How To Love An Addict

How can you love an addict or an alcoholic and keep your sanity at the same time? That's we're going to be talking about in today's videos. Now, I know that a lot of people will tell you to just detach or detach a love or get rid of them or kick them out or, you know, don't let them in your life, all those things, because they're just going to destroy you. Well, it's not that those things aren't necessarily true, but sometimes that's really just not an option. Like maybe it's your kid or it's your parent or it's your brother or it's your husband. You know, there are situations in which you are in a relationship with someone who has an addiction and you care about and love them. And this is all about how to survive that. Now, I'm going to give you three key things that you've got to do. You're going to have to do all three of these things if you want to come out of this situation with your sanity intact. The first thing is that you're going to have to address your fears about their addiction. And those fears can be all sorts of things. And to be honest, they're probably realistic fears. They're not even like, I'm not even here to tell you that they're irrational or made up or could never happen. I'm not saying that at all. Your fears could happen. They're probably something like, you know, what if they get into a car accident? What if they get arrested? What if we have to get a divorce, and then my children can't be around their mom? You know, all those things that we worry about. You know, what if I get that dreaded phone call? But essentially, the thing that we're all scared of is that we've lost this person from our lives. And we're scared that they're going to. We're scared of that. And then the other one is that we're scared they're going to destroy our lives. And this one's all about how to let them not destroy your life. So the biggest thing about that fear that you're struggling with is it's going to keep you making really bad decisions. As long as you're making decisions out of fear, you're going to be making bad decisions, and the fear is going to be running the show. One of the things that might help you related to that fear is just to realize that probably whatever you're scared of happening has already happened. If your loved one is in active Addiction, they're not really. You're the same person anymore. So you've lost that person that you're so scared of losing. They're really not intact in there anymore. You still see them from time to time. I guess it's like they're in there, but you're not dealing with them. You're dealing with the addiction. And so you're constantly living in this fear about that, but you're already there. So realize that these fears that are holding you hostage aren't doing you any good. You're gonna have to sort of figure out your way to come to terms with them or at least not make decisions out of fear. Most of the time, when we do things that are enabling or we do things that are. That upset us, that we don't want to do, we're doing it because we're scared of something. What will happen if I don't? What will happen if I do? And those fears really hold us hostage. Now, before we move on to the second one, I will say if you have questions or comments, go ahead and put those up in the chat or in the comments, because I will come back to them once I finish giving you these three and take a look and see if I can answer your questions and concerns. Number two, this one is super important. Okay? Number two is you have to protect your own boundaries. Now, I'm not going to give you a whole video about boundaries, because I have several about that. But remember, boundaries are what you will and won't do, what you will and won't let in your life, not what they will and won't do, not what they will in their life, but what you are willing to accept. And if. Because if you don't do that, you will end up with so much anger and resentment that it's going to turn you into a person that you don't like anymore. You're going to be constantly mad at the world. You're going to be feeling sorry for yourself. You're going to be really stuck in a whole lot of negative emotions. Let me give you an example. Like if they're. If the. If your addicted loved one is asking you for money that you really, really, really don't want to give them or you don't have it to give them, and. And you do it anyway, guess what's going to happen? You're going to really hate them, and you're going to really hate yourself. So that is going to really come in conflict with your goal of how to love an addict without losing your own sanity. So do you see? You guys see what I mean here? You got to like protect your own boundaries. Don't allow things to happen to you that you are going to really, really hate, regret, resent, hold a grudge about. Because that starts to change who you are inside of your own heart. And ultimately you won't like the person that that makes you become. The third thing that you have to do to continue to love an addict without losing your sanity is you need to stop telling yourself or listening to this advice or wherever it comes from these statements about, you know, this is addiction, no one ever gets better from addiction or only this teeny tiny little percent get better. And all this like negative information, statistics, stuff that we get told to us because that is going to keep