Drawing the Line: How To Stop Enabling Someone Else's Alcoholism/Addiction

What you think is enabling probably really isn't. And what you think isn't enabling probably really is. In fact, by the end of this video, a lot of you guys who are watching, who are family members who have addicted loved ones, alcohol, drugs, whatever, you're going to be thinking, holy crap, I think I am enabling. I need to get control of that. But we're going to have to learn how to think about it differently. Let me tell you a little story. I would say about six weeks ago, I was talking. I was going to do a podcast. Not on this podcast, but on someone else's podcast. I was talking to this guy who created this recovery app. It was his podcast. The recovery app's called Lucid. You guys should check it out. It's pretty cool. They have, like, bazillion members in there. It's like a great recovery community. Anyways. Anyways, that's not the story. So I was talking to this guy who was sharing. He's. He's in recovery. He was, like, so much cooler than me. People in recovery are always so cool looking. You know, he had, like, the cool, like, accent, the cool hat, the cool clothes. And then there's, like, me who sounds like, I don't know what. Anyways, he's talking about his own recovery story, and he's talking about how when he finally decided to get clean and sober. And this is the story that he tells. And he. He saw it one way, but I saw it, like a completely different way. And. And I don't know. I mean, I don't know the guy. Like, literally, I know five minutes of his story, so what do I know? But he tells the story about how, you know, he was addicted, he was doing all this stuff, right? And he kept getting arrested, and he got arrested and he got put in jail multiple times. And every single time, his dad would come up and bail him out. And he talked about what a sweet, loving, kind, you know, dad he had. And he said, but he was just enabling me. He would come and bail me out every single time. And finally about, I don't know, like, the fifth time he got arrested, you know, he calls dad, come get me, or whatever. And dad said, no, you're on your own. I'm not gonna bail you out. And. And so this guy who's telling me this story, he says, you know, my parents really just enabled for such a long time. You know, it wasn't until they quit enabling that I decided to get sober. I said, well, maybe, but here's what I think. This is just my like total theory, right? My guess is if when this guy got put in jail, all the four or five times before dad had refused to bail him out the first time, dad had refused to bail him out the second time, what I think would have happened, I don't think he would have got sober sooner. I think he would have stayed in denial longer. And here's why I think that. Because the first time he did, I don't know what he did to get arrested, but the first time he did whatever it was to get arrested, he's definitely not going to be thinking to himself, I have a drug problem, I need to clean up my life. He's going to be thinking some bull, blah, blah, whatever, you know, whatever. He's just gonna have like a story in his head. And I'm not telling you you should bail your kid out every time, but I just want you to learn to think of this differently. But the, the dad, if the dad wouldn't have bailed him out, he would have just built this big resentment. I can't believe you let your kid rot in jail. What kind of father are you? That's all he was gonna be able to think about, right? Is he's just going to be able to. My own dad did me wrong. My own mom won't come get me, right? And if they would have played that hard line every time, the whole time, what really happens? And you know, I don't know this because I'm the one that's sitting in the therapy room talking to people who are still actively using. It's my job to help people want to get clean as a Hooper. And I know what they're thinking because I know what they're telling me. All they're talking to me about is their family and how mad at their family they are. And so what would happen would be they stay stuck in that victim mentality. They stay in this power struggle, like almost just like I'm refusing to do what's good for me just despite you at some points because they're so freaking angry at you because they feel like you've done them wrong. They feel like it's not fair. They feel like you're trying to control them. They feel like you're always negative and criticizing them and hurting their self esteem and abusing them. I'm serious. This is what they think. What I think worked about this guy story is dad played nice guy the whole time. And I'm sure that was enabling to some degree. But when dad finally said no, guess what happened? This guy knew without A shadow of a doubt it was him. There was not going to be any I can't believe you did none of that. He might have said it like I don't know a second or something like that. But there is no way this guy is going to not realize what the problem is. See, most of you think that enabling involves giving people who have addictions money or giving them a place to live or bailing them out of jail. And to some degree you're right, that is enabling. But that's not the most enabling thing. The most enabling thing is when you allow yourself to get in this bad guy role because that's the thing usually that's preventing the person from seeing they have a problem because they're so busy projecting all of their own shame and bad feelings and guilt, they're projecting it out onto the people around them. It's usually the parent or the spouse, the mom, the dad, whatever, like the closest person. And they're just putting it out there. If you're watching this video and you're either in recovery or, or you're thinking about getting recovery or your family member who of someone who needs to get in recovery and you believe what I'm saying is true, that they're blaming everybody else. Put me a little hand up emoji in the chat or in the comments. Let me know you're with me. And, and they stay stuck in that zone until they, until it's not. Just until the consequences happen. The consequence has to happen, but it has to happen and it cann your fault that it happened. That's what we're trying to get to. You guys know I say all the time like you don't have to hit bottom to get better. You just have to know you will, right? The thing of it is, is like when something bad happens to your addicted or alcoholic loved one, but they associate that bad thing with you. It does not compute that it is the addiction causing the problem. They, they will almost always feel like it's a wife problem, it's a parent problem, it's a school problem, it's a boss problem, it's something else, right? Like, and so what you have to do is you have to like not be in that bag. I roll. It's fine to let those consequences happen. I'm not telling you. I know I'm going to get some hate. I can't believe, you know, you got to leave them in jail. And, and I do think there's a time place for that for sure. But, but I think if your goal is to get your loved one out of denial. I'm literally giving you the formula for how to do it. Yes, the consequences have to happen, but they cannot be consequences that can be blamed on you. So that means you have to sort of step back out of the way. And if. I know it's hard, I know it's against your instincts, and we're going to talk more about that in just a minute. But if you can step back out of the way and sort of view your role, which I know is. I know this is against your instincts, pretend you're the counselor, or pretend you're someone's mentor or even just their friend, right? When you're in that capacity of a mentor, a friend, a counselor, you have the ability to support people with your words and with your actions, but you don't have any ability to punish people. And you don't really have any ability to actually, like, bail them out of things necessarily either. Your job is to support, with time, sometimes with niceness and caring and empathy and stuff like that. If you can put yourself in that supportive role, they're going to figure this out so much faster. I mean, you. You wouldn't. Some of you guys, you're struggling with an addicted loved one who. You've been going around these circles, this blame circle, for, like, 10 years. And I'm telling you, if you will get out of that circle, if your loved one's in denial. And, and really the reason they're not changing is because they really don't think they have a problem. And you get out of that circle, they're going to figure it out pretty fast. It doesn't mean it's going to go away immediately, but they start figuring it out very quickly. So in my mind, the most enabling thing you can do is put yourself in that bag of roll. A couple of other scenarios that came up this week, I had a couple of family consults and. And it was really more than one because I get this kind