How rationalizations slowly steal your life

I frequently hear people with addictions say things like, I don't even know who I am anymore, or it's like I don't even recognize myself, or like I'm just like a mere piece of myself. Like I don't even hardly have my values, my character traits, my ambition, my drive anymore because of this addiction. And it may feel like in the moment, like it happened all at once. Like I woke up and then I was just different. But actually, it happens very slowly over a long period of time. And usually we get there by these little small sneaky rationalizations. They just kind of creep in until they take over everything. And then one day you do wake up and you notice, I'm not even myself anymore, or how the heck did my life get in such a freaking mess? That's what it feels like. If you can learn to catch these rationalizations as they slowly creep in, then you can do something about it. You can overcome addiction before hitting bottom. And you guys know that's what we're all about here on this YouTube channel. If you're new to this YouTube channel, welcome. My name is Amber Hollingsworth and this is Put the Shovel Down, the YouTube channel designed to keep you 5 steps ahead of addiction by making sure you understand the science and psychology of it. Once you understand what you're dealing with, then you can develop a strategy to beat it, whether that's your own addiction or you're trying to help a loved one overcome addiction. So to me, these little sneaky rationalizations creep in kind of like little termites. You can't see them. They sneak in a little at a time, then they multiply, multiply, multiply, eating at the foundation of who you are. Until one day you wake up and you have, and your house is about to collapse. And I, my goal here on this channel is to help people wake up and address the issue before you get to that point where your house is collapsing or even about to collapse. And so if you can learn to recognize these things, you can put a stop to them. We're going to go over 4 of the most common types of rationalizations today. I'm going to give you lots of examples, and then we'll also talk about how to break out of the cycle, how to stop from going down this road. The first really common type of rationalization is one that is called moral justification, and it's where we make up excuses or reasons for what we're doing, and we, and we convince ourselves that we're doing the right thing. Like, for example, if we're maybe we're hiding an opioid addiction from our spouse for 3 years or something. And then we're telling ourselves like, I just don't want to worry them, I just don't want to upset them, I'm going to handle this on my own. And you're convincing yourself that you're doing the right thing by your spouse, but you're really just being dishonest with yourself. And you're allowing these sneaky little termites to continue to creep in and eat at the foundation of who you are. Um, another example of— hold on one sec, I got some notes over here I need to Scroll them a little bit. There we go. Another example of a moral justification would be something like, I only continue to use these stimulants because if I don't, I'm going to have a big crash and I have to go to work. I have to provide for my family. My family is counting on me. Again, that's a moral justification, and there may be a little truth in that. There was a little truth in the other example I just gave you, but we're being dishonest with ourselves and we're telling ourselves these things because we know that ultimately this is just not a game that you can continue. That house of cards will fall and you'll be out of work a lot longer than you would've been if you would've just grabbed ahold of the situation sooner. Another one is, I drink. Actually, it makes me a better parent because I'm so stressed and anxious when I come home from work. If I don't have a few drinks, I can't just relax and calm down and be playful with my kids. Again, another moral justification, as in it makes me a better parent. Here's another one. I'm stealing from work, but I morally justify it to myself by saying, well, they don't really pay me enough anyway. I'm just taking what's really owed to me. It's these sneaky little termites eating away a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Now we all use rationalizations and justifications. Sometimes I say rationalizing is one of my best superpowers. I'm pretty good at it. I have to really watch out for the termites because they sneak in on me really good. I like to say, if you've done something really bad, come and tell me what it is and I'll tell you how it's not that bad. It's like an automatic— it's an automatic genius of mine. So I don't know if you're like me. If you are like me, put your little hand up in the comments or hit the like button and let me know I'm not the only one out there. By myself. But if you're like me, you do have to be very careful and watch over your own thinking. Recovery really requires a ton of self-awareness, a ton of humility and honesty. Of course, it requires honesty with other people, but I'm talking about mostly honesty with yourself. Let's move on to another type of super common rationalization, and I'm sure That you guys have heard this one before. Okay. This one is, it's a classic. It's minimization. We want to basically downplay the effect of what we're doing. So we're not necessarily saying what we're doing is right, but we're saying it's really not that big of a deal. We want to minimize it. Here's one I hear all the time. I hear this when people are talking to me about their spouse being really upset with them. They'll say, It's not like I cheated on her or something. What you start doing is you start measuring yourself against some kind of really bad standard, right? Some line in the sand where you're in the good underneath that. And as our addiction goes on, we just keep pushing that line in the sand further and further and further and further back. And eventually it's like, it's not like I'm an ax murderer. It's not like I beat up anybody, or it's not like I beat