How To Help An Addict or Alcoholic Without Enabling

Today's topic might stir up a little bit of controversy. Although this is a topic I've talked about before, we're going to look at it from a completely different angle. We're going to be looking at how to help an addict or an alcoholic without enabling specifically. We're going to talk about when it. When support, what we feel like we're doing to be supportive and goes too far. And I see this kind of thing in my office all the time. Most of you who've watched some of my videos know how I feel about enabling in general. And I talk so much about not being the bad guy and all that kind of stuff. But you can be too much of the good guy as well. So it's about finding that balance. And in today's video, we're going to talk a little bit more about being. Being too much of the good guy. I know it's like, can't be too good, can't be mean. What the heck do you want? It's hard. It's somewhere in the middle. And I think the way I want to come at this topic and really what kind of actually what triggered me to want to talk about this is some of the comments that I get on my videos. A lot of times, particularly on Facebook, when my videos are posted, sometimes people will just see the. The title, like the. What they call like the COVID picture title, the thumbnail title. And they'll make some judgments and about what the video is about or what it's trying to say. And they'll have all these comments. And sometimes people even end up getting arguments like, not with me, but like with each other in the comment section. And so it's always kind of interesting to see that play out. So most recently there was a video that I posted and it was about why, let me think of the exact title. Why addicts and alcoholics hurt the ones they love. And someone left this comment. I'm sure they didn't like, watch the video. I'm sure they're just really reacting to the title of it. But it was in defense of. Hey, Angela. It was in defense of the person who has an addiction. They were just saying, you know, something about is it wrong if someone who was molested for their whole life and then they see their molester when they're growing up and the molester makes fun of them and then they do something bad to them or something that's not wrong. Hurt people. Hurt people. I thought it was interesting remark to the video because for a minute it took me a little bit to, like, grab onto what this person was actually trying to say. And what they're trying to say is like, what I think they're trying to say is we shouldn't judge addicts and alcoholics for hurting the ones that they love because they've probably been hurt. Well, I gotta tell you, got some mixed feelings about that. And. Hey, hey, Melissa. And I'd love to hear what you guys thought on this. I hope that this can be more of a dialogue because I'm not a thousand percent sure where I stand on this. I don't really think of it in black and white terms, but I do feel like sometimes the defense addiction can go too far. Lately I've been posting a lot about whether or not you guys think it's problematic to label someone an addict or an alcoholic. I've been asking some questions just to get an idea about, like, how people feel about this and where they stand. And these days, a lot of people don't want to use the term addiction. They don't want to use the term addict or alcoholic because they feel like it places a label on a person. And it. What a lot of people think is it prohibits them from getting help. I personally don't really think that that prohibits people from getting help. And that's about. People think that because of the stigma of it. I personally think people don't get help because they don't think that they have addiction. So it's not about the stigma. It's more that they want to acknowledge that they have it or they just flat out don't want to stop. So those are the barriers to getting help these days. Hey, Sherry. Hey. Hey. I can't ever say your name. Aiden. I don't know if I'm saying that right. You can tell me how to pronounce it better. I think it's important to understand that addiction can happen to anyone. I think it's important not to villainize a person that is struggling with substance use disorder. There are reasons why they do what they do. They did not choose to be an addict, I can promise you that. But here's the thing. I don't think it should go so far as not holding them accountable for hurting the people that they love. That doesn't mean you can't forgive them. But it's to the point. A lot of times people just. They have this sort of attack mode about the word addict, the word alcoholic. And I feel like if. I feel like it's almost like enabling someone to minimize what the issue is. So for me, a refusal to say what it is. A refusal to acknowledge what's going on. A refusal to acknowledge that this person hurt someone else. A refusal to acknowledge that the person with the addiction has some control and power. That's enabling. So in my mind, it's this weird balance. And I don't want to come across as, like, anti anybody that's had an addiction. I've had addictions. Everyone I know has addictions. This is not that at all. My whole career is like, helping people with substance use