Dealing With An Addicted Family Member

Got an addicted loved one. You definitely need to hear this topic because in this video we're going to talk about which battles you should fight and which battles you should not fight. Which I think is pretty much applicable to anyone who's struggling with a loved one, a friend, somebody they care about who has a substance abuse problem. Now, if you are watching right now live, feel free to talk with me in the chat. If you want to ask me about a specific situation, you can sort of pop it up there and I will try to get to it. And even if you're not watching this live, but after the fact, if you think of a question, if you're like, well, what about this or should I address this? Feel free to put it in there and I will try to come back around and make sure to give you some feedback on that. Alright, I got you guys a list, handy dandy list here. And I think what I'm going to start, start with is the battles that you should not fight with your loved one. And then we'll move into the battles or the, I guess I shouldn't say the battles you should fight because those of you who follow me, you know, I don't really think that like fighting about it is the way to do it. So we'll say the, the issues that you should confront or address, you shouldn't just let them be. So let's start by talking about things you should probably just let go and just let it be on its own. And these are the ones there, of course there are a million of these, but the ones I put on this list are the common ones that I find that families get entangled with. One of the counselors that work at our office, her name is Campbell and she often sees like the families, she sees a lot of parents who have addicted kids or spouses and that kind of thing. And she is fantastic at this because she's got two sons in recovery herself. So she's been there and done that. And this I guarantee you she spends pretty much like 75% of her day talking about this topic right here. What to put your foot down about and what not to fight. And it's so strange dealing with families because literally most of the time families want to do the exact opposite. All the things that I'm going to tell you not to fight about, these are the things that most people want to like, power struggle about. And all the things I'm going to tell you not to fight about are the things that for some reason families tend to tolerate and they really shouldn't so most of the time you really kind of need to reverse that. So let's take a look at the list because I think once we start going through these, you're going to see exactly what I'm saying. Alright? Not fight. Number one on this list is schoolwork. If you have a child that is having a substance abuse problem and you are arguing with them about whether or not they turned in their English paper, you are making a bad decision. Let me explain to you why. I know in your mind it's like, oh my gosh, they're senior. We got to get them graduated. Or, you know, if we could just get through this ninth grade year or whatever that is. Here's the thing, the worst thing that could happen to you is you stay on their case. You stay on the case, you help them, you ask for extra credit, you get them like extra time or whatever and they get that dang English paper done. Guess what's gonna happen now? They're gonna think that their life is manageable. And when you're on their case about their drug problem and how their life's out of control, they'll be like, I don't know what's wrong with you? I'm passing my classes. So when you do that, best case scenario, you actually get them to pass their classes and that's gonna backfire on you. So the biggest reasons not do that are, number one, you're spending a lot of time and energy, power struggling with them over schoolwork. And that is not the battle you need to be fighting right now. I understand, like in normal parenting land, that's the important battle to fight. But you're not in normal parenting land anymore at all. If you have an addicted child. So let it go. Because the power struggle, the fighting you're having over that is damaging your relationship. It's using up energy, fighting all the wrong things. And like I said, even if you do make them do it, it's going to backfire on you. So don't fight about it. Number two, compliance with legal, like, things they have to do. Like let's say your loved one got a dui or they have, like here in South Carolina they call it pti, pretrial intervention or on probation or whatever it is. I know this might be the hardest of the ones and I'm going to tell you not to fight. This might be the hardest one for you to not engage with because you're like, but this is serious. You know, this has dire consequences. But it's kind of like the school thing. Even though it feels like the, the consequences are maybe bigger, but it's like you're spending all your time trying to force them to be compliant, to keep something manageable in their life, whether that's call your probation officer or pass your drug screen. And you'll spend all of your time scrambling around, buying them lawyers, you know, making sure they get to this appointment, making sure they do their, like, community service. I'm telling you, that's not, that's not the fight we want to be fighting here. Because kind of like the schoolwork, you're going to spend a lot of energy fighting that person. They're going to focus on how you're always on their case. You're ridiculous. They're going to get it done. They don't know what's wrong with you, like you're being overdramatic or whatever. That's what they're going to think. And like I said, in best case scenario, you get them to do it and then they think their life is manageable. I know that one's hard, especially if it's something major that your loved one is facing. Oftentimes what we see is like people with a DUI charge or like a possession charge or probation or something like that. And especially if it's a little something, do you let that