Essential Advice for Families on Dealing with Addiction, Denial, and Relapse

We've got a special episode planned for you today. I'm actually going to be answering some of your questions right here live on this video. Now, some of you wrote in, I've actually. I'm going to be answering four questions or responding to four letters. This is going to be really pretty similar to like what a console or a coaching call would be, but maybe a really sort of abbreviated version. Now I'm going to be covering two questions that were submitted that were about dealing with a spouse. And we're going to be answering two questions that were submitted that are all about dealing with a child struggling with an addiction. So hang in there. I think you're going to really enjoy this. Okay, question number one. And if you see me looking down, it's because I'm actually looking. I printed off the emails and I'm actually going to be reading you the email so you have the background and the context and then we'll get into the answer. So this first email is a spouse question. It says, my husband drinks only at night after work in the garage by himself. He drinks a large amount of beer, like a 12 pack every day. We really don't see him after he drinks and he doesn't really cause any problems except he's grouchy often and doesn't do anything around the house. He has a good job and is a good provider. How do I convince him to get help? In his eyes, it's okay because he. Because his drinking doesn't bother anyone. All right. This question actually reminds me of a. It feels like an almost exact similar case that I worked on, I'd say about eight or nine months ago. And that case worked out really, really well. What happened in that situation as I was dealing with a wife who was calling about her husband the same situation. He was a good provider, he worked hard, but at the end of the day, he would hang out sort of in the garage or in his work area and drink lots and lots of beer. Well, he was very functioning, a good provider, but it was causing problems in the relationship. What ended up happening in that case is that particular wife, she went through our invisible intervention process. We had a couple of phone call consult sessions and several months later I actually got or her husband actually booked an appointment. And once I got on the phone with him, it was amazing because he was like, yeah, I'm ready to change. What do I need to do? And I said, I think you should try this. And he did it. And I checked on him two weeks later and it was still good. And I Checked on two weeks later from that, he was still good. I was like, man, that was easy. Let me tell you why it was easy, because all of the pre work had already put in. This wife had worked really hard to sort of prepare the ground. Just like if you're going to plant a crop and you have to get the ground ready before you put the seed in there, that is exactly what happened. And that case worked out really, really well. I think the key for that was using a lot of positive reinforcement instead of, you know, hounding or being negative. That always helps a lot. And when you focus on that positive reinforcement, what I want you to focus on is focusing on having him around more in the evenings instead of focusing on the drinking. So instead of saying, you know, like, I really wish you wouldn't drink every night, say, hey, I really wish we had some more time in the evening together, or wouldn't it be fun if we did X, Y or Z. Pick something that he would be somewhat interested in, and that'll make it easier. So focus on a behavior that you'd like to see more of instead of just the alcohol. The reason is, is because your husband is going to be a lot more receptive to that. And as you're doing that, you're building that relationship. Now, I do want to warn you, it will not work perfectly or completely smoothly. And that's okay, because what you're trying to create here is you're trying to get someone who's been struggling with some maybe denial that they didn't have a problem at all into seeing the problem. And once the person sort of starts to figure out that they're unable to do what they promise or they. They don't hang out as much as they say they would, and they don't really feel like they have a good reason because you're pleasant to be around and they kind of have fun, then they start to realize, like, why am I out in the back drinking beer all night? Like, what purpose is that serving? And they'll start to get more. Your husband will start to get more realistic himself about what is actually happening there. The other thing that you can possibly reinforce and validate is it sounds like your husband is a hard worker and a good provider. You said that in your letter. And I think that if you say that to your husband, that's going to go a long way as well as far as building the relationship with you. Because it sounds like the main thing that the alcohol is impacting is the family relationships. Well, if he's more interested in the family relationships, he's going to be more interested, interested in improving them. So is this kind of around the bin kind of way, but if you indirectly come at the problem, I think you're going to make a lot more progress. Now, there may be times where he's actually open to talking about the alcohol and once you've built a more positive connection, it'll be a safer topic and you can address it more specifically. But at first I want you to sort of focus on that behavior that you want to see more of. All right, here's our letter number two. This one is a little bit longer. It is from a parent. It says, hello, I am new to the put the shovel down community. Thank goodness I found it. I have been watching your videos over the past two weeks and found the information to be extremely helpful. Well, thank you for the compliments. My 18 year old son, senior in high school, has been progressively increasing his alcohol and marijuana use over the past two years to the point where his father and I believe he's addicted. He