because as long as you're engaging in that, you keep yourself stuck in that negative feeling cycle, and you just can't get out of it. But recovery really shouldn't be about what you're not allowed to have. I mean, that's kind of depressing in and of itself. It's like, oh, I can't have this anymore. I'm not allowed like everybody else can, but I can, or whatever. And that. That's a dark. Not a good place to be. And that's a lot of times what people think sobriety is. But that's not what it should be. And what it is. What it should be is what you're getting in return. And when you learn to become really effective at getting the good stuff. We're going to talk about the good stuff in just a minute. You're so much happier. You're so much more joyful. You actually have a lot more pleasure in your life. The kind that doesn't cost you tremendously on the back end. The kind that you feel good about the next day and the next day and the next day, and sometimes 20 years later, you still feel good about it. So it's kind of like it continues to be rewarding psychologically, neurochemically, and all of those things. So let's talk about how to find enjoyment from life, how to find that happiness that's. That's more attainable. The first thing is you got to sort of look at happiness less like a feeling and more like a state of being. Yes, happiness. We. We experience these positive feelings, and we usually label them happiness, but it comes from sort of somewhere deeper, more deep down, lower than that. So let's. Let's get to talking about that. In order to have enjoyment in life, you've got to have people and memories attached to it. Those are the things that are going to bring you the most enjoyment. For example, when Kim and Bri and Campbell and I, you know, we're at the office and we're eating lunch. We literally tell the same old stories and laugh and have the best time recalling the same, you know, like 10 or 15 memories. It's like we have stories we tell on Campbell, they have stories they tell on me and Kimberly, and we just enjoy them so much. And most of the time they're just little silly things that just happen, you know, in an office environment. Just goofy things someone said or someone did. And every time we recall those memories, we laugh like it just happened. That Connect. It creates that connection with someone else because it's like we have this memory and experience together, and we all were there. We all remember it. So, like, we have this, like, bond, this moment, this thing that no one else understands. And then the memory of it just sort of solidifies it in our head. Do you guys have memories like that? You connect it to people. Connection, experience. It could be. It could even be something really hard or really bad you went through, but you and your buddy, y' all did it together. And you're like, dude, that was awful. And you're like, I know. That was awful. You still have those core components of people and memory. When you can connect memory, positive memory and. And positive people connection in your life, that's a very, very sort of reinforcing thing. In fact, a lot of times, addiction starts not because of the substance, not because of the thing, but because in a lot of cases, when you first used whatever the addictive behavior, a lot of times it's in the context of people, and for a while, it'll make you feel more connected and you'll have these positive memories associated. That's what's reinforcing about the thing that's making it addictive. The problem is, is that as you continue to try to get back to that and rehab, that positive memory experience, it's just less and less and less effective. In fact, when you're, you know, when you're pretty far down into addiction, you can be having a really great moment, you can be having a really great experience. You can be having all your favorite people around you, and you will still feel lonely and isolated and disconnected because you literally lose the biological ability to experience enjoyment in those moments, especially if it doesn't involve the substance. One of the things when I think about this concept, I. I remember back to the Chris Heron story you guys made. I think he has. I mean, I know he has, like, a. What's it called? A biography, but it's like the documentary. I could think of that. A documentary on. I think it was on Netflix for a while. I'm sure you can find it if you just Google it. He's like, he was a basketball player, and I'm not a sports person, so I don't, like, remember him as a basketball player. But he tells this story about how, you know, all he ever wanted was to be a professional basketball player, and he wanted to play for, like, you know, the. His home team, you know, the state he came from, or just, you know, it's like he was always a big fan and he always wanted to play for this team. And as he rose in those ranks, he was doing better and better and better and better in his career. But he was also becoming more and more and more addicted to opioids. And he talks about this moment in his story where he's winning, like, this big award, like this. This thing that, like, you know, lifetime achievement thing, like. Like something that everybody would want to get. And all he could think about when he's standing up at the podium getting this award is hurrying it up, getting through it so he could run out into the parking lot and meet the guy who was supposed to be bringing him his whatever, right? And so it's like, here's like, one of your best moments