of thing. It comes up a lot. But, you know, families feel guilty a lot. Like, let's say maybe your kid is like, it's so bad. Like, they're living on the street or whatever, and, you know, they're calling you, they're hungry, they're cold, they need money for X, Y or Z, or whatever. And it. And so I frequently get, like, the questions about, like, is it okay to give them the money? Should I not give them the money? Am I enabling? You know, am I keeping them sick or should I help them and how much? You know, I get all These questions all the time. What's usually happening when I, when the person reaches out to me is the person is usually giving them the money, but when they give them the money, they're nagging them about it. They're lecturing them about how they should be getting their life together and get better. And I'm not going to keep doing this for you. And you're going to need to get, you need to deal with yourself and what did you spend that money on? And show me the receipts. Okay. That's the part right there that I want you to stop doing. In my mind, I'm totally cool if you don't give them the money because that's going to help them be uncomfortable. Let them figure that out. I'm totally cool if you give them the money. What you don't want to do is that middle ground thing because now you're getting the double enable. Right now you're giving them the money, which is making them not realize that their life is unmanageable. So you're reducing the unmanageability in their life and you're increasing your status as the bad guy role as the family member, which is just like a big distraction for them to focus on. It's your fault. It's your fault. You know, somebody can be on the street, homeless from drugs or alcohol, and if you interact with them that way, guess what, their problems, the reason they're hungry and cold is because you didn't give them the money, not because they have a substance abuse problem. And that's the difference in. When you can change the way that you interact, it shifts the dynamic pretty quickly. Now sometimes in the story about when you have a kid living on the street or a brother or sister or something like that, it. This getting out of the bag of roll doesn't necessarily fix it as quickly because they're not usually in denial that bad. I mean, they usually kind of know that they have an addiction, but by the time they've lived on the street, they've literally like gotten accustomed to it. It's become their norm. And I know that is like crazy to think of, like, but in their mind, it, they, they just build tolerance to it. It becomes their norm and it doesn't quite get their attention. And so in, in a lot of cases it's like it's get sober once they get to that point. So I actually feel like dealing with people in denial. That's the better situation. I'd rather have someone in denial because that can be fixed. That will, denial will go away, because there will come a point where there is no mistaking it, where there is no, like, confusion one way or the other. There will be that point. What you can do as a family member is you can just decide whether you want it to happen faster or slower based on how you react. You're not controlling that person, but you can speed it up by how you interact with that person. Let me tell you guys another story. This is kind of the Amber origin story. I was thinking about this, and people always ask me about my origin story, like, when I'm on those podcasts and stuff. And I'm always like, I don't have that best of an origin story, which is kind of sucky, because most addiction counselors, they have, like, the best origin stories, and I'm super jealous about it. But my origin story isn't so much about why I became addiction counselor. I mean, I have a story, but it's not that exciting, honestly. But let me tell you the story about how I sort of learned this method that I teach you guys. When I was first an addiction counselor, I really didn't know much about what I was doing. I know I've told you all that before. And in my sort of first jobs, it was working with teenagers that had substance abuse problems. And then after that, I worked on, like, an adult detox unit. But nonetheless, here's how it go. I would be dealing with these people who had addictions, whether adults or kids. And it was really hard at first, but eventually I figured out how to sort of, like, build a relationship with them and I could get along with them okay, right? Like, I was probably better at it than most as far as getting, like, young people to actually even want to show up and come actually to, like, at the time, I was running intensive outpatient. So the fact that I created a relationship with these kids enough that they showed up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three hours at a time, even after they graduated the program. Because I developed this mentors thing. And I said, well, if you graduate, you're still doing good. You can come back and be a mentor. And those mentors would come back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three hours. We mentor. And that was purely nothing but the power of the relationships. But so I could get them to come, because I could get them be like, yeah, I like to talk to Amber because they liked you. Because they show up, they tell me how horrible you are. I'd be like, I know, man. That's terrible. And they're like, I like that Amber. She gets me right So I can do that part. But what was happening was, y' all don't get mad at me. Y' all know I love you. You know, when you tell somebody something, say, now, you know I love you, but you know I love you, but y' all be messing me up, because I, as an addiction counselor, can't get anywhere when you're behind the scenes sabotaging me. And I know that's not fair to say, and I know you can't control it. You know, it's not your fault, and it's not your fault, And I'm not telling you to control it. But what I'm telling you is, you don't realize it, but you're literally paying for your loved one to go talk to these counselors, to go to these treatments. Some of you're paying $30,000 to make your loved one go to a treatment center before they're ready. And that's such a waste of money. Okay? And time. They don't have to really want to go to treatment, but they have to know they have a problem at least. And so you've got to at least get them to that point. So what would happen would be, you know, I would work with these kids, but every time something would happen, I'll get all these phone calls constantly from these parents, these spouses, who are literally, like, telling me every bad thing this person did. I felt like I was like, the principal's office. Like, teachers were just, like, sending me, like, you know, bad notes, and it would just be like, oh, my gosh, what am I? People don't know. My people are always in trouble. And I'm constantly getting these reports. And it's not so much that I don't believe. I know that the reports are true. Like, I know it's happening, but I know that the person that I'm dealing with has absolutely zero insight into why it's happening, because all they see is that you're the problem, and that's all they will talk to me about. And so eventually, I got so wore out of this dynamic. Oh, and let me throw this in there, by the way, the reason why it's so frustrating when y' all do that is because I've been a codependency myself, and I really felt the pressure. You know, these moms and y' all look at me, and y', all, like, say, my baby. That's pressure y' all are putting on me. Most. Most treatment centers and addiction counselors, they don't have to deal with y' all family members. And it makes it easy because I've learned how to get along with that. It's. They're easy. Y' all are hard. And even. Even if what you're doing with them is not working, they're not mad at you because they didn't really want that to work anyway. So you get along fine with the people have the addiction problems. It's you guys that are hard. You guys are calling me up. You're telling me everything. You're, like, talking to me with your desperation. You're telling me, like, you know, my husband is. He's traumatizing my kids. He's doing all these things, and my kid, you know, all these things. And it's like this pressure, and I'm like, you're putting this pressure on me, and you're sabotaging me behind the scenes. And I finally, like, that's it. I need some help here. And so that's when I recruited some parents. I sort of started to help train a few parents. All right. You know, we're just sort of secretly behind the scenes. Give them a scoop. Not the confidential scoop, like what the person's telling me. But I would say, do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that. And they got pretty good at it. And then we developed the parent mentor program. And so then these parents started mentoring the other parents. And once we got