up my spouse or something like, it's not like I beat my kids. We start to find out how we're not as bad as some of those other types of situations. Here's another one might be something like, it's not like I drink every day, or it's not like I'm stealing for my addiction. These are just other examples of how we want to Minimize it. Minimization is probably the most common one that I see, and it's especially common in the people I see because I tend to see a lot of people that I would— this isn't a clinical term, okay, a casual term— but I would call functional addicts or alcoholics, meaning most of the people I see are still either going to work or going to school and they're functioning in their life, usually in Most areas of their life, but there's usually one or two areas of life falling apart. And it usually, the first one to go is usually like the home life, the family situation starts to go first. And so because the people I see tend to be so functional, which is actually really good, it means that people are grabbing ahold of it before they hit bottom. Even after they're trying to do something about it, they're in an active stage of change, they're trying to fix it. A lot of times they'll still minimize it. And I can pick up on those little minimizations when people are talking to Sometimes they're doing that because it's just a feature of denial. It is them minimizing how bad the problem was. And sometimes I think they're doing it because they're worried about what I'm going to think if they say the whole thing all at once, right? It's embarrassing sometimes and you feel crappy about it. It's humiliating sometimes. And so you want to kind of downplay it a little bit just because you're You're just too afraid to say it all at one time or say the whole extent of what is happening. I would say that most people don't tell me the extent of what's happening. Luckily, I don't, I don't really have to know all the extent of what's happening. And so a lot of times we're able to address it without getting into every single detail of it. But sometimes it is helpful to dig up some of those old skeletons because if you're still using a lot of minimization, rationalization, all these other things, then, and we're letting those skeletons lie, then you're going to find yourself in trouble. So what I do try to uncover and get people to talk about almost always is identifying their excuses because you're not going to be able to stop doing it until you can catch this. A lot of times I call them monster mouths because I have a whole video about this, but it's like these little monsters in your head and they're talking to you. Or sometimes I call them the committee because it's really like a whole like board table of, it feels like people in your head arguing with you. And I like for people to be able to recognize the board members that are sitting at the table, right? Because once you begin to identify the board members, you're like, oh yeah, there's Mr. Minimization. There's Mr. It makes you a better salesman and you got to provide for your family. You get used to what your rationalizations are and they start becoming less and less effective on you because it's like, no, I'm not, I'm not falling for that. I'm not believing that anymore. I hear people say things like, it's not like I'm doing heroin or something. Or if people are doing heroin, they'll say, it's not like I'm injecting it or something, right? It's always, let me move that line in the sand further back to prove to myself it's not that bad as everyone's making it out to be. Maybe you say, Okay, so what? So I'm gambling, but it's not like I'm like gambling away the mortgage money. It's not like I've lost my possessions. It's not like I've lost my house or something like that over it. It's just a way of saying it's not that bad and making ourselves feel a little better to keep it going longer. And that's the problem is because we're trying to make ourselves feel a little better, which allows us to keep going down that ugly road. Let's move to the next. This is the number 3, if you're keeping track, kind of really common rationalization. And that one is blame shifting. Put your little hand up emoji in the comments if you've either done this. Put my hand up. I'll go ahead and put mine up. Or had the blame shifted onto you. Maybe you've had that done to you. Okay. But it's exactly like what it sounds. It's like you're shifting the blame from you onto someone else, or sometimes it's some other circumstance. It's not always a person. It's usually a person, but it's not always. It can be, um, sometimes when I hear it not be a person, it's a situation like, well, it's just part of my job. Like, I have to take clients out, I have to drink with them. Like, it's just, it's just part of the culture of what lawyers do. It's just part of the culture of what salespeople do. Like, you just pretty much have to do it to get along. So it's a way of sort of blaming Either a specific group or society or whatever. You know, it's like, well, it's like everyone does it. That's the classic one. You know, you hear teenagers say, well, everyone does it. That's an example of blame shifting. Another example might be, if my boss wasn't such a big fat jerk, I wouldn't need to smoke weed in the evenings to calm down. The most common one that I hear is Yeah, I know I'm drinking too much, but if my wife wasn't harping on me and critical and angry with me, I probably wouldn't be drinking near as much. I'm drinking more because I have to sneak drink now, and it's because she stays on my case all the time about it, and that's just making me want to do it more. That is, again, that's an example of blame shifting, which is kind of like, if my spouse wasn't so controlling, then this problem wouldn't be happening. Or it can be like, I didn't really want to use cocaine tonight, but I was out with my buddies. We had a few drinks and then they just brought the cocaine out and it was just like so hard to resist. And I just really need to stop hanging around with Jim or Tom or Frank or whoever. And so again, it's just a blame shifting. Maybe