you stuck and hopeless and again, that's going to trigger up your fears and cause you to make bad decisions. Let me tell you the truth about it. Thousands and thousands of people get recovery every single day. I watch people get sober get recovery every single day. Many of which, to be honest with you, I thought they're never gonna get it. And they get it. This problem, you know, all these statistics out there about how many people get better and this and that and the other, number one, I don't really even know how they come up with all those statistics and what that really even means. You know, what does better mean? What's the timeline on that? All There's a lot of questions about that. But what I can tell you is addiction is not a problem that we don't have an answer to. There's a clear answer and solution to addiction. In fact, there's a lot of clear answers and solutions to addiction. So you hear all this stuff about, you know, like addiction treatment isn't successful, or 12 step doesn't work, or smart recovery, that's not a good thing to do because it doesn't work. None of that is true. All of those things work. All of them. The reason why people sometimes struggle and they don't get the like they don't get it on the first time or they don't get long term recovery on try number one is not because we don't know how to fix it and we don't know what solutions there are. It's because mostly because people aren't really willing to do what the solution tells them to do. So it's not so much like AA doesn't work or treatment doesn't work, or even like medication assisted treatment doesn't work. It's really not that. It's just that in order for these things to work, the person typically is going to have to do a lot more than they ever imagined, you know, like, but getting a recovery from alcoholism is about a lot more than not drinking beer. You know what I mean? Like, it's a complicated, big task. And so helping people come to terms with this, it's like, first you got to help them come to terms with, like, the fact that they have an addiction, right? Really come to terms with that. And then you gotta help them come to terms with what it's gonna take to fix that. And that might mean changing where you live, and that might mean, you know, changing the entire way that you think. It might mean managing your emotions completely differently. It's probably gonna mean getting rid of some people in your life or not spending much time with them. You know, there are a lot of sacrifices and energies that have to go into this whole process of getting recovery. So I guess the big message I want you guys to know is people get better from this all the time. There are many solutions out there. And they're not powerless. People with addictions are not powerless, and family members are not powerless either. That's what this YouTube channel is all about. I want you to understand the science and psychology so that you're always five steps ahead of it. Now, if you do have a loved one that is actively using, and you want to know the strategy to get them to take steps towards recovery and get sober, then you might think about our invisible intervention program, which, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can find a link to that in the description. That's the program where I sort of teach you the step by step process to get them from active addiction into recovery. In fact, I talked to a gentleman last week whose wife I had been working with for a few months before. She was part of the invisible intervention. And she had like a couple, two or three, maybe like, coaching sessions with me. Like, not even, like a lot close together, like one and then one a month later, one, two months later, something like that. And when I talked to the husband, that's the person that had the dream problem. He was like, I'm ready to be done with this. This ridiculous. And when I talked to him, I felt like, well, this is easy. I don't even have to do any work. Like, he was completely set. And all I had to say was, you know, I think you should do this. I think you should quit drinking for 30 days. And he said, you know, I think you're right. And then I talked to him, and guess what? He had done that. And so even there's all this stuff that you can do before they even get in treatment to get them ready and willing and get their mindset right. And all of that is explained to you in the invisible intervention. It's all the same things that I would do with them if they were sitting in my office, because I know sometimes you can't always get them in front of a counselor. And besides the fact if you do this stuff at home, you can be doing this stuff, like regularly, you instead of the counselor doing it once a week. And you can expedite this process like 10,000 times faster. So I'm telling you, it works. You're not powerless. There are things you can do, but you need to address these core thinking things in your heart and in your mind, the ones I'm telling you today before you do that, because that's going to set the stage and foundation inside of you to be able to pull that off. All right, now let's take a look at some of our questions and concerns. Say hello to some people. Let's see here. Hey, Nancy and Vicki and Beth from Massachusetts and Whitney from Brooklyn. It's so cool that you guys are joining me from all over. It just like blows my mind. I'm