Get Your Addicted Loved One to Go To Counseling

You know your addicted loved one needs some help, and you wish they would agree to go to counseling. But every time the conversation comes up, the whole thing goes sideways. They have about a million roadblocks and excuses and reasons why they shouldn't, don't need to, don't want to go to counseling. Well, you're in luck, if this sounds familiar, because today I'm going to talk to you about exactly what to say, like, what words to use and everything when you run into these really common roadblocks that your loved one throws at you. Now, I've got a list of six of them here. These are, like, the really common ones that I hear all the time. But if you're watching live and you're thinking of a roadblock that you've heard, throw it in the chat and maybe we'll brainstorm together about how to maybe overcome that roadblock. Because I'm sure there are some that. Some really special, unique ones that I'm missing out on. And I can't tell you I can overcome every roadblock, but I'll do my best to tell you what I would say in that situation. Now, before I tell you these sort of six scenarios, and each. Each way of having the conversation kind of goes with a different roadblock. I want to say this because this is more important than anything else. You have to wait for the right moment to say this or have this conversation. And if. If your loved one isn't at the right point to go to counseling, you actually might make it worse to get them to go to counseling. And I actually have a video about why that is. Counseling can make addiction worse if it's not either the right time or it's not with the right person, or it's not set up properly. So make sure you watch that video. I will link it up here for you at the end. I think the thumbnail or something is called something like why you should stop telling your addicted loved one to go to counseling. And it's not that counseling can't ever help, but you need to have the situation set up right, so that will help you with that. And if you're wondering how to even get them to the point where you can even have this conversation, then there's a whole playlist of videos about how to get someone motivated to make a change, motivated to take steps towards recovery. We have a whole invisible intervention program. We have tons of resources for you on how to get your loved one there. But when you finally get to the moment, I call them, like, little moments of clarity or Moments of willingness where you can see that, okay, we have a window here. It's like, I've been waiting for this. I've been like, working all the steps and now it's finally here. And you're like, what do I say? I want you to have a guideline on what to say. You may even want to take some notes on this and feel free to customize these suggestions to language that kind of works for you and you know the dynamic best between you and your loved one. But you can take these words, I would say, and you can kind of make them sound more like you. And it's going to help you overcome these six big main objections that you're likely to run into. Now, we'll start with, like a really common, basic one, which is, I don't believe in counseling. Anybody on here have a loved one that either says or you know that they don't believe in counseling? Like, I'm not talking to no counselor about my business. What is that? That's wooey who you're. That's for crazy people. A lot of people have a bunch of stigma and bad imagery in their head about the idea of even talking to counselor. And it just seems foreign or dumb. Even though I'm a counselor, it's kind of weird that I'm a counselor because the idea of talking to a counselor, like, I don't even know how I thought of being a counselor. Actually, I didn't think of being a counselor. I was a teacher and I thought I'd be a school counselor. I'd heard of a school counselor, but I really didn't know anything about what a therapist was. That was just not a thing in my family. That was not a concept. So I can relate to that idea of like, do what doctor Who? About my problem, My personal business. I kind of get it, actually, because that would have been the case in the family I grew up into. You guys know I'm from the Tennessee. In the country, in the. In the little tiny town. Not even close to a big town, like, really small, isolated town. So this idea of I don't believe in counseling, this is a really common thing. So one of the ways that you can avoid and get around this one sometimes is you can say, you can either sort of like agree and you can say, yeah, I don't know, like that might be just like bunch of crap. Who knows? Let's try it. You can. And you can say or whatever. So you can kind of give them this. You're leaving the door open. And a lot of These are going to be like this. So you're going to leave the door open for them to have that objection. If they have an objection and you start to push on it really hard and say, I don't know, you start to defend it. Well, they're trained for this and they're, that they're just gonna like cling on to the objection even harder. So don't want you to do that. When someone gives you an objection, if there's any amount of validity to it, then at least validate the valid part. You don't have to do the whole thing. But you can say, I can see where you're coming from with that. And honestly there's some truth in that. Like what Counseling. That's weird. You know, the other thing you can do is don't use the really common phrases that I know most of you use. Don't use the phrase like I want you to get some help. Just that word right there, help that just feels icky sometimes for people, like, oh God, here we go again. You know that you're going to get the eye roll response. And don't say, you know, you need to get some treatment. Use a different word if at all possible. I was talking to someone this