it was the bartender who overserved you. It's just a way of not taking accountability. Another, or the 4th example of really commonplace rationalizations is, it's called, it'll be different this time. This time will be different. And this is how we rationalize making a choice that we already know is a bad choice. Because if you're telling yourself it'll be different this time, there's at least some level of awareness going on, right? Because you're like, yeah, okay, I know it's a problem and it was bad before, but it won't end up that way this time. And I know you guys have heard me talk about this specific one on here before because it's kind of like, it'll be different this time. I'm just going to be smoking weed. I'm not going to do Xanaxes anymore. It'll be different this time. I'm just going to have a couple of drinks. It'll be different this time. Yes, I'm still drinking, but I'm not going to do cocaine anymore. It's any version of I've got control of it now and I'm going to have a different outcome with it. Sometimes it's like, it'll be different this time because I've taken a 3-month break, and so I've reset my system and I'm going to go back to it and now I'm going to get a different result. And that pretty much doesn't— it doesn't work out that way, but we convince ourselves of that because we want it to be different. It's not necessarily because we're evil, and this isn't about lying to someone else. This is— this really is about lying to yourself. Again, it's the sneaky Little termites creeping in. And as these rationalizations build up, they sort of— it's the cumulative effect that gets us in trouble. It's not any one sneaky little thing. It's we are rationalizing so frequently, so often, maybe 10 times a day, maybe 30 times a day. And each one of them can make sense on some level. It's kind of like Is there truth in these things? There's truth in every one that I just said. There's truth in the fact that if someone's addicted to stimulants, that they probably do have to use to go to work today and pay the bills for their family. There's truth in the fact that maybe drinking after work does make you somewhat of a better parent for a short period of time because you're going to be in withdrawal when you get home and you're going to be a cranky jerkball and a bad parent. So it's like, it's not that there's no truth there. It's just not the whole truth. It's a sliver. of a piece of the truth that we, we sort of hone in on, extract this little piece and focus in on that, and then refuse to see all the other evidences there. It's like selectively picking out the evidence that we want to see or we want to acknowledge. Um, is it true that maybe, maybe if you're a salesman, maybe if you're a lawyer, maybe if you're whatever profession and there is almost like this peer pressure all the time, or even an expectation that you go out and you go to these parties and you like, I don't know, you woo customers or potential clients or whatever. There's a level of truth in that, right? Even when you say everyone does it, you can— I could go with a lot of people do it, but everyone does it is not— that one's not ever true. So you've got to learn to Back up and look at the whole truth here. The ones that I gave you the examples of, of like the it's not that bad ones, like I don't beat my wife one, or I never cheated, or it's not like I'm doing heroin, the it's not that bad examples. Of course, I guess there is a little truth in that. At least I don't beat my wife. But what I would say, or what I probably wouldn't say this to you, I was going to say what I would say to you. I wouldn't say this to you. What I want you to say to yourself is, is that the standard I'm measuring myself by? Because if you ask yourself that question, is that really my standard for myself? That I'm an okay wife if I'm not beating my husband? Is that your standard? Because if you, if you just even stop for a minute and ask yourself that little tiny question, it's going to force you very quickly to see the big picture there. Because most people are going to say, no, that's not right. Because when you look inside and you look at what your value system is and you just stop and you ask yourself a few honest questions, You're going to see the light. You're going to see the whole picture. And most people do this without realizing that's what they're doing, right? We— and we— and it's little, like I said, and it creeps in a little bit over time, and it just gets us like that, like those termites in the foundation. And eventually things just start to collapse. Um, in just a second, let's see, let me move my notes here. We're going to talk a little bit more about how to spot these rationalizations and what I want you to do with them. So of course, the first step in breaking free of these rationalizations is just to be aware of them. And just watching this video, I'm sure, has made you aware of some of your own rationalizations. Let me throw in a couple because I know there's a lot of people watching and maybe they're not rationalizing their addiction, but maybe they're Rationalizing something else. I know a lot of you watch because you have loved ones who have addictions. Guess what? Us family members, we do it too. We're rationalizers too. The biggest one I hear on this side is, okay, I know I act like a screaming, raving lunatic, but they've made me crazy. It's their fault. It's all the things they've done or whatever. Is there some truth in that? Yeah, there's probably a little nugget of truth in that. Does that make it okay? It doesn't make it okay. It's still exactly the same process because when you think about it, it's not just the addicted person that wakes up one day and says, how is this my life? Like, how did I get here? This is not the path I was on. The same thing happens for the family member, right? You wake up and you think, how's this my life? You're acting and behaving and making decisions in a way that don't fit with who you are. And you look at yourself in the mirror and say, I don't recognize myself anymore. So. This isn't just about, I'm not just talking to people