Essential Boundaries For People In Early Recovery

This is essential boundaries for people and families in early recovery. Now, I know when you saw this title, you might have been thinking, oh, these are boundaries that families need to hold with people that are in early recovery. And if you're thinking that you're half correct, that is definitely part of what we're going to talk about today. But we're going to talk about it on both sides. We're going to talk about boundaries that family members need to hold, and we're going to talk about boundaries that people in early recovery need to hold. When you're first, a family is first in early recovery. Everyone is very fragile. Everyone is on ease. There has usually been years of mistrust on both sides, years of boundary violations on both sides, and getting all that to straighten out is really no easy feat. And the boundaries and the trust and all that stuff, it doesn't just find its place and work itself out just because someone gets sober. And to make matters complicated, if the boundaries and the trust and that kind of stuff doesn't come back, it makes it harder for the person early recovery to stay sober, and it makes it harder for the family to stay sane. So today we're going to talk about five essential boundaries that each side needs to hold. And we're going to start out by looking at the person who is in early recovery, who's trying to get sober or is recently newly sober. We're going to talk about five things that you need to always sort of keep in your mind, almost like codes of conduct, if you will. And then we're going to do the same thing for the family members. And then make sure you watch the until the end because I'm going to give you the big cat daddy like rule of all rules. Do not break this rule, no matter what. And it applies to both sides. Seriously. It is like the out of bounds one, the no go zone. It's, it's, it's like to me, that's a foul. Okay, so let's get on with our five boundaries for our person in early recovery. Number one is, I'm going to call it the say what you mean boundary. Now, what do I mean when I say say what you mean? Well, I mean, you know, like if you say you're going to this place, go to that place, you know, do what you say you're going to do. But I mean that, that's definitely important. But what I also mean is, you know, don't always try to take the easy way out of conversations or be so conflict avoidant or something like that. That you agree to things when you don't really agree, when you say yes, when you really mean no, or if you say yes, but you really know you don't, you're not really going to do it, or you don't intend to do it, or you don't want to do it. Because sometimes we, any person can have a tendency to do this because we just don't want to have an argument, we don't want to cause a fight. So we just say whatever is the easiest thing to say in the moment. But all that really does is put the fight off. And when you put something off, it always sort of earns interest. So when the fight comes, it's going to be an even bigger fight, even more uncomfortable than when you would if you just drew the boundary like you needed to draw it in the first place. So it's kind of like an assertiveness thing. One of the things that I see people in early recovery sometimes struggle with is because they feel really bad about all the stuff they've done. They feel pretty guilty and they know they haven't done right. They. They can get in this mindset of feeling like they don't have a leg to stand on, so they won't say what they need to say in certain situations. Like, I especially see this with adults in early recovery, and maybe one of the spouses is in early recovery, and there's a household issue or a budget issue or a child issue, and the. The person in early recovery will just stay out of it and keep their mouth shut, even if they feel like the other person's making a mistake because they're afraid if they say anything, they might get something back. Like, well, who the heck are to weigh in where you been, you've been drunk for three years or whatever, which is kind of fair. And. And I totally get that. Number one, you don't want to be reminded of that. And number two, I guess, you know, you can kind of see the truth in that. So you feel like you shouldn't step in or weigh in on the situation, but that's a mistake, especially if it's something you feel very strongly about, and especially if it's something that's likely to keep happening, like it's an ongoing issue or problem in the family, you really need to sort of step in and address it. You're not doing anyone any favors by staying out of the game in order to keep peace, because if it's something that keeps happening, it's going to come back up, and eventually you're either Going to build a resentment and resentment's going to ooze out and some kind of toxicity or you're going to let the family make a bad decision, all of those kind of things. So say what you mean and mean what you say. Number two thing that people in early recovery need to understand, remember and have a boundary about is that you're not the only one in early recovery. Your family is also in early recovery. Your family is pretty sensitive, maybe even overly sensitive to the fact that you could have triggers and they try to protect you from your triggers and they know if you know that. Not to do this around you or that around you, but sometimes as a person, early recovery, you forget that your family has triggers too. And you don't have any grace or empathy or leniency for them. You know when you come home five minutes late and they lose their stuff and meltdown and you're just mad at them because you expect them to be perfect. They have triggers too. So you're going to have to understand that maybe you need to help not set off