Don't Let Their Addiction Consume Everything!

Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's Live. So today I'm going to be talking about how to help you guys not get completely consumed with living with someone that struggles with addiction. So I know that that's a big ask and it's really impossible at times because what happens is we do kind of get pulled into the drama. We try not to. And the hope and the goal is that, is that we don't do that. But the truth of the matter is sometimes we do. And so what I want to do is I really want to educate you guys on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Some of you guys might know this. It's been around since the 40s. It's a very well known theory. So what I want to do though, is I just want to look at the three, the bottom three, and then I want to be able to kind of plug in where we come in and kind of where. What I mean by where we come in is kind of the strategies. A lot of what we try to appeal to is actually on the third level. So. So that means that from a neurological standpoint, we have to keep our brain really calm. Getting the first level of the needs met, the second level of the needs met, and then really appeal to the third level. That's hard. That's really, really hard. And so what I want to do is I want to be able to educate you guys on what those levels are, be able to give you guys some strategies on how to get those needs met, and also be able just to give you guys some education on why you might stumble in getting to the third level. So the first thing I want to do is I just want to really reiterate that we learn through repetition. And so you learn to drive by driving a lot. You learn to speak by speaking a lot. So this is really, really important to remember. We learn through repetition. And this includes our brain. The quicker we go down a brain pathway, the quicker we go down it. And I know that sounds silly, but it's really repetition. It's if I am used to constantly, you know, looking a certain way when I'm crossing a road, because that's what I'm used to doing. That's what I'm going to do until I train myself not to do that anymore. And it's true when we, when our. With our stress system is true with how we engage with our loved ones. So let's kind of go into. Let's kind of just go into what, what these Maslow's hierarchy of needs are. And again, it's you know, someone had mentioned on here, this is where I've been focusing on. You know, we all get psychology 101. Exactly. That's exactly it. So the first thing is our psychological or, I'm sorry, our physiological needs. And so our physiological needs are breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep. I want to really pause here for a second, though, because I want you guys to think about what I just said. Breathing is one of those. Guess what happens when we get stressed out? We stop breathing. We. We literally have shortness of breath. We don't have enough air in our body. So even just pausing at the very most basic one, which is breath, when we are living with someone that struggles with addiction, guess what? They literally take our breath away, which means right there, we're coming in at a deficit. So the other one I really want to focus on, though, is shelter. And so a lot of people that are struggling with this disease, their jobs are impacted. Their ability to perform or provide for the family is negatively impacted. So as a loved one that you have also plugged into the system that affects you. Because again, our most basic needs are food, shelter, breathing, water, access to these things. And so, of course, if somebody is struggling with addiction, these needs are very much jeopardized at times. The second one is safety and security. And this includes health, employment, property, family, and social ability. And so, again, to kind of go back into what I said before with the employment, that's a really big deal. Health is a really big deal. Because again, if we know that our loved one is suffering and their health is suffering, we see their blood pressure going up, we see their body changing, we see their liver enzymes changing, then we know, hey, you know what? Guess what? We, as a loved one, our basic needs have now just been hit because our health is also attached to their health. Our safety is also attached to their safety. Our ability to show up in the world and have our basic needs met are 100% in correlation with theirs. Because especially if I'm dealing with a partner where we have dual finances, housing, raising kids, any of these things, you can see how just looking at these basic primal needs, they are impacted. So this is the third one, because remember what I said before, a lot of our strategy focuses on this third level, which I'm about to talk about. But these are needs as humans. They are motivated from the bottom level up. So if I don't have food, if my kids don't have food, guess what? I'm probably going to steal. I'm not typically a stealer. I don't I would not consider myself a thief. I did steal my best friend's Barbie ring in second grade. I apologize profusely. I do have that theft under my belt, but typically I don't steal. But if my kids haven't eaten, I'll steal. I have no doubt in my mind I would go to the grocery store and I would steal without a doubt, hope I wouldn't get caught. But I can guarantee you that that will probably happen, as most