How to Confront Someone With a Substance Abuse Problem About Their Addiction

How to confront someone who has a substance abuse problem about their addiction. That's what we're going to cover in this video. And this is a very delicate subject. You do not want to go about this the wrong way, which is why I'm going to tell you how a professional would do it. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction Counselor, and this YouTube channel is to help you understand, understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you're always five steps ahead of it and you can get your life and your family back on track. So some of you that follow me, you know that I really don't think confrontation is the best, most effective way to go about things. So in this video, I'm going to give you the three key factors that are really essential to remember when it comes to confronting someone about their addiction. Now, the first one is that confrontation is not the most effective method to get someone with a substance abuse problem to change. Those of you who've been watching my videos probably already know this. I prefer a combination of good, healthy boundaries and positive reinforcement. That truly is the most effective way to get someone to change. But I do realize that sometimes confrontation just needs to happen. Sometimes it's just not avoidable. But if you're gonna go into this sticky territory, you really need to have your head on straight about it. So the second key factor that I really need you to understand about confrontation, this may be one of the most important factors, is that confrontation should not be designed to make someone feel defensive, shameful, or guilty. Now, most of the time, when people confront other people about pretty much anything, but especially about a substance abuse problem, they're going at them to try to make them see how they're hurting themselves, how they're hurting everyone around them, how they're causing all these problems and financial distress, and, you know, they're not being a good parent and they're flunking out of school, and it's like you're constantly trying to shove the consequences in their face, thinking that this is going to make them sort of have this wake up call and decide that, oh, maybe this isn't good for me and I'm gonna stop. Well, guess what? In all of my years of treating people with substance use disorders, I've never found that to be effective. Trust me, I've tried. And some days when I get frustrated and hit the wall, I go back just like you do. And I do this very same thing. And gu. I get the same Result, it doesn't work because you see, when you come at someone and you hit that shame button, that guilt button, what happens is their defensive walls immediately come up. It's like you hit the emergency alarm button and all these protective walls immediately emerge to try to protect the person from feeling that shame and guilt. And everything I teach you guys about how to motivate someone into recovery, it's all about how do I deal with someone in a way that I don't accident those tripwires. Because once those walls come up and you've got those barriers between you and them, nothing good is going to happen. At best, you're going to get that Charlie Brown effect. You know, Charlie Brown, when he listens to the adults talk and he hears womp, womp, womp, that's the best thing that's going to happen. Usually what's going to happen is they're going to become defensive, they're going to throw it back on you, they're going to try to blame you, they're going to try to remind you of something that you did that's not right, and so is going to start a fight. And then you're going to hurt your relationship with that person. You're going to end up with a hurt feeling, and you're going to walk away from feeling not so great. And trust me, they are no more motivated to get better than they were before. In fact, probably less. Okay, now, I did tell you I was going to tell you how to do this, but I really need you to know all those things first. Because I usually say what not to do is a lot of times more important than what you should do. But here we go. Number three key factor that I want you to understand about confronting someone who has a substance abuse problem about their addiction is this. I want to give you the therapist definition of confrontation. Now, the therapist definition of confrontation means when you point out to someone that their behavior is not in alignment with their goals. Sound fancy, Right? Basically, you're pointing out to someone that what they're doing isn't getting them what they want. Now, the important part here is you gotta have a really good understanding about what they want. It doesn't matter if their behavior doesn't meet your goals. So, like, for example, if this is your child and your goal is for them to have straight A's, but they don't care about that, it's not gonna work to tell them that all that drinking and partying at college is keeping them up at night and they're not making good grades. That's not really gonna help them if that's not the thing that they care about. So you've got to understand what they care about, and then you've got to figure out how to help them see that what they're doing probably isn't the most productive way to get what they want. And you got to do it without hitting those defensive walls. So first, let me give you a few examples of what I mean when I say the behaviors not