Feeling Tired From Helping Someone With Addiction? Watch This!

All right. Loving somebody with an addiction is mentally exhausting. That's a big sentence, but I can say that with great certainty because a ton of people, ton of clients, ton of people in our members, they tell us this all the time. Raise your hand if you agree and you'd like to feel less exhausted. We exhaust ourselves By focusing on our loved one often, and not by recognizing and respecting our own limitations, sorry, limitations, restrictions, and our own realities. And so by denying those, we just keep ourselves like rinse and repeat, which is the title of this thing. And so today we want to talk about some of those realities so that you can see, do these things apply to me? And do I need to approach my situation, my problem, my what's I'm dealing with? differently. So Kim, help me talk about some of these examples. What are some of the realities that people have in their lives that keep them stuck?

I think that we've got kids. Kids are always a big one that I hear as far as, you know, I can't, I can't do much because I have to protect my kids. We have cultural norms. That's not part of my culture. That's not how we do things. We have, you know, parenting.

Cultural norms, do you mean like From where I come from, that's— we just can't do that. From— yeah, that would be acceptable in my community, my, my church, or my peers, or would not— my family, other family members, my extended family would not like that.

Right, right. And even, even with that one, sometimes it feels like, like it's, it's bumping right up against integrity. It's bumping right up against values. And so, you know, that, that's a— it's an important limitation to recognize, you know.

And the value— you hit a word with, but with values, you're right. Like, in my That's, we, that value is not, I can't do it. Right.

And even with, um, you know, like with the kid, the kid wanted to be able to say, hey, if I'm really going to do this, then it's going to interrupt my kids' lives. And so again, it bumps up to that integrity, that, that value, is that really something that's good for me or my family? So we do end up in this rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, because we don't, we feel like our hands are tied behind our backs. So we don't know what to do. And then sometimes we even feel bad because we think, okay, I know what to do because I've read this book or this expert has told me this, but I can't do it because of X, Y, and Z. So now I feel really bad about myself and even worse about the situation that I'm in.

Yep. I think sometimes also we, the reality is that, you know, a lot of our clients believe and maybe right that mental illness is really the problem, that addiction may be a part of it or not a part of it because it's really, they have this thing and then that keeps them stuck in that pattern. But that reality is very important to note. If that's how you feel, you need to recognize that.

And I'm glad you said that too, because it's important to, to really recognize the relationship that anxiety and addiction have together. Because as long as someone's struggling with active addiction, they're going to be anxious as far as, how do I maintain my relationship with my substance? How do I conceal it? How do I keep my life intact while still having this? And so a lot of times people can look at this and just say, well, they have just a really big anxiety issue, which is true for anyone that struggles with active addiction, but that doesn't mean the anxiety is the cause. It means the anxiety oftentimes is a ripple effect of the addiction.

We hear that addiction, like people's, like, remember when we used to get a lot of referrals from the hospital and all diagnoses were anxiety and depression? And I'd be like, maybe it's just addiction. And sometimes there is residual mental problem, but a lot of times addiction can make us make them look mentally ill.

Right, right. Or it, or it highlights An issue that's going on behind the scenes, but that doesn't mean that the addiction doesn't become the top line at the point of, you know, the situation or whatever, whatever crisis the family's going through.

Yeah. I think another reality, and I hear this a good bit, is I can't treat my loved one with addiction, especially a child with addiction differently because I've always, we've done this for his older siblings. We always bring them into the family business. We always buy the house. So we can't not do that. And if that's your reality, then, you know, we're going to feed the disease a little bit longer and we're just going to have to know that. But I hear that a lot. Yeah.

The disease is going to flourish and continue as long as it has resources to do so. And so again, going into whatever this thing is that, that you as the loved member, as the family member, feel like I have to continue to feed into the disease because, and there's lots of things that we can answer that. You know what goes into that because blank, but the the sad part of it is it does feed the disease. So from the family member side, then we feel stuck because on some level we know we're feeding, and on the other level we're like, "Well, what am I supposed to do? I'm I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't." So I do think it's important to recognize what are the limitations, because once we start to operate different, then we feel different.