week and we came up with the idea of using the word, hey, let's get some advice on this issue from someone who like knows something about it. Let's see if we get some advice because it doesn't hit that same trigger. Point is when you say the word treatment, when you say that, when you get the shutdown, like what you're going to get when you say that word is absolutely not like, because at this point the garage door is slamming down because they don't want to do that. If you say the word get help, you're going to get the eye roll. Oh my God, really? Here we go again. You're gonna die rope. So use a different word, something else. And you know your loved one best and find a way to couch it, frame it that's not so off putting to them. Now the second, this second roadblock, a really common roadblock that you're probably gonna run into, it's is this really happens when you're dealing with someone who, who's like a really stubborn person who you can't force into anything. Like I know everyone hates to be forced in things. Everyone likes to have control and independence and autonomy. But you know, some people are just like really hard headed and even if they wanted to do it, but you told them they had to do it or need to do it, then they really not gonna do it because you said that when you're dealing with that person then you never want to go at it directly and you want to, you don't want to push, you want to sort of gently open the door and invite them if they feel like it because they have this like real hair trigger on. You can't make me button. Put a hands up emoji in the comments or in the chat. If, if your person or someone you know and you're thinking of them, you're like, oh yeah, that's my person. They're like that, they're just stubborn headed and they literally say no just because you suggested it. If it's, if you're dealing with that kind of person and they start throwing up objections at you, then just validate their reasonable objections. And so some of those objections could be about money. It could be about those people don't know what they're talking about. You want to like listen those objections and we'll address the money one specifically in just a second because it is such a common one. But, but just listen to what they have to say and then say you could be right. Right? Like you could totally be right. Like it might just be like a waste of time. This is where you want to say, let's just give it a try and if it's terrible, forget about it. You know, if it's terrible you don't have to do it. Don't say forget about it, but if it's terrible, you don't have to do it. And then that leads me into the next statement that you can say is once you've given them that out, you've acknowledged their points, the ones that you can acknowledge in good faith. Then if you have somebody specifically, this also works. If they really don't like authority, then, then you want to always give them that exit door. And one way to do that is let's, let's get you an appointment with a couple, two or three different people and you decide who you like. Or another way to do that is to say, yeah, why don't you go like, try it out like three times, give it a fair shot and if you still don't like dude, we'll do something else. We used to use that one a lot with families that would call and they say, I really want my loved one to see you, but they just won't do it. Or sometimes the person would need to be like an intensive outpatient. And we would say to them, we'd say, listen get your loved one to agree to come three times. And if they hate it, they don't have to come back. Because I know, we know. Campbell, Kim and I, all of us know if we don't, if you don't like us by three times, if we don't have you engaged, we're not going to get you. We're pretty decent at it. And most addiction counselors, they have to develop a skill to build rapport with people because the people that come to see us don't want to come see us. So we have to kind of get good at this. And if I've not won you over at least a little bit, I'm not saying like fixed you or changed you by three sessions, but I'm just saying, like, if by three sessions that person does not come home and say. And you say, how was it? If they say, well, it wasn't awful, that's a win. Because that's sort of like a. It was all right, but they didn't want to say that. But that's, that's the goal is to get them to either try two or three and see who they like. That makes people feel like they have options and they're not forced. And the three times, see, see if you'll go to that group, that counselor, that program, whatever, three times, it feels like, all right, I can do three times. You know, that's not that big a deal. It's like three one hour sessions. I can do that. And now a lot of times they'll concede to that. And like I said, by the time they go three times, if you've got them with, you know, a good match for them, then they'll be like, well, this isn't terrible. I might as well come back. They might be thinking, this probably won't help, but this will make my wife or my mom happy. I'll just do it. It's not that terrible. That's fine. That's a good starting place if you ask me. The other one. Now, you don't usually get this objection necessarily if it's your kid, but you probably might get this one if it's your spouse is a. Why do you want to go pay a bunch of money? They'll throw a money objection up. Now, sometimes a kid will do that just because they know the parent cares about the money. They don't really care about the money, but they know it's your button, so they throw that out there because they, they think it might be a good one and get you. So the thing about money Is it can be expensive to go and see a counselor. And what. What feels really expensive about it is like, you want me to pay, what, for an hour of talking to someone's time? And so this