who have addictions here. This applies to anybody who's behaving in a way that doesn't fit with their value systems. It could be you're having an affair. It could be you're embezzling money from your job or something like that, right? It's, it's this, the same exact process that we use. I'm just using it in the context for addiction for you. So you have to become aware of it. And You can even— one way to help yourself is just to quickly ask yourself this question right here: what are the common excuses that I use? If you're brave enough, put the answer to that in the comments or in the chat below. What are the excuses that you commonly use? Let's move to the next step of breaking free of these little termites, and that would be I want you to Challenge those excuses by simply asking yourself, is that really true? Just stop and ask yourself, is that really true? Or if that doesn't work, just say, because some people might say, yeah, it's true. Then I want you to ask yourself, is that really the whole truth? Is there more to the picture? This, it's like a magical way of just Unveiling the situation and forcing yourself very quickly to look at the light. This ability to be humble, this willingness to look at things in an honest way, this is the key feature of recovery. This is the only requirement that you absolutely have to have and have to do to get recovery. If you can do this, you can get recovery. Okay. But you gotta, it takes a lot to be really self-aware to this level, which is one of the reasons why they say you can't do it by yourself. You have to have help to beat an addiction. And I have videos about that, about whether or not you can do it yourself, but where I go more in depth into the topic. But what I will tell you is that these things are so sneaky and you've been doing it for so long, so habitually that By the time you get to turning an addiction around, even when you've decided not to drink, use, watch pornography, or whatever it is you decide not to do, these rationalizations are their own habit. And maybe it's okay, I'm not drinking anymore, but I'm still blaming everybody for what happened. I'm still justifying other bad behaviors because I'm so used to doing this that It's extremely helpful to have someone in your life that you trust enough to help you really think through situations. And you need this someone to be someone that is going to be honest and straight with you, but also someone that you feel like is not really judging you and that's on your side and that's not trying to rake you over the coals. Because if you choose a person like that to be your person to help you see your own rationalizations, then you just won't be honest with them, and then you've defeated the purpose. I frequently hear people say, well, I just need to get a sponsor, and I need one of them hard-ass sponsors. I'm like, no, no, you don't. Because if you get one of those, you're just not going to tell them. Because it's just like anybody else, we don't want to tell it if we know we're going to be in trouble or judged or criticized or made to feel ashamed. Then so It's okay to say, I need a straight talker. Maybe I like for someone to be direct with me. I have clients a lot that will say, hey, just shoot me straight. I like it when they tell me that. I'm like, all right, I'll fast track this. I'll tell it to you quick, quicker instead of letting you figure it out. But you could still do that in a way that's kind and that's empathetic and that it's not judging. And you definitely need that in your life because that is the key to step number 3 for breaking free of this, which is some sort of accountability. And Accountability when it comes to the addictive behavior, but more than that, it's accountability when it comes to addictive thinking in general, which is, it's all these little rationalizations. It's these little excuses, justifications that sneak in. We need to have someone in our life that can help us see it when we can't see it for ourselves. And it's great if that person's a counselor or a coach, that's wonderful, but it doesn't have to be. It's always easy to see somebody else's solution from the outside, right? When you hear your friend talk about a problem, you immediately know the solution. It doesn't take a genius. It doesn't take a bunch of psychological training to see what someone's issue is from the outside. Anyone can do it. Not everyone can deliver that information and be helpful with the solution in the best, most effective way though. So that's where I want you to be selective about who you pick. Um, right here might be a good place to tell you about the sponsor of today's video. Guess what it is? It's Soberlink. Those of you who watch my videos all the time, you know I'm the biggest, most giant fan of Soberlink. I actually have one sitting right here on my desk. It's upside down. There it is. This is Soberlink. I'll show you what it looks like if you want to see it since I have it right here handy. Soberlink is an alcohol monitoring system. And it can create that accountability for you. This is what the device looks like. You turn it on right here. You put the— you blow, you put the straw here, and this is a camera. It has facial recognition in it. That's why it's super legit and high tech. It's not just, you know, one that you bought at the CVS because it's not just the device that makes it high tech. It's a whole system where you, you have these scheduled out tests and you have a procedure and you have an accountability partner that you decide on that will get the results of your test. One of the biggest benefits of using something like Soberlink is because when you put a Soberlink on board, it immediately gets rid of the termites. That's what it does. It's like, it's like, I don't— exterminator for rationalizations because it forces the truth to the top. And once you force out those rationalizations, actually being sober becomes about a million times easier because you don't have to have these big committee monster mouth board meetings in your head 50 times a day because you're just not going to get away with it. It's not