How To Be Hopeful Without Being Naive!

I'm going to tell you two quick stories of my initial foray into addiction, which were incredibly naive. And the first is when my son, when it finally came out that there was a problem and we took him to detox, my husband was out of town. And so I had handled that whole arduous day by myself. And I called him on the way home and I said, okay, he's there. I've left him. He's going to be there a week. And he said, do you need me to come home? And I said, no, no, heavens. He's going to be gone a week. And when he comes home, this will all be done. So no, I've got this very naive. And the second is when my second son went down this road. He had stolen, you know, all of our jewelry and sterling, or at the first, at the time, I was this naive. He had stolen some of it and I discovered it and bought a lot of it back from the pawn shop. He went. He detoxed at home. I'm done. I'm never going to use again. I'm so sorry. And I believed him. So those are both grossly naive stories. So to me, what we have to do is how do we get out of being naive? Because to get out of. By not being naive, it's much harder to hope, right? When you're super naive like that, you just believe and hope that it will all be over. So you have to get out of a black and white thinking of one or other. And you have to get super comfortable in gray. And it's hard to get comfortable in gray, as you guys know. So I think one of the ways to do that so that you can be hopeful is to always look for action versus words. So behavior over talk is one of the ways to sort of balance the naive and the hope. Ultimately, what you have to do to get out of being naive and to have some hope is to get out of the reeling phase. And for those of you who are members, who have been members of our. My old family group that's online and or are current members of Hope for Families, you have access to this whole discussion we're getting ready to talk about. But if you're not a member, I would highly recommend you become one because there's a ton of information for family members on there, and a lot of it is really not surrounding this, but sort of supporting what we're talking about today. So there are four phases in my language for what happens when we get into this world of addiction and recovery is first, there's the reeling phase. And this is. I don't know what in the world is happening. I can't believe this is happening, and I just don't know what to do. So both of those stories I told were clearly in the reeling phase. And you can't get out of the reeling phase until you start to do some learning. And I think learning is. So the other two phases, just before we digress here, are. So there's reeling, learning, planning, and thriving. And so learning and planning are really the action stages that we take as the family member to sort of propel ourselves from naivete to hope. One of the things that we have to do to get out of naive is you really have to fully understand what you're dealing with. You have to fully understand what goes on in the brain, the stages of recovery, the stages of change, levels of care, treatment options, what it costs, what money you have, what money you have to spend on it. Sort of those learning things that we have to do, those take time because it's complicated and frankly, it's. We're learning a subject that we don't want to learn. So we're a little bit resistant on that. And you really can't learn it by yourself unless you're, I guess, Albert Einstein. I. I could not learn it by myself. So one of the things that I. I say that we have to do is we kind of have to find balance, and we have to find that balance between the two by getting educated. That gives us sort of some empathy, some clarity, and then hope. We have to understand that relapse is a part of the disease and part of recovery. And that's definitely difficult to wrap your head around because it kind of dashes hope. And I think that's sort of the tricky thing of what we're talking about today is a lot of what we're talking about can dash hope. If you look at it from a black and white, all or nothing kind of way. I think the way to do some of what we're talking about is to read, to watch videos. I know somebody who has a great YouTube channel to seek counseling to get help. I think that's sort of how we can get a lot of information. But then I think we have to look at getting support for ourselves. I think that's the biggest thing that we can do as family members is to get that support, to understand the recovery process for ourselves, understand the role that we play in this disease. Inadvertently and out of love and out of ignorance, which is 99% of what happens is we just simply don't know what we're doing so we do the wrong thing or we're afraid to do the right thing so we continue to do the wrong thing. I think hope sort of is what's a peaceful. It's a positive, it's a contentment, it has possibility, it's loving and kind, it's supportive. Hope holds boundaries and hope has really wise mind accessibility. And naivete is not understanding, thinking we know best. I hear that all the time. Well you don't know my child. True that I do know addiction, not wanting there to be a problem. Sometimes we hear this and the boys will be boys, especially from dads. But moms, we do it too. But it's just sort of I don't want this, I can't handle this. So I'm not going to look at it full on. I'm not going to analyze it, I'm not going to add 1 and 1 and 1 and actually get 3. I'm going to get stuck in the oneness of it because then that's not such a big thing. I think that naivete is protecting ourself or others. Sometimes people stay naive because they don't want other family members to know what it is and therefore they know. Then they're keeping a secret so it's easier to not know. I think that rigidity plays a huge factor. Unless, unless our child, our loved one is doing it our way, then we're not going to help them. I think that's sort of a subsection of naivete is that I know best and I know what they need to do and if they don't do it then I'm not going to be involved in anything that they say or do or in the future which is always a problem. I think thinking that we're in control, that we can punish this, manage it, control