people watching that would probably. Yeah, you're probably nodding your head. And the fact that, yeah, you would too. Because you think about our basic primal needs. When these things are impacted, we do things we typically wouldn't do. Our brain goes into that survival, those survival pieces up there. And so we do things we wouldn't typically do. So we've got our basic needs here. So then we move to number three, which is love and belonging. And one of the things that I think is really, really important that Brene Brown points out, and this is that this is our most irreducible human need. I'm going to say that again. This is our most irreducible human need. Going back into food and shelter. I don't have to live in a fancy home. I don't have to eat super expensive food. If it comes down to eating or not, food is food, a shelter is a shelter. I may not like it, but I can reduce my needs. I can reduce my clothing needs, my food needs, my shelter needs, my leisure needs, I can reduce those down to next to nothing. But with love and belonging, it's our most irreducible human need. And what goes into this is friendship, family, intimacy, and a sense of connection. And so you think about when we are in a relationship with someone that struggles with addiction, our intimacy, our friendship, our connection, they are all negatively impacted. We lose contact with friends because they. We feel that they're judging us. We lose contact with friends because we just don't have the time or the effort. And even though they don't mean to tax us, just them calling us sometimes can tax us. So you can hear on that. With the friendship starts to go down, the intimacy starts to go down. Our partner isn't able to meet our needs because again, they're struggling with addiction, which becomes their number one need. The addiction goes into their number one base need on that. And so when we are living with somebody that struggles with addiction, these needs are very negatively impacted. And remember what I said, we as humans, we learn through repetition. So the more we learn this, the more we figure out ways to manage Manage it. The more we repeat this and the more our lives are negatively impacted. So I want you to think about the whole. The topic of today is to not lose your life, to not lose other parts of your life, not to let the whole thing just crumble down because you're in a relationship with someone that struggles with addiction. So if we can look at this in a way of just looking at it from the psychological standpoint that we have to be able to recognize, hey, if I'm worried about my housing, I'm probably not going to be the most connected to other people. So what do I need to do not to worry about my housing? If I'm constantly concerned about their employment, I'm not going to be able to connect with other people. What this means though is if you think about a lot of the strategies that we teach here, it's being able to come in kind. It's being able to come in and really pull on that connection. The opposite of addiction is connection. But if we ourselves are trying to get these two bottom layers, we're not going to be able to come in with a connection. And that's the whole point that I want you guys to think about today. And it really is simple, it really is basic. And going back to the Psychology 101 comment, you're right. But sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we forget that we really, if we don't pay attention to our basic needs, we cannot evolve and we can't come up to the connection need. So if someone is living in a place of desperation or they're living in a place where they are trying to get these basic needs met, they are going to fail at trying to connect with their addicted loved one every time. And so when you think about how do you maintain a life where you can have this connection? When people say you have to have your battery charged or put your oxygen mask on first or any of those things, this is what they're saying. Because if we don't have these needs met, the rest of it won't happen. We will live in desperation, we will live in judgment, we will live in all kinds of ways to try to help us find this sense of safety. So let's see, I've got a question down here I want to pop up because I think it's a good one. When we lose intimacy, how do I not let it make me feel not good enough? Good question. That's a great question. Because what happens there with this? I think it's a two part answer. One, we don't take it personally. And I know that that sounds ridiculous and super hard, but we really, we try our best not to take it personally because I promise you, it's not personal. It's not because you're not enough. It's because their brain isn't able to connect. And the second part of this is we find intimacy in other ways. We try to connect in other ways. I'm not saying, you know, start an inappropriate relationship, but I am saying connect where you can connect. This might be with friends, it might be with family. This is also a really good plugin for recovery support systems. Rather it's smart recovery or Al Anon or something through your church or just a good friend, but being able to really say, hey, I have to be able to plug in somewhere. And as long as I am able to be as long, as long as these other two thresholds have been met, then I have to be able to plug in somewhere for that connection. That's a really