ride? And I know it. Even, even if it's a big something, you probably want to let it ride. But definitely if it's just like a little something, I know you think it'd be the end of the world if they had a possession charge on their record. It is not the end of the world. I have treated so many people with addictions. I know a lot of professionals in the field that I'm in, and in lots of fields that have lots of charges. I know it's not good, but it's not the end of the world and it can be dealt with and you can get on the other side of it. So don't fight with them about that. Are any of you out there being like, oh, I don't know about that one, Are you struggling with that? Let me know. I know that's a hard one. In the similar vein of thinking, don't fight with them about being compliant with work, whether. So if it's your spouse or your child or your sibling or your parent, whoever this is, that your addicted loved one, the reason why it's hard to not fight with them about work is sort of different than the other two. The reason why it's hard to not fight with your loved one about work issues is because you feel like if they lose that job, that's gonna fall back on you because then you're gonna have to like pay the bills, you're gonna have to pay the price. You know, you're not gonna have any help, you know, raising the family or whatever that is. And so that one brings a little fear into you. But like I said, you're just spinning your wheels and in the wrong direction. And it is so important. I just can't stress enough how important it is to know where to put your energy, what to confront and what not to confront. And work is one of those things. You need to let them figure that out. Now, this one is in a slightly different vein, but we see families get tangled up in this all the time. Don't feel fight with your loved one about how many meetings they go to, about whether or not they got that sponsor or how many times they're calling that sponsor or what step they're on when you do that. This one is pretty clear to me. You are definitely on their side of the street. If you see my videos, you'll know I talk about your side of the street. Their side of the street. Managing the recovery is definitely their side of the street. And if you're making all these rules, which I have seen a million times, families do, about how many meetings you got to go to, it doesn't work. You can. First of all, part of me wants to say you can force compliance. If you work really hard, you can make sure they went to those meetings. But no one, it's gonna take all your time and energy, it's gonna wear you out doing it. And even if you made them go, you can make someone sit in the room, but you cannot make someone absorb recovery. And just the fact that you're making them sit in the room, it actually increases the chances that they won't absorb the recovery because they'll just not do it despite you. And so don't argue with them about their meetings and sponsors. And so many of you I know want to make that a requirement to stay in your house because you see that as a sign of being in recovery. And a lot of times it is a sign, but not necessarily. You just can't manage their recovery. That really is in their territory. Alright, last one. Slightly different than the others. They're gonna throw at you all of these instigating remarks. They know what your buttons are, they're going to push them on purpose. And you're gonna want to like take that bait. I call it a fish hook. And so it's kind of like they're throwing these fish hooks at you, and. Because they want to start an argument. Campbell, the therapist I was telling you about before, she has this fantastic story she tells about her sons. She said, this is the story she tells. She tells it better than me, but I'm gonna try to tell it. She's like, I sit down on my couch one day, had on my red corduroy pants. Little. My red corduroy pants. It was like, February maybe. I don't know. And I'm reading my book. I'm just sitting down there, minding my business, reading my book. And my son comes down the stairs because he's about to leave and go outdoor and go use. She doesn't know this at the time, but that's what was about to happen. And he's like, why are you wearing those pants? God, those pants are ugly. That's so stupid. Why are you wearing those red pants? You see what I mean? Fish hook. He's, like, starting an argument about dang red pants. Isn't that ridiculous? And it's gonna make you want to just grab onto it and argue. Well, you know, it's my pants, my business, or whatever. You're gonna want to defend yourself, but just be like, dude, like, you know, just let it go. Neutralize it if at all possible. All right, Moving on to the battles that you should deal with. I don't want you to fight them because I don't want you to get into, like, a screaming match or even a giant power struggle. But I do want you to address them, because these are boundaries that need to be kept ready. You need to address and confront. If they are aggressive with you, if they're threatening, if they. And I mean, not even just if they. Like, if. Obviously, if they hit you, that is clearly aggressive behavior. But there are other things that can be aggressive behavior that you may not be thinking about, and that's like intimidation. Like, really, like, getting up in your face and yelling at you or threatening throwing things, even if you know they're not throwing them at you, but they're throwing them near you, and you know that it's like an intimidation tactic or something. To me, that's out of bounds. Out of bounds. And you should not tolerate that. That is definitely something that you're going to want to confront. Along those same lines, number two is you definitely want to not deal with emotional or psychological abuse. Now, it's one thing when your loved one tries to start with a fight with you about your red corduroy Pants, right? I mean, that's just out of bounds and ridiculous. And they're just trying to