it, snowplow ahead of it. I say that a lot. Family members spend a lot of time snow plowing the problems, getting ahead of them, calling teachers, calling schools and that keeps us naive which in by me being completely and utterly naive. What hope we have is false hope. We can have hope like I did in that conversation with my husband who's out of town. Oh, I don't need your help. This will be completely behind me. It's all going to be great. That was false hope, 100% false hope. By believing my other child when he detoxed at home and was so contrite and so apologetic and so miserable that he had stolen my things. I was naive because I was. It felt Better to be hopeful that this would be over. Okay. I think that this is fear based. I think we think if we can be angry enough and yell enough that this will end. I think this, this naivete comes from our emotional mind versus hope, comes from more of our wise mind. And the balance between wise and emotional mind is sort of the trick to living in the first place because our emotional mind is generally telling us something that isn't true because it tends to think more black and white. Think about it. If you're like really angry with someone, you're really looking at it from what they did wrong versus what you might have contributed to it because that feels better. So your emotional mind is not the one you should listen to. Should listen to your wise mind. Wise mind can, can tap into the emotional mind and, and utilize emotions, but it doesn't run the ship. Okay. I think so. We talked about getting support. I think understanding the recovery process, being less adverse to accepting that it's a disease is also pivotal to balancing this naive and hope thing. Talk to people going through it. Talk to people who have been through it. There's lots and lots and lots of successful stories out there. One of the reasons we keep the word hope in our title of our company is because there is every darn good reason in the world to have hope. There's a lot of success out there. People who do, family members and people struggling with substance abuse who do what are asked to do or suggested by people in the know generally get and stay sober. It's when we use our naive thinking that we get in the way of that because we know our child better, we don't like it, whatever, for all the reasons we've talked about. So I think those are the things I think you have to sort of get really comfortable with setting boundaries and giving them that tag. I'm it message to navigate their own process in this where you can have hope that they can, but you're not so naive to think that you're going to manage it or run it for them and, and that, or you're gonna deliver some flash of insight through threat or conversation or teaching that's gonna change the, the outcome of the disease because you're not. So I think the ticket, just like everything I talk about is like, because everything in mental health is now on this continuum. I look at lots of things as buckets. So, you know, like for happiness, there's a lot of negative stones that are put in the negative bucket by just life itself. And we have to put grains of rice in the happiness positive bucket, because those generally don't come as much as rocks do, is the negativeness. So to me, this is. You can be hopeful, but you have to be very real, realistic, gray in the knowledge and the understanding of what you actually are dealing with so that you don't stay naive. So to me, that's the secret is you got to figure out this balance. And I think a lot of stuff that we've talked about today is that balance. What are these positive, what are these negatives? What gets in the way of putting it all in this right bucket? How many times do they relapse? Okay, that's a large question. Are we talking about specifically people on Suboxone or we talk about in general people who are struggling with substance abuse and who are in recovery? The answer to that is not really one we can give the average, they say, is eight, seven to eight times of entering different levels of care. So that could be counseling, aa, iop, full blown treatment back into aa. There's the average is seven to eight. Some people, like one of my sons, got it the minute he went to treatment. Well, that's not true. He went to IOP and did not do well. But once he went to real treatment, he did beautifully, never looked back. The other son went to treatment and relapsed three or four times. None of them were earth shaking. But, you know, you can't control it. The thing about relapse, you guys, is you have to understand it's part of the process, it's part of the disease, it's part of the recovery. You'll be so lucky if nobody, if the person you love never relapses. The ticket about a relapse or lapse that, if it's short, is that you can make significant meaning from a lapse. And to me, we kind of welcome a lapse. A lapse would be defined as something that doesn't last very long. And generally they report on themselves. Generally they say, hey, this happened last week, or hey, I just started drinking again. And they tell on themselves. Then we can make great meaning out of it and figure out what was precipitating before that to happen. What have they not done that they should do? And then they sort of go up to the next level of recovery. That doesn't mean they're all the way at the top, but it means we've usually moved up a level. So we're getting closer and closer to the ultimate goal. Oh, my ex hit his addiction to cocaine the entire relationship. I feel like an idiot. How are they so good at hiding it. They're so good at hiding because they're just so good at hiding it. And we don't want to look for it like we're hardwired to trust the people we love. So if you don't have a reason to think my husband is using or my ex is using cocaine, you're not going to think that. And even if we see little tiny clues along the way, we don't want there to be this problem. This is not something we want. So we ignore them. We don't add one and one and get two. We dismiss them as being inconsequential clues that we perhaps are seeing. We find an excuse for why what we found or seeing or hearing could be for real. And so he's really good at hiding because addicts are very good at hiding it. They