Right. Let's see. Are there what are some other ones?

What I'm going to talk a little bit more about, like the parenting. Like if I parent. One child this way, then I have to parent another child that way. Just kind of the guilt in like what that's like for, for it from a parent side, what that feels like.

I think that what I'm hearing from most of my clients is that they can't stand the pushback from the kid that they might not be doing it. Well, you did it for Jane and Susan and you're now, you're not doing it for me and you think I'm an addict and that's why you're not doing it. And then that guilt sits in there. Like a lot of parents have a lot of guilt around not providing money or not providing privileges that they've given to other children. And they can't deal with that guilt until, until it eventually bites them and they figure it out sooner or later, but it's usually much later.

Yeah. I imagine that also kind of is layered on top of the guilt that parents feel as far as, did I cause the addiction? Was this bad parenting? So it seems like it would just be one more thing if I'm already questioning how I showed up as a parent and how my child was affected. And now there's this, well, and now I'm not going to parent them the way that I parent other kids.

Yeah.

I would imagine that would be kind of layered in there too.

Um, I think also I have a new family and they know what they need to do differently to help their child, but his grandmother, the child's grandmother, will not. And so she's, she won't let the parents, like her son is the dad and she's just constantly on the dad saying, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. And it's too difficult for the dad to stand up to his mom. And so things are just falling through the cracks because of that, but that's their reality. And I, that's what I said to them. Your mom is not going to change. So we have to work within that knowledge. We have to work within that scope.

Right. Right. Which I think touches on the fear of bad things happening. You know, one of the things that keeps us stuck is we're too afraid of the bad, what could happen. And so rather it's, you know, I can hold this line, but if the grandmother is going to come in and wash it away, then Can I really hold that line? Or I can hold this line, but what if I don't see him for, you know, 6 months? So can I really hold that line?

Yeah, I think that's the big grapple is, can I? I think also we tend to put ourselves into our loved one's place. If I won't let them live here, then they'll be on the streets and that would just be horrible. And often I think what with addiction is It's not as horrible to them as we think it would be, because as long as they have their substance, they're pretty good. And so, like, I'll live in my car for 3 weeks, but then it'll be filled with beer cans and bourbon bottles when I get out of here. But as long as I've got these things in the car, I don't really care that I'm cold and don't have any gas money.

Yep.

So I think family members tend to project themselves into the scene, which makes them really fearful. That they, that that's terrible. It's too hard to do.

Yeah, I think it's important when you're from the family side, one, to, to do what your heart needs to do. Like, I think that that is an underspoken message. Do what your heart needs to do. And that doesn't mean you're enabling. I mean, technically by the book, you might be enabling in some ways, but don't say something you can't hold because your heart won't let you. But I also think it's important to, and I think it's also important to recognize that a non-addicted brain functions different than an addicted brain. So that empathy piece you're talking about. Family members assume that their addicted loved one's brain functions the way that the non-addicted brain does, but unfortunately it doesn't. And so it breaks family members' hearts to imagine these things happening, but you're also viewing it through a different brain than the loved one with the active addiction.

Yep. That's exactly, that's a good one. So these are all fair. These are all legitimate reasons, you guys. These are, we hear about them, so many of our clients and people in general, but they keep denying their reality. And so that what happens is then they get Sad and angry and lonely and tired. And then they jump into a bunch of behaviors to try to mitigate, change how that feels, because they don't like that. So some of those things are like, they're begging their loved one, just change, just change, please change. They yell, they punish. Um, what else they do? They make deals.

They, they launch empty threats, you know, as far as I'm not going to do this anymore, or you're not allowed to do this anymore. And from the family member side, then there's, you say that in a reactive state. And in the moment, you might even think you mean it. But later on, you feel guilty, or you're like, was that too harsh? Or maybe I should say that different. So then every time, every time you do that, it kind of takes away your personal power. It also puts lots of layers of guilt inside of you. So the next time there's an opportunity where you want to hold a boundary, or you think you should hold a boundary, you second-guess it because of the previous times where maybe you said something that you didn't really mean, or you weren't ready to hold. So it kind of, it really erodes at our own self-trust.

