Amber Hollingsworth (YouTube) advises people in recovery on handling anxiety from family and friends. She describes common family reactions (constant questioning, hypersensitivity, bringing up the past, tearfulness) and recommends responses: don’t be defensive, validate their feelings, and allow measured vulnerability so loved ones feel reassured. She acknowledges family members also need work, notes some responsibility for repairing damaged relationships, briefly references a Rapid Relationship Repair course, and signals a following section with pre-planned questions to form a game plan.
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When you're in the early recovery process, or even sometimes the later stages of the recovery process, managing your own stressors, cravings, rollercoaster of emotions is difficult enough. But when you layer in the anxiety that comes from your family and friends is a lot to deal with. Right. But unfortunately, it kind of comes with the territory because, let's face it, the people that really care about you, the people that are closest to you, they're going to be dealing with their own set of fears, frustrations, resentments, and there are going to be times when it spills over onto you. And I want you to be prepared for it. And the first thing I want you to do to prepare for it is I want to go ahead and I want to dismiss the thought that it's unfair, that you should have to deal with that. I get why it's our instinct to want to feel it's unfair because it's overwhelming, and we're already dealing with a lot, and we don't need somebody out there reminding us of our past or making things harder on us. I agree with those statements. But to say it's unfair is kind of inaccurate. Right? It's kind of fair. Right? There's a reason why they feel that way. We've put them through some things. And so although it's difficult, it's uncomfortable, it is fair. So let's go ahead and get our head wrapped around the idea that we are going to have to deal with this a little bit. Now, I know there are other people out there, depending on what kind of recovery programs you've been in now or in the past, that will tell you, you know, recovery, selfish. You got to work your own recovery plan. They need to deal with their own recovery. And there's some truth in all of those. But there's also truth in the idea that you kind of made a mess in that relationship. And as crummy as it is, you're gonna have to clean that mess up. And some of that is on you. So I want to give you these few tips and tricks on how to make that at least a little bit easier. But before we do that, let's take a look at a couple of ways that your family's anxiety might show up. It can show up by them asking you constantly, what's your plan? Are you going to your meetings? Have you talked to your sponsor? Have you called Amber? Whatever it is, you know, you can get a lot of questions about what you're doing and not doing for recovery, or your family member may become kind of reactive and hypersensitive, if you're a few minutes late or if you sleep in on Saturday and then you're dealing with a big emotional response that you're just like, oh, my gosh. Why? What is. Where is this coming from? Your loved one may want to talk about your recovery. They may want to talk about the past. They may even be tearful about it. They may bring stuff up that you don't want to remember now. Yes, I realize they definitely need to work a recovery program of their own. If they're not working one, then refer them to my videos or help them talk to a family recovery coach al non sponsor something so that they can work on their side of it. But no matter how much they work on it, you're still going to get a little backsplash of this stuff. And the key here is not to freak out and not to be overly defensive when it happens. It is going to be your natural instinct to want to put your wall up, to want to deflect it, to want to put it back on them, to want to get angry because it's uncomfortable, it makes us feel crappy, and we just want it to go away. But when you do that, those are really ineffective ways to make it go away. Let me tell you some maybe slightly more effective techniques. The first thing is avoid being defensive and validate their feeling, even if that feeling or emotional reaction is uncomfortable for you. Let them know that you get why they're hypersensitive. Let them know that you get why they would worry about that and that you understand where they're coming from. It's not saying you agree with how they're handling it. It's just saying you understand where they're coming from. And instead of being defensive or tell them to work their own recovery program or telling them to stay out of your recovery or any of those defensive statements. The better, more effective technique is to allow yourself to be a little bit vulnerable. Allow them to have an inside look at what you're really thinking and feeling. I know this is really hard. It's really hard to be vulnerable when you feel like you're under attack from someone. But honestly, if you'll let your loved one, family member, friend, whoever it is, into your inside thoughts just a little bit, they'll feel better when we push them away and when we tell them that it's not helpful and they don't need to bring it up and all this, it makes their anxiety worse and they just come at us more. So by being vulnerable, I mean, you know, it's okay to say, yeah, I had kind of a rough day the other day, or yes, I've been experiencing some cravings, or yes, I'm worried about getting through that one event that's coming up. I mean, just the fact that you can say that to your loved one is going to make them feel better because they're going to be like, oh my gosh, they get it. And they are planning for this and they are thinking through what to do about these situations. I know it's not your natural instinct to want to respond in this kind of validating, vulnerable way, but I promise you, it is going to make their anxiety better, which is going to make them come at you in those difficult ways much less frequently and with much less intensity. Now, if you have a relationship that's particularly suffered a lot of damage related to the addiction and is kind of a mess, and you need to get that relationship fixed and under control because it's a big mess right now, then you may even want to consider taking a look at our Rapid Relationship Repair course, which teaches you a lot more step by step directions on how to navigate some of these very difficult conversations and how to rebuild that trust faster. I'll put the link in the description. Now in the next section, you're going to be answering a few questions to help you get a game plan on this to help you kind of think through ahead of time how you're going to respond to these situations. Because in the heat of the moment, it's hard to think and make good decisions on how to respond. So we're going to do that preemptively.