going to go well because soberlink's high tech. It's going to catch you if you're sneaky. And you realize that, so you don't even entertain those thoughts. You don't give any weight to these little rationalizations that try to jump in. And because of that, it actually makes it so easy because when you don't have that, something like that in your life to help you, you have to fight these termites off constantly, 24/7. It's exhausting. And a lot of people end up relapsing, not because they're not serious about their recovery, but because maybe they just run out of willpower one day. Maybe they have a really bad day at work. The opportunity's there. There's a big trigger. They come home, their spouse is mad at them, whatever, all these things. And then they just literally run out of gas and steam. And that leaves room for making a bad choice, making a rationalization, saying to yourself, just this one time. Or as long as they don't find out about it, it's not going to hurt anybody. It won't leave room for those things. So you can think of a Silverlink as the termite exterminator because that is exactly what it is. There are some other benefits to it. If you want to know all about Silverlink and see the behind the scenes and everything about it, then click the link in the description and it'll take you to a page and I actually demonstrate it for you. I show you behind the scenes. It's pretty cool. If alcohol is your, the vice you're trying to overcome, Soberlink. And there's more benefits than just the extermination. So check out that link in the description. Once you get accountability on board, then you can move to the 4th step and the final step in getting rid of these rationalizations, which is looking at the bigger picture. Because the thing with rationalization is, is you're It's like you're trying to put these little blinders on and you're trying to look at this little narrow sliver of a piece of information while not looking at the whole big picture. And that's how you stay stuck. So you have to ask yourself those broader questions like, is this really true? Is this the whole truth? Is this the standard that I'm now measuring myself by? You know, am I Being 100% honest with myself. If you just have like this stack of bigger picture kind of questions, one big picture kind of question that I like that works really well is, and this is one that I use for myself, is, is that the kind of person I want to be? So that's one I feel like that really just pulls the blanket off the situation really fast. Like, for example, if you're telling yourself, I'm doing, I'm only hiding this from my spouse because I don't want them to get upset. Do I, is that who I really want to be? Yeah. I want to be the person that's lying and hiding. I want to be the person that has to have some drinks in order to be with my kids. And when you ask yourself that question, I'm sure you can convince yourself that maybe it is the person you want to be, but most of us can't, especially when you have a strong value system. And believe it or not, most people with addictions have a very strong value system. It's just that narrowing of the focus that makes us Ignore certain aspects of the truth. You can justify and rationalize and minimize any one bad incident that happens in addiction. You can say everyone has a bad night, everyone gets too drunk sometimes, everyone's done this or that or whatever. It's not that big a deal. But when you step back and you look at not just the one thing that happened, but everything that's happening, And you look at that big picture, those rationalizations, they can kind of like sneak into your mind. The monster mouths will try to talk to you sometimes, but they won't work anymore. Like one of the most common little monster mouths is, I call it one last time. And if you've been around the block a time or two, you've listened to this monster mouth enough times that you don't even believe them. You're just like, whatever, that's a bunch of bull. Like you don't even entertain it. It's like that. ex-boyfriend that you had that always wants to put the charm on you. You're like, whatever. Like, you don't even like give any energy to it. You stop believing it once you allow yourself to see the truth. And the other thing I really like about this is once you get good at this, you could go back to using, you could relapse. Sure, that happens, but you won't enjoy it the same because you can't unknow the truth once you've been honest to yourself. So that's what I say when people say treatment didn't work or whatever. I'm like, yeah, you might've went back out and used, but if someone actually had like real recovery, as in they've learned their excuses, they know how to call themselves out. Yeah, they can do it, but it won't be near as fun. It's a total buzzkill. And so usually it doesn't stay around as long. Like a relapse doesn't stay around as long because you just can't hide as much anymore. You hide from yourself. You just can't ignore the big picture anymore. Once you've turned the light on it, you've turned the light on it and there's not a lot of going back from that. It is absolutely possible to outsmart addiction before you hit bottom. So if you feel like you are using these rationalizations, these excuses, and I'm sure I did not even come close to hitting them all, I'm just telling you the ones that I hear pretty much every day, then call these things out. This is the beginning of recovery. Once you can start doing this, this is the important part of recovery. This is how you keep it, not Not just how do I stop doing it, but how do I keep it from coming back? This right here, this level of self-honesty and self-awareness is what it takes. And it is absolutely possible. And it's exciting for me because I'm seeing more and more people do it earlier and earlier and earlier in the process. And that is the number one goal behind this channel is to help people figure this out before they lose everything. Because I'm sick of people saying you have to hit bottom and you just have to wait till you want to end, some ridiculous things like that. That's dumb. Let's