meeting the goal. Here's the thing about substance abuse problems. Whatever the substance feels like it's doing for you in the short term, in the long term, it does the absolute, exact opposite. So, for example, if you abuse stimulants because you want to focus and work a bunch of hours and make good grades, yes, that will work for you short term for a while. But in the long run, your brain is producing the opposite chemicals to try to counteract that stimulant. So what it does in the long run is it makes you exhausted, tired, you can't focus on anything. You can't get up out of the bed for several days. You really end up getting the opposite effect. And that is essentially one of the biggest reasons why people get trapped into addiction. Here's another one. A lot of people say that they're drinking or they're smoking marijuana because it helps them with their anxiety. Again, that's another. Short term, it may feel like it's helping, but as you're doing that substance, the brain is counteracting that by producing the opposite, which is a whole bunch of anxiety chemical. In that particular circumstance, pointing that out to them can be a little bit tricky. So I want you to use some of the methods that I've taught you in some previous videos about how to go about doing this without hitting that tripwire. Let's just review a couple of those. I like to use what I call the drive by method, or sometimes I call it the leave it on the coffee table and just keep walking method, which is to say something super casual, super non like, in your face, and then just walk off and leave it. It's just like dropping a little seed down. Walk off and leave it. If you spend too much time trying to press a point at someone, you're gonna hit those walls. So it's got to be casual and it's got to be quick. You may want to go about this by using a curious tone. So you may want to ask a question instead of making an observation. And that might look like, hey, do you think your anxiety is better now? Than it was last year? Or do you think it's worse? Because probably they've been smoking a whole lot of marijuana every day, all day, and their anxiety is actually worse than it was last year. But you don't want to throw that in their face. You want to come at it from a curious perspective and then just walk off and leave it. It doesn't even matter if they answer you that question out loud, because if you ask someone a question immediately, it's like a reflex. They can't even help it. Their brain starts to think about the answer, and it's not about what they say to you, it's about them thinking of that answer for themselves. So you can just sort of nonchalantly say something like that. I personally use a lot of humor and sarcasm, and that works for me. But in order for that to work, you have really got to have a strong relationship with someone, because you know how it's like when you're with your friends, you can tease them about their weak spots, and it's funny. It's almost like a love language. And you, you harass each other and give yourself a hard time, and you give each other a hard time. You can do that when it's your really close friends. You cannot harass someone about their weak spots if they're not your really close friend, family member, or something like that. So in order to use that kind of tone, you better make sure you've got the relationship entirely in check. Another way you can go about doing this is you can acknowledge that actually whatever they're doing is helpful to some degree, but sort of leave it open. And you want to open this question in their mind, but is it really helpful enough, or is it really helpful in the long run? So a good way to start is, I call it address the resistance. Say what that person is thinking. You can say something like, you know, I know having a few drinks after work really helps you to sort of wind down and de stress and helps you to fall asleep. But I notice that you're like, get up super early in the morning and you don't really get good rest. You seem tired a lot. Now, like I said, you've got to do this in the right tone. Don't make someone defensive when you're saying this. You're saying it out of empathy, care, and concern, not finger pointing and judgment. Maybe you're dealing with a kid and they, they may not say this to you out loud, but deep down inside, they're using substances a lot of times because it makes them feel included and connected. Maybe it makes them feel popular and ultimately they just want to have more friends. And that in and of itself, that's not a bad thing. Who doesn't? Especially when you're a young person or a college student. So acknowledging that is totally fine. But there may be a way that you can point out that actually, since they've been using substances, they've lost a lot of their friends. Now, that's a really sticky territory. So I want you to think hard about how you present that kind of feedback before you do it. The other way to go about that particular situation is to somehow get them to see, like, are these people that you think are your friends? Like really your friends. Another very sticky situation. But if you have the right kind of relationship with someone, you can absolutely, absolutely pull this off. Now, up next, I want you to watch this next video about motivating someone to take steps towards recovery. I'm going to put it right up here, and as always, I have listed you tons of additional resources in the description.