that system in alignment, then the system starts working. So not only. So first, it's just, like, you got to get them to want to come. So that took me a while to figure out, but I did figure that out. But then in order to get them to want to get better, it's the family piece I needed to come into alignment. And I just want you to understand, please hear me when I say I'm not saying that the reason they have this problem is because of you, but I'm saying the reason they're in denial about this problem, you could be contributing to. I know you don't mean to. I'm an enabler, too. Listen, I'm super codependent. Most addiction counselors wouldn't even have took Yalls calls. They just say it's complicated interest. I can't even talk to you. But. But I felt that pressure. I felt like I needed to do something, But I also knew that I needed some things to change at home. So these people, the people I was working with, the kids, the adults, whatever, they could, like, see that there's a problem. And it wasn't until that family component came on board that really we started to see a lot of change and shift in people getting clean and getting sober. And these days, because Once I started YouTube, you guys are figuring this out so much faster, and it's so awesome. So by the time, like, your loved ones call me up or they're in my office, it's just awesome because y' all done. Done all the work, and I just get to sit there and be the good guy. And they're like, most of the time these days, when people call, like, people get in our strength space program, they're usually sober, and if they're not, they've already decided to get sober, because you know how they got there, because you got them there because you did the work. And so. And I'm not saying it has to be me. It could be any treatment person, any sponsor, coach, treatment center, whatever. Doesn't have to be me. I don't have room. I can't see all of them. But in my mind, if you can set me up for volleyball, I can spike that ball over. Okay? And if we can work as a team, then we can figure that out. And I think it also helps, too, because without the family involvement, number one, I can't make the changes that I need to make with the person that I'm working with. But also, then y' all stay mad at me because y', all, like, why is this working? I'm paying y'. All. They're not getting better. You know, why are they not getting better? Why. Why am I even sending them up there? Because you feel like it's not even working. When. Once I got out of the treatment center facility, and then I sort of created the Hope for Families model, and then I got, like, whole family counseling team now. We really had a good system going, right? So now I got Campbell and Kim on board, and then we just did it like lawyering. And I would work with the addicted person, and they would work with the family, and. And we would get both things happening simultaneously, and it just works so much smoother. But these days, most of you guys are putting in the work beforehand. And so literally, by the time the person gets to me to treatment, wherever they're, like, ready. And honestly, addiction treatment, it really isn't that hard. People know what they need to do to get sober. That's not. That's not hard. I mean, I help a little bit with that. I might say, well, I think this, you know, you might be missing this, or that was one of the sign or something like that. But. But honestly, the hard part is just getting them to want to get sober. And I can do that, but it takes, like, a long time. It's a lot of money to pay someone to do, like, all that motivational interviewing stuff, which I don't mind doing. But I'm just telling you the system works a thousand times better if, if everybody's working in concert. And, and I know I tell y' all that all the time, this thing about not being the bad guy, but, and I feel guilty about it because I hear from Campbell and Kim, hey, y' all are being treated. I, I, I feel like it's wrong of me to even say that to you. This person is treating you like crap. They're, like, not holding up their end of the responsibilities. And then I'm coming on here and telling you be n them compliments and laugh at their jokes and stuff like that. And that's just completely not fair. I was thinking about it. I was like, dude, I get mad when I feel like my husband's not helping take out the trash. And I'm thinking, like, I do everything around here, and I'm just, like, building resentments up in my head when he's not, like, helping with the laundry or something. So I hear you when you're, when I understand that it is completely 1000% not fair what I ask you to do, but hear me when I say it will work if you're still in that bad guy role, they're going to keep fighting with you. As long as you let that fight keep going on and, and getting out of. It's not that hard. This past couple weeks or this past first week of January, we've been doing our no more Mr. Bad Guy challenge. And our members only group. Is there anybody watching that's in our members group that did the no more Mr. Bad Guy. We had, like, 100 and something people do it. And that was probably one of my favorite things we've done with the members so far, because every day, you know, you get, like, a new little assignment and, and then people would come back in and post like, oh, this is what I said, and this is what they did. And it was so fun for me to get in there and, like, read those. And probably it was, like, more exciting for me than it was for you guys who were doing it, because you don't even know how powerful those little moves are. And a lot of times you don't get a super huge reaction from them first because they still don't trust you. So even if, even if they, you know, want to smile at you, they're not going to because they still a little mad at you. But I know when I read these comments what you're really doing. So you're building that relationship, you're building that positive rapport, you're building that trust. And then you guys get excited about it, and it's just little bitty small things. Like in the no More Mr. Becca challenge, it's like, literally give a compliment and then I give you some instructions on how to do that, right? Like, literally laugh at the jokes and I give you some instructions, right? Like, it's almost like, this sounds crazy, this sounds bad, but it's almost like the way you might interact with someone. If you're dating someone, it's a little bit flirty. It's just like, oh, I like you, you're funny, you're interesting, or whatever. What that does is it changes their brain chemistry is what it does. So it's more than psychologically, they stop viewing you as the backup that happens. But it. It also changes their brain chemistry. And you, when you're dealing addicted loved ones, like, their brain chemistry is crazy, right? They can't get dopamines from anything. But if you can interact just right, there's only one thing more powerful than addiction, and that is connection. And it's because of what happens in the brain chemicals. If you can get those little serotonins going and those little oxytocin and those little dopamines going and. And maybe even like a neural, like neuro epinephrine that will actually, believe it or not, override the high that comes from the substance. And if they're addicted, what they're experiencing is that how is not even that fun anymore. So if this substance over here is not even that fun anymore, and my wife over here is actually kind of great, you know, she's kind of wonderful. She treats me great. Love her. She's kind of fun or whatever, then what happens is they start looking at the two things and they start saying, damn, I'll lose my whole family over this. Not worth it. But if this family member, this wife or whoever it is, is over here yelling, screaming, nagging, rightfully so, people. Rightfully so. If you're over here doing this, they're looking at that substance thinking, no, I'd rather have that. I'd rather have the alcohol. I really have my weed, whatever it is, like. And you're like, how can you choose that over me? But you've got to, like, look at the picture they're looking at. What you're doing is you're just sort of recreating the picture, and you're making sure you're. You're making it obvious for them the choice that they're making, and they'll start to see it faster. They'll be like, I don't want to lose her. You know, she's great. I don't. You know, my mom, she's so good to me. Like, like that. Like the guy was telling you about from the recovery app when that guy's dad finally did put the line down. Because a lot of times, you know, you're building the credibility. You're out of the bag, already doing that. And a lot of times it does come to a point where you kind of, like, have to, like, cash in your credit. You have to sort of call their hand. You have to kind of, like, put the line down. But if you've played all