of your life, and you cannot find enjoyment, satisfaction from it now. You can stand up there and fake it, but inside, you don't feel it. Another story he tells in his documentary. He talks about when his children were born. And, you know, he was excited about that, or, you know, he's looking forward to that, but he, like, had to leave. You know, his wife's in labor and he has to leave the hospital. You know, he's like making him an excuse or something, like, oh, I gotta run again, we forgot this at home, and running out. But really, he's like, going to meet up the dealer and get a hit or whatever. And in his mind, it's like, so I can be present during the birth of my kid. And he. And he just went on a bender and didn't come back. And at one point, he stayed out homeless on the street because he left his wife in labor, giving birth to his child. You know, big moment, big life stuff. And then he was too ashamed to come back. So he literally lived on a street for a long time, like homeless, at the 7:11 or something. You can watch the documentary. And he. He obviously tells it better than me because it's his story. But those are. But those are the kinds of things that I think about. And even if whatever addiction is going on with you, you didn't get to that point where you left your wife in labor. Guess what? Here's. Here's a little secret I know about you. You probably don't want to tell it. I'm out. In your secret, you might have been there, but if you didn't have the substance, you. You did not have the appreciation for that moment. Because you can't possibly, when you're in an addicted state, because you're either. If you're in an addicted state, you're either sort of like intoxicated at the moment, which kind of messes with being present and in the moment there, or you're not, which is even worse. And so you're in withdrawal. And so no matter what's happening, you're having, like, a bad batch of neurochemicals going on in your brain and you feel crappy. So. So even for the things that you show up for, you're just not there and you cannot enjoy them. And to me, that's the. That's out. You guys know I always say, like, there's no bad reason to get sober. I haven't heard one I didn't like. I like them all. And I don't care how trivial they are. I don't care who else they're for. They're all good. But my favorite one is once people understand that's like, the reason to get sober, so you can enjoy the moments in your life so that you can stop living from one, like, addictive episode to the next. Because that's what life becomes. Your whole life becomes revolving around getting from one addict behavior episode to the next one, and immediately to the next one to the next one. Everything else in life becomes just crap. You have to do in between. And for a while, you can keep doing that crap and people won't really know. Like, your life looks manageable, but the longer it goes on, the less and less capable you are of even doing your crap that you're supposed to do all day long, right? Like taking care of your kids like Christmas morning, like. Like, you know, going to work and getting a raise, whatever it is, all the life stuff, right? You become less and less capable of. Of doing that leading you to feeling worse and worse and worse. So when you think about getting sober, you should actually feel kind of hopeful about it, right? Because it means there's a way out of this freaking misery trap. Because that's what it is. It's a misery trap. It's just. It's nothing good in there. So if you're. If you're dealing with a loved one who's addicted, I. I just want you to know it may look like it was fun, and it probably was kind of fun for the person in the beginning, but by the time you get to watching this channel, whether you're watching it for yourself or for your loved one, it's not fun anymore, okay? It's like literally this treadmill that they're tied to and you're like, oh, you just want to go get high or whatever. But it. That the days are getting high and the days of it being fun by the time you're on this channel or long gone. And so it feels like, why are you choosing that over me? It's because they're stuck in this horrible, you know, hostage taking situation of addiction. Now, if you want to increase your happiness, you increase your enjoyment, and that has to do with people and memories. This next little piece of the formula, if you want to have a happy, joyful, sober life, whether you are a family member in recovery or person in addiction recovery, either which way, it doesn't even have to be recovery at all. Actually. This is how to live happy, joyful life is you want to have moments of satisfaction. So let's talk about where satisfaction comes from. You can only get satisfaction from in. From a painful situation. And what I mean by that is you feel satisfied when you do hard things. That's where satisfaction comes from. You're satisfied with yourself because you went to the gym today. You're satisfied with yourself because you follow through with your journaling goal. You, you feel satisfied with yourself because you got through a hard work day or that, you know, you put in the hard work and you got that college degree. If you think back to all the moments and things in your life that you feel most satisfied about, it was always related to some sort of difficulty. There's just, there's just nothing like it. It's just a good serotonin drill. There's some good neurochemicals involved there. But it, you cannot have it without having