good question. And it's not. It's not a simple answer. It's really hard to do. But the very, very, very first thing on that, and I can't stress it enough, is you do not take it personally because I promise you, you could be everything right under the sun and this person still wouldn't be able to connect with you because of what's happening in their brain, not because what's happening or isn't happening on your side. So I'm going to just kind of want to. Again, just quickly wanted to remind you guys of this. It's not anything new. It's just sometimes it's really helpful to get a reminder and the fact that, hey, if I'm trying really hard to turn the other cheek, to be kind, to connect with intimacy, but I'm not doing a very good job or I feel like. I feel like I'm not quite hitting the mark, then I want you to back up a little bit and I want you to be able to really just think about, you know, where. Where are my basic needs being met? Like, really, truly think about this. So many people I talk to, when I have this conversation with them, they really start to notice just basic things that they just kind of let go on their side. So let's see what we've got here. I'm going to start at the top and then kind of move down. All right, so rhythm. After hubby said that he was going to give up drinking for two months, we re engaged and never stopped. I'm sorry. He re engaged and never stopped. I'm so tired. My Friend. She's a good friend. She's not been mean. Told me that I shouldn't stay with him. I expect him to stop drinking because that's not going to happen. But let me read this real quick. But though his. Okay if I work the program. But it's. But it's hard dealing with his mood swings and especially how angry he gets at me over everything he takes. Yep. Accountability, responsibility, behavior. Will that dynamic. The next one over here. Will that dynamic. Lost it. Okay. Sorry. This is a long one. I'm kind of. I might have to go back and just kind of read it and then answer it. RH I will come back. I want to make sure that I get that one correctly. Okay, I knew that. So this is Jennifer. I knew this theory, but never thought to use it. Here. How silly. Thank you. And it, it is a really. I mean, it's a. It's a. Like I said before, it's a very basic theory. This is not new information. It's just sometimes we forget how to plug in the information that we already have. So certainly, you know, certainly nothing there. All right, so let's look at this one. My son is in housing. It's hard for me to read it once I show it. So my son in. My son in housing. And I go to check on him and give him food. He uses fentanyl and many times can't do basic things. Is it heart wrenching yet to come back home and feeling so deeply sad? It is. It's really, really hard to see someone that we love struggling in this way. And so being able, you know, being able to. This is where the kindness comes in. If it's not enabling to be kind, it's not enabling to help with the basic needs. It doesn't. It. That's not what that is. And so what this looks like is that you really are your mom. Hearts being pulled. It's hard to see him in this. And it is heart wrenching. And so I hope that when you go home that you're able to find some. Some connection somewhere, because that's a really, really difficult situation. This one up here, we all need hugs, no matter how hard it is to get them. That's true. We do. We all need lots of hugs. And even with intimacy, though, I think it's important to be able to look at intimacy comes in lots of different ways. It can come in physical intimacy, it can come in friendship. It can come in romantic intimacy. But you're right, we. We really, really need it. And this is where I want to Be able to stress, really, really stress that when you're having a moment with your loved one, it doesn't even have to be a good moment. Like, and this is, you know, your, the moments with your loved one that's struggling with addiction. It doesn't have to be a great moment. Go in for a hug, go in for a handhold, go, go in, sit close on the couch, watch a show. Like, if things aren't really, really, really escalated. Physical touch is a wonderful way to connect. And so I know for a lot of people it feels really weird because there's been so many, so many fights or so many unkind things have been said, or you're walking on eggshells all the time. And so once we get out of the habit of actually touching one another, it feels weird to start to touch again. But if I think that, I think it's good, I think it's important that we maintain that connection and that touch every time that we can. And again, if you're in the middle of a huge, huge fight, that's not a good time to do it. But this is a really good reminder right here, not taking it personally as one of those brain repetition techniques. But sadly, I keep relapsing. I know this is a really, really hard one because it's natural for us. And this goes back to the survival piece is that as humans we're geared for survival. This is our strongest part of our brain. We have this thing called the window of tolerance. The window of tolerance basically says, okay, I can tolerate this, this discomfort. And we all have a certain window, kind of like a, like a. Well, it is, it's a window of tolerance. So what happens though is once we get out of the window of tolerance, we can either be hypo reactive or hyper reactive. Hypo