your cards right before that you put that line down, it's going to work. If you don't have all your credibility built up and you haven't played all your cards right and you put the line down, it's going to backfire on you. And then you're gonna be Superman. I can't believe they chose that over me. You know, you're gonna be super mad, but. But you gotta look at what they're saying. You're mad, you're angry, you make them feel terrible about themselves, and then you've got, like, the comfort of the substance over here, and that's the choice they're looking at. So you want to, like, shift that picture. If you, if, if, if you want to be in the noble wristed back I challenge. I was supposed to tell you guys this. I don't forget you can still get in it. It's. It's going to be in the membership group all the way through January. So if you're not a member and you want to be a member, write the word member and we'll try to get you that link. Or you can look in the comments, I mean, the, the description of the video, and you can get the link to become a member. And if you don't want to be a member after that, you can cancel it if you don't. If you don't like it. And I'll just tell Campbell and Kim. I was like, oh, they didn't like Yalls coaching. They just canceled. So no big deal. All right. For those of you who are watching live, hey, thanks for showing up. I appreciate that. It feels weird when I'm talking to myself. Feels weird when I'm talking to the camera, and y' all are here already. But it feels really weird when y' all are here, so I appreciate y'. All. All right, we're gonna say hello to you. I'm gonna take some questions and some comments. It helps me to know that you're asking me a question. If you'll either put some question marks before your question or if you'll write the word question before your question. It just helps me scan through who's trying to say something to me. Let's see here. Hey, Sonia and Jennifer and Cecilia and Trisha and Susie and Na na na, Tiffany. Jennifer's here. Stay at home. Mom's here. Nancy's here. We got a lot of people here. Look at all those hands. Oh, those are the hands that I asked for earlier. I appreciate the hands. Those are like, to me, those are like little amens. When I see the hands, it's like, amen. That's what I hear. Let's see here. Getting married a long time says, going camping this weekend. How do I stay in peace when the friends get him to drink with them? Close quarters. How do I stay out of the bad guy roll while keeping my own peace? Once you can shift your mindset from I'm trying, you just have to do this mindset shift. You need to stop thinking, I need to get them to quit drinking. Okay? And you need to shift your mindset to, I need to get them to see and decide and be motivated to quit drinking. So it's not I need to get them to quit drinking. It's I need to get them to see that they need to quit drinking. And so when you can make that shift and then they go and they drink and they make a total a hole out of themselves, you don't feel mad about it. You're like, okay, just one step closer. One little piece of evidence for you to see. And so what you want to do is you don't want to slow it down. Like, if you slow it down, you get on the case and then you have. And he only drinks a couple here and there. You just prolonged it. Like you missed an opportunity. And once you flip that thinking, you may want to, like, not be around them because they're kind of, like, obnoxious or something. So you may want to get some distance because you just don't enjoy it, which is understandable. But the fact that they're drinking or maybe they over drink with their friends or something, it's just not going to upset you because you're going to know that's exactly what we need to happen. That's how we're going to get from this place to the next place. Let's see here. RH Says my alcoholic loved one or addicted loved one is still trying to manage his drinking by cutting back and keeps talking to me about this. In the past, I would tell him, this isn't going to work. Now I'm telling him he's doing great. I like it. Is there more? But am I enabling him doing this? What I would say is, no, I don't think. Well, first of all, to answer your question is, no, I don't think you're enabling him. I think you're supporting him. And what you want to say is, and he may not be doing great all the time, but what you can compliment and reinforce and validate is you can say, I appreciate your willingness and your, like, commitment to dealing with this problem, because I know we're going to figure out one way or the other. So even if they're trying something that you know is not working, you know, and maybe they're sneak drinking and this and that and you know they're doing it, you might not want to say you're doing great because they're not doing great. But what you want to say is, I appreciate you being honest with me. I appreciate that we can talk about this subject. I appreciate that you're trying and see you getting them good brain chemicals going, you getting in a good guy role. And then you have influence. That may come a point when this. He does this 25 times. And you'd say, okay, that's it. Like, I'm gonna need you to stop. But when you. When you call the hand, like in poker, when you call it, you're gonna be ready to call it and it. And it. It's gonna have a much better chance of working. Let's see. T. Flo says, I had a terrible feeling of guilt this morning because I threw out on the street in the freezing cold of winter because he continued with the drugs and stood outside drugs with nowhere to go back. Dang. I should have continued to allow it and gave him a warm place. But still outside dealing with the crap here. Let's see. Here's the thing. I'm not telling you that there never is a point when you need to just say, you got to go. There is 1000% a point that you need to say, you got to go. I have told many a family member, I say, you, you need to get them out. Like, you need to evict them. You need to get them out. But. But it's all about why you're getting them out. If you're, if you're, like, getting them out because they're destroying your house, because they're being abusive to you, because you can't freaking stand it anymore, like, you're losing your mind, that's a good reason. You gotta go. If you're saying you've got to go because just for the fact that, you know they're continuing to do the thing and you're thinking they're not learning their lesson, let me put them on the street. They're gonna learn their lesson. I. I don't necessarily think that's gonna work. In fact, I think it's kind of like if you've been in trouble so much, like, if you've been spanked so much, be on ground so much, you start to not even care because it's like, whatever, you know the drill. Like, so once they get homeless, they get so, like, used to it and stuff. And it is really hard, it is very hard to bring someone back from that point. So if you're gonna kick them out, there is some really good reasons to do that, some good ones. But even the way you go about doing that sometimes can be helpful. JM I have been coping with my FA husband for 25 years in denial. Been doing crafts since July. Starting to hit a wall. Tired of him numbing and dulling himself every day. Would it be easier if he wasn't functional? It will go faster when he's not functional. But when we say functional in last week's video was about this. So if you're interested in what is functional, what isn't, check out last Thursday's live video, because we talked a lot about this. But most of the time when we say functional, what we're talking about is sort of like the external manageability versus unmanageability in their life. You know, like, are they going to work, going to school? Like, you know, are they washing laundry, are they taking a shower, that kind of thing. Before you're going to see it on the outside, there's going to be a lot of unmanageability and dysfunction on the inside. So even if it looks like, gosh, why can't consequences happen for this person? Why is it always great on the inside? It. They'd feel bad about it. And they're thinking to themselves, I'm sick of feeling this way, or why I'm always hungover or, dang, I didn't mean to drink so much last night. There's actually unmanageability going on that you can't see. So my guess is, is that there is some of that that's going on. And, and it'll go on a long time before they'll tell you it's going on because they don't want to tell it to you because then you're going to pressure them to stop. So they're not, they're not going to want to admit that. Let's see. Glenda says, trying to stay separated from my addicted loved one. Please give me words to state. Thanks, Amber. You're the best. Glenda. What? I don't know what you mean. What, what does that mean? Give me words to state. If you're still watching, put that in the comments and I'll