the struggle and the pain. So let me give you an example. Say if you're achieving things and it looks like you're doing hard things, but you're doing it because you're, you're using some kind of substance maybe to enhance you. Like, maybe, let's say you worked really hard and you got a big promotion at work. But deep down in your heart, you know you only got that big promotion because you've been doing like speed for two months straight and you've slept like four hours in a month or something like that. You're not going to get the satisfaction even if you get the promotion, even if you get the reward, because deep down inside, you know you didn't earn it. You didn't really, like, go through the hard thing. You, you kind of have like this feeling like you cheated, and it like takes all the fun out of it. And so even when you get the award and the, and the, all the stuff, it's like. And other people are like, man, that was awesome. You did it. And deep down inside, you're just kind of like, yeah. And you smile and you're like, yeah, I know, it's awesome, right? But inside you just feel crappy because satisfaction comes from getting, from doing hard things, from getting rewards that were earned, right? And that's the key there is it has to be earned through pain, hard work. If you want to become like really, really good at having a happy, successful life, you'll. And you really understand this principle. What will happen is even when you're in the middle of the difficult stuff, you'll start to actually, you can self reward. You can self dopamine drip yourself by reminding yourself of like, I'm doing the hard stuff. And you will literally feel happy right in the moment when you're doing the hard stuff. So not only after you've done the hard stuff and accomplished it, but like, while you're in the moment, like, look at me, I'm running. I'm running and I don't want to run. I'm running. It hurts really bad. And you can reinforce with dopamine that drip that'll keep you doing that hard behavior longer, which will lead to a higher sense of satisfaction. Because neurochemically what's happening is you're getting more dopamine from that when you're being proud of yourself in those moments for doing hard things, which puts at bay the other neurochemicals that make you stop doing hard behaviors. And so you're able to do it longer and you're usually able to be more successful with it. So it's just kind of like a, a momentum thing. And when you can appreciate that and you're proud of yourself, like, like those of you who watch in your family members. And the hard thing you're doing right now, which is really freaking hard, is you're listening to Amber and you're not saying all those things to your loved one that you want to say. Like, you're withholding and you're holding that back and you're putting a little smile on your face and you're doing the strategies and it's freaking hard. And there's probably a part inside that's like, what the heck? Had this concept with this, this young girl the other day. She's like, she's a young mom. And she said, how do you do this without feeling like you're giving up part of yourself? I'm like, dude, you. You're giving up party. You're shutting down a little piece of yourself, that little piece that wants to yell, scream, you know, all this Stuff, but you start to see that progress. You feel proud of yourself, even though that's hard, right? And when you're. When you don't do it, you kind of manage yourself. Like, dang. It's kind of funny because when people talk to me in their consultations, they come in the office like they usually want to start their confession. Oh, Amber, I screwed it all up. Listen, what I said or whatever it' you wanna not run from those hard, difficult moments. And the. The third ingredient to a happy, joyful life has to do with purpose. And, you know, hear all this talk, and I talk a lot on the channel about, you know, living a life of purpose. And sometimes that's kind of vague. You know, as counselors, we like to say vague stuff like that. It's like, okay, Amber, but how do you do that? What does that mean? Basically, you get that sense of purpose from serve doing work that serves other people. That's how you get a sense of purpose in the 12 step tradition. And y' all know, you know, I don't think you have to do the 12 steps. I'm just pointing out one of the things here that works about it, but you don't have to be in 12 step program to do it, is you're you. The 12th step is actually basically, it's like paying it forward. They're saying is you can't keep what you have unless you give it away. So it's basically like your job is to carry the message, right? Is to help another alcoholic. But what works for that, it's actually very, very sort of neurochemical. You feel good about yourself when you are serving other people. And when you think about these three things combined, they kind of all like morph into one thing. Or they sort of morph into like one feeds the other, right? Because if you're working hard, you feel proud of yourself. If that work serves someone else, you feel even more proud of yourself. And if you've got people that have done work alongside you, then you add the people and the memories in and now you have real contentment. So if we could stop chasing moments of pleasure and start figuring out how to be content in our lives, we'll be a lot happier. And when we even become happy with the process, we. We self reward with that dopamine of getting through those hard things. You