disorders dig out of a hole. That's what I tell them. Tell them when they come off. I say, it's my job to get you out of whatever mess you got in. Like, I am on their side. Like, that's what I do. But this whole cultural outside thing, that's like this advocacy for addiction, which originally started to help sort of destigmatize the issue first for a lot of good reasons, like, so insurance would pay for treatment. That's a good reason. So people could access help because it's, you know, they would label it as a disease, a medical condition, and people could access help. So the beginning of this sort of, like, I don't know what I would call it. This idea of destigmatizing comes from a good place, but I feel like it's gone too far. I'd like to know what you think. Heidi says she agrees with me. Thank you, Heidi. I needed that. I appreciate that. It's just gone too far. And it, like, is enabling people. Because what's beginning to happen is we're confusing. They can't help it. That's what we're thinking with. They purposefully chose to be an addict. So you can know in your head, like, this person did not purposefully choose to be an addict or an alcoholic. But you can also know that they can help it. They can't help that they have the problem, but they can help whether or not they address the issue, how truthful they are, who they're hurting in the process. I'm not saying it's easy, but we just. We can't go in this destigmatization thing so far that we're enabling them because that doesn't get them better. One thing I find really interesting is that when I see dialogue like this on my comments, is it. It hardly ever comes from the person that has an addiction problem. It almost always comes from, like, a family member or a friend or an advocate or something like that. Because if you talk to people with drug and alcohol problems, they're the harshest they're like, oh, no, dude, that is a liar. Like, you know, they'll tell you the truth. I think Derek says, I think for my alcoholism, I use an excuse for my drinking, that I hurt someone. It's like, oh, I was drunk. I didn't mean it. There you go. It's. It's not so much that the act or the alcoholic means to hurt the people that they love. They really don't. They're just caught up in this survival mode. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't hold them responsible for hurting someone. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes we cross lines inadvertently, like we didn't intend to, but we still cross the line. And so the behavior was hurtful and it wasn't okay. And it needs to be addressed. And it's okay to say that. Ashley says, that's my husband. Let's see. I'm gonna put it up here so you guys can see what I can see. I forget I can do that. Wait, that's the wrong one. This one. Ashley says, that's like, my husband. I'm sick, and you hate me for being sick. And I'm like, no, I'm mad at lies. That's what I'm saying is like, yes, it's an illness. No, the person did not mean to have this illness. Do they have some amount of control? Yeah, they have some amount of control. It's not. It's not like we don't have to accept that they're complete victims. Even if they were victims, in some ways, you still shouldn't use that kind of thinking to not hold someone accountable. You're not helping them when you do that. I think. Here's how I see it on a personal level. Like, how I see it play out, like, in a. Like in a real life, specific, personal example. That's kind of what I was talking to you about before, is kind of like how I see it playing out more as. Like a culture, as a society, sort of the way we're thinking about addiction. But I also see that playing out in everyday cases that we treat at our office. So you can see that, like, I don't want to call it addiction. Our success rate and helping people get better has a lot more. Is a lot more correlated with whether or not the family can wrap their head around that this person has an addiction than it does for the person to wrap their head around it. Because you think about it, if the family can't call it what it is, can't understand what it is, the person's never going to get it. Most likely. So the first thing that has to happen is we have to understand it. We don't have to villainize it, but we have to sort of accept it. And so in our office, that's the first part of what we have to do, is we have to get the family to be on the same page and understand that it is an addiction. A lot of times, one or some of the people in the family understand that, and then other peoples don't. And there's this whole battle. I've got videos about that. Y' all know how that goes. But we've got to wrap our heads around what is. I don't think we should minimize it. When I say the word addict, nailcoholic, I don't mean it in any kind of, like, super harmful way or bad, bad way, but it's what it is. And we all have a level of understanding about what that means. And when we try to minimize it away, it takes away accountability. I personally think we have to start believing and knowing that they can help it get better. And you can do that at the same time as you can believe that they didn't mean to have this problem. You know, you can not mean to. It's not your fault you