Yeah, for sure. I think we also make a lot of deals, and that I think that really kind of falls under the umbrella of almost a magical thinking, which is if I agree to buy them a car and after they go to treatment, then they'll never use again. They're just going to get a car and go out and use it. But I think we make those things because they're they're easier for us, and we need to and we want to believe them, but they don't work. And so then we just go right back to what you said: more and more layers of frustration and sadness and fatigue and anger. Anger is why didn't he honor the deal? We walk on eggshells, and that makes us at the end of the day exhausted because it is exhausting to walk on eggshells with anybody. So if you do it all day long, all week long, and you're just tiptoeing around your loved one in your home, that's exhausting.

Yeah. And the other thing I think is like, why didn't they hold the deal? Oftentimes family members then turn on themselves. Why did I make the deal? Or maybe I should have made the deal this way. And so then they bargain with themselves about how I'm going to interact next time instead of really looking, taking 10 steps back and saying, where am I in this process? And is there something that I really need to kind of look at and say, my culture is keeping me back, my family is keeping me back, so-and-so is not letting the natural consequences happen, so they're keeping it back. Instead of trying to swim upstream, being able to kind of go off to the side and say, What's what's my next best move, knowing that this is the reality of the situation I'm in? Yep.

So I think if if if you find yourself in any of these realities and or doing any of these behaviors, you know we just we just stay stuck stuck stuck. And so that's why Kim and I, having been in this position, having been stuck, having been exhausted, having been salty, sad, angry, lonely, tired, and yearning, we decided that we would do. We've talked about it briefly, but. before, but we developed a course Beyond Boundaries, and there's 2 ways you can take the course. One is very reasonably priced and it's self-directed. It's easy to do. The other one is more expensive, but it also comes with individual sessions timed as you go through the 8-week course to sort of support your processing and your thoughts about the, the 2-week module that's been right there. So there's a couple ways you can do it. I think that if you have If anything in this video resonates with you, I would at least click on the link. The clients of ours that we have so far that have taken it have said it's been eye-opening and incredibly helpful in their changing their thought pattern about themselves and their situation. So at least click on it. Kim's put the links in the description. We really hope that if you do click on it and you do it, you will be less exhausted and less stuck. And that sometimes you guys, is all we can do is just change how we feel about this thing based upon our reality, which is— it's liberating.

The other thing I want to say about changing the way that we think about it is we don't have access to our prefrontal cortex when we are in a reactive state. And so what that means is we don't have the ability to make a good logical decision when we're functioning out of desperation. So a big part of why Campbell and I created this is, one, it's what we wish we would have had when we were in it. But the other part of it is to be able to say, if you guys can get your brain in a place where you're calm, it doesn't mean you're happy. It doesn't mean that you're not mad, but not reactive. You're going to be able to handle yourself in these situations better because you have full access to your brain versus when you don't. So that's a, that's another like big kind of, if we can change the way your brain is functioning, you, if we change the input, you're going to change the output.

Because remember also in codependency, we have way too much adrenaline and cortisol in our brains and that it doesn't allow our brain to to work as rationally and calmly as it should, because we're just all jacked up. Those are fight or flight chemicals, which are meant for 90 to 120 seconds, not months or years.

Right. Which overrides the prefrontal cortex, which is where we come up with our great ideas. So we're just stuck in great ideas are on pause and survival's on go.

And that's exhausting. Yeah.

So any, any questions? Um, just kind of open it up to the topic.