reactive means that we slow down, we get kind of in a people pleasing, we might freeze. But the hypo, or I'm sorry, the hyper is when we fight or we, or we literally want to run away. And so. And again, going back to what you're saying there about the brain repetition, not taking it personally kind of goes into that because is these snap judgments that we make. And so if they're treating us this way, it's a natural brain repetition to be able to say, oh, it must be my fault. Until we train our brain not to do this. And the more we train our brain not to do this, our window of tolerance for this type of thing increases. And this, we don't want to tolerate the intolerable. So Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. But also being able to say, I can tolerate this within my window of tolerance, but then I have to be able to be really clear on the fact of, hey, I'm getting out of my window of tolerance. I'm going into my stre system. And this is what I had talked about on Monday a little bit. But I'm going into my stress system. And now that I'm out of my window of tolerance, I need to take a break. I need to kind of calm back and to get into my window of tolerance. And so you're right. Not taking it personally is definitely one of these techniques that we have to do through repetition. It is very, very difficult and impossible at times, depending on what they're saying or what's coming at us. But being able to recognize, hey, I can, I can do this, I can practice it, I can do my best. It doesn't mean I'm going to ace it every, but I can certainly practice it and do my best. Okay, let's see if I have any more comments before I come back to. Let's see. Before I come back to the one that I said I would come back to. Let's see. Judy, their brain, Their brain has a tendency to close off all of their potential supports. You are so right, Judy, 100%. And it gets very, very jealous. A hundred percent. And when you say there, I'm assuming you're talking about the person that's struggling with addiction. Because again, the way that the brain is wired when someone is in addiction, it really is just anti connection. Just don't come near me, don't connect with me. The addiction thrives in isolation. It thrives and feeling like they've been wronged. And so you are 100% correct on that. We have another one up here. It's very difficult to detach when your husband has been your best friend for years and this illness takes over and shakes the core of the relationship. Any suggestions on what to do about this? That you, you're again, very, very, very true. Everything that you guys are saying is true, which is what makes this such a very terrible, horrible thing to, to engage in and to know what to do. And so what I would say on this is I think detaching is a really important thing. But for me, when I think of detaching, I think of detaching. When you're out of the window of tolerance, when you're in the window of tolerance, to be able to say this is an ideal, I'M not loving it. I'm not having the best day of my life. This is not how I want to spend this moment of my time. But I'm regular regulated enough to be in it. Then you okay, be in that moment. But know that if your tolerance is five minutes, try to leave it four and a half minutes. If you know your tolerances up until the point where they start to do certain things that makes your skin crawl, go up until you get safely enough to that and then get out of that. Because once you get out of that window of tolerance, you're going to self sabotage or you're going to accidentally do something that's going to make the situation worse. So my, my advice on that is to be able to recognize that everything you just said is 100% true. So you're going to have a lot of grief in that. And we don't want to deny grief. We don't have to park our car in it. But we also have to be able to recognize it is there and it will take over and this illness will. The more this illness takes your husband, the more grief you are going to have. So I would say as far as the suggestions on what to do about your needs is you plug into people that can plug back into you and you have a really strong awareness of what this means for you and what you have lost. And then maybe what you can do, not to replace it and not to supplement it, but to also kind of say, what else can I put on my plate because this other massive, wonderful thing has been taken away without my permission. Let's see. Going back to housing and basic needs hugs, even during COVID air ones count as. I'm sorry, air ones count as well. Very true, very true, Judy. So being able to get that support as far as where we can get it from and who we can get it from. And you that you actually Judy, you mentioned as you say that it clicks my brain over to something else, which is our limbic system. This is why group therapy works is because our limbic system connects to another person's limbic system. And once our limbic system says, hey, I'm not the only one, somebody else gets it. Guess what? Our nervous system starts to calm down. So you're right. Going back to the housing and the basic needs hugs, even during COVID just being able to say I'm not the only one that has struggled with this. It normalizes it and therefore it regulates that part of our brain. Let's see, Marie, I feel that I'm going to have to unshow it because I can't read it when I show it. I feel