is some behind the scenes. I don't necessarily want you to say this exactly this way, but I just want you to understand this, and then that way you can figure out how to say it to them. But really, when you pay to see a counselor, you're not paying for their one hour. You're paying for their bazillion years of experience. You're paying for the fact that they have an entire graduate degree. You're paying for their expertise. Yes, you're speaking to them for an hour. But what that person can give you in one hour is more than you can get from. I mean, if you're talking to somebody who's like me and dealt with it 20 years, you're gonna get so much value, so much more better advice and good help in one hour. So not thinking of it like, I'm paying X amount of dollars per hour. It's like I'm paying X amount of dollars to expedite the process. That's the way I view it. It's like we can fumble along and we can try to figure this out. And when it comes to addiction recovery, that's probably gonna cost you a lot, a lot more money. A lot more than, like, going to see some counselor somewhere. So when you think of it that way and you. We just want to expedite the process so we don't have to, like, try and fail. We don't have to. You don't have to say this part, but we don't have to pay for DUIs and lawyers and a divorce and, you know, another failed semester of college or, you know, all of those things. And so if you can kind of get them to view it differently, if it's not your spouse and they're not involved in the money, I wouldn't bring up the money at all because you're literally just handing them some kind of, like, excuse or reason. So. But sometimes they. That can definitely be a roadblock. Another one you can run into is, I've tried that and it doesn't work. Have you guys run into that? I've done that before. I've been to treatment, I've talked to counselors. It's not helped. And the way you deal with this is to sort of investigate into it further. Like, that's the way I deal with it. Anyways, with clients in session, one of the first questions I ask, like, within the first five or ten minutes, is usually, have you ever been to treatment or seen a counselor, like, groups or anything about this before? Because I want to get a sense of what their past is. And then I'll say, was it helpful or not helpful? Because the first thing I've got to overcome is this frame of mind they're coming into me with. If they've not done it before, then they're probably kind of nervous and a little, like, unsure and not knowing what to do and a little intimidated or scared by the process. So if that's the case, then I want to address that with the person and help them feel like, oh, this is what happens, you know, and. And like, guide them through it so they don't feel like what's about to happen, you know, am I going to have to lay on the couch, talk about my dreams, like, what's going to happen? So talk them through that. But a lot of times when I see people, they have had some experience, some of them a little bit, and some of them a lot of. A lot of experience with talking to people in the past. And. And then if I can get a sense really quickly over whether they view that as helpful or not helpful, that's a really good piece of information that I can then work with to get to the next level. Because usually what they'll say is something like blanket, right? Especially what they're going to say to you as a family member. I did that. It didn't work. When in reality it was probably a little mixed in gray. And. And you can say, yeah, you have given it a fair try before. You know, what was that like? So if they throw you that roadblock, just start to, like, if they let you just dig in there and open up some of those little pieces and boxes and find out. Because what you'll find out if you ask some more questions is they'll say, well, I didn't really want to see that person anyway, and I wasn't going to let it work. And then they'll sort of acknowledge to you, but mostly to themselves, that it didn't work because they didn't want it to work. Or they'll say, well, actually, I did get sober for a while at work for a while. And I'll say, okay, so like, worked for a while, but then it wore off. They'll. They'll start to see their past experiences, usually a little more objectively. Now, sometimes in the. In a situation where I have somebody who, like, really did have a horrible experience in Counseling. Then I'll just be like, dude, that sucks. I can't believe. I can't believe that counselor said that to you. I'd be like, I will never say that to you. One time, I saw this teenage boy who came to see me, like, for an outpatient counseling session. And he. His dad brought him in, and he did not want to be there, but I'm like, whatever. That's all y' all people that come see me. So I'm talking to him, and he's just, like, looking at me like, what? So I'm asking him this question. I'm telling you guys that I was, have you been to counseling? He's like, yeah, my dad drugged me to see somebody two months ago. Some guy in Simpsonville. That's close to where we live. And I was like, well, what happened? Was it good? Like, was it helpful? Like, what happened? He's like, you know what that guy did? I was like, what? What do you do? He said, that guy told me that. Well, first of all, he made me stand up, and I thought that was weird. And then there was, like, this bathroom attached to his office. I started getting scared when he said that. I was like, oh, my God, like, what is he about to say? I was nervous. So then he says that this counselor makes him stand up, walk into this, like, bathroom that's, like, onto the office or whatever, and says, you see how big this bathroom is? This is how big the jail cell is that you're going to end up in. And started giving him this lecture on the first session. First time this kid had ever seen a