got diabetes, but it is your responsibility to deal with it. If you get lice, it's maybe not your fault you got lice, but your responsibility to deal with it. You see what I mean? Like, there's a balance in there. And I feel like that's where we're getting confused. The other things I see families doing to support it, maybe too much is like, we see this all the time, the family, even when the person's like, in treatment or in early recovery, maybe they're an inpatient treatment. Maybe they're just in, like our intensive outpatient. Or they can be with us or not even with us, but the family views this person as incapable. And so this person, the addictive person, has for a long time used this to continue the problem. And so when they run into a problem at their treatment center and they don't like someone in their treatment group or they think a rule is unfair, you know, they'll complain to the spouse, to the parent, and that family person will then call up the treatment center and try to fix that problem for them, can you see how that's a little problematic? Let's look at it. Number one, you need to decide if you think that's true or not. And you need to think long and hard about all the lies they told on you. So you need to decide if there's truth in it or if they have some kind of like secondary gain thing going on there. Even if it is true and your loved one has this difficulty to overcome this obstacle, then you need to let them do their part in solving that problem because that is the process of recovery. In our group last night, we were talking about process groups and how they worked and different people's experience being at different treatment centers and how the groups ran. And this one girl in our group, she was saying about how at a treatment center she was at before, she was like, if anybody did anything wrong, the whole group had to sit down and talk about it. So somebody talked on the phone when they weren't supposed to talk on the phone. We had to get in a group and we had to go around and tell that person how their behavior affected us. Now, I kind of agree with what she's saying. That probably is a little extra. But you're dealing with people who have either if they're young, never learned how to solve problems or hold people or themselves accountable, or even if they're older and they have it before they have forgotten it. It's a skill, it's a muscle that has not been worked out long time. So that's why those kind of things, which seem sort of extra, are quite necessary. And if your loved one is complaining to you about this, it's okay to listen to them. It's okay to validate what they're saying. But let them solve their problems. That's how they get better. It's not just about not using drugs and alcohol. It's about learning to deal with. In recovery, they call it life on life's terms. You know, it's not. It's not me trying to make everything go the way I want and using people to force situations. It's. It's about learning how to deal with life. Debbie says let's put up what Debbie says, allowing each the freedom of personal responsibility. I like that, Debbie. So anyways, you guys jump in here, talk to me a little bit about what you think about that. You know, do you think it's gone too far? Have you ever went too far in supporting your loved one? Now, you know, I don't want you to be the bad guy, but I don't want you coming in rescuing either. It's about finding your middle ground with that. Let's see. Let's look at some more comments. Angela says that's true. They're still responsible for their behaviors. That's right. I think the first thing that you've got to do to stop doing this is, you know that they have a competency to fix things, to solve things. Now sometimes they can't solve every single thing themselves and they may need a little help and that's okay. But you should not go in and rescue them from it. You should not even go in and rescue them from being labeled and being an addict or an alcoholic. Like you've got to let that resolve itself because I got a whole video about this coming out. But because when they solve their own problems, number one, they learn how to solve problems. But number two, they get some serotonin in their brain which because it makes them feel proud of themselves and that actually makes them a lot less likely to be vulnerable to addiction. So there's even like some brain nerdy science behind that. Debbie says important topics so necessary for recovery of family and the addict to recognize what enabling is and how it can contribute to sobriety or lack thereof. I like your little profile picture thing there with the piece on Debbie. That's pretty cool. Anybody disagree? Anybody feel differently? Let's see. Let's see what N2 Cable says. I think people need to know their own place and sometimes recovery, where were they enabler, easily manipulated, etc. I would say a professional is, but too many people can't afford it. