Disrupt The Cravings Cycle - No More Relapses, EVER!

This one ninja move will destroy your cravings. Seriously, if you get this strategy down pat, you can rest assured there will be no more relapses. And not only will there be no more relapses, but it won't even be that difficult. I know sometimes in the beginning when you think about sobriety and recovery and you think about decorations, dealing with all those cravings and how hard it's going to be, you stress yourself out, you freak yourself out, and it's pretty unnecessary, actually. The truth about cravings is this. If you don't fuel them, they rarely last more than nine minutes. And I want to show you exactly how to make sure that they don't even last nine minutes, that they last less than nine minutes, and that once you turn the page on it, you move on from it. You feel better, you feel freer, and the craving is gone. You don't have to sit in that craving, miserable, anxious, uncomfortable state for those long periods of time anymore. If you've ever experienced a craving, put a little hand raised up emoji in the comments or in the chat. So I know that you at least know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about one of those cravings that just come on you and it feels like it lasts hours or even days. Now you may be thinking, well, what kind of craving? Any kind of craving could be craving for drugs, it can be a craving for alcohol, it can be a craving to engage in some other kind of addictive behavior. Or I know a lot of you family members are watching this too, and guess what? You have cravings too. Your cravings are to sneak, check, ask, Snoop, spa, all of those things that you think, if I could just find out for sure what's really happening and check on this, it will alleviate my anxiety, but it never does. It's just kind of like the same craving for the drug, the alcohol, the addictive behavior. It feels like I could just scratch this itch, it'll feel better, but it never feels better, it always feels worse. And once you really understand that these cravings have less hold over you and at that point you, it just becomes about, well, how do I move past this uncomfortableness, this anxiety type feeling and move on about my day and not get stuck in it? Don't worry, I'm going to give you all the secret ninja moves in this video. But for those of you who are new here, I am Amber Hollingsworth. I'm a master addiction counselor. I've been helping people and families overcome addiction for 20 years now. I Know, it's a really long time. Makes me feel old every single time I say that. And I created this YouTube channel to give you guys the benefit of all of that wisdom. Now, you may know people in recovery and they have a ton of wisdom. Definitely listen to them. But I've got 20 years of helping thousands of people overcome addiction. I've seen it. I've seen people overcome addiction in every kind of a way imaginable. And I've taken all that information and consolidate it down, and I'm giving it to you right here for free on YouTube. If you can get behind that idea and you want that, whether for yourself or for a loved one, be sure you subscribe to this channel. Because not only will it make sure you get access to all that, like, plus my bonus videos. Not just my regular ones on Tuesdays, Thursdays, but my bonus ones. You gotta be subscribed and hit the bell to get those. And if you're already subscribed, just hit that like button. If any of these videos have ever been helpful for you, because today it's going to be a good one. Craving. A lot of times when people talk to me about getting sober, they're like, well, I've gotten sober in the past, and no matter how long it is, I never feel better. I'm always craving, I'm always miserable, and I end up feeling worse than I felt when I was in my active addiction. Which usually isn't quite the truth. That's really kind of addictive thought. Because most of the time when I dig underneath that surface and find out what's really going on, that's not quite the truth. It's this thought. It's kind of a craving thought, if you think about it, because it's this thought. It's this addictive thought that's basically trying to make you give up, trying to talk you into relapsing back into that old addictive behavior. And those are the kinds of thoughts that fuel the cravings. It's that kind of thinking that makes it go on and on and on for like, hours and days at a time, but you're in control of that gas pedal. You can choose whether you want to throw gasoline on that craving or whether you just want to throw some water on it and smother that craving and so that it's out of there. The big key here is not to go into your head and gasoline it. Now, what do I mean by gasoline? What I mean by gasoline is you don't want to fantasize about it. Remember, when Start scheming, planning, watching old, like, movies or videos that remind you of it. You don't want to be, like, putting yourself in front of triggers, people, places, things, all that kind of stuff. When you do that, you're making it worse. So when that happens, you have this craving. Then you start doing things to fuel it. Then you start having these other little thoughts, these addictive thoughts that come into play and really make this thing into, like, a roaring fire. And those thoughts are always some kind of version of, you might as well give up. They're these you might as well give into it thoughts. So let me give you an example of a few of them. And if I don't say one that you have before, make sure you put it in the chat or in the comments, because I could be leaving that one. And if you know one and you put it down there, other people will see it and it'll help them recognize that thought when they have it, too. So