don't even have to wait till you did the hard thing to get the happiness. You can get the. You can get the happiness. The good neurochemicals right now, today, even in the middle of the hard Thing it is definitely doable. And everybody talks about it's so hard. People don't get sober this and that. And I, I'm like, part of the reason for that is because the freaking messaging is wrong. First of all, we run around and say only 10% of people who go to treatment get sober. I'm like, okay, first, that's dumb. Maybe 10% of people that went to one specific treatment on one day got sober. But that same person that didn't get so that day probably went again and probably went again and probably eventually got sober. So we're not looking at it over the long haul and we're telling people, oh, it's just hard, it's just miserable. And we, we try to like teach them to focus on. Remember you're alcoholic and you're an addict, you can't have that. So we're like literally telling them to focus on what they don't have and what they can't do, like non stop. We don't want them to stop thinking about that because something bad might happen. Like, you better remember it. And none of those things meet this formula for what we know works. But that's the way we sort of think about recovery. That's the way we present recovery. That's. Those are the messages that we send. None of which are really true because I see people get sober every day. It all kinds of ways. Some go to treatment, some don't. Some go to 12 steps, some don't. People get sponsors, people don't get sponsors. Like people do it without ever having gone to a meeting, ever. And they're very, very happy. It's. Can you figure out how to put these ingredients in your life? If you can, you've done it. It's just about the ingredients. It's not about the place, it's not about the therapist, it's not about the sponsor. It's about these ingredients. And you, if you can figure out how to do that, you can have recovery, you can have happiness and pleasure and enjoyment and, and actually you're going to feel really, really good about yourself. When you manage to conquer this big bad demon that you're, that you're struggling with, you get a sense of pride. It's kind of like no matter what else happens today I was sober, you feel proud of yourself. It's kind of like when you exercise. Like, I may not have done a whole lot else, but I exercise so I feel good about me, right? It's kind of like that. It's like a baseline of, of satisfaction that, that Stays there as long as you stay in your recovery mode. All right, we're about to get to the point in our live session where we take questions and comments because we want to hear from you and because I so very much appreciate you guys showing up here with me live, even though I can't see you, I feel like. I feel like I see some of your profile names so often. I feel like I know you, and I feel like we. We're having, like, a little memory here. So I appreciate it. As always. There are. Because I know a lot of people, like, hop off before we do the questions and stuff, but there's always resources in the description. We have a. If you go to our website, we have a page full of free resources. If you are watch these videos because you're trying to help an addicted loved one and you need some help doing that. Join our membership. It's the least expensive way to get weekly coaching. There's group coaching in there. There's these challenges where people are sort of pushing each other, doing the hard thing. Like this month, Campbell's challenge is recovering yourself as a family member. Like, how do you get back to being like, oh, my knees matter, too? And looking out for yourself because you get so obsessed with this other person that you neglect your own needs more and more and more. So it's part of your recovery process is like, all right, what am I going to do for me? And I don't mean, like, I'm gonna go get, like, a pedicure. Although, I mean, that can count. But it's sort of deeper things. That's the challenge that's going on there this month. And Kim said it's going really good. She's. She's like telling me some of the things the members are doing, and it was pretty exciting, actually. And then also, Bri wanted me to tell you guys that there is one more strength coaching opening for a new person this month, and I think it's on February 20th. So if you want that spot, you need to get in there and hold that spot. And the way you do that is you go on the website and then you can apply. I've got the link in the description for you, so you can apply for that, that you can get your spot. If not, there'll be some more open in March. All right, everybody, let's take a look at who's here. Let's answer some questions. I feel like yalls questions get harder and harder, though. I get nervous about trying to answer them because y' all get smarter and smarter. All Right. Let's see. Peggy hopped on here. I think Peggy got on here before I was even on here. She's like, I'm getting my question in. Let's see here. Hi. My son is 36 years old on methamphetamine. What's psychosis? I'm struggling to get him to realize he needs help. He's in jail right now, and jail is for 65 days, and he can come home and did the drugs. So I think what you're saying here, Peggy, is, you know, your, your, your son, I'm not sure if he's struggling, if you're saying he's struggling with psychosis, if you're asking me what psychosis is, because I think that might be like a typo there. If he is in jail right now