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying right there into cable. Can you reword that for me? Because I'm not. I'm not 100 sure what you're trying to get across. Oh, this is a good. This is what I'm saying. Trust that they have an ability to better their life. Bingo. You said it. Right on target. Let's see who we got. Ashley says, in the beginning I was a good. I was a good guy. Too much and my husband ran all over me. And now I think I too much of the bad guys. I know, right? It's like finding that middle ground A lot of times when we first that maybe we need to do something differently. We over correct. And so it's like a pendulum. It's kind of like, okay, I need to change and we go too far over here. We just need to come back and find that little middle ground. Let's see. It's not the family's job to put the attic to get sober, but they can support the recovery. That's right. I think we have a question, Flapjack. But how can you hold them accountable and have an expectation when they twist and blame you or everyone else for everything? That's a really good Question, Flapjack. Somebody actually asked a question about this this week on a video. So I'm gonna make a video about specifically about accountability. But the first thing that you can do to hold someone accountable is stop believing it yourself. Stop buying into the fact that they can't help it, that they're a total victim, because if you can't accept it, they can't accept it. So that's the very first step. That's the first thing you need to do. Let's see. This sounds like what you spoke about in another one of your videos called the craft method. Oh, yeah, the craft method videos. And it makes a lot of sense. Is there an online website where there's training molecules for the craft craft method? That's a good question, Jerry. I actually have a online recovery academy. It's for family members. And inside of that academy, I teach the craft method. I teach the whole step by step process. And then I also teach something called motivational interviewing in that. And that when you. The craft method is the most successful family method of intervening, so that statistically has the best chances. And the motivational enhancement techniques is the most statistically proven therapeutic technique. So I really teach you both. I teach you the best way for family interact, and I teach you everything that a therapist would do or say and how you can do that in your own house. So you get sort of like double the chances of getting your loved one into successful recovery. Thanks for asking that. Any other thoughts or questions? I'm going to give you guys a couple seconds just because I know it's a delay, and then we're going to jump off of here. And I think coming up in our lives, we. While you guys are thinking, coming up in our next couple of lives, we're gonna have Kim on here, and she's gonna talk to us about what to tell children involved, other children involved in a situation where there's family or that's an actor and alcoholic. So that could be the parent, it could be an older sibling. But, you know, what do you talk to kids about? How do you say it? What do you not say? And those kind of things. Kim's gonna come on and talk about that, and Campbell's gonna come on in the next few weeks and talk about whether or not someone ever be able to moderately drink. And that's a hot topic. It's a question I always get asked by people in recovery and by their family members. People are always curious about that. So we're going to address those issues. Let's see. Here's what Angela Says, I think I go too far being nice and trying not to be the bad guy. I know they need to try all the things they can think of to do it in their mind to overcome. But it's led to alcohol being in the house. That's a good one. So it's kind of like, how do you. What Angela's talking about is she's talking about allowing someone to go through what I call the bargaining phases. Because we know that they kind of have to try all these different ways and pretty much fail at them before they'll decide they have to stop altogether. Where's the line? You know, do you keep it in the house? And stuff like that? I've got one guy that I do some coaching for whose wife. He's concerned about his wife drinking, and she gets mad if he won't drink with her. And then that puts him in the bad guy role. And then she's. She just gets super, super mad about it and has fits. And so he's asked me, is it, you know, should I not drink with her or should I drink with her? And I told that guy that if he wanted to have a drink with her because she's still drinking, it's not like she's in recovery. And then he says, hey, you want to have a drink? It's more like she's actively drinking, working through these bargaining phases. And he's like, should I have a drink with her? And I'm like, if you want to. If you naturally would, then have a drink with her, because when you're not doing it, it's like throwing you into the back of the room. And that kind of question is pretty, like, case by case specific. But him doing that was infuriating her so much, him not drinking because she saw it as, like, a judgment, that it was blocking her view from seeing that she had a problem. So sometimes I go pretty far in this. Like, how far do you be the good guy or the bad guy? But you just need to know that they are capable. Let's see. Question. I found my husband's stash. How do I confront my husband about it without being the bad guy, but also just letting him know can't get