counselor. First time this kid had ever seen this counselor. And we're talking about a teenager using drugs. That's a terrible technique. That is. That whole scared straight stuff. Like, I'm sure your mom and daddy done tried that on you, and if that weren't, you wouldn't be in the counselor's office. So I just laughed. I was like, what? And then I started, like, laughing. I was like, well, my bathroom's a little bigger. Maybe you'll get a good sale, you know, I started, like, joking about it, and I said, don't worry. I'm not gonna do that. And so just letting them tell you about that bad experience and validating that bad experience lets them take their wall down. And so when they start throwing these objections and these roadblocks, like, there's some validity there. Just find it and listen to them. Because when you listen to them, they feel safe and they feel heard, and then their walls start to come down. And then that's when they're more open to actually talking about it, maybe even open some suggestions, but they're at least more open minded about having a conversation about it. But the first thing you have to do is you have to handle these objections. There's actually a special kind of training that counselors get. It's actually, well, any counselor can get it, but mostly addiction counselors get it. And it is, it's called motivational interviewing. It's a technique that counselors are taught on how to deal with resistance, even though in the counsel world, they don't even want us to call it resistance. And when I say resistance, I mean resistance to going to counseling. You know, counselors are so cheesy sometimes. They get on my nerves too. That's what I tell the counselors, gun owners too, when I go to these conferences and I'm around other ones, I'm like, oh my God, I don't blame you. So they don't like the word they use, resistance, because that's negative. But that's what it is. The client is resistant to going to see the counselor. And so they teach you these techniques for how to deal with that resistance. And basically what they teach you is you. They. The term is roll with the resistance. Like, don't fight against the resistance. That technique teaches you how to be sort of like neutral and ask questions in a certain way to pull out certain other pieces of information and then emphasize that. For example, a question, they have these, they call them scaling questions in this technique. And they'll say, you know, ask the person. And you have to do it in a way that does sound as clinical, but you can kind of put this in your own words. A counselor could say something like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly do you need to change? Or how motivated are you are to change or whatever. And they might say three. And you might be thinking a three, like you're about to go to prison. You might be thinking that. But you're not gonna say that because you watch these videos, I know you're not gonna say that. And so when they say that, you say, really, why three and not a two? And the reason you say it that way is because when you compare whatever number they give you, if they give you a one, we'll say, well, why one and not a zero? Because then they're gonna give you some reason why they need to change. It's a question that prompts some kind of reason and motivation. And then when they give you that, you can ask more. Now That's a whole technique. We teach it inside of our invisible intervention. And also you can actually see me do a motivational interviewing session, like a whole session for free, if you want to kind of get a feel for how that works. But. But it's this great set of techniques that teaches you how to find the positive things that makes the person want to change and like, pull them out and magnify them up and sort of how to, like, dismiss this other talk. Because everybody that's in this situation has some ambivalence. You have some ambivalence about trying these techniques. Everybody. It's just natural, right? So you have part of you that says yes and part of you that says no. And so trying to fight with this part of someone that says no is ridiculous. It's just going to make them want to defend that stance. And so what you have to do is you have to learn to pull their motivation out. And almost everyone I've seen has some motivations for change. Like, even if they come in the office and they tell me I'm just doing this because my wife wants me to do this, then I say something like, well, dude, you must be a good husband. You must love your wife a lot. Like, she must be something special to do this. And then they'll tell me about something they care about. Well, you know, I don't want to get divorced. That'd be bad for my kids. Well, tell me about your kids. Like, obviously, you know, you care about your kids. You're worried, willing to do whatever it takes. And so whatever they give you, you find the good piece in that and you start pulling it out. And when you do that, you find that they do have a desire to change. Yes, they have some desire to say the same and some fear they've got both sides and there are ways to pull forward. So now that you have some techniques, some ways to talk to your loved one about going to counseling, if you know that they're not quite ready to change and you've sort of barely got them talked. Going to counseling, maybe you did like the go three times thing or something. Then look for somebody who's trained in this technique, motivational interviewing. Because people that know how to, you know, there's, there's like addiction treatment facilities where you can go. And they'll say, get a sponsor, go to 12 step meetings, do this, do that, write a relapse prevention plan. All well and good, all great advice. If the person either doesn't think they have a problem or doesn't want to change that problem. You're wasting your breath