suffers from anxiety, anxiety and depression and has been in counseling and taking medication to manage it. The situation escalated around Thanksgiving. He was arguing about anything, stopped his meds for depression, became aggressive towards me and questioned toward me when I questioned him about using or asked him not to drive for safety reasons. He had lost his job and crashed his car. All the issues were blamed away on someone or something else. He started getting failing. He started to fail his grades at school, got a new girlfriend who's known for drugs, drinking and pills, and he also stopped hanging out with his old friends. After much chaos and turmoil in our house, including me acting like your typical crazy, controlling, snooping, anxious parent. We along with his therapist convinced him to do an IOP program. IOP stands for Intensive Outpatient program. If you didn't know that he was agreeable and went for six weeks. There was a dramatic shift in his behavior for the better. Grades improved, started hanging out a little more with old friends, still has the girlfriend unfortunately and family relationships have improved. We believe he cut back on his alcohol and marijuana use but didn't stop completely. It's now been around two weeks since he ended iop. He's meeting with his regular therapist and new therapist who works primarily with addictions. The problem is we see him slipping back into old patterns. He's been drinking and vaping marijuana again. I have a gut feeling and I can tell by his actions. He stated that he won't pass his drug test and says he had a one time slip up. We all Know that's a lie. His attitude and home life interaction are good, but his grades are starting to slip. My question is, what do I do while I wait for all this to unravel again? I'm doing my best not being a crazy parent again. We believe he thinks he's fine. No natural consequences have occurred yet. I feel that not saying anything and not confronting him when he's obviously impaired or doing it in our home, I'm sure makes it seem that we approve or that we are ignorant in enabling him. Is the. Is this where the invisible intervention would help? Then what? Or what if he never decides to get help once he graduates high school? Do we let him live here knowing that all this is going on? I have no idea what boundaries to set. After graduation, he has decided not to go to college for now and wants to get a full time job. He will need financial help to rent an apartment. Do we pay for his living expenses? I don't want to give him money, but definitely feel that him living with us is not a good option. My brother died from heroin overdose and as you say, we had a front row seat for 20 years of how his addiction ruined my parents, my brothers and my life. I have absolutely no interest in living through that again and feel completely ill prepared to stop it. Please help. We're in New Jersey. Wish it was South Carolina so I could come to see you. On a positive note, our daughter's currently a sophomore at Clemson and loving it. Hey, that's pretty close to us. Come up. So nice. All right, as you guys can see, that was a pretty long detailed description, but actually that helps me. All those little details about what's happening are super helpful for me. The first thing I want to say is that I don't want you to feel like that the treatment hasn't worked because he's slipping back in. Unfortunately, what typically happens in these situations is somebody goes to treatment, they get better, life gets better, but then they start thinking to themselves, okay, like I'm going use every now and then, but I'm not going to let it get out of control like it did before. That usually doesn't work. In fact, I'd say it really never works. But pretty much everyone has to go through that phase. And so what I'd like for you to do is hold your steady, keep using those invisible intervention techniques, keep your cool. Don't go back to being the crazy person I call it. Don't get back on the roller coaster with him because yes, there are going to be some negative consequences. The Grades are going to go back down. Some of the life chaos is going to come back. But that's good because he's going to realize I was using, my life was crazy, I stopped using, my life got good, I'm using again, my life's crazy again. And it's almost this process of like, yeah, this isn't working. I'm right back to where I started from now. Unfortunately, sometimes people have to go through that trial and error process a few times because they just keep thinking I'm going to be able to manage it. But. But if you don't get back on the roller coaster with them, they usually figure it out a lot faster. Here's what I do suggest you do. I think that you, if you haven't already, you should download my guide on how to do home drug screening. You can get it for free. The link is in the description and if anybody else wants that, you can get it too. And it'll tell you how to do regular home drug screening and it'll go into all this in the guide. But I want you to do this preventatively and not like I'm trying to catch you. So in the guide it tells you not just like how to perform the test, but how to set the whole situation up, how to deal with if they don't want to take it, how to deal with cheating the test, all that kind of stuff. It gives you all the insider scoop on it. So get that. What you may want to do because he's already saying he won't pass a drug test is take them to some kind of walk in lab in your area. Or if his program is just drug testing, you can do it through that and get what's called a marijuana level because that'll tell you not just that he's positive on the test, but how much. And that's really important because he's saying like, oh, I mess up just this once. And you're right, it's doubtfully not that. One of the things it'll say in this guide too is sometimes, especially young people, they'll say, okay, I messed up, I did this one thing, might as well not even test me. I always say go ahead and