Amber Hollingsworth (host of the Put The Shovel Down YouTube channel) explains five practical tactics to encourage a loved one to admit they have an addiction without provoking defensive denial. Key tactics: keep conversations casual and brief; normalize addiction to reduce shame; offer an externalizing explanation (an "excuse") to protect ego; reframe addiction as a spectrum so early-stage problems feel manageable; and read the official clinical criteria (substance use disorder) so people can self-count symptoms. She also points viewers to follow-up resources (a criteria-reading video and courses teaching motivational interviewing and other techniques).
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You can't force someone to admit that they have an addiction. And to be honest, the harder you try, the more that they will dig in that they don't have an addiction. But there are some ways to get someone to admit to the issue without trying to force them. And that's what I'm going to tell you in this video. For those of you who are new here, welcome to put the shovel down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your family and your life back on track. Get back out there and live the life that you want to live. I want you to know you are not powerless. You do not have to hit rock bottom. And there are many things you can do to help an addicted loved one. If you want to be back in control of your life, subscribe to this channel, and I'll make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. And don't forget, hit the little bell if you want access to the bonus episodes. Now, I've been working with people who have addictions for, like, almost 20 years now. I have certainly seen a ton of denial. I mean, you wouldn't believe some of the things that I hear people say. And I'm like, literally, you can't see it. Like, wow, it's like, right there in front of your face, red blinking light. But denial is very, very powerful. There are reasons why people either can't see the issue or won't see the issue. But I want to give you three five tactics that I use that will help you sort of circumvent that denial ego defense mechanism. Now, first and foremost, and maybe even most importantly, keep the conversation as casual or light and short as possible. Don't try to have a big talk with them, because as soon as you start all that serious talk, their defenses go up. Wouldn't yours? It feels like you're in the principal's office. Your walls are going to go up immediately. If you're casual and comfortable in a conversation, the other person's going to be casual and comfortable in the conversation. So don't make it too serious. I know it's a serious topic, which is why I'm giving you a serious strategy on how to get through to someone. Take my word for it. Keeping it lighter will help them see it faster. Now, strategy number two is to somewhat normalize the idea of having an addiction. Basically, you have some bad image in your head. And if you can help people see that these days, addiction is everywhere. And Kind of like almost everyone develops an addiction, then what you're doing is you're making the concept of having an addiction feel not so terrible. Which means admitting that you have one doesn't make you a terrible person. In fact, it's a pretty common problem to have these days. Now, the third strategy I'm going to call it give them an excuse. Now, calm down. This is not as bad as it sounds. I'm not saying give them excuse to continue to make bad choices. I'm saying give them a way to accept the fact that they have an addiction without destroying their sense of self and ego, without tearing them down and triggering up all their shame. Let me give you some examples of what I mean by giving an excuse. You can say, dude, it's no wonder this happened to you. Look it blank. Or you can say, dude, you're under so much stress, it's no wonder you're drinking. Or anyone who've been through what you've been through in your childhood would probably end up with some kind of negative coping skill. What you're doing is you're saying, hey, you were in this situation and you have this problem not because you're a bad person, but because of X, Y or Z. Now, when you combine that with the normalizing of it, what you're doing is you're trying to take the shame away from the issue, which of course makes it a lot easier to admit to. Now, another strategy that you can use to help someone kind of admit that they have an addiction is to help them reshape what they see as an addiction. Because most people, when they think about addiction, they think about like end stage addiction, like the worst of the worst. But actually, people that are addicted go through a lot of stages before they get to this worst of worst. And my goal, of course, is to get people to see the issue and deal with the issue long before they lose everything. You guys know on this channel, you do not have to hit bottom to get better. You hit your bottom when you put your shovel down. So. So I have a lot of clients who haven't lost everything, whose lives are pretty good in other areas, who maybe even are really successful, but nonetheless, they do have an addiction. So I try to help them see that there are many stages of addiction. And then I validate the fact that they're catching theirs really early. This helps people actually feel good about admitting that they have an addiction because they're like, you know what? I had this. It happens to a lot of people. Here's why it happened to me. And, and I'm going to be one of the people that catch it early and I'm not going to lose everything. So you're shifting it from this terrible, horrible, like confession of your sin to you know what? Okay, I got this. It's a practical problem and I can deal with it. And in fact, I'm going to deal with it faster and sooner and better than other people deal with it. So I feel good about it now. Another strategy that I sometimes use to help people figure out where they're at in those stages is I actually read them the official clinical criteria for having a substance use disorder. That's what it's called clinically and officially it's called substance use disorder, or actually it's called an alcohol use disorder or an opiate use disorder, or a cocaine use disorder, stimulant use disorder. It's actually, officially it's broken down into those categories, but the criteria are actually all the same for substance use disorder. It's just like insert different word for the different type of addiction. And I will go through those criteria and have them count up how many of them that they have so they can diagnose themselves. It's not me saying, hey, this is what diagnosis you have, it's them looking at the criteria and them deciding where they are at on that spectrum. Now, if you want to know what those criteria are, keep watching because at the end I'm going to link up a video where I read you the criteria just like I would do it in session. And you can either count them for yourself or if you're thinking about someone else in your life, you can kind of get an idea about where they may be in their stages. But of course, getting someone to see or admit that they have a problem isn't the same as getting them to do something about it that's a little bit more complicated. But there are strategies and techniques that are very, very effective for doing that as well. In fact, it's what we teach inside of our invisible intervention online course for family members. We teach things like motivational interviewing and the craft method and all these other techniques that are research proven to get people out of denial and into recovery. If you want to see some of those techniques in action, I have a real life session that you can watch for free. And in that sess you'll see me using motivational interviewing techniques, which are these specialized counseling techniques used for getting people out of denial and committed to change. I'll put the links for that in the description below.