that I'll have to try really hard to ignore the situation to be able to at least begin my own needs. Is that wrong? Not at all. I feel that my reality right now, because I can't do it. See if there's more. So to answer that first part of the question, because I can't do it any. Any other way. I've already tried everything, and I can't concentrate in any other thing. And all the things that the addiction my husband brings to the home is spending years. I think what you're doing there is. What you described to me in those words are. And basically, I know I kind of mumbled my way through the last of the question, but basically she's asking, is it okay to ignore the situation, that she. That she's really losing concentration in other parts of her life, that she's really struggling with keeping the rest of her life intact and alive. So I would say no. At this point, what you're doing is you're putting your oxygen mask on first. And I know you've heard that. I'm assuming you've heard that phrase before, but what it means is you just. You're out of your window of tolerance. And when we're out of our window of tolerance, then we're going back into the hyper or the hypo reactive. And so what I'm hearing you say is in order for me to stay in my window of tolerance, I just have to not. I just. I can't deal with anything that the addiction is bringing. And I think that the awareness is wonderful on that. Get yourself in a position where you feel more. Where you feel more regulated. This might take a month, it might take six months. But being able to ignore the chaos, there is nothing wrong with that. I would much rather you be neutral than anything else. And you can even. You can say it. You can say, I'm just really struggling with my own energy, or I'm just having a hard time concentrating, you know, so you can put words around it. You don't even have to qualify or bring him into it. You can just say, I am struggling with blah, blah, blah, and then stop talking. He may try to rope you in. He may even try to weaponize that. And at that point, this is where I think it's okay for you to kind of nod your head and say, okay. I can see why you might think that, or kind of align or validate if it's. That's not abusive. And then remove yourself from that situation. Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to maximize your window of tolerance that you can actually live in. Let's see. Okay. We've been high school sweethearts and married a few years back. One year after our wedding, this illness starting putting its hooks into him. Okay. I'm not sure if there's more on that or if it's a little bit higher up there. Okay. It's very difficult to detach when your husband has been your best friend. Yes. So that was a. That was an add on to that. Yes, it is. So. And the longer the relationship, the deeper the relationship, the harder. The harder it is. And so, and this is the detaching part, I think is important. Just like I've said before, when you're out of your window of tolerance, when you're in your window of tolerance, connect where you can, even if the connection is somewhat superficial, because their ability to their brain is different than yours. Their. Their brain is functioning different than it was when it wasn't in the addiction. So the connection will look different and it. And it will be less than. But I think being able to. And the whole point of kind of introducing this information to you guys today is to be able to say, let's get your brain fueled up on what it needs so that you can do some of the other strategies that we talk about a lot on this channel. The other thing I just want to mention real quickly too, is our membership, Campbell and I, what we're teaching in the membership, it's really a skills based membership. And so what we're trying to do are two things in there. One, we're trying to hit the connection need because addiction is such a lonely experience. And so we're trying to be able to create a community where you guys can interact with one another and you have a little bit more access to us to be able to get that connection. The other thing is to be able to say in real time, hey, what am I supposed to do with this? So this thing has happened in my house and my family and my relationship with my kitchen. I what do I do with this in real time? And so the membership is really kind of geared towards that skills training. What do I do? How do I do it? And then the connection to be able to kind of encourage that as well. So I did want to kind of let you guys know. I know that I. In my last talk, I did not do a good job of describing what the membership is and what it's for. And So I just wanted to let you guys know that. Okay, so let me go back to RH and read this really quickly so that I can answer the question. Looks like there were lots of pieces of it, so I'm just gonna skim real quick. He re engaged after stopping. I'm so tired. My. Okay, so we read that part. I expect him to stop drinking because that's not going to happen. But though this, through this course, I feel that connection is the opposite of addiction and that he has the best chance of quitting if I work the program. But it's hard dealing with his mood swings and especially how he is angry at me over everything and takes no accountability, responsibility for any of his behavior. I can definitely see that. Will this dynamic ever change? I'm getting