Okay, Aisha. After 90-day rehab, personality still threatening, kind, and want to come home from his parents' house where he's staying for a few months. Should we let him in without seeing his changed action? No, would be the short answer to that. I need a whole lot more information, and I'm kind of confused about the sentence still threatening, kind. You know, I say this all the time: if you if you build a home or make a home available to addiction, it will live in it. So what we're looking for to tell us that somebody is in recovery would be humility and willingness. And I don't know that I'm getting that from that quick three-sentence question. But if you don't feel like this person is actually humble, willing, and Building a program to follow a 90-day program that would ensure ongoing sobriety, like an IOP or drug testing or Soberlink or counseling or sponsor, you know, any of those things that they can build. If you don't hear any of that, and kind of threatening is not humble and willing. I feel like that, that person is definitely not in recovery. Um, and remember, there's a difference between not using And being in recovery. And just because we go to a 30, 60, 90-day treatment facility does not mean we're in recovery. It just means we didn't use for that period of time. So no, I would not, just knowing what we know, I would not invite them into your home, Alicia. All right, Lulu. My son is in recovery, about to go to sober living in another month. They're pushing him to get a job. He seems to be delaying. How can I encourage him? Why is he not wanting to work? So my question to you, Lulu, would be: Are you giving him spending money past the point where they're saying, "Hey, it's time for you to have a job"? If you are giving him the spending money, then he's not gonna. He doesn't need to get the job. So if you are doing that, then I would look at your role in what's going on and and just stop and just say, "Hey, it's time for you to get a job." That's what they're telling me. So this is the last week that I'm going to give you seventy-five bucks or whatever you're giving him. I think that's a good question. As far as often parents are like, well, why are they not doing it? It's because we're not, we're not creating a need for them to change. But you can't encourage him to get a job. I would leave it, to be honest. I would let that be between the sober living and him. But I would also make sure he understands, if you could do this, that if he gets kicked out for not complying and not going along with what the sober living is asking him to do, That coming home is not an option. He may be trying to get kicked out because he thinks he's going to come home. So again, working in a little bit of a vacuum, that would be my answer. Do you have, what would you say to that kid?

I would say that I'm going to quote you from years ago, but it's, we might need them to need a job, but we need them to need a job. Like, why do they need a job? So I think to be able to turn up the heat, if you can, as far as why, why he's probably, he's not working probably because he doesn't need to work. And so figuring out how to make, how do we make him need to work, whether that's the facility, you, or whatever that might be, or just like Campbell said, the idea of you're not able to come home. So we need to kind of figure this out, but that's it. I'll just echo that.

All right, Kaylin. Um, we'll have to look into the boundaries course, although I'm not living with active addiction right now. I've always had trouble setting boundaries. It's not something we're taught. You're right, Caitlin, it's not. Um, and it comes naturally to some people. Like, I'm super boundary. Like, Amber's always saying, please have less boundaries. But it's very, very difficult for a lot of people to, to have a boundary. And there's so much confusion out there. I must have this conversation 2 or 3 times a day. They're like, they crossed my boundary. I'm like, well, what was your boundary? Well, they can't smoke in the house. I'm like, that's a rule. And so I think people get very confused about The rule boundary thing. And so then they get all twisted up because like, I don't even know what my boundaries are anymore because no one's respecting them. And boundaries are just what I will do.

And they're modeled for us. We walk away feeling comfortable or not feeling comfortable setting certain boundaries, holding certain boundaries, or even just implying that we just think this is how the world goes. And a lot of that comes from modeling from the homes that raised us.

True that. All right. Pshy, have you ever found spouses of alcoholics get dysautonomia, central nervous system disorder, or just feeling unwell overall? Yes.

Yep. Yes.

That's actually incredibly common to get just mentally, emotionally, Physically dysregulated and ill from living with ongoing addiction. It's like living in a rowboat in the middle of the deep ocean. It gets crazy.

With someone telling you you're in a movie theater watching a movie.

Mm-hmm.

You're like, that's not what's going on.

Telling you you're crazy and gaslighting you. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, absolutely. That is unfortunately common.

And that's sort of a boundary that you have to then as a person say, How long am I willing to feel this bad?