not do that. You can catch this. You're smart enough. You can overcome this. All right, in just a second, we're going to get ready to take some questions and comments. Bree is back there behind the scenes as our moderator. She's looking at your questions right now. If you will put big question marks in front of your question, it helps Bree. And if your question is related to the topic, it's even more likely to get picked. We can't get to them all, but we're going to get to as many as we can. And we will, we've been doing this the last couple of weeks, so we'll do this again. Bri, will you pick me one that might be good to ask Amber AI and we'll see what Amber AI says? If you haven't heard me talk about Amber AI, it's the new digital Amber brain. It is really cool. Our beta testers are in there right now talking to Amber AI right this very second. And it's, it's like smarter and smarter and smarter. Um, and we're gonna, we're gonna take a question. If you are not on the waiting list for Amber AI, it's not It's not out there for everyone yet. There's a few beta testers in there. You definitely want to get on the waiting list because we're going to launch this thing either the end of March, beginning of April, probably somewhere in there. And if you're on the waiting list, you're probably going to get a pretty considerable discount. So make sure your name's on the waiting list. All right, let's ask her a question. I'm going to put Amber AI on the screen for you here so you can see her. Okay, so this is behind the scenes. I've got my notes right here in Amber AI because she's actually trained on all of my videos, all of my notes, all of my online courses. That's how she makes decisions on how to answer your questions and give you advice. So normally we call her because you can call her and talk to her just like on the phone by voice, but we're going to type it in this time. And the question from Jenny is how Do they get out of the blame shifting? And I'm gonna put instead of just how do they, I'm just gonna put how do addicts get out of the blame shifting? There we go. All right, let's ask her the question. Let's see what she says. All right, little dots mean Amber AI, she's thinking about it. She's coming up with something for us. See what she says. All right, you see all this populating up here? Those of you that are watching on video, this is what I like about Amber AI. She gives better answers than I do because she's way more thorough. If I just answered that question, I would have probably said 2 sentences. But Amber AI is really getting into depth and I won't go over all of it for you, but I'm going to share with you the main highlights of what Amber AI is saying. She says blame shifting is a common defense mechanism for people struggling with an addiction because it avoids helping them face the shame and guilt of their behavior. But breaking out of this pattern, it's tough, but absolutely possible. Here's how it typically happens. One is hitting a wall of consequences. Now, I want you to know hitting a wall of consequences is different than hitting bottom, but most people do have those little, I call them like moments of clarity. They get those little moments of insight, usually unfortunately after something kind of bad happens, some kind of consequence like losing a job, a relationship, or legal trouble, or for someone to realize that blaming others isn't solving their problems. It's a moment when they can't deny the role their choices have played in their own situation. That's number 1. Number 2 is self-awareness. And Amber A asks, is programs like AA and NA are great for this? For example, step 4, the whole thing about step 4 is it's like a training process for how to identify these, this blame shifting thing. But you don't have to do 12-step. Y'all know that. And then number 3, Amber A asks, is safe, nonjudgmental feedback. Which is exactly what I just told you in the video, right? Number 4 is learn new coping skills, and there's a whole bunch of information about that. And then practicing accountability. Now she goes into depth and explains each one of those, but I don't want to bore everybody with it. I just want to show you how in-depth of an answer that she's going to give you. And then if Jenna, if you were on here and you were talking to Amber AI, you could give examples and you could say, well, let me give you an example of something that Happens that my loved one says, or how they shift the blame on me. And then, you know, do you have any advice for that? And she'll give you advice and you can say, I don't know that that will work on my person. What else you got? She'll give you more advice until you feel like, yeah, that's it. But as you can tell, this advice fits exactly with my philosophies and strategies because that's how she's trained on all these videos and blog posts and everything else. All right, Bree, what else questions do we got? All right. P. Shah says, question, my husband has been detoxed and intensive outpatient for 3 months and therapy, but still drinks. Wakes up daily saying he's quitting, but then can't. Therapist says kids and I move out to encourage him to quit. Thoughts? I have some thoughts on this. I have some thoughts on this. When I tell, if you're going to move out, the reason to move out would need to be for you, for your sanity, and for your kids. Do not move out because you think that's going to make your spouse do something different. Okay? Almost always, 99% of the time when that happens, The drinking gets worse because the biggest trigger for most of the people I see is the coast is clear. And if there's anything holding the floodgates back, it's you. And so once you remove yourself, you have removed the floodgates. Now, that's not me telling you to stay. Okay? Do not keep yourself in a bad situation. If you're done and you're over it, or you're in a bad situation, or this is not helping your kids, it's making things bad, then make that choice. But don't make that choice. Because you think it's going to make them better. I don't agree with that. I don't know that I've ever seen that happen. In