one of the thoughts that will get you to cave into this craving is you feel that uncomfortableness. And then you think to yourself, you will always feel that way. It will always be this hard, like, it's never going to get easier. You're always going to feel miserable. That's called, like, the forever monster mouth. And when you have that kind of thought going on that makes that craving last a long, long time. And it also makes you feel helpless and hopeless to get past that. But it's not a truth. No feeling, no matter what the feeling is, ever lasts forever. Not the good ones and not the bad ones, thankfully, not the bad ones. And a craving won't last forever. In fact, it'll last a very short time if you will just let it pass. So that forever thought, it's a big bunch of bs. Don't even be believing it. Another thought that you might have is you might have this thought of, well, I always screw it up in the end. I always fail. I never make it past this certain benchmark of sober time or whatever it is. And so that thought makes you want to give up. Because it's like, I know I'm going to fail anyway. Might as well just give into it. Makes you want to throw your hands in the air and then just give into this craving. Which is, again, another false thought. Some of you might have seen my video where I talk about the monster mouths. This is one of those monster mouths. In fact, I'll link up the monster mouths video at the end of this video because it's a really good one and it will help you Understand what these thoughts are and where they're coming from and how not to buy into them because they're just lying little monster mouths. That's all they are. Another thought that you might have that will cause you to give in and cave into this craving is a thought about, well, everyone expects me to fail anyway. Another version of that is, I mean, how many people really ever beat addiction? It's like 5 or 10% or something. These are thoughts around, you know you're going to fail. Everyone expects you to fail. Might as well just go ahead and give into it and have this good experience, which in your mind is telling you it's going to be a good experience. But let's be real, it's not a good experience anymore. If you've gotten sober, then you've gotten to the point where it's not a good experience anymore. So this trying to convince yourself that it will be fun, that it'll be pleasurable, that it'll help, that it'll take stress off, that's a big fat lie, too. That's another one of those monster mouths. How many times have you fallen for that monster mouth? Probably a lot of times. We all, we all do it. We fall back into that belief that it'll be different this time. You know, I'll just do a little bit. It's another one of them monster mouths you gotta quit listening to. It's any version of a little bit won't hurt. Just this one time. I won't let it get back out of control again. So this is called like a containment monster mouth. This is usually. It's kind of, you have that craving, you start fantasizing, planning, scheming. Then you start having those other thoughts about you might as well give up anyway. And then you get this kicker thought in there, which is that one about, well, you won't let it get that far out of control. Just be this, just this one time, just to take the pressure off, just to release a little steam. You know, your family's out of town, you know they won't even know about it, won't even hurt anyone. You'll get right back on the wagon. When you get this kind of combination of thoughts lined up, you are in very, very dangerous territory. So you gotta head this thing off at the pass. Can you turn it around at that point? Of course you can. You can turn around at any point. You can turn around mid relapse, you can turn it around after you're done started down the road of using or engaging in that addictive behavior. There is no point of no return if you're alive. You are in the game. So that point of no return, that's another one of those monster mouth thoughts. Do not believe it. But I will tell you this. The earlier you intervene in the cycle, the better because it's going to be. That craving tends to build like a fire. It gets stronger and stronger and stronger the longer you let it go. And it just keeps going like a wildfire, like a wild fire out in California or something. We, we don't need that, right? Let's get it contained quickly. So instead of heading down that path of not goodness, like the black hole of negative thinking and bad decisions and you want to head it off at the pass and the way that you do that is mostly through distraction. And I have some other videos about ways you can distract. But today I want to like focus in on probably the most effective craving coping distraction kit skill that you can use. And that one is I want you to get out of your own head and out of those negative thoughts and out of that self pity and out of that hopelessness. And that might as well give up. Baloney, baloney. That's not even true. And I want you to start thinking, how can I get out of myself and do something that contributes to something or some person outside of myself? It's called contribution, to put it simple. How can I contribute in some positive way, some energy of something good? And I'm going to explain to you why this is important. But first let me tell you how to do it in recovery. We talk a lot about how you guys have heard me say, if you've watched my videos, you've heard me say connection is the cure to recovery. And that is actually a huge piece of the formula. There's actually two more Cs. Connection is one of them. Second one of them is contribution. And that third one I'm going to save. I'm going to give you that one in a later video. It's coming