try to look for it. Because if, if you're asking me something, I have an answer, I'll be glad to give it to you. Let's see. Trusty says my addicted loved one says he wants to quit but can't stop beyond day one. Has stopped seeing his drinking buddy. Consumes recovery content. Joined cricket club. Seeing a doc. He's not ready for rehab. He feels he might relapse even after. How do I help him? Okay, dude, he's all over it. He's. I call it circling when they're like. Because, I mean, he's. He's not just got the change talk, he's got. He's literally in, like, the action stages. He's. He's changing things. He's making moves. He's just trying to figure out how to do it without going impatient. And I get it, but what's happening is, is, is if he, because he's doing all that, he's really trying, okay? And if he's not being able to get more than, you know, a day put together, then it probably is a withdrawal issue. And probably what it means. And I don't even know what the substance is, but probably what it means is it needs some kind of help, intervention, maybe medical help to detox off of the substance. Because if he's doing all these things, he's really is putting in the effort. He really is trying to change. And when people are really trying but they just can't get there, it's in those first few days, it's because they're, like, stuck. They need help to withdraw. And so there, there are occasionally doctors that will help you depend on the substance, do it on an outpatient basis. There are like, executive programs where they'll come and help you do it at home on outpatient basis. But Those are super expensive. There are ways to do it, but sometimes they might have to go inpatient. And my guess is if. If he tries these other things, he's trying to do it without going inpatient enough times, he's probably going to come to terms with the fact that he needs to go in to give you detox, if nothing else. And, yeah, it is possible he could relapse after, but that's not a good reason to not go. He's doing all the right things. He's. He. He just needs help with that, like, tapering off, probably because. Probably happening. He gets a day, anxiety, goes crazy, can't sleep. He's irritated. Like, everything goes crazy on the inside, and he just is, like, falling back. That's my gu. Hey, Andrea. Tickled. You found me too. Thank you for the sweet comment. Sonya says, my husband keeps sliding back. Can you help me understand why he keeps doing it, knowing our marriage is in danger? I'm viewing it as intentional because he is aware of the state of our marriage. Should I not, Obviously, Sonya, I don't know. I don't know your husband in your situation, so anything I. Anything I say on these lives is kind of a guess. Okay. But I'm just gonna do guess. My guess is that either he still is. Has a lot of resentment towards you, and. And honestly, he's thinking, whatever. And maybe secretly, like, his addiction is telling him, like, I wish he would leave or whatever that could be happening, but if you're not in that role and. And things are better between you guys, then probably what is happening is he's. He's lying to himself about being able to manage it. So what could be happening is he's like, telling himself, look, I'm just going to have a couple drinks. Like, she's not here. It's not gonna hurt anybody. I'm just gon to. And then it gets out of control again. So he may be, like, not understanding that once I start, I can't stop. And he's. And he's figuring that out the hard way. So there could be a lot of reasons that's happening, but that's my top two first guesses is that it's probably one of those, you know, or he thinks I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it or whatever, and it's not gonna be that bad, or I'm gonna do it. It's not gonna hurt anybody. I'm gonna do it, and she's not gonna find out, which is probably, you know, he could probably do it once, and you're not find out but. But the unmanageability comes back so fast it becomes obvious pretty quick. Is he choosing to disrespect me or my marriage? Probably not, Sonia. Probably. Probably. He's. He's figuring out his limits with the substances. He's convincing himself that he can manage it or do it different this time and that there's a period where people go through all that before they figure out like if I open this floodgate, it's going to be a flood. It takes some trial and error to figure that out. Toe Tiger says. Hey Shovel, love your content. Hey, thanks for showing up. I think your name is new. I don't, I don't remember seeing it before. I'm glad you're here. Let's see. Eli has a question here. So happy to caught you live from the uk. Hey, glad you caught me live at what time is it there? It's like opposite over there, isn't it? I'm attempting to support a friend into recovery with your techniques. He can't make it more than two weeks every time and self sabotages. Let's see, there's more. He tries once or twice a month but slips every time. Is this still active using or is this a genuine effort to quit? It's been on and off, off for six months now. I would say this is genuine effort. If someone's getting more than like more like what you're saying is he's getting two, three weeks, sometimes a month and then slipping. If somebody's getting weeks at a time, that takes some genuine effort. That's not easy. If somebody's like drinking and they take one day off and then drink it back and forth like that, like that, that either means they're not trying or it means that they're stuck in a withdrawal and they, they can't like we were talking about before. But he's still in that active addiction. But he's also still probably actively trying and, and figuring it out. It takes a bunch of time. I have never seen anybody figure this out on the first time. Even the second time it takes, it takes a minute. So probably he gets three or four weeks in and maybe the issue is he's telling himself it's going to be different. Maybe the issue is he's not wanting to give up the people, places and things and he's keeping himself triggered all the time. There could be a lot of reasons, but if somebody's getting weeks at a time, then they are definitely trying. Jennifer says you feel personally attacked by my words. What Jennifer, what am I saying, what am I doing? You're on here all the time. What am I. I don't mean to hurt your feelings. Hey, Jordan. Hey, Christy. First time watching Live. Glad you're here. Glad you caught us. Live. Jennifer says my addicted loved one had an affair. She turned him on to meth so he could drink and not pass out and go to work. He lives with her because he has to. He's left many times, but the withdrawals make him go back. Is there more to that? Is there, like a question part? I'm seeing gim. And sometimes it like. Jennifer, I don't see your. Oh, there it is. I was gonna say, I don't see the question part. Here it is. We just now started talking again, but it's hard for me. I've been doing the care method. I think you mean craft method, probably, but I don't know if it's worth it because he always go back and it hurts me. He says he loves her, not me. He loves me, not her. Okay, Jennifer, this is bad enough. When someone has a substance abuse problem. I mean, like, when you're. When your partner has a substance abuse problem, it's already like cheating on you, honestly, because all their love and attention is somewhere else and they're lying about it. So it's like cheating, but then you mix in the real cheating on top of it, and you probably have some serious betrayal drama. And I don't. I don't blame you. And probably not probably. I mean, I feel most certainly, based on what you're saying is this other person is tied up with the substance. So it's kind of like if the substance keeps coming back, the person keeps coming back because they're just like the enabler. It's like they're like the drug dealers. Like this. They're using Buddy, basically. Any probably. He probably does love you and not her, but they have this. That's the using buddy, basically. You know, it's the enabler over there. It's the. When I want the substance, that's where I go to. So that's complicated and. And that's hurtful. And my thoughts are with you. That. That's hard to get over. Let's see here. All right. T flow. Finding heroin bags and needles in my place and lying about it, though I was a drug user before. Not H, but other types. I told him he embarrasses me, and I'm ashamed of him because of what he does, and he brings it up all the time. But, dang, why can't he understand the Truth and do something about it. Now, T flo, if you had an addiction before, which is what you're telling me, is what she's saying here, you get, you, you, you have more insight into this. You. If, if you are in your active addiction and someone was telling you, I'm embarrassed of you, you know, they're telling you all these harsh things, is that really going to