manipulate and lie constantly. So they kind of leave us befuddled. But I think more importantly, from the naive standpoint from this conversation is we, we don't want to see it, therefore we can't. This is a good one. Someone said, I heard that you should quit helping. Not hoping. I like that. Yeah. And helping. I wouldn't even say helping so much as enabling. Helping is if they're. They're out in front and they're turning around and asking you for help. I'm a sort of a fan of the help. Enabling is if we're out in front and we're trying to do all the work and we're setting it all up and we're the snowplowers, and that's enabling. Definitely doesn't work. But I never say give up hope ever. I think that what makes us human. And I think if we give up hope, we therefore almost have to sever a relationship, which means that we can't have that connection which we know is vital to the cure. So how can I best deal with relapse when it happens? That's a big question. I think the short answer to that is don't think black and white. All is not lost. If they've been a treatment or any level of treatment, they're going to have a lot of information that's not gone. It's just they've had a relapse and their start date for recovery sort of just reboots. But everything they've learned, everything you've learned is not gone forever. I think the best way to deal with the relapse is to not try to fix it, not get too dragged into it financially, emotionally. Time, let them figure it out. Again, you can help, but you don't figure it out. One of mine, the one that kept relapsing when I stopped getting involved with relapsing, when I stopped finding more sober living, paying for sober living, sort of getting involved on his aspect as well as I stopped giving it my emotional energy and my mental health, when I just said I'm not going to play anymore, you can figure out how to unrelapse, that's. That's when he figured out how to stay sober. So I think you gotta kind of find that again, balance of how much more of this am I going to give of myself versus how much of this are you gonna bring into your life? And you gotta find that balance. And it's perfectly fine to say I'm not giving any more of myself financially, emotionally, mental health. I think take care of yourself would be the short answer to that question. A couple of you are saying that, you know, your spouse or your child won't, or your ex won't do treatment. And you can't make anybody go to treatment. You can only leverage people to go to treatment. But if they can't be leveraged in, then you just have to sit back and decide, do you want to be involved in the relationship? If it's, if it's a someone you're dating or married to, you get to call how much longer you want to do that. If it's your child, you're going to have to back up and let them determine their life is unmanageable under their own definition and then see if you can leverage them into treatment that way. It might be the last question. We'll see how long it takes me to answer it. Do I encourage my children to address their addicted son? He's been clean for nearly a year. The estrangement hurts. How do I help with holidays? He is Ralphs. Many times they not trust him. Yeah, the opposite of addiction is connection. But I totally understand. When people are done, they're done. I've been clean for nearly a year. To me, time sort of builds trust back up again. And nearly a year I would not be estranged from him. I might, you know, hold him back. Might not have him to my house for a week, but I think I would meet him for lunch. I think I would be able to join for a holiday meal at someone else's house. I think I would be able to give them gifts. I mean, cutting somebody off is not going to help because that, that starves them of oxytocin. And that's one of those Long term pleasure chemicals that's vital along with serotonin for keeping somebody sober for really caring time. Serotonin and oxytocin are in my world, the formula for, for fixing this disease. I feel like giving up sometimes, but I feel guilty for our daughter. Yeah. When we're sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's okay to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. It doesn't mean you don't love your daughter. It doesn't mean you can't be involved with her. You just sort of step out of trying to manage and process and control the disease and stop trying to fix it for her. But I get it. It's okay to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was that way with my own 17 year old. Told me he couldn't live at home anymore. All right, this is definitely the last question because I have a session. How can I be helpful and supportive when my son is moving to sober living today? He's been in rehab four times since July, but has never gone to sober living. Yay. Sober living is the ticket. Just tell him how proud you are of him. Definitely want to impart the message that when he departs from sober living, whether it's he stays the full time and transitions out and and lives with evermore is with sober people or he gets kicked out and doesn't have a place to live, is that coming home's not an option and that he's, he's. The whole goal here is for him to emerge as a successful financially independent adult. Now will that mean he's working and saving money to buy a car? Maybe. So he'll stay longer until he can buy a said car. Does that mean he's working and going to go back to school next semester? Maybe. Does that mean he's going back to school? Can be a lot of different ways. But you're not going to fix it. You're. You're going to love him. But the goal for sober living is to emerge as an independent young adult on your own. Okay guys, that's it. We have lots more questions. I wish we had more time, but sadly we don't. Thanks a bunch for joining us. And for those of you who missed who were on there for the three minutes before, I was sorry for the delay but Streamyard was acting funky. But anyway, thanks a lot. I probably won't see you guys again before the holidays. So Merry Christmas. I hope that you can find some joy and some happiness regardless of where your spouse or your child is in this journey. I hope that you can find hope and some contentment and some peace. So, Merry Christmas. Bye, guys.