out soon, so be sure and look out for that. But let's focus on, on contribution today because sometimes when you feel in this craving zone, if it's early recovery, it's hard to feel connected to other people. But if you can ask yourself a simple question of what's something nice I can do today instead of getting in my own head and thinking about my own problems and how hard this is and how difficult it is, is there anything I can do to be of assistance or help to some other situation outside of me? So maybe that's call up a friend and ask them how they're doing. Maybe you have a friend or a family member who's not doing great and you want to call up and listen to their problems. It's our natural instinct. A lot of people say, well, call someone up and tell them you're craving, which you can do that. It's not a bad move. It's going to make you think about it more. So a better move, call somebody up, listen to their problems. It's always, trust me, from somebody who makes a living to listen to other people's problems. It's way easier to listen to anybody else's problems, no matter how big they are, than your own problems. So even if it's just lending a helpful listening ear, do that. If it's get up and clean the dishes up, because it's going to make your wife happy when she comes home. If it's, make your bed up. If it's, go over and help your grandma, you know, get a Christmas tree down from the attic that she's been asking you to do for two weeks now. Anything that you can do that gets you outside of you, number one, it's going to distract you, but most importantly, it's going to make you feel good. It's actually going to cause your brain to release all the really good chemicals that actually make you feel about a million times better than that addictive behavior or substance will ever make you feel. And even better than that, the good feeling, the high, the positivity is better than the addiction feeling. But it gets to keep feeling good about it all day, even tomorrow. Whereas if you have that addiction, good feeling probably doesn't feel good anymore, let's be real about it. But even if it does, it's not going to last very long. And then you have a long time of feeling crappy to pay the price for that teeny little, like, not even good, good feeling anymore. You've got to be honest with yourself. If you can get into this contribution mindset, into this outside of myself, do something nice and help someone else. Hey, walk your dog, Be nice to your dog. Throw the ball in the yard to your dog. Do anything that you feel like is helpful somewhere, anything that's going to help someone else or anything that's going to make you feel proud of yourself. If there's a big goal that you've been thinking about a lot and you've been wanting to accomplish, take one tiny little step towards it. Because like I said, it's going to distract you. It's going to make you feel Good about yourself. And then. And in the end, you're going to have a good day. So you can make sure you have a good day. You can go this direction, or you can make sure you have a bad day. You can go in that pit, you can take all those negative thoughts and you can try to fight it and wage war with it and do battle and wear yourself out. Don't do that. It's not necessary. If you'll focus on the contribution, that thought process and that feeling, it's like incompatible. Incompatible with the craving feeling. It's kind of like if you've ever tried to, like, what is it? Like, pat your head and rub your stomach. Like it's really hard to do. Like you might could pull it off if you tried really, really hard to concentrate on it, but it doesn't come natural. That's what I'm saying about craving and contribution. It's two separate things. Craving is a feeling of negativity, hopelessness, despair, frustration, self pity, resentment. All of that is what goes in the craving category. That's going to take you further and further down that craving road. Contribution makes you feel positive, good about yourself, excited about your future, hopeful. You got the dopamines, the oxytocin, the serotonin. You got all the good brain chemicals going over here. It's a choice that you can make. The sooner you make that choice in the craving process, the better. The sooner you engage that process, the easier it is to head it off. Because like a fire, the bigger it builds, the longer it builds, the harder it is to put out. But there is no point. There is no, like, point of no return. Don't forget that part. I don't care if you've done went to the grocery store, bought you a bottle of alcohol and drank the first glass. You can still turn it around now. That addiction will try to tell you otherwise. That addiction will try to tell you done screwed it up, you done relapse. You might as well not waste the relapse. You know you've already done it. No, you haven't. You can turn that ship around anytime you want. All those addictive thoughts are nothing but lies. And the faster you learn to recognize those lies for what they are, which is a big old bunch of bull, the easier it will be to just tune them out, not listen to them. Have you ever had someone in your life that just constantly lied to you and then eventually you just stopped listening? They had to say, because you know it's not true. That's what I want you to realize. About these addictive thoughts. It's a bunch of bull. It's all designed to get you to make a bad decision. And then guess what? As soon as you make that bad decision, those addictive little thoughts, those little monster mouths will gonna come in and beat you up and tell you what a loser piece of crap you are and can't believe you did that again. And you, you don't even deserve good things in your life because you just hurt people. Just