make you see it faster? Is that really going to make you want to change? It isn't. I understand. That's not fair. And, and sometimes people in recovery t flow can be the hardest hard asses. And it's kind of crazy because people with addictions, they think, oh, I need someone's in recovery to help me. But actually, because. Because sometimes people who have already figured it out, they have less patience because they're like, figure your crap out. Like, I figured my crap out. You figure your crap. Because this, it's harder because you know exactly what's going on. Like you're watching it and you're like, yeah, that's not gonna work on me. And it's just insulting that they even try. But. But if you think back to your mindset when you were in that place, you would have done the same thing. You would have, like, lied when it was obvious you would have done the same thing. Because that's what they do. I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just saying if you're trying to do something about this problem, you got to think strategically, not emotionally. It's not fair. Do they deserve to hear it? Yes. Why can't they see the truth? Because you don't have the truth wrapped in the rap. Right wrapping. If you put the right wrapping on it, sometimes they open it up themselves. Okay. It's. It's not fair, but it's true. Let's see. Nancy says, I found something positive and acknowledge that he is trying to do what I acknowledge what he's trying to do, to tell my son whenever I see him. And he responds with a positive attitude. Yes, and I'm glad you said that, Nancy, because literally, if nothing else happens, if you do all of my techniques and the person never chooses to get sober, you're still going to be glad you did it because you're going to have a clean heart. You're going to know your side of the street is clean. You're going to know that you've treated yourself and the other person with dignity and respect. And in the end, if it doesn't work, you're going to be able to lay your head on the pillow. So these techniques give. It's going to give you the best chance of this other person getting better, but it's definitely going to make you better. And I love that you said that, Nancy. Let's see here. Here's your question. Nana Juice says, would you mind telling me the name of the recovery app again? Thanks for. Ready? Yes. This particular recovery app was called Lucid, and I think you can just download it right from the. Like, the recovery. I mean, this. Not the recovery app Store. The app store on your phone or device or whatever. And it has, like, all these podcasts. It has all these, like, chat conversations and support of one another. It's really great. It's really, like, grown to, like this big thing. I think it's awesome. Eliza says, why does she insist it's not the drugs, it is everything else? Well, it's either because. It's either because she believes that. And if she believes that, then what we're talking about here is the way to go about getting that picture to clear up. Or it's just because she's just saying that to you to. To deflect or just to deflect the responsibility. Like, she knows it is, but she's just deflecting it. But it's one of those two reasons. Toe Tagger says, how do you approach a situation where you're in conflict between your head, your heart, and your intuition? You are awesome. Well, thank you. You're awesome, too. Your head usually leads you, right. Okay. And so I would listen to your head. I would think strategically about whatever it is, whatever decisions that you're having to make, and your heart will catch up. Okay? So a lot of times you just have to fake it till you make it. You have to do the right things until the feeling comes along. But if you're gonna choose, go with your head, your strategic knowledge. As far as intuition goes, I like to say you can. Like, if it's. If it has to do with, like, dealing with your loved one, you can probably trust your intuition that is happening or not happening. Like, you can trust your sensors, okay, that there's a problem or not a problem, or they're in the good or they're in the bad. But you probably. What you cannot trust your intuition on is how to interact with that piece of information. So I want you to listen to your alarm bells. As far as something's happening, okay, there's a fire in the building. But the. But when the fire alarm goes off, it doesn't tell you what to do about it. Okay, that's where you gotta listen to your head, which says like proceed calmly to the nearest exit, right? So you can use the sensors to tell you there's a problem, but use your head to just tell you what to do about it. Chacha C says, what if an adult child is on the spectrum, not addicted to a substance or alcohol, just lack of communication and I always help him. I need a little bit more to really give you the best answer for that. But what I can tell you is that all the things I teach you guys in here, they're not special related to addiction. They work in any situation. These techniques, if you'll do it sort of the way I'm telling you, these techniques work to help, to help people change in general. Now if you're dealing with someone on a spectrum, it's going to be even more difficult for this person to change. And you have to kind of decide too. Like when you're dealing with someone who has a real disability like that, like sometimes they just cannot do for themselves. And when you're doing something they cannot do for themselves, I don't consider that enabling. Right. When you're doing something that they can do for themselves, that that's where you can get into the mess up line. So. And I don't know all the situation, the dynamics, but you do. So you can probably maybe use that formula to help figure it out. Daniel, Danielle. Ashley says me and my alcoholic boyfriend broke up Sunday. He was on a month bender and I couldn't take it anymore. I'm devastated. But do you think there's hope he will realize his issue after this? Well, at some point he will realize it for sure. Denial always clears its. I just don't know how quickly because I don't know all the pieces to that story. I don't know all the dynamics or what he's tried and hasn't tried, how far he's in to addiction, what he's addicted to, what your role is. But yeah, he will eventually figure that out. Jennifer says we all need a little amber in our ear reminding us of these tips. We've had enough and forget our own program. Can we get an app for that? I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Right? We need an app for that. You're funny. Some people tell me it's like the little amber ghost on their shoulder bothering them. A lot of my clients, even the ones like trying to battle addiction, they'll be like, oh yeah, I heard your little voice in my head bothering me and I'm like, good. I sent the little ghost out there on purpose. Rachel says, can I gradually implement not to give my homeless son money without being the bad guy? Yes, you. You can. And if you've been doing it all along, probably gradually pulling it back is the way to do it. I call it like a taper plan. Taper them back. You know, Campbell is really good at that. If, if those of you who have. Have an adult kid who you feel like you're financially enabling too much, which would be a lot of people. Campbell is the expert on that. She is the boss mama for how to get a good taper plan in place on that. But, yeah, I think tapering it back would be the right thing to do. But if you're. If you're not, hop in our membership and talk to Cam about it or make an appointment with Camera because she's. She's the boss at this. She's really good at it. She. She's better at than me because I have too much of a heart for the did it person. And then I cave and then I, like, probably enable them because I take up for them. So listen to her, not me on that. Stephanie Clement says husband wants to taper down off of alcohol, but he has been known to sneak alcohol in the past. He says he needs help but won't take the steps to get help. He wants me to help. What do I do? Okay, well, you can decide what you're willing to do and not willing to do to help and give them multiple choice, saying, would it help if I made you an appointment? Would it help if I. Whatever, whatever the things are that you're willing to do or not do, then you can throw that out there, and that's fine. If he's saying, I really want to change, I want your help, but. But he might ask you to do something that you're not willing to do, and that's okay, too, because a lot of times they'll do things like, I want you to, like, hold the drugs and hold my prescription and only give it to me when I'm supposed to have it. And I'm like, like, I don't know about that because that almost always ends up backfiring on you because there comes a day and then they need more, they want more, and then they get mad at you for not giving to them even though