How to Outsmart Addiction and Change your Life (and family) Forever!

You are never going to beat addiction by focusing on what's happening today. You have to get ahead of it. That's why on this channel, we always say the goal is to get five steps ahead of addiction. You have to be able to predict what's coming next. If you're busy fighting the battles of today, you don't have strategy. You need to imagine in your head that you are going to think three miles down the road and put your strategy and send your troops right there so that you're ready when it gets there. And in order to do that, you have to know what's coming next. Well, the good news is that's what this channel's here for. I am going to tell you what's coming next. The one good thing about addiction, it is that it is highly predictable. In most any case, someone can tell me what is going on with them or with their loved one, and I can say, here's what's going to happen next, and probably what's going to happen next after that thing happens. And here's what I want you to do three miles down the road, instead of fighting all these battles in the here and now. What's going on today, who drank today? Who's mad at who today, what somebody's behavior is like, we got to get out of that, because that's keeping us distracted, and it's causing us to, like, wear out and get exhausted, waste all of our resources, money, energy, all of that. And it causes us to lose this battle. And there are dire consequences. There are dire consequences attached to this battle. Whether it's you battling the addiction or your loved one battling addiction. We're talking about, like, your life, your family, your future. And so you got to get serious about it. And I know you're already serious about it, but maybe I shouldn't have said serious. You got to get strategic about it. So let's talk about how to get ahead of it, because I want to give you a roadmap, but it's a little hard to do because I know that you're all starting at different starting points. You're all at different various points on this journey, But I'm going to give you a roadmap that you can apply whether you're fighting addiction in yourself or. Or we're also going to look at it from a family member's perspective. Either which side you're on, we're going to take a look at what are the key ingredients, what are the factors that you need to focus on that are always going to get you to the next step. It's always going to get you ahead of this thing. All right. Have you guys ever heard of the book the art of war? Well, there's a very, very famous saying in that from the guy who wrote it was named Sun Zoo. I'm probably saying that wrong. And the saying is every battle is won before it is fought. And that is what we are talking about today. And one of the other things that that Sun Tzu says is that in order to set the stage for victory, you have to very carefully manage your resources and your focus wisely. That is what we are going to do today. We're going to look at exactly strategically how to do that. All right. One of the other things he says in the book is you got to know your enemy strengths. You need to know your strengths, but you need to know what your enemy is good at too. And in this case, your enemy is addiction. And I'm going to tell you what addiction's strengths are. In fact, we have about 500 videos on this channel and talk all about it. But we're going to talk about specifically what does addiction need in order to thrive and live. There are a few ingredients that fuel any addiction. It doesn't matter what the addiction is. And if you take these fueling ingredients away from it, it doesn't live like a bacteria needs certain environmental conditions to flourish. Addiction is no different. It's like a virus. It's like a contagious virus. And it needs certain conditions in order to. To continue to grow and flourish. And when you understand what those conditions are, one of the most strategic things you can do is take away the fuel. If there's nothing to feed it, it dies out. It goes away because it can't live any longer. And to break it down as simply for you as possible, we're going to look at those three ingredients. And I've given them all names with something s so that you can remember them. Those ingredients are shame, secrecy and self pity. Those are the big daddies. That is what addiction lives on. And if you take those things away from it, guess what? It doesn't rule the roost anymore. I like to think of addiction. It's like a puppet master and it's in the background and it's controlling all of these things. And I know you're thinking of addiction is just more simply like, oh, the person is chasing this behavior or this chemical or whatever it is. But it's more than that. Addiction has to. Has to have these things in order to keep that dynamic going. These Are the things that keep people stuck in addiction way more like, way, way, way more than the chemical dependency. Way more than any positive thing. Something's getting out of a substance, anything else. These are the things that keep people stuck in addiction. It's. It's the things that keep it going and why they don't come out of it. So let's dissect them one at a time. Shame fuels addiction because we don't like ourselves. And when we don't like ourselves, it actually changes our brain chemistry. It makes us depressed. It makes our serotonin go down. It makes us give up on things. It makes us be hopeless. And so what happens is when we get that shameful I don't like me place, it changes