on that. So there's a whole different set of techniques and skills that have to be used with someone who's either in denial or maybe on the fence. You're going to have to address the motivation piece before you start telling someone how to solve a problem because they don't want to solve it if they don't even think they have a problem. They're just looking at you like you're crazy. And then you got one more time that they got in their back. Like, I tried that didn't work. Now you've got one more bad experience in the. In the backpack here, so that they carry around and use as a reason to not try it again. So timing is very important when it comes to these things. And I talked about this some last in last week's Live when we talked about denial and different kinds of denial. But the word treatment, if you're going to avoid any one word, it's probably that word because that's the scariest word. Like, people may really not want to do counseling and think it's dumb or something like that, but a lot of times they'll just do it to make you happy, which is totally fine. I don't have a problem with that. That works, too. And I'm telling you that because I've been doing this 20 years, and literally almost everyone I've seen comes in reluctantly. They don't really want to. They're doing it because they had to for some reason. Now, these days, I get more people that come in because they want to, but that's because you guys are doing such a good job of setting the right stage. But historically, people come in and that that's fine. So you have to figure out where they're at in that process. If your person doesn't think they have a problem, then don't. There's no. Not only should you not say the word treatment because it's going to make them shut down, but it's treatment treatment, like going inpatient. That's really expensive. It's a waste of time unless you have the right stage. They either have to sort of be somewhat ready. That doesn't mean they want it. You guys know how I feel about that. But they have to be somewhat motivated to do something, even if that's an external reason, or they have to be in some kind of position where they have to do it. And I'm cool with have to do it, too. Like, have to do it or I'm going to go to jail. Have to do it, like have to do it is fine because that will keep somebody involved long enough to get sober, long enough that their brain will clear or motivated enough. One or the other has to be in place. And I would definitely make sure you wait for the right timing before you go and spend a ton of money on treatment. Timing is important. So if we're not ready for that, maybe we can get them ready to talk to a counselor. Or if they're not ready for that, maybe get them ready to watch a video. Think about what could I maybe get this person to do to take a baby, baby step in the right direction. Alright, Bree, do we have any good questions and comments from our live viewers? Thank you guys for watching live. I really appreciate it. As always. There are links to other resources in the description. Oh, yeah. One of the things I put in the description is a link to my insider's guide on addiction treatment. And that will help you understand the different, like, levels of care that are out there. What insurance pays for, what it doesn't. It'll help you think through what might be the right kind of advice, not help your loved one might need, so you at least know what the options are. All right, we got questions. Amber says, I'm here and emotionally exhausted. I feel so overwhelmed and just completely done. Why can't he just see his addictions make things worse? It's crazy. Amber, like, nice name, by the way. I've been doing this 20 years and every time I see denial in somebody that's so obvious, it's mind blowing. Every single time. Just like, really, even though I have a hundred videos on here where I explain it to you, even though I get it intellectually just as a person, it's like you really can't see that that's a problem. Like, they really can't. It's crazy and it is exhausting and overwhelming. And so, Amber, if you need to take a step back, you take a step back. I mean, if you need to, like, literally get away from this person, get away from, but at least emotionally take a step back. I'm telling you guys all these things to do, but I always feel sort of a little guilty because you don't have to do these things. You do these things when you're ready and when you want to. Because it's not always the best thing for you to do. It's totally fine to take care of you too. Jennifer. How do I convince him that I'm not the one that can help him? He thinks I can help him do anything, but I am his partner. And it just doesn't work like that. He isn't accountable to me. I'm seeing that a lot, Jennifer. And that actually I'm not sure 100% what's happening in your situation. Sometimes they do that because it kind of pulls on your heartstrings and they sort of know that. So they'll sort of pull, I just need you, baby, or whatever, I don't know, something. And they pull on your heartstrings. And so sometimes they're doing it like that, and then other times they really do sort of like expect you to like detox them. Campbell deals with that a lot. Like parents who've literally went over and helped their. Their kid. But not like a kid, like an adult child. Detox multiple times. It's like, what are you doing? Or they'll say things like, well, you just hold my medicine for me. The thing I would say about it, Jennifer, is, dude, that's not fair. You can't put that on me. I'm here to be your girlfriend, your wife, your mom, your sister. I'm not here to be the police, the probation officer to do that. And that's not fair for our relationship. That's what I would say. Because it's truly not. When they ask you to to make them act right, they end up resenting you for it. It's just a no win