fact, most of the people that I see that actually really, really, really want to get sober, if they live alone, they struggle hard. And a lot of times they're not able to do it because simply that they live alone. So don't do it because you think it's going to teach him a lesson or something that, but do it for yourself if you're going to do it. Debbie says, what if someone's excuse is they are afraid of withdrawal? That's actually a really common one. And like I said, there is some truth in that, right? There's always some truth. So what— so a lot of times what you do is maybe you work with that person. If the— what if this is what they told me in session, I would look at what the substance was and what are some ways that we can help People go through withdrawal without it having to be horrible, right? For most substances, there are some different medications that you can take to kind of taper off to make it not pleasant, but a lot less unpleasant, right? And so if you can help someone do that, and even if there's not a specific medication for the substance, and maybe it's not a substance that someone's addicted to, there are frequently other things that you can do, supplements or medications that you can do to help alleviate some of the withdrawal symptoms, even some of the side symptoms, which makes it easier. So I would work with this person to figure out, are there some things that we can do to make it more doable? Because I don't blame you because it's freaking awful. Anybody who's been in withdrawal from opioids will tell you, I don't care who you are, when you get that sick, you'll do whatever to make it go away. So I don't want to minimize someone's concern about withdrawal by saying, whatever, you're just making I want to work with them on trying to solve that problem. Now, if you give them a lot of solutions and then they keep saying, then they, you basically uncovered their rationalization, but they're just hanging onto it. They don't even really believe that at that point. San Fran Giants in North Carolina says, are there any self-accountability tools, apps that are geared towards general substance abuse, not just alcohol? Thank you. This is a great question. There are a ton of apps out there that you can use and you don't, it doesn't always have to be like drug testing, although there are options like that. One way to hold yourself accountable is just to literally ask someone in your life to ask you about it. Just knowing that you're going to have to answer for it, it actually helps you to stay sober or helps you to make a good choice because you don't, because you really don't want to lie. And you've asked this person to ask you about it. So just telling other people the truth, like I call it coming out of the recovery closet, telling other people that you're sober now and that you're not using anymore, that right there raises the accountability bar. So yes, there are other ways to do it. There are recovery management programs that will work for drugs kind of like Soberlink does, but you do the same thing through drug testing. I also have on our website, you can download my free home drug testing guide, which tells you if you are going to do home drug testing, how to do it, how to pull it off, how to get them sort of fairly inexpensively, what to do if you hit a wall or someone doesn't want to take the test and all that stuff. So it's all my secret tips and tricks. You can get that on website for free if you want it. My addict husband says, it's just my coffee. I'm still working. What am I doing wrong? I can't answer this without a walk Coming up and more excuses. He's on his final at work and says my boss is not liked and pick favorites. Money issues made a purchase of a Harley and looking for looking at repossession has an excuse that his previous relationship he was paying money to her. His truck drinks too much gas. Okay. This is like a litany of— this is like a lot of termites, Crystal. He says he doesn't want to stop because his body aches due to his age. He can't move, he can't work. What can I say when he says this? What is the big deal with his using? Dude, you need the exterminator for sure, Crystal, right? This is like a mountain of rationalizations. It's my coffee. I'm just doing it for work. I've got all these bills to pay. Like this is like they're using all the examples, right, Crystal? One thing I want you to know, Crystal, is that when this person is saying this, they're actually giving you a window into what they're telling themselves. I know it makes you mad because it feels like they're lying to you, Crystal, but this is these are the things that this person is telling themselves, and and they believe that. Okay, one question I think that. It works sometimes, not all the time. And you, this works better if you have some credibility, as in you're not in the bad guy role, at least not too much. As I like to ask, is there anything about it that you don't like? So when someone starts giving me a big litany of excuses about how it helps them and why they like it and how they're never going to quit, if you just ask the question, is there anything about drinking you don't like? Is there anything about smoking you don't like? Immediately their brain comes up with a list of things they don't like about it. And so they start, um, to look at more of the bigger picture truth. They may not say it to you if they're mad at you because they don't want to give you, you know, they just don't want to give you the win. But our brains reflexively answer questions that we're asked. So if you just ask the question, they will think of the answer. Now they may say, no, I like just to be like a smarty pants to you, but inside their head, they're going to come up with a list of things they don't like. Because it's like anything else, you know, there's pros and cons and they will come up with the cons. Is it possible for someone to exhibit mental illness after years of alcohol and drug abuse and also mood swings? Lori, I would say, is it— it's not like it— there's no way for that to not be happening after years of substance abuse. If