Get Your Kid Off Drugs (so they don't ruin their life and yours!)

This video is specifically for parents. I'm going to teach you the philosophy behind the entire method that we use to help get your kid to stop using drugs and alcohol. I mean, how to actually get their life back together. Imagine you'll be able to sleep at night comfortably. You won't be scared when the phone rings. Once you understand this concept, things are going to start to get better faster. So I used to have this friend, and he would always say, sometimes the best way to win a tug of war is to drop the rope. And I just love that saying. It has stuck with me. And it's the perfect saying to help illustrate for parents exactly what goes on in this dilemma where you have a kid who's struggling with an addiction and you have parents. Okay, so we've all played tug of war when we were a kid. So I want you to think about it. I want you to imagine in your head that you are in a tug of war war with your kid. Maybe it's you and your spouse. So on your end of the rope, you've got you and your spouse and maybe some grandparents or aunts or uncles or whoever it is that's like holding. And they're pulling this rope, and they're pulling this person. Now your kid has a hold of that rope down there at the other end. And the thing about it is, they're turned around and they're holding the rope and they're pulling it, and they're looking at you and behind them, they can't see it because they're busy looking at you. I want you to imagine that there's, like, a giant hole, a pit, and it's filled with, like, spiky knives and snakes and glass and everything dangerous, possible, swords, whatever, is all down in this pit right behind them. And you are so scared they're gonna fall in this pit. They're gonna fall in this pit. Like, bad things are gonna happen to them. They're gonna ruin their life. Like, what if they get killed? And you're being scared? So scared. And you're trying so hard to get them to see that where they're headed is bad news. It isn't going to work, and it's super dangerous. The problem with that is, is you're down here pulling with pulling on that rope, and not only pulling out the rope, but you're probably nagging and griping and being critical and just being a total buzzkill, obviously, and you're just on their case. So what happens is you, even though this kid is down here about to totally bite the dust. They're busy looking at you and arguing with you. And what happens is they start putting all their energy into trying to win this tug of war with you, trying to power struggle. And the more they do that, the closer that they're getting to the glass and the knives and the swords and snakes and scary stuff. But they can't see it because they're turned around here looking at you, arguing with you. And if you'll just drop the rope, they'll stop looking at you. They'll stop focusing on you. And by drop the rope, I mean stop nagging and arguing and trying to do scared straight and having police officers come over and talk to them and everything else that you've done. See, they feel like their life is under control, but what they don't realize is the only reason why they're even functioning at all is because you're pulling on that rope and you're. And you're basically holding them up. If you dropped that rope, here's what would happen. They would fall. They would, you know, scrape up their knee a little bit, and then they would sort of look behind them, and they would see for real what's actually been looming there. And they've already fallen on the ground. So they're kind of close, and they're looking down in this pit of the scary stuff. And you're just standing over here not doing anything. And then what happens? The kid will then turn to you and say, oh, my gosh, like, somebody help me. And at that point, you can step in and you can help give them advice. Or they may not say, send me to treatment, but they may ask you about how to solve a small problem. Because what's happening is if you're not fighting with them, then you can align with them. That doesn't mean you have to support bad decisions. But basically, parents, what you have to do is you have to drop the rope. That doesn't mean kick them out, doesn't mean any of that tough love stuff. It's almost like you need to disengage a bit with this issue. I like to tell parents that we treat. You can be one of two ways. You can be positive and reinforce really good behaviors. That's the number one most important thing. And if bad things are happening or not good behaviors are happening. Be neutral. Yes, neutral. Now, I tell parents that sometimes, and they don't really listen to me. Or maybe they don't understand neutral, because what they'll do is they'll just back up and be mad at the person and pout and they won't say anything, but they'll be so mad at the person. And that's like love withdrawal. That's not neutral. So the. What I mean by neutral is when some kids in here and they're telling me something crazy, I say, oh, gosh, I don't know. Like, I never been through that. Wonder what you think. I'll just sort of dance around it. Now, obviously, if your kid is telling you something that's like a major safety issue, you're gonna have to weigh in on that. But all of these other things, like whether or not to turn in their homework and whether or not, you know, Coach Smith is a jerkball and they should quit the team, you're gonna have to back up out of that. You're trying to tell them. You're trying to tell them things to help them learn because you want to spend. Spare them the consequences and the hurt and difficulty that they're about to face. But it just doesn't work when a kid is on drugs. The reason it doesn't work is the consequences have to be so much bigger for someone on drugs. Now, I do have a video called Consequences Don't Cure Addiction. And