exhausted by staying in my own lane, as hard as it is. Okay, that's a really, really good question. So will the dynamic ever change? Yes. Because what we know about this disease is it never stays the same. It will get worse or it will get better, but it will never stay the same. And so your job on this, with depending, you know, it sounds like you're doing a really good job of staying in your lane, what you're doing here, just so that you remember in your own. Going back to your safety. Because what I'm hearing on this, going back into Maslow's hierarchy of needs, your safety and security, you feel like that's being threatened because again, your safety and security is your health, your employment, your family, your ability to socially perform. And so you're tired. I can see that. And then being able to even just say, we do this in. We do this in a step order. So we have to have some step one, step two, and step three. So your love and belonging needs are also being harmed with this. So to answer your question, will it ever change? Yes, it will. And if you're getting exhausted, then maybe, maybe you need to plug in some other places. But from a strategy standpoint, what you're doing is you're holding still, you're staying in your lane so that. So that your partner can start to see that his life is out of control, that you are not the problem, that the relationship is not the problem, that things in his life are starting to spiral out of control. This can take a long time, but you're. You're intentionally sitting on your hands so that this can happen. If things happen out of bounds, by all means, call them out. But call them out in an appropriate way and be very selective on what you call out, why you called it out and how you're going to call it out. And that's kind of where that skills based stuff comes in. If you're calling it out because you just can't handle it anymore, don't call it out. Call a friend. If you're calling it out because it's a safety issue, because you feel like something is devolving and you need to be able to address it, then there are, there are ways that you can call that out. And I do think it's important to be able to recognize that there does come a point when we're sitting on our hands and we're not doing much, that we do have to be a little bit more proactive. And it's different in every situation to know when is the time to be proactive and when is the time to sit on your hands. I hope that that answers your question. Okay, so let's see if there's any more questions and if there are, I'll answer those and then I will let you guys get back to your day. Let's see. If I struggle to meet my own basic needs even before my partner's addictions, what's my best approach for learning? Now? That's a really good question. I would say on that awareness is always the first step. And so being able to say, if you have the awareness to know that you struggled meeting your own basic needs, then so now knowing, hey, I'm actually going to struggle a little bit more because this is. It's constantly like being in a relationship with someone that struggles with addiction. You guys don't need me to say this, but I mean, it's helpful to put words around things. It's like having somebody bang a bunch of pots and pans over here while you're trying to read a book. It is distracting. It takes away the joy, it takes away the quality of a lot of things. So being able to say for you specifically, I would say it would be really good to be able to identify what do I need to be able to just base survive what needs to be in check. And I would put that on a hardcore list that you check into every day, whatever, and keep it small. Maybe there's two things, maybe there's three things at the most. So maybe you need to focus on, you know, what exactly am I going to eat today? And you're part of, part of making sure that your basic needs are met is just saying, hey, I need to make sure that I eat or I need to make sure that, you know, that my finances are in check. I know for me that if I feel like my finances are out of check, guess what? Everything else feels like it's out of my window of tolerance. And so to be able to know yourself well enough to know what is it that gets me out of check and out of balance. And if we can identify just a couple of those, we don't need to identify all of them, but just the big ones, then we will in our window of tolerance longer. And it really is like a muscle, the more we do it, the stronger it gets and the easier it is to do that. I hope that answered your question. Love the phrase out of. Out of the. Out of your window of tolerance. Me too. I think that's a great one. I like that one a lot. Good. Nancy, she said that the slide helps. I'm happy to hear that. And then these lives are my lifeline is, you know, the. And I think that's true for so many people that they're in a relationship with someone that struggles with addiction. Because again, remember, with these hierarchy of needs, love and belonging is our most irreducible need. And guess what? Most of the time, the people that we are talking to, these are people, these are your primary relationships. Because if this wasn't your primary relationship, your life wouldn't be consumed by it. But so when I say that we have to be able to have our physiological needs met and then our safety, safety needs met, we can reduce these really, really small love and