situation. And it's crummy. Just like What Jennifer's saying, 100%. Scarlet, my son is in rehab now his ex wife is trying to control the situation. What should I do? His ex wife. I had to read that again. I thought you were saying his wife. His ex wife. That's interesting. I don't know what to tell you to do, but I would need to hear more about that story. Scarlett. I bet there's more. But if it was the wife, I could kind of see it. But the ex wife. I bet there's more to that story, isn't there? All right, what else we got? Brie? Jan says my son is supposed to be a peer recovery counselor right now. Supposed to see a peer recovery counselor right now? His appointment was 1:30 and it's 1:23. I woke him up two times. Is that enabling? Good question, Jan. He's not ready. It takes a 20 minute drive to the place. Does this mean he doesn't really want to go or is in the action stage? It definitely could mean that. That could be a sign of resistance for sure. I might would sort of remind him once, but I wouldn't keep pushing the the topic, if it's a peer recovery specialist, I'm not sure if it's something that he's paying for, you're paying for. Sometimes. If it's a counseling appointment, I'll suggest that the family say, we'll pay for all the ones you go to. Because a lot of times if it's counseling and you don't show up, like, you have to pay anyway. If you don't, like, cancel in time, you just no show the appointment. And so we, you know, a lot of times if like a parent or something's fan, then I. We tell them, say, tell them you'll pay for every appointment that they go to, and if they can't go to, they have to cancel in time. And I think that's totally fair. So I'm not sure if there's money involved in this, but if there is, you might could leverage that at some point. Lac says, my husband has seen a counselor three times. I asked him yesterday how it was and he said he hates it. He's been getting better, but he's not saying he's never going to do it again. He's really introverted and doesn't like talking anyways. How should I take it? Should I just wait it out and see if he's willing to continue? I'm glad you gave me this example. This is a great example of, like, they're giving you something negative and they're resisting something, and this is where you want to roll with it. You can say, I bet it is weird talking to some stranger about your business. What's it like? What's that person like? Be curious and interested in a. In a casual way and not in a serious way. And don't give him any kind of lecture about how it's good for him or anything like that. And say, I bet it is weird. And say, what's he like? What's his office like? Like, what does he make you talk about? Like, in a curious way, if. If your loved one can tolerate it, that's what I would do. That's how I would handle it. Oh, my goodness. My phone is ringing. Phone's never on. Let me turn that off. Sorry. What else we got? Bri Beva says, does all this advice and techniques help with someone who has struggled with a trauma bond? Yeah, these are just techniques that help people overcome their roadblocks and resilience. So, yeah, I would say so. I mean, these. These techniques won't work on everyone, but these work on a lot of people, on the really common objections. What if he doesn't want to share his private thoughts and feelings with a stranger. That kind of goes. That's similar to that last question that we had about the introvert. That's understandable. But you can say so if you don't. A lot of times people will be more okay sharing their thoughts than their feelings. And so especially men. So like, sometimes I'm talking to a guy, which is most of the time, I'll say, what do you think about that? And they'll give you an answer that will explain to you how they feel. So you can use words that are, that are less touchy feely or whatever. And they'll usually tell you what they think about that. And if, if your person is say, well, I don't know, just go in there and fill them out. You don't have to tell them anything if you don't want to. Like, tell them as much as you want to or not. Just see what you think about them. So that's, that's another example of like, roll with the resistance. Don't fight against it, agree with it and give them that space where they know they're not being forced into it and they know there's an exit door. Because a lot of times if they just know there's an exit door, they'll do it because they know they're safe. They know that they can run out if they want to. I literally tell that sometimes to people that come in our office. This is a funny thing. In our office, we're in this old house downtown. This house is really old. It was cute and that's why we like it. But it's so old. Like all the doors are janky and they like swell up with the weather and they get skinny. They do all this funny stuff. And so inside of my office, the door like literally won't stay shut. And so I had to put in like, it won't, it just won't latch. And so inside the door I had to put like one of those hook latch locks. And so when clients come in, like, they come in and then I like lock them in and it's so weird. And I say, listen, I'm locking this door. It's not weird. You can totally open it. Run out if you want to. I literally say, you can run out of here screaming if you want to because it's like, weird. It's like, I'm coming in, then the lock goes down. But that's the only way the door stays closed. What else we got? Brie, ccv. How do you find A sober coach. Do you need to be trained in a treatment program to get a referral for a coach rather than a counselor? That's a good question. Sober coaches are sort of a newer thing, and so they're not everywhere. But there's, like, more and more and more people being trained in it. Like, there's naadac, which is National Alcohol, Drug, and Alcohol Abuse counselors. It's like the big national