test them anyway. Even if they've already told you they're going to be positive for something because sometimes they'll admit to being positive for like this one thing, this one mess up when if you went ahead and tested them, like the whole drug screen would light up. So test them anyways. All right? If your son is after high school, if he's continuing to work and move forward and he's pleasant around the house, then it's okay to let him live there. The reason why you would not have someone live in your house is more if they're causing trouble, because if they're not doing anything to help themselves, if they're causing problems in the house, like being messy, not contributing, if they're causing problems, that's a good reason not to have them. Other than that, just making them leave, just to make them leave, probably not all that effective. If he does decide to leave and get an apartment with some friends, that probably is the better situation. And if you want to help him out by helping him with his deposit on his apartment or something like that, I don't have any problem with that at all. You know, if you're helping launch your kid, just do it like you would normally help a kid launch into the world. What I don't suggest you do is I don't suggest that you co sign an apartment because if he moves in there and is using friends move in there, they're gonna trash that apartment. And you don't want to be left holding the bag for that. And I definitely don't suggest that you sign up to like pay his rent or something like that every time. It's okay to help someone a little bit along as long as they're helping themselves, but you don't want to get yourself sort of committed to anything long term. Let's see. And I think you're asking here, would the invisible intervention be helpful? I do think it's helpful. It's helpful to help to show you how to reinforce positive behaviors, whether the person's in denial or they're in that contemplation stage or even in maybe like the bargaining stage, which is probably what's happening in your situation. All right, hope that helps. If you are relating to something in this video or you find this video helpful, or you just like this where I'm answering questions. Make sure you give this video a thumbs up and that lets me know that this kind of thing is helpful. And I will make more videos like this and answer more of your questions live. And also any of the resources I mentioned. The links will be in the description. All right, number three. I feel like I'm reading super fast. All right, good evening. This is another parent, one I have a college age son who got addicted to Adderall after trying his friend's prescription and then obtaining his own prescription because he'd been diagnosed with ADD as a child and again as an Adult. He never took it properly and was already addicted to the prescription. He's also addicted to weed and nicotine. I realized it early on, and with help from his therapist, and using Amber's advice, he realized he had a problem and enrolled in intensive outpatient therapy with our local hospital. The program is entirely online because of COVID and I was disappointed that the family involvement was very limited. In any case, he has over three months. He's over three months into therapy and he has used Adderall several times in weed. But as of last month, he's been clean from Adderall. And the difference in his demeanor, personality is astounding. I feel like I have my son back. The problem is, is that he's still very isolated from his friends, activities, etc. I know an important part of healing is to find new outlets, friends, and interests. I have worked hard to find special time to spend with him, and it's been so wonderful to spend time connecting with him. And I can see that it has helped strengthen our relationships. But I know he needs positive outside influences. I cannot seem to get him motivated to connect with others. He does see old friends periodically, but they're not good influences. He's taking two online college classes, but he doesn't seem to want to go back to work. He doesn't complain about going to the meeting, but he hasn't really made any connections with anyone. How can I encourage him to find positive connections that will encourage his sobriety? And what type of programs can help him stay sober after his intensive outpatient therapy is done? Okay, here are my responses. Number one, the fact that you've got such a young person who agreed to do intensive outpatient and who's doing that even virtually and isn't giving you a hard time and is making progress. That is all super good news. Like that. That is really good. And I see that you are inside the invisible intervention. And I can tell it's kind of exciting that it's worked because your. Your son has already been in program for three months and has made a lot of progress. And I know it's kind of natural to worry about, like, but he's not doing this or he's not doing that, and he could go back. And that is the reality of the situation. But I want you to keep doing exactly what you've been doing, which is sort of, I call it like, hold your steady. You've got a good thing going, you have a good relationship with him, and I don't want you to push it too hard. We talked some in the video that I released on Tuesday about supporting someone in early recovery. So that's definitely a good one to refer back to. But in general, I would definitely validate his commitment to his program and let him like, you know, mention it, brag on him, give him some positive reinforcement about that. It's normal to see those ups and downs in the process. And with COVID and him not being able to go the program, it does make it a little harder to make those kind of recovery connections. If you are going to push or encourage him toward building connections, then I want you to do it indirectly and infrequently. So I just want you to be careful and not push on it too hard. Like, don't say things like you need to make friends in recovery. Say something more