away with bringing it into the house. If you have a loved one that lives in your house that has a drug or alcohol problem, they have it in your house. I. So I know a lot of families who say, like, I know you're doing it, and I know I can't stop you, but don't bring it in the house. They're bringing it in the house. I'm just telling you. So that's one of those things that I. I tell families not to get in that lockdown power struggle about. If you don't want them to have it in your house and they're still actively using, then you're probably going to have to have them out of your house. I know that kind of sucks, but that's the truth. They all have. They have it. They're addicted, which means they need a pretty constant supply of it, which means they need to keep it pretty accessible. So it's not in the house, in the car. It's under the porch. It's somewhere close. And I think it's perfectly okay to confront them about finding their stash because it at least says, hey, I see what's happening here. I know what's going on. I'm not putting my head in the sand. You don't start arguing over it, but you can acknowledge it. Julie's got a good comment. She says, the more I focus on myself and not his addiction, the more he has improved and made efforts to really change. Julie, that's it. If I could just free. If I could narrow down everything I teach into, like, one sentence, that would be it right there. You nailed it. I love it. Howdy says my grandchildren are going through that. I'm looking forward to those. Oh, how do. You must be talking about the one where Kim's gonna come and talk about what to tell kids. Let's see. Tina says distancing is important. Still love my son, but had to at a distance. Yeah, that's a good point, Tina. Sometimes you just need to. You don't need to have that front row seat because it's really hard to keep your composure when you're, like, literally watching it every single day all the time. Let's see. We're gonna do a couple more comments. I have an adult child who has been affections for 20 years trying to deal with some over and over. What's my best action? I think that's the wrong word. Is it addictions, Melissa? Is that what you're saying? What do you say to an alcoholic husband when he can say that he has to get a handle on this, but never does anything about it? How do you respond? Oh, man, Michelle, like, if your husband is saying, I gotta get a handle on this, that is gold. That and therapy. I call that change talk. And if I hear something like that, I want to grab that because that means he knows he needs to change, and that's probably his way of telling you, like, I really, really need to change. And I know it, but I can't stop. It's because it's like he's acknowledging it but not taking the action. And in the family recovery course, we talk a lot in detail about how to take that change talk comment and pull it further and get more change talk and a commitment to an action. There's just a way you can question someone in a specific way that is non direct, non threatening. You don't tell them what to do. That pulls them out. You know, you can ask more questions like, you know, why do you think that? Let them explain. But in the reason, you probably know why they think that, but you want them to explain it to you because it's reinforcing in their reign, why they need to get a handle on it. So it's all these little tricks of therapy to really reinforce in someone why they need to change. And then you can. And then you can get them to identify possible solutions, and then you can get them to identify and commit to some steps to take. But that's good news, Michelle. If that's what's going on in your house, your guys is right there on. If you can grow that a little bit, you're going to get somewhere. All right, here we go. A lot of people that are with an alcoholic or also an alcoholic, their alcoholism may be hidden by other person's worst alcoholism. Boy, man, that's the truth. I've seen that. It's. It's like this one's further down the road in alcoholism. So. So all the blame gets put on that one. And then the. The other spouse or other people in the family can. Can have a drinking problem too. It's just not quite there yet. They're just, they're just down the road just a tad bit. I totally agree with you. All right, this is our last question. Where do I learn that again? Stephanie. Stephanie says, I think you're asking about the motivational interviewing stuff. And if you look in, if you're watching this on YouTube, in the description, there's a link to the family recovery academy. You can use that. And that it's in there that I go, because it's like, tedious. I teach you the exact, like, statements and comments and questioning techniques and what to do and every kind of different situation. So that's in the family recovery Academy. If you're watching on Facebook, you might want to jump over to YouTube and find this video and get in description. And I'll try to remember to go back and put that link in there for you guys on Facebook. Thank you guys for hanging out. Stay tuned the next couple weeks because we're going to have Campbell and Kim on and they're going to be talking about some super good, important topics, too. Catch you next time.