our body and our mind in such a way that we literally don't have the resources to protect ourselves against addiction. It leads us to this place of I don't care anymore. I don't even like me, or I don't deserve better, or I don't have what it takes in order to beat this. It's like this confidence killer. And when it's running the show, it controls addiction. Shame fuels addiction. If you want. If you're the person with the addiction and you want to get rid of the shame, you got to think to yourself, what's the opposite of that? Well, I think the opposite of that is becoming a person that you are proud of. If you will focus your attention on becoming a person that you're proud of, number one, that's going to keep you busy. It's going to keep you distracted from this addictive behavior over here because you got other things that you need to do. And every single day, if you focus on, I'm going to do something, at least one thing, if not more, that I feel proud of myself about. And if you can't think of something, make up your bed, you know, empty the dishwasher. It can be simple. Small things and big things help someone out. You know, donate some of your time or energy or something like that. Do something that makes you like you, that actually refuels you for tomorrow, tomorrow's battle, when you can do that. So obviously, to beat an addiction, if you have addiction, you gotta. You gotta abstain from the behavior. Okay, that's obvious, right? But if you want to stay away from that behavior, I want you to focus every single day on becoming a person that you're proud of. Maybe you like you better if you get up every day and exercise. Maybe you like you better if you meet a work goal. Maybe you like you better if you do something nice for someone else. It's a little different for each person. So I can't tell you, you know, do this thing and you'll proud of you. Because our value systems are different. So if you're unsure what's going to make you proud of you, then I want you to step back and do like a values inventory. We actually have one of these on our site. If you're not even sure where to get one. As far as, like, how do you figure out what are my top values as a person? And if you act in congruence with those values, if your behavior lines up with what's important to you, you'll feel proud of yourself. If it's protecting the environment, is protect the environment. If it's protecting your family, if it's being successful, if it's having good health, whatever that value is, if you focus your attention on it, you're gonna deplete shame little by little by little. The other piece to get rid of those like, last little, like holdouts of shame, is there are things in your past that you're, that you've done that you don't feel good about that are that are sort of like. If you feel like it's those bad things in your pastor, kind of like undoing your good things now, then I want you to figure out how to make them right, Fix it. Whether that's making amends to a person, do something in your own mind that makes it right. If you stole some money, give some money, do something to, to take that past thing that you did and make it better. If you hurt someone in a way in the past, and maybe you want to spend your time teaching people how to protect themselves against that kind of hurt. I don't know what it is. But right the wrong and every single day, focus on what's going to make me like me. Today. When I lay my head on the pillow at night, I want to feel good about what happened. It doesn't mean you have to be perfect. It doesn't mean you have to be completely selfless. But you have to have done something each day that you feel good about. So if you are, let's move on to the next step. So if you're looking at how to get rid of secrecy, this is pretty easy. Secrecy is like the weather condition that addiction needs to live. If you think about it, it's kind of simple, right? If you're gonna have a lot easier time winning the fight if the lights are on in the room, if you can't see where the enemy is and what's gonna punch you next. You're not gonna win that fight. Turn the lights on. The reason why secrecy is so important with addiction is because secrecy is what allows the shameful behav. If you turn the light on things, the shameful behaviors start to go away by themselves. And the way you fight against secrecy is you do the opposite of that. And the opposite of that is what I call bring everything above board. Now, if you're the person fighting the addiction, that doesn't mean you have to tell every person you come across everything you've done and have done, but it does mean that. That you need to clean the skeletons out of the closet. So you need to do that with counselor, with your family member, with your sponsor, with your recovery mates, with your people in your treatment group, whatever. You need to turn the light on it. Because when you keep something secret in your head, like, let me give you an example. Like, if I'm secretly thinking in my head, my wife's going out of town next week, and I know she's not gonna be back till Sunday, and I have this secret plan that I'm gonna go to the liquor store, and in fact, I already got it. It's just in my trunk, but she doesn't know it, and I'm just waiting till Friday until I can drink. That's the secret. We need to turn the lights on. If we secretly know that we have this work party coming up, and we know that there's gonna be some things there that. That we don't need to be exposed to or getting into, but we're