And that— and I'm going to tagline on that or piggyback on that. That doesn't— oftentimes when that statement is said, spouses think, oh, that means I need to leave, or this sounds like a comment where I'm supposed to leave. If we change the way we look at our situation and we change the way we're responding to the situation, we can change the way we feel. Does that mean we're going to completely make the chaos go away? No. But it does mean that we can minimize it. And it's kind of just one step and one foot in front of the other and 10 steps ahead. You have a different perspective than you did at the first step. So some of it really is just being able to say, what can I do to feel better today? And you stack that on top of each other.

Knowing what the reality is, is that this is the environment. Now I'm going to react differently to it. Yeah. Good.

Right.

Right. All right, Suzanne. I'm currently still reading and studying the Invisible Intervention program by Amber. How would Beyond Boundaries fit in with that, what I'm currently working on? Great question. In my mind, um, Beyond Boundaries is the first thing everybody should do, because if you, if you can't change your reality and you don't, you can't have boundaries, then there's not a whole lot of benefit in learning some of the things that come from the Invisible Intervention, which is how to get out of the bad guy role. And I mean, there's benefit, but I think you have to understand yourself before you try to interact differently with them to get a goal. Because the purpose of Invisible Intervention is to get a good outcome. And Beyond Boundaries is to get you.

Yep. And actually the reason why we even started it was because Amber was saying, guys, I'm really struggling with people that are taking this course because they're having a hard time holding the boundary and they are feeling awful and terrible because they're putting all their energy into getting their loved one this outcome. And that, that was, that was why we started it as far as like the origination of this is what we need to do. Because we do, as the loved ones, we tend to put all of our time and our resource into getting them better because in our mind, when they are better, we will be better. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. When they are better, there's less chaos, but now we're just full of resentment and angry and bad habits. And there's just this going on in the kitchen.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right, Kaylin. Addiction is a family disease. And not— I wouldn't even say sometimes, I would say almost always we are as sick as the addict. And then we don't function well in our lives and we actually emulate their behavior. We're usually just like slightly behind them.

Yeah.

But we lie and we cover up and we check out and we isolate. We do all those things out of shame and fear.

Yeah, and we just talked about this yesterday at the membership. There was a call-in that was exactly that, and it was we mirror it and we're typically a couple steps behind them. So when they're in the bargaining process, we're in the bargaining process. They're bargaining how to keep their addiction alive, we're bargaining how to keep them alive. And so it's, well, if you do this, are you willing to go to this meeting? If you stay here, will you get a job? And so we are bargaining with them and they are bargaining with their disease. So when we learn, hey, we're, we're in the same cycle. And so we're going to do something different. It changes the family and it changes us.

Yeah. Click on the link, Kaylin. There's links. You put them in the description, right, Kim? That's where they are. So you can click on it. There's 2 links. One is for the self-guided one. One is the one with support from us. Um, and that'll take you to read all about it and be able to decide if this is something that works for you. And if you can't, for some reason that doesn't work for you, call the office and our very favorite person in the world, Bri, will make it happen for you. All right, Carla, we have really good insurance, so sometimes I feel like these treatment places are trying to keep my son in longer than necessary. Do I think— do we think that might be happening? Possible. It's possible. The problem With the addiction world is a lot of people have figured out you can make a lot of money on it. And there are some fabulous places all the way from 30-day programs down to sober living. There's some wonderful, wonderful, wonderful places. And then there are some not so wonderful places and they're just in it for the money and that's, they'll take your insurance money and the outcome doesn't really matter to them. So it's possible. That's why it's really important to not only And it's hard to pick the right place because they all sell themselves as being this, this, and this, and then they don't deliver this, this, and this. And they are great at onboarding. They are— they will hunt you down. Don't you want to come? Like, we're holding a bed, we're holding— and then you never hear from them again. And your kid comes home, or your husband comes home, whoever, and it's— nothing's really changed. So it's possible.

Mm-hmm.

Sadly. Oh, I think Bree's saying we're out of questions. All right, wonderful.

Perfect.

All right, so hopefully this was helpful. Look at your reality, look at how you're responding and how you feel, and if you want to change it, do some, do some Beyond Boundaries work. All right, thanks a bunch, guys. Thank you.