and he's. And he's having psychosis, then they're probably treating him for that. Actually, while he's in there now, it's probably the easiest, best way to make sure he gets that treatment right now. Because the thing about psychosis is people don't know that they're delusional. When they're delusional. That's what makes it delusion. And so, so getting people to get help for that psychosis and delusion is very difficult because they think you're the crazy one. But if he's, if he's in a institution like that, he's probably getting some treatment for it. And I don't necessarily know if this is your question, Peggy, but I think that this is what you're getting at, is sort of, what do I do when he comes out? And what you want to do is you want to help to increase his satisfaction, meaning, purpose, all those things. And one way you can do that is to reinforce and validate his willingness and hard work to work on the thing. You know, you can even say, like, wow, those 65 days, that must have been really hard. Like, how did you get through that? And let him tell you how he got through that and say, what was the hardest day? And let him tell you about the hardest day and say, what did you do? And let me tell you about that, because you're literally that you're asking them these questions that's making him pull forth these memories, which makes these brain chemicals. So you're sort of helping him jump start this process. So you want to sort of, you can ask questions that help people see these things about themselves, to feel satisfied, to feel proud, and all that kind of stuff. I hope that helps. Jennifer says, love your caption today so hard to see beyond what we're giving up, right? Dude, you're giving up one thing and you're getting everything else. It's a pretty good deal. No one will say it's not a. It's a good deal. Can't get a better deal than that. Thank you for your hands, your little hands and the little emoji hands. Jessica says hello. First time coming to live. Hey, welcome to live. Jessica, glad you're here, but you've been a long time viewer. My wife and I struggle with alcohol. I'm more functional. And she becomes angry and aggressive and possibly has bipolar. I think there's a little bit more chillier thing here. Here it is. I'm resonating with all this resentment. Is there. The easy way to cope is tearing us both down. You know what? I'm impressed with Jessica. I'm actually impressed the fact that you're saying we both struggle with alcohol and you're saying, you know, my. My wife's alcohol stuff looks worse than mine because she has more manageability and she gets angry. But you're putting yourself right in that same boat. Because I can't tell you how many times, like, we treat couples where they both have alcohol problems, but one of them maybe is like, slightly further down the road. And so it's like, oh, you're the alcoholic, right? And the other one just continues and says, oh, I don't have a problem. And it's because as long as their behavior isn't as bad as that behavior, it's like they don't want to, like, address it or look at it. So the fact that you're willing to say, hey, you know, we're both engaging in this, like, totally counterproductive behavior. It really says a lot about your self awareness, your humility, your insight, and your willingness to sort of say, hey, we're in this together. Let's do something. And. And not to sort of say always them because she can't handle her stuff or whatever, you know, because it's easy to fall into that category. Let's see. Lori says, is it a good idea to invite the end denial addict to a Zoom Narana meeting so we can both attend? I missed one last week. And feeling like I'd like to go this week for me. Hold on a second. I'm slow processing. I'm pretty 80. Is a good idea to invite. Okay, I guess the question I'm having, Laurie, is this question is so. So Naranon is. Are you talking about. You're talking about, like, the Al Anon for drugs. Right. And you're trying to invite an in denial addict for them to the meeting with the family members. Definitely not. That's probably like the worst thing you could do. Don't do that because it's not the appropriate place for them. And I think what you're trying to do is you're trying to get this person to be subjected to hearing like how addiction affects family members and, and that's the way you're trying to get through to them. And I, I get it because you get desperate because it feels like they can't see it and you're just like, want to shake them by the shoulders. And this is one of your version of shaking them by the shoulders. But no, it's not appropriate. It's going to make them feel either forced to do it, which isn't. They're not gonna like or judged or beat up on or like you're trying to make some kind of passive aggressive comment or something like that. It's not. I wouldn't. Neither would I tell you because sometimes it's like I wouldn't tell you to go to their meeting either. Like if they were going to Narcotics Anonymous. Sometimes it's like, should I go with my loved one? I'm like, no. How are they going to talk openly with you there? Like those, those are sort of separate for a reason. Now if this person feels like they're also having a codependency problem or they have a loved one with addiction, that's a different story. But if you're just trying to do it as an eye opening technique, definitely my vote is don't do it. Eric says when, if so, does occasional bin drinking for back to back nights. Using drinking to escape the