organization that does addiction counseling. They, they. They train people as peer support specialists. Like, somebody else said their person was seeing a peer support specialist. That's the same kind of thing. So you can find more and more and more of them in your. In your, like, area, and you can even, like, look it up. Somebody came, knocked on our door. Me and Brie were at lunch the other day, and somebody just came, knocked on the door, and they were like, hey, I'm a new. Like, I just got trained as a recovery coach. I'm just, like, putting my resume out there. So there's more and more of them. But usually people that do that are people that are in recovery that have. They're not just like an AA sponsor, because they do actually have some training and stuff like that to help people. Not as much as a counselor. Now, Kim and Campbell and I call ourselves recovery coaches. We are trained counselors, but what we do these days is more like advice and coaching. And it's not like deep counseling like, you know, get into your childhood trauma, talk about your dream stuff. It's more coaching. So we call it coaching. We're counselors. But most people that do that are like people in recovery. But I think they're super helpful. And that sounds less intimidating and scary than counselors sometimes. So it's a good way to go. Irma says, word of advice. My son is going into rehab program tomorrow, but he says he decided that he doesn't want to have communication with me throughout the program. He'll be doing rehab for a year. What do I do? I don't understand why he would not want to communicate with me every now and then. He said that it's okay if I communicate with the person in charge, but not with him. That's interesting. I don't. I don't. I mean, I could guesstimate some reasons why that could be because I would think my first thought when you said that, Irma, was is that he doesn't want you to talk to the treatment people. Like, he doesn't want to put you on the release of information because he doesn't want you telling them all his stuff, and he doesn't want them telling you all his stuff, which is sort of normal. So if it's not that reason, it sounds like it's not. If he's saying you can talk to the person in charge, then there's some kind of hurt feeling. There's some kind of he perceives boundary issue. There's something about the nature of the relationship that, I don't know, that's upsetting him. I'm not sure what. And maybe he's just mad. I don't know if you're the one that's kind of pushed him into doing it, and maybe that's why he's mad. And if that's the case, he'll just get over it. It may be a while, but he'll get over it. Tara says, hey, Amber. The excuse I get is the counselor doesn't know me. How do they know my problems, etc. How could they possibly help? Well, that's a good question. And the role of a counselor is to get to know you. I mean, when I have clients, what I say is, I say, listen, I know a lot about like this and that, but I don't know a thing about you. So we're going to figure this out together. You know, you. I know this. We're going to put our heads together. But I don't know if your person's ever done counseling before, but it's not like you walk in, sit down, and they say, all right, let me tell you what to do. Do this. This. If they do, they're not a good counselor. So what they do is they get to know you and understand you. And that's the only way that counseling works, because anybody can throw advice out there, but if they think you don't get them, then that it wouldn't make any sense. Scarlett, My son is in Buffalo Alley right now. His second ex wife has a degree in psychology and thinks she knows it all. In her words, she's a professional, but she's a narcissist. She puts my son down. Repeated repeatedly. Is that what it's probably. It just dropped off there at the end. Oh. I don't know if my son wants to be with her for the third time, but she is blocking me from talking with my son. Okay, this is. So this. This is the one I saw earlier, Bree, that you put up there that I said there's more. That's tried. There's more to that story. Yeah. Something is going on with that because your son would be in charge of whether or not he would talk to you or the treatment people would talk to you. So there's something going on between the two of them. And I don't know, obviously I don't know anything about this situation. But the one thing I would tell you is that it is very, very common that when someone has an addiction, they split everybody against each other. I don't know if it's happening in your case, but it is very common that they split like the parent against the wife or the parent against the husband. And they'll say things like, they treat me terrible, they're controlling, they're mean, they're narcissists, they're all this and that and the other. And that's because the spouse knows what's up. That's because they're living with you and they know what you're doing and they're angry about it. Spouses are angry, parents are desperate. But think about what you want differently from your spouse than what you expect from your kid. It's a different ballgame name. And so I don't know if that's what's going on here, if it's that kind of splitting dynamic where he's telling the wife certain things about you telling you certain things about the wife, or if it really is this kind of situation. But either way, he's the ring leader, he's in the middle of it, he's the one that really pulls the strings. Husband is, I'm guessing that's functioning alcoholic. We have a special dinner with my 24 year old daughter and her boyfriend tomorrow. Is it okay to ask my husband beforehand not to drink at dinner? I don't know. If you ever ask him not to drink at dinner before, how does he respond? So there's two pieces of it. There's a house. He going to take it? Is it just going to make