Amber Hollingsworth (speaker) gives direct, practical advice for family members of people with substance use problems on how to preserve influence and encourage treatment. Key points: prioritize the core issue (the substance use) and avoid arguing over minor, everyday matters; interact in two acceptable tones — positive or neutral — and avoid negativity, lecturing, or 'being a jerk' which creates resentments and blocks therapeutic progress; avoid making every conversation about the addiction — include ordinary small talk to keep connection and make difficult conversations tolerable. The video mixes professional anecdotes (adolescent psychiatric unit, therapy sessions) with parenting and teaching experience and ends with a subscription call-to-action.
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Okay. Of all of my videos that you've watched, this might be the most important one. So seriously, pay attention. In this video, I'm going to give you the rules of engagement. How do you interact with your loved one who has a substance abuse problem? If you're trying to get this thing better, you're not going to like this. But this is absolutely necessary. Seriously, get your pen and pencil out. I'm going to. Wait a second. Okay. Hopefully you've got it. Okay, here's the thing. You've got to focus on what the real issue is. Have you ever seen that stand up comic, Kevin James? I think he's got like a stand up that says, like, don't sweat the small stuff. Seriously, you have got a big battle to fight here. And if you try to fight and argue about every little thing they do, you will lose this war. So you need to decide what's important and what's not. When I used to work on the adolescent unit of the psychiatric hospital, which by the way, is like, seriously, no joke, we used to have a saying, and the saying is, that's not the hill I want to die on. That means, do I want to argue with this kid about whether or not he should pull up his pants or do I want to spend my power and resources talking about whether or not you should use heroin? Mmm, I think it's heroin. I think I'll let the pants go. So I've been a schoolteacher, I've worked in rehab, got my own kid. I totally understand that these are things that maybe make you crazy that you want to argue with your loved one about. But seriously, every argument and fight that you pick is going to damage your relationship with this person. And your relationship is the key factor. This is where your power is and how you're going to be able to influence them. So do not damage it over something little. I know that's hard. If you're a parent, seriously, you're going to have to bite your lip, like really hard. You might like throw up in the back of your throat a little bit. But seriously, don't argue about it. Stop arguing about homework. Stop arguing about what they're wearing. Stop arguing about the fact that they're vaping. I'm not kidding, people. I know these are important things in most parents. And if you don't, if this isn't, you know, if your kid doesn't have a drug problem, then that's totally fine. You fight about all those things. But if your kid has a drug problem, this is not at the top of your list. Focus on the real issue. The real issue is the drug problem or the alcohol problem. Don't sweat the small stuff. All right, here's the rules. You can interact with this person in one of two ways. Number one, you can be positive. Means you can be nice, you can be validating, can be funny, you can be in a good mood, you can be positive. Or number two, you can be neutral. So when they do something that's making you crazy, you might just have to, like, bite your lip and just be neutral. Like, just neutral. Not negative, not positive. Because sometimes you're just like, oh, I cannot be positive about this. This is like a no go. That's fine. But try to get neutral. And sometimes to get neutral, you just kind of have to, like, get away from the situation. Just be like, oh, like, I cannot. Like, I know Emma said don't yell in bad spins, but I can't even look at him. So I'm just gonna, like, go in the other room. Like, whatever you got to do. Because if you go negative, if you start nagging or harping or lecturing or preaching or saying, why can't you be like your brother? Or you're a sorry, crappy husband or whatever it is you say, you have just lost them. Seriously. And here is the most important thing. I'm going to do a whole video on this, but let me give you a quick preview. The most enabling thing that you can do, the worst thing you can do is act like a total bee. You know what I mean? You can be a guy and still act like this. Like, do not act like a total jerk. Because what addicts and alcoholics do is they build resentments. You know why? Because they feel sorry for themselves. They feel sorry for themselves because you're so mean and you're so terrible to them and it's not fair. And then they build this big resentment, and then all they focus on is how they're mom is total lunatic and totally crazy and totally stricter than everybody else and whatever, and calls me names or whatever or their spouse. That's all that they're gonna think about. And if they're going to treatment, like, if they're coming to see Amber in counseling, guess what they're talking about. Not their substance abuse problem. Not the fact they're failing out of school, not the fact that they just lost their job. They're talking about what a terrible, awful person you are. And that's all we get to talk about in session. So if we can remove that barrier, what happens is the person has to focus on themselves as the problem, and they can quit focusing on you. Another really important thing here. Ready? The next really important thing is do not make every conversation be about the drugs or the alcohol or the problem. If you're a parent, this does not need to be all you talk to your kid about, because I promise you, they will avoid talking to you at all cost. If every single conversation with you is like talking to the principal. If you're married and the problem is your kid and every conversation you have with your spouse is about this problem, your spouse is going to avoid talking to you. I know that you're obsessed about this and that you cannot think about anything else. I totally get it. Like, this is your loved one and you care about them. And this might be life or death, but if you're going to win this war, you. You're going to have to manage yourself. And part of managing yourself is every conversation cannot be about the problem. In fact, I just want you to practice, even if it feels unnatural, just talking about regular things, like the Netflix show that you like to watch. Like the weather, like the football scores. Like, I don't care what trivial. I don't care if it's gossip. It doesn't matter. Something regular. Because if you train people that every conversation with you is going to be super intense and it's gonna be super emotional and you're super upset. All you're doing is making a person avoid you. I have a few clients that are seriously, like, good at therapy. Like, they come in, they got list, they say, like, 10 things. Okay, number one, number two, number three, and they just crack them out, and we just talk about them all. And I'm like, I love those clients. Like, so much easier. But probably 80% of my clients, they can handle that really difficult kind of conversation for a little while. But If I spent 50 minutes or an hour in seriously hardcore, like, what I call, like, come to Jesus meeting. Like, oh, my gosh. Like, who would ever want to come to therapy? Like, that would be horrible. Like, every week going to the principal's office and being in trouble. No. So a lot of my sessions, I would say 30 or 40 of those minutes might be talking about Netflix or Game of Thrones or something ridiculous or some goofy thing that happened at school that they want to tell me about. And that is fine because it helps them to feel like they have control of the gas pedal. It makes them feel like they can sort of talk about heavy stuff when they need to and then not have to when they don't. Feel like they can, or for whatever reason, or they're not ready to. Or they can, but not for 50 minutes. So if you. If I get in, like, 10 minutes of super good, like, therapeutic conversation and 40 minutes of other fun small talk that makes us connected and we laugh and we have a good time, that is a great session because it makes that person feel safe. It says, hey, we can talk about tough stuff and we can talk about easy stuff, too. And every session and every conversation does not have to be super emotionally intense. So you need to do the same thing. Every conversation had better not be about the problem. Learn to small talk. Got it? Okay, good. Now go out there and practice. Bite your lip. Do whatever you have to do. You can do this.
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