their triggers the same way as they understand they need to help not set off yours. This is a two way street and it's family recovery, everybody getting better. So just being mindful that, hey, they're struggling too. They have triggers too and they might even have a relapse and they might even lose their stuff or they might even try to control you or they might even try to snoop in your business or something like that. And your job there is not to allow a lapse like that to throw you backwards. That's the same thing I tell the family if the addict relapses. The family's job is to not to get back on the roller coaster. If the other side doesn't get back on, it doesn't last very long. So just remember that families have relapses too. Have some empathy and grace for them. Expect that they're going to have some hard days and meltdowns and stuff like that, just like you are. Number three, I'm going to call it. Analyze your grudges and way when you're thinking about other people's mistakes and things you're mad at them about, compare them to the mistakes that you've made. Let me explain what I mean. I have a. This was somebody, I think it was in our, our family Facebook group was posting about. I think this was a wife and the husband maybe was in early recovery and she was talking about how he really seems depressed and irritable and he's just so Mad at her for some things. And he just keeps throwing it up and bringing it in her face. And the thing of it is, is like when you're struggling with an addiction, your family's gonna do some stupid stuff. They're gonna not handle some situations correctly. They're gonna have said some things or done some things or made some mistakes or crossed some boundaries. Guess what? You do the same thing. You've made a lot of mistakes. You've crossed the boundaries, you've said some things, you've done some things. And so when you find yourself holding on to that resentment or that grudge of your family member or your boss or your friend or your neighbor next door, and you're thinking about the evil, bad thing they did, think about the evil, bad things you've done. We've all done some evil bad things. We've all crossed some lines we shouldn't have. And holding on to that resentment was an old thing that you used to do in order to feel justified, to keep using or making other bad decisions. So holding on to that grudge is going to make it a lot more likely you're going to make a bad decision. Plus, you know, it's kind of like when you're in that place in life to need a little forgiveness and grace, you got to give a little forgiveness and grace. So if I can tell a family member to let go of it, even though you've stolen from 5,000 times and they pay for treatment 20 times, and you've been lying to them for 10 years, you can let it go, too. And it's like both sides have to kind of give each other a little bit of a fresh start. Whether it's fair or not fair, it really is required or needs to happen in order for the family system to move on in a productive manner. Otherwise, you just get trapped in this loop of reminding each other what the other one did wrong. And it's just one punch and one punch, and around, around we go. Number four. This is a basic, easy one. Try your best to respond with kindness and understanding. Even when you don't feel like the other person deserves kindness and understanding. You know why? Because it's the right thing to do. And when you do that, you're going to feel good about yourself. When you don't respond with kindness and understanding immediately after the event, you're just going to be justifying why you responded the way you did. And the way you're going to justify that is to just remind yourself of every bad thing they did and can't believe they said that and can't believe they did that. And you're just going to play that tape over and over in your head and wind yourself up even more and more about it. You want to feel good about yourself. You want to make your relationships work, respond with kindness and understanding, even if you don't think the other person deserves it. It's not going to. It's not going to do you wrong to do that. Number five, this is a pretty simple one. Avoid your own triggers whenever possible. Now, I mean two things when I say this. One is kind of the obvious one. Like people, places and things, like they say in any kind of recovery program. You know, don't put yourself around. You're using buddies. Don't take yourself around to the parties and the places where you're not going to relapse or whatever. You know, be smart about what you subject yourself to. But I also mean that on an emotional level, too. If there are people and relationships, you know, that just trigger you up and make you think bad thoughts and just mess up your mojo, maybe you want to put a little distance between you and them because it's going to make those grudge things going to get the grudges back in your head. And we just talked about why you need to. You need to ease that down because it's not good for you. So stay away from your emotional triggers and your relapse triggers, because your emotional triggers lead to your relapse triggers anyway. So it's kind of like two parts, but all leads to the same bad choice. So whenever possible, avoid it. I know it's not always possible, but if you have a choice, make the choice to avoid it. You're not being a tough cowboy by subjecting yourself to triggers. You're just being stupid. It's not smart. Don't do it. All right? I beat up on the people who recover long enough. Those are five things. We could probably put 20, but that's a good start. Right, family, it's your turn. Let's talk about codes of conduct for family members in early recovery. You should not be surprised by this. First one I'm about to say here. Everybody should know this if