that is absolute truth. You should totally check that out. But you've got to get someone's attention to even get them to consider thinking about maybe it's a little bit of a problem or maybe they should cut back or something. And it's hard to get their attention because guess what the drug does. It anesthetizes them. So I like to say it's kind of like if you're, like, at the dentist and they have you all numbed up and anesthetized, and they're, like, cutting in there and they're drilling and blood and tooth and spits going everywhere. And you're just laying there, and maybe you have some gas, too. Even better. And you feel fine. Now you could be being slashed to pieces. Your literally face is being drilled into, but you're like, I'm all good. I feel good. I don't know why y' all are acting crazy. You're trying to get a person that's basically anesthetizing any kind of difficult, bad information, pain or whatever that they're going through. And that's why consequences don't work. You can't beat this thing. And in a power struggle now, you can back up and let them look at it, but they're not really going to feel it the same way as you want them to feel it. Like, when you punish them and you take the Xbox away and you take the phone and the car and you say, I'm not paying for college and all that kind of stuff that you're going to do. They don't feel that discomfort because they're anesthetized under the drugs. The same way as you don't feel the discomfort of the dentist drilling in your face. But if you could have an outer body experience at the dentist, and even though you couldn't feel it, you could get up and walk around and look down at what was happening to you, you might freak out. You might say, umm, get me the heck out here. Like, no, that's not cool. So basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to get them to see what's happening. And in order to do that, you got to back up and stop arguing with them and drop that rope. The faster you do that, the faster they're going to get better. And if you don't know how to do that, or if you're ready to do that, but your spouse isn't on the same page. That's what we do at Hoover Families. We help parents get their kid better, faster, even if their kid doesn't think they have a problem, even if they're in denial, even if they're reluctant to go into treatment. Sometimes we never even see the kid. But we can help that parent learn how to get that kid to see the pit that they're about to fall into. And we can help that parent get their kid to make a different decision by setting the stage differently. It's a different kind of process. It's kind of like intervention, but there's no, like sitting in a circle or letters. We call it the invisible intervention. It's like a slow process that the person doesn't even know is happening. But we'll coach you through how to do that. If you feel like you need some help with that, a really good place to start would just be to subscribe to my YouTube channel, because I have thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of information. Okay, I'm going to tell you kind of something a little bit uncomfortable, but it's really expensive to come in here and see me. Like, just to walk in the door. At Hope for Families, that's a lot. And sometimes you don't have that or you're not ready. Which is why we've created this entire free online library. Tons and tons of videos teaching you exactly, step by step, how to make this happen, how to interact with your loved one, what to talk about. What not to talk about, when to put a punishment, when not to punish. All those things are right there for free. You can have access to them. I mean, this is the same information that people pay me a lot of money to sit in front of and tell them. So check it out. Subscribe. It's gonna help you. You've got to learn to look at things differently, which is hopefully what just happened when you watch this video. It helped you to look at the dynamics differently. And when you can back up and get way up here, like in a helicopter, and you can see what's going on, then you can make a different decision. And that's basically what we do here at Hope for Families. We're going to help you back up so you can see how you're getting pulled into this thing and how you're maybe keeping it going longer. Definitely you didn't cause it. It is not your fault. But you probably are keeping it going a lot longer than it would have to otherwise. So once we can get you to back up and drop the rope, then they will back up and see what's going down and they'll drop the rope, too. So much faster. If you feel like you need more than just some videos and education, you can always pick up the phone or go online to our website and give us a call. You can schedule a free phone consult if you'd like. You can figure out if you can put yourself in just parent coaching sessions if you want to. We do those. It's not even entering full counseling. It's just coaching you through this process. How do I get my kid to even see that there is a problem? So there's two ways that we can help you. Number one, for free, subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'm serious. The sooner you do that, the sooner you're going to drop the rope because you're going to start to see things way differently. And if you want to go even above that in the next step, then go to our website, hopeforfamiliesrecoverycenter.com schedule a phone consult with one of our specialists. We're going to help you look at this situation so much differently. And once you can see what's happening, you'll make different decisions and things are going to start getting better so much faster. For tons more information on all things addiction and recovery and lots of free expert advice, make sure and subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss a thing.