like, hey, what about, I don't know, joining the dodgeball league or being involved in this or hey, we're going to that. Would you like to go? If you push on too hard on the actual recovery button part of it, then it's gonna hit his like, I'm being control button. You're trying to work my program for me button. And you might get a little bit more wall or resistance coming up. And to answer your last question about what to do after intensive outpatient, you want to get him an individual counselor for sure. Sometimes he might get an individual counselor maybe that he's had some experience with inside the IOP program. Like maybe one of the counselors that's helped with that takes individual clients. That would be best because he's already known by that person. He may already feel comfortable with some of the people there and that's the easiest, smoothest transition. If not, then find a one to one or individual counselor that works with addictions and does well with young people. A lot of IOP programs have aftercare or continuing support programs where the person comes maybe not like frequently like they were coming to the intensive part, but once a week or something like that. And if he would agree to be involved in that, that would also be super helpful. All right, number four. I feel like I'm reading super fast. Maybe I was just a little ambitious with doing four of these. This is our last one. Hi there. I would love advice on navigating parenting with an alcoholic partner. He works during the day and brings beer home after work. We have maybe two hours of time with him before he's under the influence when he's been drinking. He's not his best self parent wise. I think he overcompensates for his lack of consistency in our child's lives by being extra firm. At the end of the day he's too harsh. The kids feel unheard, he assumes the worst and he doesn't let them share their side of the argument between kids because their side is an excuse and shouldn't be and there shouldn't be one. I wish he would wouldn't parent when he wasn't sober, but I'd also be pretty much parenting alone in that situation. The kids are starting to resent him and his drinking. They are ages 9 through 16. I'd also like help knowing how to talk to them about his alcoholism and it being a disease without undermining as a co parent and co partner in raising them and that they should take seriously. I want them to feel supported, safe and seen. This is hard to navigate. I don't see anyone talking about how to manage a side of things. P.S. sorry, I forgot to mention something about co parenting. It reminds me of the concept of pacing and leading him. Being overly rigid leads me to being less so. I feel guilty for how they're being talked to or dismissed and I tend to give them more chances and even be less consistent because I feel bad this perpetuates the cycle because. Because then he feels I'm too soft and has to make up for it. It's good cop, bad cop. How do we break this cycle? The first thing I like to say is that is like really good insight what you're saying there about the that you realize about the dynamic of him being tough leads you to be softer, which leads him to be tougher. And that is really commonly the case in parenting situations, even without the alcohol part. So what I would do about that is this. First and foremost, anytime you see him make a good parenting move or he's listening to a kid or he's connecting, mention that, validate that, positively reinforce the right behavior. You do not have to make it about the alcohol. Just say, hey, I noticed that you and Shelly, you guys were connecting really great the other day. I thought that was awesome. You know, whatever it is, the little seed of something. Like I said, find them doing something good and right and validate it. Sometimes I'd say if you can't find something doing something good and right, validate it. Then stretch something out or make it up, but find something good because that little seed is going to get things moving in the right direction. Now if he is aware that there's a problem with the outcome that evening, then you can have a conversation with him about it. As long as it's not going to start a kind of a fight. If he's defensive about the alcohol, which I'm guessing he is, most people are, then what I would do is just have a regular parenting conversation and acknowledge to your husband what you just acknowledged me, that sometimes you feel yourself as being overly soft and you know, that makes him puts him in the bad guy position and you don't want to put him in the bad guy position. And you guys navigate that as a parenting issue. And I really think you're going to have a better conversation about that if you leave the alcohol part out. The reason is because as soon as you mention the alcohol part, the walls are going to come up. And if I understand what you're saying in this letter is the parenting issue. The alcohol is important, but the parenting issue is kind of like the. The thing that's on fire, the biggest right now. And you really want to sort of make that better. So I would address that separately. I would just say, hey, I think we're caught in this good guy, bad guy dynamic. I know you're the bad guy. A lot of times that's not fair. Let's figure out how to do this better. You know, kind of align with him and just have a parenting conversation with him about it. As far as how to talk to the children about it, there's a video that Kim, she's one of our family counselors and I did a while back that talks about that. And I'll try to remember to link that up after this video so that you can see it and check it out. All right, we have just a few minutes left. I'm gonna slide through here and check out and say hello to you guys that are joining us live and see if you guys have any other questions, concerns. Let's see, we have Hondo and Rita and Sandy and Kimberly. Let's see what Kimberly said. Kimberly says my husband stopped drinking long before we were married. Sponsored people in a but started