him defensive? And then there's the other piece of. Is it gonna work? It's not gonna work either. Which way? If you ask him not to drink at dinner, he might not drink at dinner, but he might drink a lot before dinner, especially if he needs to drink in the evening. I'm not sure how well that'll work. But what you, if what you can do is sort of get an exit plan or something. And I don't know how much your daughter knows or doesn't know about it, but you know, if things start sliding south, you figure out how to like tidy it up and finish it up and. Because the big thing here is protect your daughter mostly because she'll just Be humiliated, embarrassed. And I'm thinking, right, so you can kind of run interference. But that's a tough one. You can ask them, it might work, it might offend them, it might start an argument, and he might say yes, but do it anyway. So it's kind of iffy. I have to ask a stupid question. After rehab, do they need at least a year of medians and a coin? I meant to say meetings. Oh, yeah, yeah. The advice, the, the like really like traditional advice would be do 90 meetings in 90 days, as in 90, 12 step meetings. But that's not. I mean, that's a traditional advice. But I see people get sober all different kinds of ways. I like that way. That is definitely a way I'm a big fan of most people that are willing to do 90 minis, 90 days. That's some serious willingness. So they. It's a good sign that they will do really good. I think people should probably put their recovery first in their life for the first year. So it should be their primary thing. Like, if it's like, get this great new job. But this great new job doesn't allow me to go to my counseling meetings and my recovery meetings. Pick recovery first. If it's, go back to school, take two classes because you don't want to take so much or do so much that you can't do recovery. I do think you need to put recovery first for about the first year, but I don't know if that necessarily means you have to like do a meeting every day for a year or that you have to do 12 step meetings at all. But I do think you need to kind of like put it first for a while. Do you have any experience or knowledge with accelerated resolution therapy for addiction so they wouldn't have to talk. We actually did two videos on this recently, Crystal. The first, first video we did on this, and it was one of the live videos probably two months ago. I want to say, talked to this guy who's like an addictionologist doctor down in Florida who does that kind of training. And he does it because he had it done on him. And so he has a really interesting take on it. You can hear from him in the second video we did on this. We actually had the lady that invented it on here to talk about it. So it's really cool. And she talks about how it can be used for addiction therapy. But yeah, definitely, if people don't want to talk, that's kind of one way to go at it. The Daily Fire. My son, who lives in another state, has finally said the words I'm addicted in reference to his excessive life destroying pot use. What can I do from a distance to help? If you. The, the best thing you can do is keep a good relationship with your son. And if he told you, hey, I think I'm addicted, then there's some level of trust there. And so when they finally say something like that, if you're like, if you're like me, my instinct is to pounce. I literally have to like, in my head, I have to think steady. I'm like, yeah, you know, And I just want to be like, okay, you should do this. Listen to this. But you have to hold that back because if they just said it, they're probably nervous about saying it. They definitely don't want to say it out loud because they don't want to be forced into anything. So you just act real cool, calm and casual and you say, well, what's making you say that? Well, just be curious about it and let them be in control of the gas pedal and they'll do more, more quickly if you just casually not just like, don't do anything, but don't force and just push and just sort of like, not push, but like, listen, pull them, I guess is better. The better word. Irma. So am I. So am I understanding that I should get over it and accept that he does not want to communicate with me, or should I get over it? Eventually he'll communicate with me. Is that your thought? I feel that it's a way of hurting me because I gave him the option of rehab or living on the street because I decided to move back to California. And we are. Yes, that's what that sounds like, right? Because that's what I said. I just was mad at you about something. So he's mad at you about this and he probably will get over it. And probably he is just like really ticked because he feels like you're forcing him. But just, just let him be mad. Or what? If he's gonna go and he has to go and he's gonna stay, it's okay. He'll probably get over and yes, you should respect his boundary. If someone tells you they don't want to talk to you, you should respect their boundary always in every situation, period. End of story. You, you, you just like, we want people to respect our boundaries. Yeah, we want to, we want to do that. You can say, if you change your mind, I'm here for you, I love you. And he might change his mind. Probably will. I mean, he'll probably need something. Let's face it, he'll have to talk to you. Is that all of our questions, Breeze? That's it for now. All right, everybody, thank you so much. I'm gonna link up here for you. That video called, and it's in the description, too. Why? Going to see a counselor. Can make addiction worse. Definitely check that one out. And I'm gonna link up here for you. How to motivate someone. That's all the stuff you need to do before you get to this conversation. And as always, the link to the invisible intervention is in the description. I will see you guys next time. Bye, everybody.