going to talk into doing it and then beat you down and make you feel bad after you've done done it. That's a bad relationship, that is a bad plan. You could walk away from that, come on over to this other side. Because a big part of what keeps you stuck in that addiction is that shame, guilt, negativity, self pity, resentment, all of those are the elements that go into fueling and addiction. If you don't know what to do, I want you to just think about what is the opposite of those components. What is the opposite of resentment? What is the opposite of self pity? What is the opposite of shame and guilt? If you can't figure out what to do, think about what addiction is and just do the opposite of that and you won't go wrong. You will be in the right direction. It's as simple as that. And I didn't say it's easy, but it is simple. The more times you do this, the easier it gets because it will become your new automatic. Just like you created an automatic addictive behavior. Just as easy as you can wire that not great behavior in, you can wire in a good behavior. It works the same way. You build neuropathway the very same way. And this other way is also very rewarding because you do get the release of good chemicals. I mean, think about it. If someone is lost and stops to ask you directions on how to get there and you just stop and you tell them how to directions to get where they want to go. Because maybe you live locally and you know, you feel kind of good about yourself and all you did was tell somebody how to get where they were going. It's that simple. You can get that positive feeling. You can access it anytime you want it. And if you really want to build some recovery muscles like you want to be like the recovery weightlifting champion of the universe, then you just build this contribution thing into your everyday life. You put it on autopilot. You don't even wait for the craving. You get up and you have a plan on what you're going to do. I used to have A friend in recovery and this person got sober in the 80s or something, and he used to go to meetings. And this is way back old school, when they used to smoke in the 12 step meetings in the 80s. I can't even imagine how smoky the room was in 12 step meeting. Because pretty much anyone who gets clean and sober from addiction usually uses nicotine. And back then everyone smoked cigarettes. And so in the rooms, I bet it was a nasty mess. Anyways, so my friend said that one of the things that his sponsor made him do was after every meeting would make him go around, pick up all the ashtrays and clean out ashtrays. Of course he thought that was gross and nasty. And he's like, why do I gotta do that? And his sponsor says, because there's recovery at the bottom of every one of the mastrays. And I'm not sure. I doubt my friend knew what he meant at that point when the sponsor was saying it to him. But he was at least to the point where he was like, at that willingness, I'll just do whatever my sponsor tells me to do because Tony do it. So I'm just gonna do it. But there's some truth there, right? I've heard a lot of people talk about being very early. Especially, like people going to NA and stuff very early in that process. And they start going to meetings and like, somebody asked them to show up and be the person that shows up for the meeting, makes the coffee. And they're. And they feel like this like, combination of like surprise and excitement and proud of themselves because they're making the coffee. Like, somebody, trust me to come in here early before people get here and make the coffee. It's almost like you get this sense of duty and responsibility, the going to make the coffee. It's not just something helpful you're doing for the meeting. It's something helpful you're doing yourself. You're learning to be responsible. You're learning to think ahead and plan and be considerate of other people. And then sometimes I hear people talk about, like, when the people in a give you the key to the building, like the church, the community center, whatever it is, and they. They tell you to come in and open it up and set the chairs up. Then you think, oh my God, people gave me a key to come in this building and set this stuff up. Like, what in the world's going on? And that is all part of the recovery process. It's called contribution. There is a million, thousand zillion ways to contribute. Small, big, any of it. Counts. And that is the building blocks of how you dig out of this dark, nasty hole of addiction. Get think about what addiction is, and you do the opposite. Once you start doing that contribution thing, it actually makes the connection piece come along because you feel better about yourself. You feel more present and open and engaged with other people, and that allows the connection piece to come in. So these building blocks, these ones that start with the C, they sort of build on top of each other. And the more you do one, the bigger the other two get, and it becomes a momentum issue. All right, so we are about to that point in our live video where we're going to say hello to the people who came and showed up to watch us live. If you're watching on the playback, I appreciate you. I am so glad you're here. I know you weren't. I'm not mad you weren't showing up live. I'm just glad you showed up. I appreciate it. But before we do that, I will remind you, as always, there are always more resources in the description. I think I have my link in there to our free resources page, our free family Facebook group. There's all kind of resources, so make sure that you check those out. And let's say hello to the people that are here. We'll take some questions and some comments. If you're not watching live and you'd like to show up