Amber Hollingsworth (Put the Shovel Down) explains when to intervene with an addicted loved one by teaching how to recognise the "window" of openness to change. She starts with four clear times NOT to try to persuade someone (when you are angry; when they are angry with you; when their body language shows they’re closed/off; when their addiction appears to be "working"). She then describes indicators the window is open and action is appropriate: expressions of remorse/regret after a bad episode, any expressed desire to change (even modest), and general frustration with life or internal distress. Advice includes matching suggestions to the person’s readiness, aiming for small commitments, planning behind the scenes when the window is closed, and using evidence-based approaches (she references CRAFT, motivational interviewing, and her Family Recovery Academy/invisible intervention for scripts and techniques).
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How to help an addicted loved one, specifically when to intervene in the situation. That's what this video is all about. I'm going to help you recognize when the window is open and what move to make when you see that window open. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is designed to help you, you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can recover your life, your loved one, and get back to living the life that you want to live. So you're not being held hostage by this addiction anymore. Okay, So I think the best place to start with this subject is actually when not to intervene, because that's probably maybe even more important than when to intervene. So let's make a list of that. You see, the thing about when to actually have a conversation with someone and ask them, you know, to get some help or to do something or make some changes, it's really all about when you have this. I call it sort of this moment of clarity this person has. It's kind of this time when the window opens up. So the first thing you need to recognize is when that window is closed. Because I see so many families making this huge mistake. And if you don't say the right thing at the right time, which is vitally important, the time thing is extremely important, then you're just not gonna get anywhere, and you might make things worse, and it might make it even longer before you actually get that window to open up. And this window that I'm talking about is really sort of when the person has an openness to doing something different. Okay, so I've got four times I want you to pay particularly close attention to when not to make a suggestion for change or ask someone to do something different. You ready for this? Number one, when you're angry. Because when you're angry, you're going to be communicating with them in such a way, even if your voice is calm and what you're saying is right, your body language is going to be emitting anger, which is going to make them have their wall up. And the key here is getting the wall down. So don't try to have these conversations with someone when you're really upset. I know in the heat of the moment, you want to have that argument. You want to say what you think. You want to tell them what they need to do, But I'm telling you, it's just not helpful. So don't try to ask someone to change when you're upset the second time when you should probably not try to ask someone to change is when they're upset with you, when they're angry with you, when they're throwing a fit or throwing a tantrum or refusing something, and they're just angry with you. Which kind of leads me to the number three time, which is when their body language is closed, when you can tell that they're not listening to you, they're ignoring you, when you know for a fact that inside their head they're having one of those Charlie Brown moments. You know, on Charlie Brown, where the teacher talks and the kid hears, womp, womp, womp. When you see that happening, just stop. No matter how much you feel like you want to say something, no matter how valuable this thing you have planned to say is, it's not going to get through. The window is closed. Don't try to interact with someone in a way to get them to change when the windows closed. If you see the windows closed, go back to trying to get the window to open. And the number four time when you should not try to intervene or ask someone to change is when their addiction is actually working for them. And this one I know is a little bit different than those other three. So it's like when things seem to be fine, when you know they have enough money, when they haven't really recently got in trouble, when they're passing the classes, when jobs going okay, when their friends are happy with them, when everything in their life seems to be kind of going along okay, it's not the time to intervene. So, like, for example, I took this coaching call from this family within the last month or so, and they were telling me that they knew that the time wasn't right yet. They're really smart. I know they must have been watching my videos, but because their son had just moved out with this friend of his, and it just happened, and things were going well and he was happy, but they knew that that would come crashing to a halt at some point, that that would eventually start to deteriorate and not work. And so they were waiting for that moment. But in the meantime, they were scheduling these coaching calls with us to try to figure out what to do when that moment comes and how to recognize that moment when they got it, which is the smart, strategic thing to do, which, you guys know, I like to say, five steps ahead of addiction. That's how you accomplish being five steps ahead. You don't wait till you're there. You know exactly what you're looking for. You know what moment you're waiting for. And you've got a plan for what you're gonna do when it happens. So if you're in those times where I just listed for not asking them to change, that's the time when you need to be behind the scenes planning, strategizing, getting your