like a country girl, so it's like, wow. Just like some places sometimes I've never even heard of, I have to look them up on the map. Afterward, you guys let me know where you're watching from. I love that. Let's see. Delana and Greta. Let's see. Brandy. Coming from the spouse of an addict, you have to change. We have. You have to change our life on both sides of the addiction. You've helped me grow this past year with boundaries. In return, helped him see that he wasn't a functioning addict. Oh, thank you. I love, like a success story. Let's see. Mickey says, I watched your video about enabling and I found that I am, even though I thought I wasn't. I just don't know how to stop. I feel exactly the way you describe. I love a highly functional addict. Mickey, tell me what it is that you feel like you're doing that you don't know how to stop. And I might can give you a more specific reply. The more specific of a question you give me, the more. The more details, the more specific of a reply I can give you. Sometimes people ask me questions on here, like, how do you get someone's over? Or how do you fix addiction? Which is about six months worth of answer. I know it's complicated. We have all these videos and try to tell you all the little pieces of it if they're big questions. Let's see here. Lori says, see if I can show that to you guys. Hi, I'm from Missouri. I'd like to help my husband. His addiction makes him take everything. I fell in love with him away. Definitely dealing with addictive behaviors. Latest is he'd like me to title Lori. I don't see the rest of that. Is it like title like a car or house or something in. In his name or something like that? What is that into? Kevin says changing a person's mind is one of the hardest things to do, especially in addiction. You are very right about that. Into Cable. Here's what I might say to you. Instead of looking at like changing a person's mind, it may be a different way to look at is helping them see the situation through a different lens because it's not so much, you know, every. Everyone thinks it's like, oh, you're trying to convince them that they don't want to use drugs and alcohol. Well, that's not going to work because they do want to use drugs and alcohol. Otherwise they wouldn't have a problem with it. What you're trying to get them to see is whatever problem they think they're solving with the substance or addictive behavior, whatever that is, it's just not effective. So what you're trying to get them to see is that there are just more effective ways to solve that problem. You're not trying to get them to sort of like this light bulb moment of okay, I don't want to drink anymore. Like, probably not going to happen. It may happen eventually down the road, but that's probably after they're cleaning soap for a while that they decide that we can only change ourselves. Carrie says that is correct. And if you change your. But if you change yourself, the people that you're in relationship with will also change because relationships are interconnected and you can't change you without changing the relationship. So you can't make someone else do something, but you can influence it by changing yourself. And two, Cable says, don't point to the alcohol is the problem. Look in the mirror. I like that. Good advice. That's why family recovery groups are overwhelming and discouraging many stories of horrible, serious addictions and rehab from 8 to 12 times. My daughter's only been through it once. Yeah, Wendy, sometimes some groups that you can be in can be. It's almost like they can turn into just like sad, depressing, not good information. Not all of the family support groups are that way. And hopefully if you guys are in one that you found one for yourself that can be a little bit more positive and have suggestions. And even if your loved one's been through it 10 or 12 times, it really doesn't mean they're not going to get. Takes most people, to be honest, more than once. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean they have to go to treatment more than once, but they're going to have more than one try at getting the whole recovery sobriety thing. I can promise you that. And a lot of people do that long before they ever go to treatment. And then other people do that. Maybe they went to treatment and they'd never even tried before. And in that case, it probably is going to take a few treatment episodes because they're gonna have some trial and error. That's just the process of it. Suffering succotash. So best I can hardly say that says this message brings reassurance of recovery success. That's right. Suffering succotash. It works. I've seen it all the time, even in teenagers. You know, some people say you can't get a teenager sober. I've seen a lot of teenagers get sober and feel glad that they did it and feel happier and stay sober. So yes, it is done and can be done. So don't let that negative information seep into your mind because subconsciously you're. When you do that, you're subconsciously probably adding to that result. It's kind of like a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if it's not you, it's for your loved one. You're maybe subconsciously doing some things that you don't even realize you're doing to sabotage that effort because you don't believe it's going to work. So you got to know that they can get better. Happens every day.