on one of our lives, we are live every Thursday at 1pm Eastern, and so we would love to have you here and that will give you a chance to come, comment, question, interact with other people. So maybe we'll get to see you the next time on live. Let's see who's here today. Let's see here. Hey, Nisha and Carolyn from Salt Lake City, Utah. Mimi is from New Orleans. Hello. Be present is here. Anthony is here. I like your little profile with your little red Sonic in there. Married a long time. Let's see. Colin is here. Steph is here. Alicia's here. Sadie. Alicia's from California. Angier is a question. Let's put this up here. Does anyone know where Albigaine can be found? My daughter has been in rehab and she is now homeless and her boyfriend thinks nothing can help her. I'm sending this video to her. All right. They don't do ibogaine in this country. I'm not sure which countries they do it in, but I do know that you have to go out of the country to get that. It's not like an approved methodology. I'm not saying that it doesn't work. I'm just saying it's not, it's not something that they do here in the United States, but they do it in other countries. So if you know other countries, you guys let Angier know. I wish I did know, but I just know it's not here. Anthony says I seem to fuel my cravings against my own will. Not anymore. Anthony, you have the solutions. Those cravings have no power over you. That first thought that pops in there, that triggers that craving, you can't control that first thought, but you can control that second and third one. You can get back in the driver's seat very quickly. C CV says my husband was a functioning alcoholic for years now fully alcohol dependent. He wrecked his car and now wants to drive mine. We both, we co own both cars. Should I refuse to give him the keys? You guys let CCV know what you think about that. That's a tough question. Especially when he's gonna say, well, we co. I like my name's on that car too or something like that. It's be gonna to be a difficult, difficult conversation to have. Hey Yogi. Hey Luana and Daniela from Brazil. Why cravings always stronger after meditation do to cure psychosis caused by substance use. Hold on, I'm like totally confused by what this is saying here. Cravings always stronger after meditation to cure psychosis. Are you saying meditation or, or are you saying medication? Are you saying that, that the medication for the psychosis causes more cravings? I haven't heard that before. I'm not sure. Does anybody in here having experience? I know soberlink would be perfect for my alcoholic spouse. He tries to quit and repeatedly, repeatedly relapses won't agree to treatment. Should I buy soberlink for him without his proof? Absolutely not. You should talk to your spouse about the Sober Link because not only would you be buying a device and if he doesn't do it, then you wasted your money. And it's not, it's not like super cheap. But with Sober Link it's kind of like a cell phone. You have to get the device and you also like have to sign up for the monitoring service like you do like a cell service. So you want to get the person on board before you do this. And I have some videos where I talk about soberlink and talk about how to have this conversation. But you want to use soberlink as a preventative. For those of you who don't know, Serverlink is an alcohol monitoring device. Our video that just came out on Tuesday is about talks about soberlink. It's not about soberlink, but it does talk about soberlink. So if you're interested in that, check out the video from Tuesday that was just released. You definitely want to get permission. You don't want to do, you don't want to do something like that. That's just going to start a fight in our argument. But it, but you can talk to them about it. Especially if what you're saying is your spouse wants to quit but keeps having relapses. Then, then your spouse may very well be open to that. Especially if you present it as an alternative to going to treatment. You might even be more open to that. So try that. Anthony says, I just need a library of your videos and you should be good. Well, you are in luck. There is a monster library of them right here on YouTube. There's so many of them I can't even remember them all. And I do have them in playlist, which sometimes is helpful for you. Hey, Saran, DJ mystic says I was sober for 95 days and relapsed for five days. Now sober again for two days and never looking back. I like it. That is wonderful. You can't erase your 95 days. You took a break and you, you figured out in those five days, it's still no good in there. I like to say. Yeah, still sucks, still doesn't work. And you, it just made you remember why you wanted to stop. And you get right back on track. And now you're on day 97, right? She had 95, you lost five, but now you've got two more. So in my mind, you're on day 97. Very nice. Does Prozac make alcohol cravings worse? I've never heard that before. Has anyone heard that before? That's not something I've heard. Let's see here. Married a long time, says I quit smoking 20 plus years ago. What got me realizing was I was a slave to the cigarettes. The five Ds. Distract, delay. Deny, deep breath, drink water. Oh, I like it. The five Ds that's easy to remember. Distract, Delay. Delay is also a really good method. I'm glad you brought that one in here. Delay is like when you say, you're not saying, I won't ever do it, but you're saying, I'm not gonna do it right now. I'll think about that again after dinner. I'll think about that again tomorrow. Because it can be easy to put it off. And by the time you put it off and, and then you distract while you put it off a lot of times. The craving goes away and then it becomes a non