drink five years ago. Doesn't think he has a problem. I tell you what, Kimberly, it's amazing how someone can be firmly in recovery, totally think one way and then all of a sudden they just like literally take back everything they thought they said they knew, they believed. It's just gone. It. It's mind blowing to me. Every single time I see it happens. No matter how long I've been doing this blows my mind every time. It can literally change overnight. One day you can talk to someone, they could be telling you they're alcoholic, they can't drink, blah, blah. The next Day they'll be telling you something totally different. It's like, what the heck happened? Let's see. Hey there, Rita. One says, hi, Amber. My spouse came back and started to act as good as the good guy. Now he says, this time I will reply, change. What should I do? Hold on. I don't really understand that. My spouse came back and started to act as the good guy. Now he says, this time I will maybe you're saying really change. What should I do? If he's changing in the right way, then I would reinforce that. If what you're saying is, is that your husband is coming in and he's being too nice, if you're talking about an addicted child, then I would maybe get them to watch some of the videos about lining up with the good cop, bad cop kind of thing. And maybe that'll help you guys get more in alignment. Let's see. Reed says, hi, Amber. Your content so helpful for my family. I got my mom to rehab this summer. She has had five relapses since. I would say less severe each time. I really like your attitude about that read, because some people would say she's had five relapses. But what you're seeing is what you're saying, or what I think you're saying is you're still seeing good progress. You know, progress doesn't happen in a straight line. It's kind of like a couple steps forward, step back, couple steps forward. It is a learning curve. And as long, as long as a family can tolerate it, as long as it doesn't cause too much chaos or safety reasons from those little lapses, it's best if you sort of let that process play out and continue to encourage them, positively reinforce them in the right direction. Cindy says, tell me something, Amber. If the addict or dry addict finally recognizes true self behavior in every way, with therapy, with therapy, a person just like you, will self actualization truly happen? Okay, hold on, let me read that again. If the addict, dry addict, finally recognizes the true self behavior, will they self actualize? I think it really depends on what you mean by self actualization. I know what the concept means, but I don't know if someone ever really gets like totally there. But as long as they're working on themselves and improving themselves, I think it is a constant process of self improvement. And that really is what recovery is all about. Kimball says this thing about recovery is like a down moving elevator. If you're not purposefully moving forward, then you're going backwards. So it's this constant assessment of what's going on in your life, how you're doing, how you're thinking and constantly managing all that. And that's how you stay, stay on track. And that can happen with therapy or a sponsor or any number of ways. There are lots of ways to do that. Tara says the invisible intervention is a good thing for a parent with a substance use disorder child to take before the child is released from residential treatment and into a transitional home. So Tara is asking, should you take that? Like, if you have a kid in treatment and they're going to go somewhere else? Yes. As long as you have regular communication with your loved one, this is going to be helpful because it's all about how to reinforce certain behaviors, how to keep the relationship in alignment, how to have conversations when things go wrong. I definitely think it's helpful. He will not be able to come back home right away, but my hope is someday he will be healthy and thriving enough to live with us again. He's 21, has. Oh, you. Is that OCD, depression, social anxiety? He's been a residential treatment from us. Okay, I will say this to you, Tara. If Your son is 21 and he's in treatment and he's going from treatment to like a sober living, you do not want him to come back and live home with you. He's a young man and a young adult. That doesn't mean he never comes home. We come home for Christmas, come home, visit. But it doesn't work for young adults to come back and live with their, their parents. It just almost always throws them back recovery wise. But even more than that, it just throws you back into like, you can't not be someone's parent. And when they're in their 20s and they're young adult, you know, you're just like on them about not eating their vegetables or whatever. It drives them crazy and it creates conflict between you and them. So we really, we really don't suggest that young people come back home if at all possible. What you want is for when he comes out of like the sober living or transitional housing, usually what you want is by then they've met other people in recovery, find a roommate, launch just like they would launch from college or whatever it is, you know, you can help them along, they get a job, figure life out. As a young adult, moving back home is just going to make him feel crappy about himself. And if Campbell was here, she'd be telling you, and he's out of serotonin, needs to feel good about himself. So don't forget that part. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. If you like this style, you want me to do more videos where I answer your questions, let me know that. And if you'd like to submit a question, you can submit it to Taylor. She's one of our teammates. I'm going to try to put the her email address up here. It is Taylor T A Y L e r@hffrc.com com and up next for you, I have more family recovery resources so that you can understand everything you need to understand about addiction and get your life and your family back on track. I'll see you guys next time.