Amber Hollingsworth (master addiction counselor, founder of Hope for Families Recovery Center) addresses families of people with drug or alcohol problems. She argues families should not passively wait for loved ones to 'decide' to get sober — addiction alters motivation — and instead should take active, strategic steps. She recommends educating oneself via her YouTube channel “Put the shovel down” and booking phone consultations with Hope4Families specialists to build individualized plans. She notes systemic barriers in mental health/addiction care and emphasizes tailoring strategies to the person’s personality, motivations, and practical obstacles.
Questions this video answers
15 years.
Put the shovel down.
Chapters
If you have a spouse or a child with a drug or alcohol problem, stop letting people tell you that you need to wait until they want recovery for themselves. That's absurd. Because what addiction and alcoholism does to the brain doesn't let them want recovery. In fact, even people who get clean and sober on their own, they don't do that because they want recovery. They do that because they don't want some other negative outcome, which is a totally good reason. But sitting around waiting for someone to decide they want it is a bad option because all their decisions negatively impact your life. And if you're waiting for your kid or your spouse to decide they want recovery, your life's gonna pretty much suck all that time in between until they make that decision. So why not take some active steps to help the process along the way? For those of you who don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor, founder of Hope for Families Recovery center. And most importantly, I. I've worked with addicts and alcoholics for the last 15 years. And you know what that means. It means I know exactly how they think, what motivates them, what triggers them, and what roadblocks them from getting into recovery. And so Hope4Families, my team and myself, we use all that information to help families get a strategic plan on how to help their loved one. Now, I'm guessing if you're in this situation, you probably already know this, but the mental health and addiction systems out there, they're broken and very difficult to navigate. Now, we don't have time on this video to talk about all the ways the system is broken, but let's just talk about a couple. Firstly, when dealing with the addiction or mental health systems, you are dealing with someone who, a lot of times, doesn't have sufficient insight and judgment to make good medical or health care decisions for themselves. And because of the way our medical system works, the family has virtually no say or input in the situation at all. I bet you've encountered that. Physicians that won't speak to you, treatment centers that won't take your call or tell you to have the person call back, counselors who tell you the person has to be willing. You've probably hit roadblock after roadblock. And then if you do get someone in the system to talk to you, you probably get some pretty generic advice. Think about it. When is the last time that you had a counselor or physician or treatment center ask you questions like, tell me about this person. Are they introverted or extroverted? What's their personality? Like, what Motivates them. What are they really good at? What are the reasons that they're likely to tell you as excuses to not go to treatment? Like, do they have this job that they're going to not want to leave? Do they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend that they are going to hang on to for dear life? All these individual factors are super important when it comes to making a strategic plan on how to engage someone in the recovery process or keep someone in the recovery process. Now, if you're connected to some of the things I'm saying in this video, there are two steps you can take that are going to help you a ton. The first thing you can do is subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's called Put the shovel down. As in, you hit your bottom when you put the shovel down. On that channel is all the information that you need to really understand and wrap your head around not only addiction, but also the treatment system. These subjects are extremely important. If you are going to fight against an enemy, you need to know everything you can possibly know about that enemy. And you need to know what tools you have at your disposal. And that's the information that you can find on the YouTube channel. So make sure you check it out. It's totally free. If you take the time to check it out, I guarantee you will walk away with a much better understanding of what you're dealing with and how to engage in the system. And if you're ready to start putting some of that information into action, the second thing you can do is book a phone consultation with one of our specialists. These guys are phenomenal. This is what they do every day, all day. They help families develop a strategy on how to get their loved one to take the next step towards recovery. Whether that next step is admit I have a problem, go to a counselor, get myself into treatment, or make sure I don't relapse after I get out of treatment. So if you feel like you're ready to take that next step, it's during that phone consultation that we can put together the information and understanding that we have about addiction and treatment systems and support groups and all that stuff with the information that you have about your loved one. When you put those two things together, you now have the formula for success. So if you're ready to stop wasting a lot of time, money, and energy on the trial and error process, just click the button below and apply for one of those specialist consults. And together we're going to expedite this recovery process.