you're watching my videos. Number one, stay on your side of the street. Know what's in your territory and what is in their territory. For example, their recovery program is in their territory. Right? How many meetings they go to, whether or not they talk to a sponsor. All of that stuff is in their lane. What is in your lane? Right. What's in your lane is how you treat other people what you allow yourself to be subjected to. So make sure you understand the differences in their lane and your lane. If you struggle with that, I'm going to link a video up here at the end for you that will talk more about boundaries and assertiveness and sort of figuring that out, dividing out what's my territory and what's their territory. Number two, this might be the hardest thing, right? You ready? Avoid the temptation to lecture, preach, remind any of that stuff. We do that because we're so scared that our loved one is going to fall back into a bad place. And so we just want to remind them. Don't forget this. Don't forget that you remember you did this. You know, it's not going to go well for you. And we just. It's just constant. And it's because we have an anxiety about it, an obsession about it, and we're just verbalizing that out loud to the other person. And. And anyone would know. And, you know, this too. It's. It's not good. It's not helpful. It's just going to make the other person push away from you, and then they're going to say something back to you. It's going to hit your. But you know the rest of that story. Avoid the temptation. It won't get you anywhere. Number three, this was on their list, too. Respond with kindness and understanding whenever possible. And usually it's possible. Let me give you some examples of when this might be difficult. Let's say your family member comes in the kitchen. You're in the kitchen, and they say, hey, I'm gonna go over to cousin Eddie's house. You know, it's his birthday. I hadn't him in a while. I'm just gonna drop by. I'm gonna stay there for about an hour. I'll be back. And in your head, you're thinking, alarm bells are going off. You're like, oh, no, you're not going over there. Because I know what happens over there. And every time you're with your cousin Eddie, like, these bad things happen, and I don't want you over there at all. Now that's your response in your head. Totally get it. Probably be my response, too. That's not the way I want you to respond on out loud, right? You need to filter that response. And the first thing you need to say is like, yeah, you and Eddie, you guys have a long history together. Y' all been friends for a long time. You know, say something with some empathy, right? Like that you could get why they have A fondness for Eddie. Before you even try to think about going into. You're not doing that. Or if you. If you go over there, don't even think about coming back to this house. Now, that's not your side of the street. Don't do that. Now. If it's something that you just feel super, super strongly about, and it's kind of like this person is, like, wanting your permission, and you're just like, dude, I'm not putting my stamp on that. Here's the thing. You can decide you're not putting your blessing on something without telling the other person what they can or can't do. So if you get in that kind of situation, you can say something like, you know what? That makes me really nervous. And I just feel like that might be a bad idea, but I get it. He's your cousin Ezzy. He's your cousin Eddie. Y' all go way back. And I know you got to make this right decision for you. That's what I mean by. You can. You don't have to say, oh, yeah, go. That's great. When you don't feel good about it and you know it's a bad decision, you can put out there what you think, but you also have to understand that it's ultimately their decision. And I know that is super hard, but that's what I mean when I say, respond with kindness and understanding whenever possible. Number four, develop and work on your own recovery. Instead of thinking about how many meetings they should go to and what they need to work on and, you know, did they see their psychiatrist and are they taking their medicine and all this stuff? You gotta. You gotta work on yourself, too. And that's not me saying anything is your fault. That's not anything. But you cannot live with addiction. Not get ran over, not happening. You cannot live with addiction and not get kind of messed up. It's a byproduct of the process. We see this in our office all the time. People just want to, like, send us the addictive family member. And, like, here, Amber, you deal with them. Send them back when they're fixed. It doesn't work because by the time someone has gotten to the point that they need to see me, I don't know. Doesn't matter me how the mess started. But I can tell you that by the time someone comes to see me, that mess has gotten to a big enough point that it is now caused problems in the entire household. And there's no way you can take someone out, send them in to get fixed, and come back into a broken household and think it's going to work. Okay, that's not blame. That's not judgment. That's just practical, right? Like, so make sure you're working on your own recovery, that you're managing your own triggers, that you're keeping your side street clean, all that good and necessary stuff. You can do that by having your own counselor. You can do that by having your own sponsor. You can do that by being in your own family group. There's a hundred ways to do that. But make sure you're taking care of you, that you're learning and growing just like they're learning and growing. All right, and then number five, don't always assume that you know best. I know you probably most of the time know better, but you don't always know best, and you don't always know what's