you're pouring chemicals onto your brain 4 years, there is no way that you would not be having mental health symptoms. Now those can range. I'm not even going to say mild because when you're doing it for years and years, it's not even mild. It's moderate to severe, probably. But you're definitely, regardless of the addiction, you're going to be looking at anxiety. You're probably going to be looking at sleep issues. You're going to be looking at, it's like one minute they're so happy and one minute they're upset and they're irritable or they're crying and they're depressed. You're literally putting this roller coaster of chemicals on your brain. So yes, you are going to look like you have every mental health disorder out there. Most people, when they stop using, not immediately, but after a while, for most people, most of the mental health symptoms get 80, 90% better. For a few people, it gets— it always gets better, but sometimes it doesn't always go away. So for the rest of the people, maybe it gets 60% better, but it's not completely better. And then you just address those mental health issues the same as you would, whatever those are. You go and you get help for those. But it, but it always makes it better, whatever the mental health thing is, to come off the drugs. Drugs will only ever make mental health problems worse. There's only— it only goes one way. Um, Teresa says— or let me back up. I shouldn't say drugs only make it worse. I should say addiction only makes it worse. So using drugs addictively only ever makes it worse. Sorry, had to clarify. Teresa says, my son is going to detox on Saturday. How can I help? Well, it's your job to keep him motivated. It's not your job. One of the things you can do to help is try to do anything you can do to make it easier And less difficult. So if there's roadblocks, if your son has a dog and he needs someone to watch the dog, maybe you can help either cover that base or find someone that can cover that base, right? Maybe you can help assure him that you can take care of whatever needs to be taken care of while he's in. So if there's anything you can do to kind of like clear the pathway a little bit, do it. I wouldn't overtalk about it with them because it's like jumping off the high dive. It can be scary and you don't want to make them think about it too much because it might make them back out. So your job is to get from now to Saturday without them backing out, and that's actually kind of hard. You know, he's had a moment of clarity, maybe he signed up, but that's a lot of days to be thinking about it. But I'm excited that he's going. I think that's awesome, Teresa. Kaylin says, my husband blames his alcoholism on Diane Sawyer. Okay, this is the first I've not heard this one. This is a new one. Uh, she did a segment on how Two drinks a day is good for your heart, and now and when it's become a problem for him. Dude, that you used to hear that, and I didn't know that came from Diane Sawyer specifically, but I had heard that in the past. Okay, here here's the truth there. Okay, the truth is maybe if you drink wine, there's like a few antioxidants that you might get from drinking wine. But again, this is a rationalization. This is a looking at a sliver of the truth and not the whole truth. You could eat. 4 or 5 blueberries and get the same antioxidants. Every single stitch of research says that alcohol makes every medical, physical problem that you could possibly have worse. Your chances of cancer worse. Your chances of every single thing worse. It's a poison. Okay. And the fact that your husband blames it on Diane Sawyer, and he— and it's kind of funny that he says Diane Sawyer tells me he doesn't— he doesn't really believe that. He's just, you know, he's just being like— he maybe in the beginning when she said that, he might have been telling himself that for a while and let himself have a few drinks. But at this point, he knows that's not true. He's just saying that's how I fell down this road. But if you're still believing that, um, look at the whole truth. Ray of Sunshine says What do you do when you're not sure if you can trust your spouse if he or she is sober? It's like they are functioning, but there is something off. How do I start a conversation? This is a really great question, Ray of Sunshine, and I think there's a whole video on the channel about what do I do if I suspect them of using. So I want you to go back and check that out so you can get the big thorough answer, or you can ask Amber or something, but Here, my quick answer is don't make yourself think that you have to prove it. It's not your job to prove it. If someone is relapsed, if someone is in active addiction, it will show itself usually relatively quickly because the nature of addiction is unmanageability. And that unmanageability comes in pretty fast once you're fully into addiction. So you don't have to prove it. You don't have to uncover it. It will surface. If you have a good enough relationship, you could say something like, something seems off. Is something going on? If you come straight out and say, have you had a relapse? Their immediate answer is going to be no. It's an instinct. But even if you just ask that question, they're probably going to know you're sort of onto them. So you can kind of indirectly do it, but you don't really have to do anything, Ray of Sunshine, because it will surface itself quickly. All right guys, we are out of time. You guys have asked Fantastic questions. Don't forget about Soberlink, and if you want to know more about Amber AI, join the waitlist in the description. And there's also some videos and some things that show you more about her. It's it's really going to be awesome. It's going to help so many people be the way you're asking me questions on these lives, and I give you two seconds of an answer, and you can't even give me all the background. Imagine if you could have the whole conversation with me. Back and forth for however long we could work it out. That's what Amber AI is gonna be able to do for you. So I'll see you guys next Thursday at 1. Have a good weekend. Bye everybody.