issue. So I really like the, the delay strategy. MF. Hey, Amber. Hey, MF. I really appreciate your YouTubes. My boyfriend is in rehab at day 20. He's doing great and has another 10 days there. I know when he comes out, life is going to be difficult. Well, here's what I want to say, mf. You find what you're looking for. So while I want you to be realistic about what life will be like when it comes out, I don't want you to go into it with your head in a negative place because you can sort of like inadvertently, subconsciously create a negative situation. So I want you to be positive for, for their sake and for your sake. So, yeah, 20 days in rehab. They're doing great. They've got 10 more. The fact that they've been willing to stay a whole 30 days tells me that they're really trying. So I want you and them to come at it with a positive attitude. Everybody wants to talk all this crap about how no one beats addiction and the, the, the recovery rates are so low. Dude, like, I see people beat this thing every single day. And what's amazing about it is once they really get their head wrapped around it and they put their mind to it and they're really ready, they're just done. They move back, they move on. They don't look back. They're happy and they become better, happier, more productive, more spiritually connected human beings. People get better from this thing every single day. If they didn't, I wouldn't be wasting my time and my breath doing all this. But I promise you, they do. Lots and lots and lots and lots of people get better. Mega Jane says, so don't reminisce. That is correct. No war story and no remember and when. No fantasizing, no calling up your old using buddies and telling funny stories. That's a bad plan. Don't do it. You rock. You rock to Yogi. Let's see, MF says that you're from la, btw. Will you be back here anytime soon? Would love to meet you. No, I won't. I mean, I'm not gonna say I won't be back in la. I don't have any plans to be back in la, but hopefully I'll get to come back out there sometime. I do have some preliminary plans to be in Arkansas in November, like the very beginning part of November. So if you live in that area, like the part about Arkansas, I think this like really close to Memphis. So I'll Tell more you guys more about that when we get closer. But it'll be a chance to get to meet you guys who live in that area of the country. I like this right here with be the rabble says short term relapse equals research mission. Yep. Still sucks. Beck is ready. That's right. It's just a confirmation. Nope, still sucks in here. Still ends the same every time. I don't think I like this. That's right. Do cultural differences affect counseling? I'm sure that cultural differences can affect counseling. No doubt. I would say probably as much as cultural differences, personality differences, because counseling is about a relationship. And what is most important is to just have a person that you relate to that you like, that you. That you connect to on a personal level. If you don't connect to your counselor on a personal level, it's just really hard to let your guard down far enough to get, like, honest and in depth and trust enough. Going to get really good stuff out of counseling. So personality and relationship definitely matter when it comes to counseling. Not so much when it comes to, like, psychiatry and doctors. Well, if your psychiatrist does counseling, that's different. But most of them just do the medicine. I say, you know, if they're a good doctor and they know what they're doing, you're in there 15 minutes, tell them what's going on. You're in, you're out, whatever. You don't have to, you know, they don't have to be your best friend, but your counselor. Not your best friend, but you do need to trust them as a person. So relationship matters. Let's see here. I'm Asian, and now in the US I tried to do counseling for my addicted son. It didn't work because of the culture at home and outside. So my question is, do I need to find an Asian counselor for him? What you're saying is you found a counselor for your son, but there seem to be cultural differences. I'd probably almost want to hear a little bit more about the situation. Is it. Is it Joy T. Am I saying that right? I feel like I'm saying that wrong. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that. Is it. Is it really the culture? Is it? Timing has a lot to do with counseling. Is it personality? I bet there are more factors involved. I'd need to learn more to hear, to be able to give you like a. A more accurate, effective piece of advice on that. But ask your son. Ask your son why he thinks it didn't work. And listen, is he telling you why you really think this doesn't work or is he just saying, like, I just don't want to do counseling because I don't want to quit. Like you got to kind of weed through that and figure out what's what. Found your videos after my husband let me know he had been using drugs for over a year without my knowledge. They have helped me get through this and he has been working on sobriety for three months. I love it. Thank you so much for the positive feedback on the videos, but. But also just for sharing the positive progress that you're making. Because like I said, people need to hear that. People want to talk a bunch of negative crap about people don't get better from addiction. That's ridiculous. People get better all the time and we need to hear stories like this. Thank you for sharing that. As a licensed mental health professional in a residency and recovery and recovering alcohol addict, I truly appreciate your videos. I benefit personally and I also recommend your videos to my clients, family and friends. Hey, thank you. I always appreciate anyone's positive