best for the other person. It may seem obvious to you, but situations are complicated. Everybody's recovery is a little bit differently. And you really do need to listen to what the other person is saying. Listen to what the other person says that they need and sometimes give them the benefit of the doubt that they know themselves best and that they're not just always trying to get one over on you and that they feel like this is what they need. So, you know, look at the situation through a lens of humility, and it'll help you when you do that to respond with kindness and understanding. It'll help you do all the other things that I just told you to do. So if you can do number five, which is don't always assume you know best, the other four will come quite naturally. So maybe we should have just narrowed it down to that one. All right? Now, I told you I was going to tell you, the big cat daddy of all boundaries that both sides have to keep. To me, this is just like the no go zone. Okay? Neither side gets to emotionally blackmail the other side, because this is what emotional blackmail is what we do when we're desperate to control what another person does. So we literally, I call it like pulling out the ace card and throwing it down. Because this is like the biggest card you have. And you're, you're, you play in your hand, you're going all in here, but it's out of bounds. Let me give you some examples of what that might look like on the addicted person side. Usually it looks something like, if you don't let me come home and stay in the house, then I'm just going to relapse anyway because I won't have Anywhere to go. Emotional blackmail. It's like, if you don't do this, blank, bad things gonna happen to me. And it's like a way that you're gonna force a situation. If you don't forgive me and get back with me, I'm just gonna kill myself. If you don't give me some money to go pay for this, then I'm probably gonna have to go prostitute myself out on the street. And you know what that's gonna lead to. That is emotional blackmail. It is out of bounds completely, 100% not okay. And probably somewhere in your addiction, when you get desperate and you just, you know, it almost becomes habit to force a situation, and it can almost. You can almost find yourself doing this without even meaning to or intending to sort of back in someone against the corner. And so you're going to have to be mindful of this and watch out for this. You know, it's about accepting things sometimes that you don't want to accept and not try to force your family member to do what you think they should do. Now, families, same thing on your side. If you're having any kind of thought in your head that goes something like, if you don't blank, I will blank. Or if you do blank, I will blank. So you. You're putting these, like, giant contingencies out there. And I don't mean like a regular boundary. What I'm talking about, like, is if you don't go to 10 meetings a week, I'm not going to, what, help you pay for your counselor or whatever it is like that. It's. It's holding someone hostage, or if you don't do this, I'm gonna turn you into your probation officer. If you don't do that, I'm gonna tell grandma what really happened the other day. It's like, it's. It's an emotional blackmail. It's like, I'm gonna do this thing that I know is going to hurt you really, really, really bad if you don't do it. I want you to do. And now I know it can be confusing for family members because sometimes you have to set a boundary to protect yourself. Like, it may feel like you say, if you don't quit drinking, I'm going to leave you. That is different than saying something like, look, if this situation doesn't get better, I'm just going to have to take myself out of it because I have to protect myself. That's a boundary you're setting for yourself for a reasonable reason. These other things are really more like big threats. And bluffs that are trying to force another person to do what you want them to do, regardless of whether it's the right thing for them to do or not. If you feel like they should or shouldn't, that forcing part is a bad boundary on either side. So no emotional blackmailing of anyone on either side. All right, let's see who's with us today and take a look and say hello and see what you guys have to say. Looks like we have a lot of people here with us. Hey, Sandy. I see you and Kelly and Mia and Debbie and Susan. Jennifer, Ethan. Ethan says I leave for rehab in a couple of weeks. Look at you. You're, like, getting ahead of the curve, Ethan. Like, you're. You're doing some studying before you get out. That's impressive. You're gonna go in ahead of the game, and I really like that. Let's see here. Jennifer says, I watch this all the time in my recovery class. I'm almost two years clean. You watch what, like, these videos or something else? I love Put the shovel down. I love the rat study. Hey, thanks, Jennifer. I appreciate that. Diana says I'm trying to set boundaries, and I've been codependent in the past and working through it, knowing I need to separate myself from the other person. They get mad at me when they don't get their way. Yeah. And. And that can go to the level of the emotional blackmail, and it can. It can be lower levels of, like, pouting all the way up to the. If you don't like the big ace card of the situation. And we just. Both sides have been so desperate. You know, the addictive person is desperate to keep using, and the family is desperate to keep them from using that probably everybody has sort of lowered themselves and resorted to behaviors that aren't good. And it does take a while to break those patterns of trying to force something or another situation. Let's see. Debbie says kindness. Let me show it to you. Because it's a question. It looks like a statement. Debbie