they asked you to do it. So if it can be someone else other than you doing that, it should be someone else. And plus, that whole have someone else hold it, that doesn't really work anyways. Let's see. The other thing you can do, Stephanie, is if. If the, if he's like, he just doesn't want to get help, which is what you're saying, she can say, okay, we're going to try it your way this time. But if it doesn't work, can we agree that you'll, like, at least talk to an expert and figure out what kind of options there are if this doesn't work, get them to, to buy on, like, preemptively, because it's not going to work. And then you'll have already played that card. Katie, thoughts? My husband's jokes are turning disrespectful. I feel like he might have relapsed. I don't want to laugh at him having a hard time being positive. Any advice? Yeah. And, and you know your husband like the back of your hand. And if, if you know that's kind of how he is when he's, when he's in the bad place. And I trust your intuition, like I said, your radar for knowing if it's good or bad, I. I trust it all day. I don't want to laugh at him. And it's okay, especially if what he's saying is not funny. Don't laugh. That's cool. You can find the other behaviors that are in the right direction to validate. You don't have. I'm not telling you to validate the bad behaviors. I'm just telling you to validate the good ones, like the efforts at trying or being nice or being helpful or just anything that's like a behavior you want more of. Validate those, but you don't have to validate the ones that aren't good. Menglin says, how do I bring up the strengthening program to my husband when he has an intention to stop drinking? By the way, your techniques totally work. And I believe what he did before about being his enemy. Well, first of all, thank you for the sweet words. The. The way I would do that is if you're wanting him to be in the strength program, like the strength coaching program with me. What, What I would do if I was you is I would say, hey, I don't know if. I don't know if he knows who I am. If you, if you've ever said, like, I watch this lady's YouTube videos or whatever. So if he already knows that, you can say, hey, you know that lady, I watch her videos or whatever. Just this, like, cool, free, like, 30 day jump start series and sign them up for the 30 day jump start series. It' and that'll just be a little message that comes to his. Either you can have it go to your text, or you can have it go to your email or whatever. And it's just like a little, like three minute recovery video. And what it is is just helping to, like, keep them motivated and help them overcome roadblocks. And so hopefully you'll be able to do it by himself and that'll work. But if it doesn't work, like, if he's not able to do it himself for whatever reasons, then he'll feel like he knows me a little bit already and he'll probably feel more willing to, to, to take that step, be like, all right, she's not that bad. I'll talk to her. That's the way I would do it. Martha says I plan to keep repeating those challenges. You're talking about the no more Mr. Bad Guy. That's right. All those little things, those are just little techniques that once, you know, you practice one each day, but I want you to keep them going. And once you start piling them on top, you start. And what happens? They start treating you different. You actually, it starts getting easier because they start being nicer and more enjoyable. Be around and then it's easier to be nice to them. And so it gets movement going. Good for you, Martha. My AB just finished a bender. I told him I won't see him until he does something more than what he's doing for recovery videos. How can I navigate this other than sticking to what I said instead of telling somebody like, you can't live here unless you're in treatment or you can't. I'm not gonna be in a relationship with you until you do X, Y or Z recovery thing, like attend a meeting every day or get a sponsor, something like that. I wouldn't say that. Because what you're doing is you're setting up like the box checking which they can sort of just be compliant with. Like, okay, they're showing up to the counselor, they're going to the meeting, or they're doing whatever, but they're not really trying. I would say I need you to figure this out and I need you to get this under control so it's not affecting my world. Your unmanageability is seeping over here into my life, and I need you to figure that out one way or the other. So when you figure that out, then we can talk. I would say it nicer than I said it. I said it smarmy. I can be sarcastic. Say that, but say it. Say it kind of. That's what I would do, but I would make it contingent. I wouldn't tell him what he has to do to figure it out. I just say, figure it out. They know what they need to do. Okay. And you could make them do all these things, and it might not work, but deep down, you're just saying, hey, fix it. And they may try some things that won't work, but they know they'll figure that out pretty quick and they'll fix it if. If the motivation's there. My addicted. This is from Torino. My addicted son lives at home in a separate living space. It's cold here. He's not working, and my mom does his laundry. He doesn't plan to work or stop using. I don't know what to do. Let's see. He's not working, and my mom does his laundry. Well, he's too comfortable. So we need some consequences. Now, the consequence could be putting him out or making him pay rent or just allowing all the other unmanageability to come into his life. But. But I think what you're asking me mostly here is like, is it okay that he's, like, living in my house? What you're saying is, I don't want to put him out because it's cold, he's in the house, or whatever. Is that bad? Yes, it probably is enabling. But. But I would say I would want to know, before I coach you on this too far, is I would want to know, like, what does he act like in the house? Is he kind? Is he humble? Is he helpful in some kind of way? Is he a jerk ball? Is he abusive to everybody? Is the whole house walking on eggshells? If those things are going on, then you need to deal with him not being in the house because of that other stuff. So there's ways of making that decision. Like I said, Campbell's the best at this. If those of you who have young adults or. Or even adult. Adult children and you're trying to figure out this financial thing and this living thing, Campbell's. Your girl. Eliza says, I cannot deal with the abusiveness. Adult daughter has gotten physical with me, so I had to draw a line. Thank you. That's exactly right. Eliza. Anything I tell you goes completely out the window when it comes to safety and abusiveness. Never allow someone to do that. I mean, I know that people have addictions don't treat you great, but there's a. There's a difference between that and. And being physically abusive and being, like, super verbally abusive. I would never Tell you to put up with that. Safety comes first. So. So says my son is 31. He's finally serious about getting clean. We're going to let him move in with us. What should we watch out for? And could you please explain boundaries? Ours. His. Thank you. Oh, Lordy. Sir, I don't like it when they move back in with the family. I think that's a recipe for disaster. I know sometimes that there's no choice, but if there is any other choice, it's probably a better choice than letting him move back. But sometimes when people come to me and they have the question or they start in with counseling with us, they've already told them that. And you're already in that road. So since you're already in that road, I would say we have a thing in our office about no home contracts. A lot of times in these situations, what people do is they say, all right, you can come stay here, but these are the rules. You have to go to a meeting every day. You have to do this, you have to do that. And they set up these home contracts. Contracts. And I strongly advise against doing that, even though you could probably find 100 other, like, addiction people to tell you to do that. But the reason I'm going to advise you against doing that is because that will always backfire on you. Because what happens is, if somebody has an addiction, no contract is gonna make. It's gonna make a whoop dee doo to them. Like, think about, like, okay, I signed a piece of paper or I verbally agreed to do something is not going to stop them or keep them in alignment. It. But let me tell you what they will do. They will hold your butt to the contract. So what happens is, is it backfires on you because, you know, maybe you know that they're using, but they're passing their drug test. And that was the. The agreement you made with them or whatever. They're like, I'm passing my drug test. That's what you said. What you're going to go back on what you