feedback advice. It keeps me going. You need, you need a little positive feedback to keep going sometimes. But I really appreciate it from someone who's in recovery and even more from someone who's in the field. It really means, really means a lot. And I, I appreciate that, the positive feedback and the sharing the videos. And I appreciate you for being another soldier out there fighting this issue. We need as many soldiers as we can get. Thank you. Shabiz. Serene says the principle of contribution is deeply embedded in the 12 step programs. I've come from the clean ashtrays generation. You come from the clean asterisk generation, like from the 80s where they. And maybe even the 90s or they had the smoking in the rooms. Yes, it is. It is deeply embedded in the 12 step tradition. It is the 12th step. Right. Continue to carry the message. That's one form of contribution. But there are many other forms of contribution that aren't sort of spelled out really directly. But. But just like you're saying, it's sort of what woven in, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly into those steps. You're exactly right. And. And for those of you don't like the steps, that's cool. You don't have to do the steps, but you do have to do the contribution. Find your own way of doing it. If you do it, it works. If you do it through the swepts, that's cool too. Reach out to someone in our church who's a counselor at. Is it Minnesota Adult Teen Challenge. He'd prefer if My husband reached out to him for counseling through our church. My husband has definitely contemplated it, but then doesn't. Is it bad if I have a counselor send my husband a text and reach out to him first? He's had nine weeks of sobriety with no outside help and relapsed two days ago over his 50th birthday. Now sober again for about a week and a half. If you. So my answer to that is, it's okay to do that. If your husband gives you permission to do that, say, hey, is it okay if I give them your contact information? If your husband says yes, then do it. If your husband says no, then don't do it. Because your big priority is to do the best you can. Sometimes you can't always. But whenever possible, you want to remain in alliance and let them know you're on their side. You are not going behind their back. You're there to be helpful, not to force anything that creates the trust. And your husband may say, yeah, that's totally fine, you know, and that might just be just that little nudge he needs to take the big step. So totally do it, but ask first. Shabiz has a piece of feedback about the culture. Culture is definitely a factor. However, I found that I've been able to establish rapport with diverse people from diverse backgrounds and diverse settings. It's truly about congruence and being genuine. I totally agree with Shabiz here. Like, it's funny, but in my practice, I mostly see. I see all kinds of people. I do see young people and adults, but I tend to see a lot of, like, men, businessmen who drink too much. And are they different than me? They're very different than me. They come from different backgrounds, me. But the thing of it is being human is being human. And we're all a lot more alike than we are different. And so if you can get someone that can be genuine and authentic, you're going to be able to find those things alike. Now a lot of times clients talk to me about things I don't understand. Whether it's like sports, business, culture, and I think it's great. I just ask them all about it and they tell me all about it and it becomes a non issue. They enjoy telling me about it. I'm curious about it. And then it makes it not weird. I say, well, what is that like? Well, what are the expectations like, well, how did, how would your family do this? And then it kind of removes it. It's about the connection. Emma says, is there a way to do a phone consultation? With you. We do offer phone consultations, virtual, like via Zoom, and we do offer email consultations as well. You can go on our website and look at those. There are options do that with me. But there are also options to do that with our family specialists like Campbell and Kim and Scott, who are also awesome. I will tell you this. If you're a family member, a lot of times family members, because you guys see me mostly on the videos, and so people are like, oh, I want to talk to you, because I feel like I know you. The other counselors, my family counselors are fantastic. And a lot of times people will call me for the consult as the family member, and they're like, I just need support. I need help getting through this. I'm like, man, you should have talked to Ken or Campbell or Scott, because they got your back. When you call me up, I'm gonna talk to you about your addicted loved one. I'm gonna say, this is what they need. If. If you need some support as the family member, you want somebody to be on your side and help you hold boundaries and see your point of view. You want to talk to one of them. I mean, I got your back as much as possible, but my brain immediately goes to what the addicted person needs, because that's the person that I spend most of my time dealing with. And my brain just immediately analyzes that. Whereas Kim and Campbell and Scott, they think about what you need. They got your side. They're your lawyer. So keep that in mind for anyone who wants to book a con station. But, yes, you can do that. Let's see. My husband don't stopped. My husband don't stop to use substitutes. Every time he stopped using his drugs of choice, then he uses more and more. A few months, relapses over and over again. He's on Suboxone. Any recommendations is what you're saying. Is what you're saying is your husband. When. When your husband stops one thing, they end