reality for evening classifies an addiction. My spouse is high functioning and doesn't see the pattern of the problem. When does it become addiction? Is that what you're asking? Like where's the line between drinking too much and being alcoholic? It's, it's not a one line in the sand. It's a process. It's a continuum. And a lot of people don't recognize it until they are like drinking every day or they're like waking up and drinking or something like they don't even see that it's happening. But for a lot of people, even in those like binge drinking days, even though they maybe only drink on the weekends, but it's too much, you're already in the alcoholism, you're already in there. I have a video, Eric, on the channel which actually goes through the exact criteria, I think it's called either am I an alcoholic? Or how to know if you're an alcoholic. And I go through all the 11 official clinical criteria and that might help you see. And so it's not like a, are they or aren't they? It's like, where, where are we on the continuum? Are we mild, moderate, severe? And that video takes you through all that and we'll kind of show you, help you figure that out. But that might be helpful for you to figure out. But let me tell you what not to do, okay? Because I'm worried about you, Eric. I'm worried you gonna make mistakes. Don't go try to send your addicted in denial loved one and make them watch the video. Unless you're seeing some kind of like willingness or desire to explore the issue or they're talking to you about it. And then. But don't just like, I was telling Lori not to like, try to bust through that denial that way. Don't, don't try to like say, I looked at the criteria. I watched Amber's video And here's the 11. You, you got 10 of them, don't they? That, that's not going to get you through the denial. That's going to get you to resentment and self pity. All right, let's see here. Stephanie says the family therapist recommended I kick him out. Yet he is not destructive, is not stealing, just, just disrespectful and isolated. I have put some boundaries in place that I am able to enforce. Okay, good for you. So the thing about kicking someone out is the, the therapist is probably saying that based on like, look, they're too comfortable. And there may be a little truth in that, that the person there's just life's too comfortable. Like, especially if they're like not working and you know, and they're trying to sort of tip the scale, you know. But if you're not ready to do that as a family member, I get that. I'm always leery to tell someone to kick someone out because if it goes bad and something bad happens, I'm like, I, it's not gonna be on me. I just say, you'll know it when you're there. Yeah. Hey, Jordan from North Dakota, glad that you're here. Matt says my alcoholic girlfriend has been giving some change talk, but wants to see a traditional therapist, which I know isn't ideal. Is this a time to say we'll try it your way or do I need to do something else? Well, first of all, Matt, I can tell from Your question that you get in these concepts. So I'm impressed. First of all, you're saying, change talk. So that tells me that you're. That you're really tracking and you're getting it and you're. You're understanding and learning and then you're understanding the traditional therapist thing. You're saying, is this a bargain? The video, I think, yeah. Came out this week is like, be careful about sending your loved one to counseling. If they have an addiction, if they are wanting to go, I think it's fine for them to go. In the video. What I. The earlier video this week, what I'm talking about is I'm like, don't. Don't you push and encourage them to do it. Because when you're making them do it, I promise you, all this getting talked about in that session is what a big jerk ball you are and how you're not fair and how you don't get it and how you're critical or whatever. Like, I know because I'm the therapist whose office they're sitting in, and that's what they always say. So if they're asking to go, yeah, I mean, for sure, I would. It may not fix it because it's not going to get fixed until they address it, but it's a step, right? It's a bargain. So, yeah, let's do it. Hey, is it Yazzie? Hey, Yazzie. Oh, yeah. He says, I feel proud of my addiction because of everything I survived. I feel proud of my recovery. Yeah, dude. It's hard, right? It's hard to get out of that. And you get a tremendous sense of satisfaction knowing that, Dang, I dug out of a really deep hole, and I feel much better for it. Yeah. Hey, t hate 365 question. Is it wrong to feel happy about your addiction? I feel like people want me to be more ashamed and be more close mouthed. I mean, it's one of those. It's one of those things. It's kind of like, you know, you have those experience in life and you're like, I can't say I'm really glad it happened, but I feel like I'm a stronger, better person because it happened. So in some ways I'm glad and I feel proud of the person I've become because of it. You know, I've had some experiences in life that if you said, would you do it again? I don't know that I would say yes. And. But I also don't know if I would be the same person without the experience. So I think it's, I think it's completely appropriate to say, hey, I'm not proud of the things that I did when I was in addiction, but I'm proud of who I've become because of the hard work I had to put in to get out of it. I think that's perfectly appropriate. Let's see here. I'm looking