Amber Hollingsworth (master addiction counselor) explains how to get through to someone in denial about drug or alcohol addiction. She gives five practical points: don’t shame or try to prove they’re a ‘terrible person,’ view the situation through their distorted lens, avoid forcing the label ‘addict/alcoholic,’ focus on issues that matter to them, and use their personal motivators to encourage change. She also points viewers to a motivational interviewing demonstration and a paid program ("invisible intervention") for deeper instruction.
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In this video, we're going to take a look at exactly how to deal with someone who's in denial about their drug or alcohol addiction. How to actually get through to them and allow them to see the problem once and for all. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction Counselor. And this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your family back on track and. And get back to living the life that you want to live. Now, I've been working with people who have addictions for a very, very long time. And no matter how many times I come across it, denial is always mind blowing. It is so crazy obvious to everyone around that person just how bad this problem is, yet the person actually has no clue. Or maybe they have a little clue, but they totally minimize it. And you literally want to shake them by the shoulders and say, are you serious? Are you kidding me? Why can't you see this? Well, unfortunately, that tactic just doesn't work. It's been tried tons and tons of times. In fact, you may have tried it yourself. So let's take a look at what does work. I'm going to give you five really important things that I want you to keep in mind anytime you're having a conversation with someone who's in denial or minimizes their problem with drugs or alcohol. Number one, stop trying to get them to see what a terrible person they are. Now, I know, like, subconsciously, deep down inside, we think in our mind, if this person could only see how they're, like, destroying their life, destroying my life, destroying everything around them, they would stop doing what they're doing. But actually, it doesn't quite work like that. You see, addiction is fueled by shame. And the more you try to get them to see how terrible they are, the more they're going to run from it and hide from it. And most likely they're going to use their addiction in order to stay hidden from it. Trying to get someone to see something negative about themselves is not the way to get them to do better. Which leads me to point number two that you need to keep in mind when dealing with someone in denial. And that is, you've got to look at things through their lens. Now, I know it is a distorted lens, okay? And I know it's irrational and doesn't make sense. And I'm not saying you have to agree with their point of view. I'm just saying you need to take a few minutes to look at things through their lens. Because once you can do that, that's going to be what helps you to take the next step, steps that I'm about to give you. Next on the list is stop trying to get them to admit that they're an addict or an alcoholic or admit that they have a problem. Because sometimes people can get really caught up on that language, and you can find yourself going around and around and around with someone about whether or not they're an addict or an alcoholic. No matter how obvious it seems to you, no matter how many signs and symptoms there are, you cannot force someone to see it this way. Now, sometimes it's helpful to try and get someone to see that the substance or the addiction, whatever it is, isn't serving them well. And there are many ways to do this without going right in and trying to tear someone down. You see, the whole problem is we want to tear someone down because we see all these defense mechanisms and walls that they build up, and it's our instinct to want to tear all that down. But a better technique is to get them to take the walls down. Which leads me to my next point, which is stop talking to is important to you. You know, if this is your kid and they're addicted and you're trying to talk to them about their grades or their future or, I don't know, something that's important to you, but it's not important to them. Again, you're just beating your head against their wall of denial, and you're not going to get through to it. You absolutely have to do this fifth thing, and that is you've got to use what motivates them. Now let me give you an example. In the past, I've seen people that struggled with alcoholism. Now I'm telling you, it's pretty bad. Like, literally, they're drinking most all day, every day. They're about to lose their entire family over it, but they just can't wrap their head around that. But what they might can tell me is something like, yeah, I feel like it's made me put on a couple of pounds. And I'm thinking, okay, yeah, but that's the least of the problems. But that's not how you want to respond to them. You want to meet them where they're at. That's what we call it in counseling. You want to use what's important to them, even if it seems insignificant or unimportant to you. That is going to get them to take some of those bricks down, and it's going to allow you to build A relationship. I call it building credibility with someone. Basically, it's like helping that person feel comfortable with you, trust you, and really feel like you understand their situation. Now, I know it can seem all this is all like philosophy, and it can be hard to understand how to really break this down to, like, practical nuts and bolts. If you'd like to see this in action and you haven't watched my session on motivational interviewing where I actually do this actual technique, I actually use some of these strategies with a young man named Blake. I'm going to put a link in the description so you can go and watch that for free. You can actually watch it in action. How do you move someone into wanting to change? How do you feel? Find what motivates them and use that, their own motivators to pull them forward. You see, so many times we make the mistakes. We keep trying to rip down the walls. We keep trying to tell them how terrible they are. We keep trying to tell them how bad of a problem they have. We keep trying to tell them how they need to change for all these reasons that are important to us, and it just doesn't work. I know you've tried these things before because I try them. In fact, even though I've been doing this for a bunch of years and I know these things, I will still find myself occasionally beating my head against that wall. Luckily, these days I can feel it pretty quick. And I know when I'm not doing any good and I can change my strategy. Now, if you really want to know all about how to actually take someone from denial all the way through into recovery, you may want to check out our invisible intervention. Because inside the invisible intervention, I teach you exactly how to do what I would do if I were sitting in front of your loved one. So maybe you can't get them in front of a counselor, maybe they are in front of a counselor. But you want to hurry the process. In the invisible intervention, you can learn the specific techniques and strategies it takes to get someone to move through all those stages of change. I'll put a link to that in the description below as well. Now, obviously, denial is complicated. So an important next step for you might be to understand exactly how denial works and the types of denial that you could be running into. Which is why I want you to watch this video next, because it's going to explain to you everything you need to know about denial and how it works.