start a fight. But sometimes you might be dealing with an addicted loved one who is relentlessly badgers you and just comes at you and comes at you because they're trying to wear you down. They're trying to make you doubt yourself, they're trying to make you feel like you're crazy. They're kind of making you feel like everything's your fault. I had a young man in my office two weeks ago who was like 15 and he outright told me, he said, I have been so horrible to my parents for the past two years. He's like, I have been awful. He's like, I have been making them think it is their fault and doubt everything they've ever done for two years. And actually I have pretty good parents. So if a 15 year old knows that they're doing that and can even articulate to me, it's definitely happening and they're really good at it. So absolutely. Address that number three thing that you should address or like not just let pass by. You should address it 100% for sure. If your addicted loved one is putting other people in the house and in the family at risk in any kind of way. So if you've got an addicted spouse and whatever is going on with your spouse is causing a lot of trauma and harm to your children, you gotta deal with that. Or if you've got an addicted child and that child's behavior is causing a lot of trauma and harm to the other siblings in the house, even if that harm is like they're constantly fighting with you and it's really putting a lot of stress and trauma on the other siblings or in some cases, and I've seen oftentimes if there's a sibling that's not that far in age from the one using drugs, they will actually get that sibling using drugs. I've seen it a million times. Don't think they won't because they will, because they feel completely justified in what they're doing. And they have like made it so okay in their head that in their mind it's totally fine for their sibling to do it. So that's a huge risk and you definitely need to take care of that if it's happening. If this one's number four, if your addicted loved one is putting you or the whole family in a really bad financial jeopardy or problem because they're stealing all the time, because you're constantly paying for legal fees, because you've literally Got three mortgages on your house because you pay for treatment. Those are things you need to address. Like, I am okay with helping paper treatment. I'm okay with helping them, but not to the point that you literally ruin. You destroy your whole life for it, you know? Or you totally like give all of your retirement to it. No, I'm fine with things like I've told parents in the past, where, like, if your kid has like money set aside for school, use that money. Use the money you set aside for their school to pay for treatment. That's fine. And that is definitely a good thing to do. But using your own retirement, okay, if you want to pull a little bit out of your retirement, fine. But using all of your retirement mortgage in your house five times, you know, pawning everything you have out of bounds, don't do it. Number five. I'm going to tell you number five and then we give you one bonus and then that's the last of the list. So number five is if your loved one is splitting. If y' all can hear that. That's my dog fussing down here. He wants my attention. I wish I could see him. He's kind of pitiful. He's got a little cone on his head. But if your loved one is splitting between the people in the house, so they're, let's say it's your child and they're causing the two parents to constantly be at each other's throat, or it's your spouse and your child is so angry at one of you, you know, they're angry at you for putting up with dad's alcoholism, or they're angry at dad or whatever that is, you've got to address that because that's causing your family to fall apart and you can't let that happen. Alright, here's your bonus one. If your loved one is using all of those manipulation tactics, some of which we've kind of addressed in this list, but there are a lot more. If you want to know what they are, you can see them in my playlist on manipulation tactics. I want you to address them. I don't want you to fist fight over them. I don't want you to get in a screaming match. But I want you to say, just want you to neutralize it. It's like, it's like if you have a grease fire in your house and you throw baking soda on it, that's exactly what you do. I'm just say feels like you're trying to do this, like that's not gonna work. Just be sort of matter of fact about it. Call it like, it is not in a way that's trying to, like, escalate a fight or anything, but it just makes it not work. You know, sometimes I'll be like, dude, that's good. That's a nice try, but I'm not, not biting that fish hook. Maybe another day. You know, just sort of neutralize it. You want to address it. Don't let those things hang out there. Hopefully you can look at these two lists and you can see that there's a pattern. That pattern being if it's on their side of the street, that's their issue. If it's on your side of the street, you need to address it. And I just can't emphasize enough. So many families want to address everything on their side of the street and let all this stuff over here go that you should not be tolerating and putting up with. So get your priorities straight. If you want more help with that, I am going to put, as soon as I get off here, I will link it up here for you. The video on consequences versus Boundaries versus Punishment, which goes right along with this. And I'm also going to link up here the video that Campbell's in that she made. That's about this concept of fish hooking where she talks about, you know, these little instigating things that they throw out at you and what that looks like and how to not sort of take that bait. And hopefully that will be helpful for you. I'll get all that linked up for you and I'll see you next week. We have videos coming out every Tuesday, and I'll be on here live Thursdays at 1. See you then.