said. They'll hold it against you. They'll hold you to the line, but the contract won't hold them to line. So I would not put any kind of contract in place. I would put more of a general statement out there that says, hey, we love you, we support you. We're so proud of you for getting control of this problem. But we're gonna tell you, we're not gonna let that unmanageability come here and take over the house. So we're gonna need you to Figure that out. You know, we're gonna need you to be pleasant. I don't want you to put in a contract or a rule or anything, or, you know, we see parents that. They go in these things. They, like, you know, take the trash out four times a week when it's like, literally, like this big, giant, long contract. Don't do that, because you'll put yourself in a deadlock, not them. And we have. We have a whole boundaries playlist, though, too, so check that out. You can see all the boundaries videos, and it goes into more detail about all that stuff. Glenda says member need statement for staying. Oh, okay. Glenda, you're the one that I said. What do you mean, statement? I need a statement for staying separate than my husband. Your words will be mine. I want to do your program perfect. Oh, pressure. You're putting the pressure on me. Is what you're saying, is you. You need to figure out the words of how you're saying, hey, I need the distance. I really just need a lot more. Glenda, to really help you with this, if you're a member, you should totally hop on the members live coaching videos. I'm gonna. I'm gonna try to answer you, but I want you to hop on the. Where you can actually get on live with Campbell and Kim and Link, like, so they can ask you these questions that if I knew the answer to, I could help you better. And they could do that because you're a member, so you have access to that free coach, and so do it. But I guess it depends on whether or not you're trying to stay separate. As in, you're done forever, like, you're leaving, like, I'm out, you know, done, no ever coming back, or if you're saying, like, I'm done until you get your stuff together. If it's done forever, you can say, you can just be nice about it, because that's always the right thing to do. So always the right thing to do is be nice whenever possible, is to say, you know, I really care about you. My heart is with you. You know, I wish you all the best, but for my own sanity, I have to do this because it's. This situation is turning me into a person that I don't like anymore, and I'm treating you badly because of it, and I'm treating myself badly because of it, and it's no good. So you can even just put it on yourself if you want to. If it's a situation where you're like, okay, I'm out until you get yourself together. Then you can kind of say that. Just say it nice. You can say, I'm not saying we're done. I'm just saying I need some distance. And you can say those same things I just said because it's making me turn into a crazy person, because it's making me not treat you nicely. It's making me think bad thoughts, making me be like this other person that I don't want to be. You can say that. So until you figure that out, I need some distance because it's bringing too much unmanageability to me. So just be nice, be kind, But. But set the limit. J. And M says, this is a correction to an earlier question. Would it be easier if he wasn't functional? He dolls and numbs out every day. It's no relationship anymore. And I'm tired of. Of daily disconnect. After 20 years, I still. I don't see the difference in what you're asking me here than what you asked me before. The thing of it is, is if he numbs every day, which is what people with substance abuse problems do, it does take a lot of unmanageability for them to feel it because it's kind of like they're under anesthesia. But, yeah, the unmanageability. Oh, maybe what you're asking me, J. What just occurred to me is, would it be easier for you to back up and leave or, like, put a boundary? Is that what you're asking me? Maybe that's what you're asking me. Not if would it be easier for him, but easier for you. Yeah, probably. Because it would be quite a bit more obvious, even to everyone else. And you would be like, sure. Instead of questioning yourself, what you're saying is, like, he's just numb. It's not like he's crazy or he's doing these horrible things, but he's just, like, totally disconnect. I mean, yeah, I think it's easier when it's more obvious because it's just easier to put your finger on it and explain to yourself. But you also realize that, like, hey, like, you're literally left this marriage. Like, you're not in this anymore. You know, you're just not with me because. And sometimes when I see people that are real functional, they'll be like, I don't know why my spouse gets upset. Like, I don't get mean. Like, I'm not a nasty drunk. Like, I just chill on the couch and watch tv. And they just don't understand that. They're, like, literally completely disconnected. From their family, and they don't really even see why that's a problem because they think I'm not causing any problems. Why are you so upset about it? That's what they think. You're saying. Are you out of line for being too critical about the numbing or dulling? Are your feelings invalidated? Absolutely not. Those are valid feelings. If you're handling that by being critical, like, outwardly to him, you're out of line. Not because it's not like you shouldn't do it, but because it's ineffective. Okay, so your feeling is valid. Probably everything you want to say is probably true, but it's not going to help the cause. So I would choose another way to interact with it. Let's see here. Robin says, when someone is doubling down on drinking and saying they don't want to get sober, is that just the process of them getting to bottom faster, or is this an indication that they don't ever want to quit? Oh, listen. And everyone, everyone ever has addiction problem. Everyone I've ever seen at one point or another said, I'll never quit. I'm never going to read. I'm not gonna do all this. I call that the big talk. Don't worry about that. Everyone says that. That doesn't mean nothing. They could say that today and tomorrow, be crying on your shoulder and say, I need help. Like, that's just big talk. Don't worry about it. I'm not saying don't worry about the problem. I'm just saying, like, that statement should not bother you, like, no. Katie, is it okay to ask my husband what his plans are after his drug test happens later in the month? He stopped smoking marijuana early in December so he could pass the drug test. He also cut out on alcohol for now. Okay, well, so this is interesting. So he stopped the one substance so he could pass the test? I think you can ask him. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with asking him, but I'm trying to think through it. But. What I would ask him instead is, how do you feel now that you stopped? I'd say, have you noticed any difference? Do you feel physically better? Because what you're doing when you're asking that question is, is you're getting. You're calling his attention to his improvements. And so what you're doing is you're, like, pulling along his thinking in that direction. And also, this last little statement you have in here that he's cut back on alcohol tells me that he's realizing on some level, one or Both of those substances is a problem because he doesn't need to pass a drug test for the alcohol to get a job. So there's some kind of level of insight here. So what I would do is just validate that he's made this change. You know, ask him, does he notice a difference? How is it as easy? Is it hard? Like, you know, what is it like what you thought it'd be? Just be curious about it, because what if you get him to say the right statement? It's like, literally, he's selling himself on staying, so he's convincing himself, which is so much more effective. All right, everybody, we are about out of time. Oh, yeah. Bri did ask me to tell you guys because she's. She's the one that manages the calendar. We only have one spot left for the month of January for strengths recovery coaching. So if there's anybody out there that wants to be in the strengths recovery coaching program, yourself, your loved one. We. Our calendar so full that we've had to get it where you have to fill out, like, a little application, and you can do that for your loved one if you want to, but there's one spotlift for January, and I think there's, like, three for February. So if anybody's interested, I think the link is in the description. Yeah, it's in the description. You can click that. You can fill out the application if. If you think you or your loved ones ready to do that. But you got to get the spots because they're gone. All right, we'll see you guys next time. Thanks. We had great conversations. Your questions get better and better every week. Bye, everybody.