for the questions. You guys know if you put the word question or put some question marks in front helps me see them faster. First time being live I've been watching your 30 day emails. I've been trying to find the best way to and best way and quietly to sober up. Oh, okay. First of all, thanks. I'm glad you're watching the 30 day jump start videos. Those are a free series. Anybody can get those. You can go to our website, go to the free resources page. I think you can find them right there. It's like these little tiny like little three minute videos that just come to your inbox every day and give you like a message to help you stay motivated stuff. One of the things I'm hearing what you're saying is you're talking about quietly trying to sober up and that can be a little bit hard because if you're trying to do it and not tell anyone, I mean you definitely don't need to tell everyone. But if you're trying to do it not tell anyone, it's just hard because there's no accountability for you. And if you would tell at least one person then you feel like it's kind of out there and you feel like okay, it just gives you more motivation and it kind of holds you steady on rough days. So I don't know if that's what you meant when you said quietly. You might not have even meant that, that I jumped to that conclusion. But, but glad you made the live and glad you're watching the 30 day jump start. Hey Julie, first time catching us live too. And Saran is says I've been dealing with my self pity my own and the addicts what are possible onliners to avoid the manipulation fallout that comes with the pity party you're talking about. How are you asking like how, how do you respond when your loved one is in sort of like victim mode? The best way to respond is to think about what it is they're trying to say to you and use what I call tactical empathy. It's sort of part of what we teach in the invisible intervention. It's like making them feel heard and understood and you don't have to necessarily Validate that whatever their feelings are for themselves about makes it okay for them to continue to make bad choices. You can do it without doing that. But I tell you what won't work. What won't work is quit feeling sorry for yourself. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, quit being weenie whining or whatever. That won't work. So I would try the empathetic statements. I would. You can reinforce any kind of positive behavior change that's in the right direction if you want to. But just try to avoid like, lashing at them because that won't help. They'll just feel more sorry for themselves. All right. Kate Kaylin says, first time commenting. Hey, glad to see you, Kaylin. Love your channel. What are your thoughts about how much together time is too much? How important is it to have separate social lives? I think that depends on the couple, like, and the individuals within the system. Like, some people tolerate more togetherness and they like it and they just want to be with the other person all the time. If both people feel that way, it works good. What doesn't work good is sort of like when one person feels that way and the other person doesn't. And then you kind of have to like, negotiate that basically. I'm not sure if, if you're saying if, if you're kind of hinting at Kaylin, that's like, you're like, I need some, I need some me time, some alone time. And that's plenty fine. Like, and definitely for those of you family members don't feel like you need to be with the person every second because you're babysitting, first of all, that doesn't work and just don't, you know, that's not good for anybody. So if that's why it's happening, you definitely want to, you want to avoid that. Let's see. Sristy says my ah, has joined a cricket club, a gym, and doesn't see his drinking friend. Asks me to lock him up when I leave for work. His friends tell me he has stopped drinking, takes medicine, but I keep finding many bottles every five to six days. I questioned him and he says it's old. What is happening to him? Well, there could be a couple things happening. One thing is he's trying. It sounds like they are actually trying and, and putting in like real action steps, real good things to try to, to not engage in the behavior. But they could be having slips like once a week or so. Because my guess is you didn't say this, but my guess is you would know if they were old because you don't look all over the house and you know they weren't there the day before. So that's just my guess. That's the case with most families. So if, if that's happening and you're going to bring it up to them, you say, hey, I found these. And if they say, oh, that's old, you can say, having a hard time having a hard time with that. But okay, maybe. And just so you don't have to argue and say I know you're lying and like call them out and start an argument. But you can kind of, you know, put the impression out there that it's like, I'm not buying that. It depends on how good your relationship is at the time. Like if it's a client and it's me and I've been seeing them, I'll be like, dude, you know, I don't believe that. I'm like, you better try to tell me something else. And I would just say it funny. But you have to have a really good relationship to do that. Like you got to be in a good place. And, and you also sort of have to take into account like how sensitive is, is the other person about it. It. Let's see here, Let's see here. Nancy has a question. Help me deal with my daughter who's counting