up using something else. I think that's what you're saying, but I'm not sure that could be part of the bargaining process that I talk so much. If you seen any of my videos on the stages of change, you might have heard me talk about the bargaining, the trial and error, the cutting it back, the use this and not that. It's all part of the bargaining process. And does it work? No. But is it. But it is necessary to sort of move through all that trial and error to get out to the other side. So if you haven't seen those videos on Stages of change and bargaining and that kind of thing. Definitely check those out and it'll help. You can't skip that stage, but you can speed it along and those videos will help you figure out how to do that. The finisher says. Are there certain protocols you recommend when dealing with someone who has CPTSD as well as addiction? Cptsd, it's hard to say. It's a mouthful. Stands for complex post Traumatic stress disorder. And for those of you don't know what that is, it's like most people know what PTSD is, where something like really terrible happens and it like, jacks up your alarm system, your anxiety system, like you went to war, like you were assaulted, like you were in a natural disaster earthquake or something. That's called ptsd. But when you live in more of, like a longer term, ongoing, really bad, unsafe environment, like childhood abuse that went on forever, like having addictive parents, something like that, then they call that. It's called a complex trauma. So it's not one single event. It's like a big, long time period in your life where things are really jacked up. It can mess you up. So my advice on what to do with that is with almost any other mental health situation outside of, like, active psychosis or active, like, suicidality, outside of those things, you want to deal with the addiction first, first followed closely with the mental health or sometimes simultaneously. What won't work is having an addiction and, like, having a trauma or something like that and then trying to work on the trauma, thinking that if you resolve the trauma, the addiction will go away. By the time you've engaged in addictive behavior long enough that it becomes its own addiction, it is its own problem. And it won't just go away even if you remove the, like, precipitating factor. So you got to do it at the same time. If you got to do one first, you do the addiction first and then that with the exception of major, like, instability mental health, like somebody's not thinking straight at all. Like you can't even talk to them rationally, like active psychosis or something like that. In that case, you do that first and then the addiction. I hope that's helpful. I do have videos where I talk more in depth about that if you want to check them out. My addicted loved one is so resistant to change and in denial. What is the best balance between focusing on my life and avoiding him and continue to learn about addiction in hopes of helping someday? It's hard. I don't want to give up. But I'm also Exhausted of it. Even though I love listening to you, you're so right. It is this balance of taking care of yourself and then letting them come out of denial. The letting them come out of denial is a sort of a formula, a combination of things which involves empathy, positive reinforcement and natural consequences. So it means you let the bad things happen. You don't make the punishments, you just let the natural crap happen. The messes that they're making, you let them make those messes. And when they make those messes, when you are empathetic about it, you create trust relationship, you positively reinforce moves in the right direction. And that is the combination that gets someone out of denial. I'm not sure if you are in our invisible intervention program, but if you're not, that's the kind of thing that we teach in there. It's like it takes down that formula I just told you in that quick version and breaks it down into step by step by step, exactly what to do and when, when to say what things, how to say it, all that kind of stuff to get someone out of that denial state. And it also, in the invisible intervention focuses on the taking care of you. But you're right, it's a balancing act. The more you take care of you, the more resilience and energy and fuel you're going to have in your tank to be able to do the things that they need to help them. If you don't take care of you, you're not going to be able to help them. You don't take care of you, you're probably going to end up making them worse. Even though you're trying really hard not to. You got to have the fuel to be able to do that. NASA says I now. I am right now in Los Angeles, California. My son lives here right now and he is homeless. We are here to see him. We think he's not ready to live in sober living. He made the decision to try methadone. I would still try NASA. I would still try. If you're there and you have regular communication contact, I would still try some of those techniques that we're talking about in the invisible intervention or I've got a whole playlist about getting someone out of denial. I would try those things. Some of its communication techniques, some of it's positive reinforcement, those kind of things to help someone move through those stages of change. All right, up next, I want you to watch this playlist, which is all about relapse prevention. When you put together those techniques with this technique we talked about today about craving now you have a really good relapse prevention program. I'm going to put those videos up here for you next. I will see everybody next Thursday at 1. And don't forget, as always, there are more resources in the description. Thanks for hanging out. Enjoyed it.