says kindness and understanding are not enabling. Question mark. Absolutely not. Kindness and understanding our the opposite of enabling. Yelling, screaming, threatening, preaching, nagging, shaming, guilting. That is super enabling. And Debbie actually did a video on that a week or so ago. It's about anger and stuff like that. And that might help you out to check that out if you want. Erica says it is so hard to be nice when they keep lying to you about using. It is. Erica and I actually recorded a video. It's in the editing process now. About how when and whether or not you should call it lying, I think you're really going to like that one. It's going to really speak to what you're talking about there. Diana says, I feel as though if I'm nice, she opens up the door for more. I bet you're not the only one feels that way. It's. It's that if I give them an inch, they're going to take a mile. And I do think that there's some truth in that. If you give them an inch, they're going to take a mile. But I'm not saying be nice as in give them everything they want. Give them money, let them do what they want. That's not really what I mean. I just mean emotionally kind. And how you respond, your words, your tone, your body language, that's really what I mean. More than, like, you know, like, they call you up every other day and they need $50 for this. I'm not saying show understanding by giving them $50. Just show understanding emotionally for their situation. Let's see. Hey, Chris, Renee, Sandy. That's what Sandy. I say. She usually says some good stuff. Hey, Amber. Kindness, care, and a ton of empathy is extremely important, though. One has to show by example. Do never lose your core beliefs and honor them always. Right? Even if you don't feel like they deserve it. I agree with what Sandy's saying. You're. You're. You're being respectful of yourself when you're keeping control of yourself in that way, you're modeling good behavior for them, but you're also acting and behaving in a way that you know is right. Mia says what happens when they are about to start rehab but are still downplaying and lying about why they ended up there? Nothing. Don't worry about it. As long as they're going to go, they're going to go. You don't have to make them say fully that they totally get it and they're like the biggest drug addict ever and they're never going to use again. In fact, I wouldn't even engage in that because literally you're probably just gonna, like, like, slow down the process or even, like, derail the whole train on the way to rehab. So the more people get better and the more they deal with their own shame and guilt and the more sober that they are, the more able they are to see how bad things were. And not only are they more able to see it, but they're also well enough to admit it, because sometimes they see it, but they just can't Admit it. And other times they can't see it. But when people get healthier, a lot of times that comes later. It doesn't always come before. So don't even worry about it. As long as they're going, they're going. To. Joel says, how can you point out observations that might be helpful to the addict? Only point out when asked or not. All that is a super great question, and I asked myself that in therapy sessions a lot. One thing you can do is if you focus on building a really good, strong, trusting relationship with the person, then you can point things out rather easily and be super direct, and they're not going to take it offensively because you have, like, the relational foundation to do that. That's number one. Number two thing you can do with that, Joelle, is you can ask people beforehand, hey, if I notice something or if I think you're triggered, if I think I see a relapse warning sign, how do you want me to handle that? I do that a lot when I get new clients. Like, if this or that or the other happens, what should I do? And it's almost like then they're giving you permission to bring it out. So then they really can't get mad at you when you bring it up, because now they've asked you to bring it up and they've told you what's the best way to say it to them. Some of my clients, they know themselves really well, and they'll tell me like, hey, don't come at me like this, because it won't be good. But you can come at me like that, and that'll work. Okay. And sometimes I'll even ask. I'll be like, if I said something like this, what would happen? If I said something like that, what would happen? So you're just literally getting feedback from them about what would be helpful because you're trying to be helpful and you're trying to be supportive. Supportive. And so ask them what you should do. Lastly, if you need to say something and those other first two aren't in the place, then you could say, I say this on my videos. Put a humility statement on the front. Like, I said, I could be wrong. Or could we jump into conclusions? But I saw this the other day and it made me think that, and I'm worried about this. Or you can say that, but say it with some. Like, I could be wrong or maybe it's nothing or something like that. A qualifier on the front that doesn't come across like, you're an idiot. You're about to make a mistake I know best. You know, just kind of soften it up. Let's see. Kelly says enabling can be acting out of my own triggers. It's not always being overly helpful. The nagging, the negative reminders that are also enabling. That's right, Kelly. I'm giving you A plus. Your A plus student. You got it. Thank you for the nice feedback, Mia. All right, everybody. Thank you so very much for hanging out with me. Up next, I'm going to put videos up for you about boundaries and assertiveness, because that goes hand in hand with what we're talking about here. And make sure you give this video a like, if it was helpful to you.