game plan in order. Now let's move on to when it is a good time to intervene. These next few things that I'm going to tell you are indicators that the window is open. And this might be the time when you want to take some action. You ready for these? Number one, when the person's expressing remorse or regret over something that's happened either in the past or just recently. Like a lot of times we're people with addictions. They'll have these bad episodes where they'll do something they feel really bad about or something really bad will happen. And sometimes it's like that next day or a few days after that. And if you've built that trusting relationship with them, like I teach you to do, sometimes they'll open up with you about that and they'll actually verbalize that to you. You know, they'll say, I can't believe that happened. I feel terrible. You know, maybe they got a dui. Maybe they forgot to go to their kid's baseball game. Maybe they forgot to turn in their final exam paper and failed class. Whatever it is, it's usually after something bad has happened. Now, some people talk about this as hitting bottom, but I don't think it has to be hitting bottom in the way that it's like they've lost everything. But there are these other sort of smaller bottoms where bad things happen. And right after that, you usually kind of have one of these windows. And most often it's in their head. So they're thinking something like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I did that. I feel embarrassed. They're mad at themselves. They start telling themselves things like, from now on, I going to do this or not, that they start thinking of how to fix it. But if you by chance get them to the point where they're talking to you about that out loud, bingo, you have your window. This is the moment you've been waiting for. And I hope you know exactly what you want to ask them to do to make that change happen. And hopefully, if you've been following along with all the things I teach, you've built enough credibility with that person so that when you offer a solution or you ask them or you suggest something, that they'll actually be willing and open to hearing, that and trust you enough and feel safe enough to take some action. That's the key. Number two, you might think this one seems kind of obvious, but you know, sometimes we're just in the middle of it and we forget the obvious. But when the person starts expressing a desire to change, now this one is key because they might not be saying like, okay, I want to stop drinking forever, but they may say something more like, wow, you know, I'm sick of feeling tired or I need to cut it back. It may not be that they're saying they want to do the whole like, oh, I want to go to non D day rehab, don't wait for that, that's not happening people. But you may get these like lower level expressions of desire to change and you want to kind of match your suggestion with the level that they're at. So if they're at like a really low and a really desperate point, then hey, maybe you want to suggest the 90 day rehab, but don't do that. If they're just making these little minor comments, then maybe you want to suggest a little minor something like, oh, hey, maybe you want to like go talk to like a life coach about that. Maybe they can help you, you know, a small step. And so you want to match sort of where they're at because they're going to be a lot more open to hearing what you have to say when it's sort of evenly matched. And the number three indicator that the window is open is when they're expressing general frustration about their sit. Like they feel like they don't really have any real friends, that all their friends just use them or they feel like they really hate their job or they're just sick of school and they don't know if they should keep continuing because they don't even know if they're in the right major. So sometimes you'll hear them make these statements about general frustration about their outside circumstance or also sometimes about their sort of what I would call their inside circumstance. So they are talking about feeling really stressed, really depressed, really overwhelmed, difficulty focusing, just not their best inside or not their best outside kind of situation going on. These are moments when a person is contemplating change. That's the clinical way we would talk to you about it. But basically it means they want something to be different. And this is when you have a little opportunity and if you know exactly how to say and what you want to ask for, this is your moment where you might can make some action happen, but you want to get some kind of commitment from them. If at all possible about maybe a step they could take. It doesn't have to be the big, huge cat daddy of all steps, but a small step. In a lot of cases, a movement forward is what you're looking for. And so if you want to know more about how to make that window get open or exactly what to say when you know that window is open, then you should really consider becoming a member of our Family Recovery Academy, because in there we teach something called the invisible intervention, which is where I teach you the craft method, which is the, like most statistically proven method for helping a loved one get ready to make some changes. And I actually even teach you the techniques that we use in our office and that addiction specialists use when dealing with someone in denial to try to get them motivated and ready to do something different. It's a technique called motivational interviewing, which I adjust and teach specifically to families, because maybe you can't get them in front of me. Maybe you're the only person and you are the frontline defense. So in there, you'll learn how to make the window get open and what to do when you see that window open. I'll attach information for that in the description below if you want to know more about that. But up next is a video on intervention methods, which is going to go perfectly with this video. So just click on it and watch that next.