belonging, not so much. We can't reduce that. And chances are, if you're watching this, if you're on this channel, if you're learning these things, it's because this is one of your primary relationships. And so when RH Says these lives are my lifeline. Oh, and I'm assuming you mean these lives now, it took me a second to catch on to that, but I'm going to take that a little bit further and say these lives is in. The people that you guys are in. Relationships are your lifelines in a lot of ways, or else you wouldn't be consuming this information. And so it really, really makes sense to be able to say, I'm going to try this strategy. And this is what I. What I teach with a lot of people is you're chasing. You're chasing peace. The relationship is going to work or it's not. You're going to do everything you can possibly do to support the working of the relationship. And if it gets to the point that all of these things don't work and you can't find peace in it, Then you'll look at alternative options. But until you're ready to do that, what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure that we have all of needs met so that our window of tolerance, we can stay in our window of tolerance, our needs can get met, and the addiction doesn't consume our lives, that we don't. We don't start to lose our lives because their lives are out of control. Okay, Got two more questions, and then we'll end it. My husband has been doing soberly for three months. Good. And I'm not on the right track. However, he's depressed and unhappy. What are the next step? And. And now that he's doing that. Okay, that's a good question. With early sobriety, if somebody is not really going into any kind of recovered living, they do get really depressed, and especially with alcohol, that. That can be it. So I would, you know, I'm not a doctor, not gonna. You know, I would definitely make sure that medication is where it needs to be. That medically and biologically, he is supported in all the ways that he needs to be supported. But I would also say being able to plug into anything that can give him some connection with some serotonin and some oxytocin. And so a lot of people, you know, aren't pro recovery groups, and that's fine. I'm not pushing that on anyone. But we do get a sense of belonging when we connect with other humans. And so maybe even being able to say, is he connecting with anyone? But it takes a while for the brain to really start to level out. But I would say at three months, if we're still seeing some depression, I would definitely make sure that he's got the. The biology correct, the medication correct, the plugging into the world correct. And if you see any of those things that you're like, yeah, that's done, and that's done, and that's done, then I would say he probably needs to talk to his individual therapist about what the next step is. If those things aren't done, then I would say start with. Start with one of those or all of those. Okay. One more. Thank you for validating the safety aspect. You're welcome. My husband drove over the limit constantly, and I had a breathalyzer ignition lock installed. I couldn't handle the anxiety and the danger he was putting others in. In that. I still struggle with whether that was the right decision. I think. I mean, in my opinion, based on what you're saying, I think it was the right decision because we also have to look at when we are in a relationship with somebody, when we're married to somebody, our finances are tied to theirs, our assets are tied to theirs, our legal decisions are tied to theirs. And so to be able to say I the words that I liked how you put on that I couldn't handle my anxiety anymore. And so what you're telling me on that is this was not. You did this because your own anxiety was out of control. So this was a safety, this was a sanity boundary for you. So I don't know if there were lots of conversations or begging or pleading or any of that. And if there was begging or pleading, there might have been some inappropriate stuff behind the scenes, I don't know. But the actual decision to have it, I don't see anything wrong with what you did. I think that that makes sense. And even the words that you used in that lets me know that your motivation was probably right on target. Okay, so any book recommendations? I always love good book. I like the Four Agreements. I think it's an old. It's an old book. It's a good book, but it really does talk about and highlights the importance of not taking things personally. So I think if you guys want to pick up as a short read, I think it's fantastic. What's another really good one that I think would be helpful? Anything from Renee Brown, but you guys have heard me say that a lot, so that's probably not new. So what I. What I would say on the book recommendation based on this talk would be the Four Agreements. And really looking at why we don't want to take things personally, why it's important that we do our best, why we make sure that what we mean, what we say, which I didn't talk about all of that in that, but the book talks about that. Nancy agrees. The board agreements is great. Okay. So I hope that you guys have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you later. And if the membership sounds like something that you want to check out, the community, the skills group, please feel free to do that. But I will see you guys another time.