on her tax return to pay back rent by the 15th. My boundary. Should I give her more time? She says she is broke and works part time. The way I figure out those things, as far as how much to help someone is how much they're helping themselves. Like if you get the impression that they really are trying, they're doing everything they can, they're waiting for the tax return like legit style, then you know, giving them a few more days, I'm fine with that. But if you're giving them more days and you feel like they're not trying or they're lying or they're just like lazing around on the couch all day or something like that, you're probably going to end up with resentment. So that, I mean, I don't know if they're living in your house and they're paying you rent or if they're living somewhere else and you paid their rent but they're supposed to be paying you back. I'm not sure what the, what the, what the other alternative would be like, is it going to involve you kicking them out? Like, I don't know. There's more to that story. So. Deanne says my 20 year old daughter is currently in rehab. Can I throw away anything I find in my home related to her using while she is gone? I just started counseling myself next week. Okay, good for you. You know what? I would. I would ask your daughter about it because it's just a respectful thing to do. You can. You can say to your daughter, hey, if I found some old, like, stuff, you know, leftover stash, paraphernalia or whatever, you cool if I. You cool if I toss it and. And get her to say yes? Because it's gonna be real awkward for her to say no. It's gonna be really obvious what the intentions are. And then. So if you get her to say yes, then you're in the good. If you just do it without that, then the person may feel, like, disrespected or judged or something like that, and you may get a negative reaction out of them. Like, even if they weren't planning to use it, they may just feel like, why are you going through my stuff? Or whatever, you know, So I. You always want to treat another person with dignity and respect. So even if they're making bad choices, even if they're in jail, the. The more dignity and respect you can treat people with, the more you'll get back. So that's the way I would handle it. I know I'm going to get some comment. I know y' all going to say, it's your house. You could have whatever stuff you want in there. And they're right. You have every right to do that. But those of you watching this channel, you're watching because you're saying, how do I help support them? How do I help get an addicted person to go in the right direction? So do you have the right to toss it out? Sure do. Is it the most effective thing to do for your relationship? I just want to ask. My guess is she'll say, yeah, and then you're. Then you're cool. Jenny just. Jenny says question. I'm new to your channel and this is my first live. Hey, welcome. Glad you're here. My Cannabis Addicted Child, 20, has proposed taking a tolerance break for three weeks. Anything I should do or avoid? These are usually, like, some of the first steps people take towards quitting. It doesn't usually work as in, like, they don't stay off of it forever. Like, sometimes, you know, they may not even make the whole three weeks. Or sometimes they make the three weeks and then they go back to it. And what they're going to find is when they go back to it, whether they. No matter how long is it's going to be right back to the level it was before very quickly. So is it going to fix the problem? No. How should you react to that? I think you should say, hey, yeah, I think that's good. Let's start from that. Let's see how you, you know, if after a couple weeks you feel better, let's see what works differently. Because at least you're, you're giving them some experience. If they do stay off of it for at least three weeks, they get time to like experience. Like maybe they do feel better, maybe they feel clear headed, maybe they feel more motivated, maybe they feel like they're breathing better, whatever. So yeah, I would encourage it if that's what you're asking. But no, it's not the end of the road. But it's a step, right? So we want to encourage that. Let's see, Nathan says, how are people able to afford rehab even with insurance? I can't bite the bullet to take down that expense. Surely there are more affordable modes of treatment. I have a whole playlist, Nathan, about treatment options and I have a whole like treatment option guide I wrote that you can like download for free on the website. It's on the free resources page I think. But there are lots of different options from very, very expensive private pay to insurance ran ones to non profit ones that are free or that will work with like your income level and stuff like that. There are all kinds of options out there and there are pros and cons to each kind of option. Actually the video I'm thinking of, it's one of my older videos. It's called something like why would I pay for treatment when I can get it for free? Or something like that. Or I can't remember exactly, but if you'll go on that treatment playlist, you'll find it and that'll help you figure out like what are some of the, the options that might, might work for you. All right everybody, I think we are about to run out of time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For those who joined us, there are resources in the description. Definitely go check those out and I will see you all next Thursday at 1 Eastern. Bye everybody.