hiding behind the fact, well, it's a work event. I have to go. I can't get out of it. But we secretly know there's another intention there. That's a secret. So secrets aren't just about what you're doing, but secrecy on a deeper level is being honest with yourself and with other people about why you are doing what you're doing. Because we can all use that, like, loophole of saying, well, I have to do this or I didn't do this. But most of the time, we're not honest about our intentions about why something happened or didn't happen. So it's above board with yourself and above board with the people around you. When you turn the light on things and there's not secrets there, there's no ghosts that haunt you, it doesn't leave very much room to engage in shameful behavior. If, If. If people know, you know, if you've put out there what you're supposed to be doing on any given day and what your responsibilities are and everything's up here. It makes it really easy. It will simplify your life times 10. Let's move on to self pity because I think this one is really big. Sometimes people have a hard time acknowledging self pity because it sounds like a bad quality. But to be honest, we all have some self pity going on. If you're listening right now and you're thinking to yourself, well I don't feel sorry for myself, then ask yourself this question because this one might be easier be like, oh yeah, I do do that. Are you holding any resentments? Do you have resentments out there about work, school, family, your brother who always got more than you? Whatever it is, are you holding some resentments? A teacher who's going to whatever. Because if you can trace down those resentments, at the end of that resentment road is self pity. Because we're resentful when we feel like we're being mistreated. Something in right, something unfair. So if you can't grab on to the idea that you feel sorry for yourself, trace down the resentment lead in the 12 steps. They have a whole step process for that. But you don't have to work 12 steps to do it. I'm telling you right now. Chase down the resentment lead. You're going to find where the self pity is. Let me give you a real life example for myself. So, and this usually happens to me most, mostly at the end of the day when I make bad choices at the end of the day it's usually about like eating crappy food, right? And so what happens to me, it's at the end of the day and I'm tired, I'm worn out and I'm just like, I just don't even want to cook dinner tonight. I just want to stop and get something to eat on the way home. And I can tell you right now the exact tape that plays into my head. This man telling the secrets. Ready? The tape that plays in my head says, look, you work all day, you see clients, you make YouTube videos, you run a business, you, you answer emails, you answer comments like you got things you have to do and you're gonna have to prioritize. And tonight it's just not the cooking, right? That's the story I tell myself when I make a bad decision about things at the end of the day because I'm tired and I'm worn out. And if you think about it, if I wouldn't let that little Self pity thing get in there. I probably make a better decision because it's the self pity that comes with letting ourselves off the hook. It's like a little cycle. A lot of times it's sometimes it's resentment and that leads to the self pity. And self pity almost always leads to justifying a bad decision. I gave you an example about myself about you know, making bad food choices. We all have this in our, in our life some way. Maybe it's about spending money, maybe it's about drinking. Like, well, it's just not fair that I'm alcoholic and other people aren't alcoholic and they can enjoy something and I can't. Self pity right there. It's not fair that my wife you won't give me a chance. It's not fair, it's not fair. Or I can't because, or woe is me because right after that thought is going to be a bad decision. So in my mind, the self pity is literally like the last stop before that addiction gets a hold of you. So if you can turn the lights on something, if you can do some, something that you're proud of today and if you can try to eradicate self pity, you are not going to give addiction what it needs to live anymore. Just imagine, you ever seen somebody that was like really addicted to drugs or alcohol, that liked their self, that told that was everything was above board, their life had a lot of integrity and they were completely honest with themselves and they, and they didn't feel sorry for themselves and they practiced self responsibility. See, the things like are not, they can't go together, they're incompatible. Addiction cannot live in those conditions. It needs to create certain conditions in order to live. And so if you will do this, it's like literally like inoculating yourself from this addiction creeping back in on you. The way to get rid of self pity is through self responsibility. And the good thing is these three things are kind of a feedback loop. If you're good at one thing, the next thing comes easier and easier because if you practice a lot of self responsibility, then you tend to be proud of yourself. And when you're proud of yourself, it's easy to turn the light off because you don't have nothing to hide. So even if you just take one of these things and focus on it, chances are the other two things are going to start improving just just because one naturally leads to the other. Now I do want to take a look at it from the family perspective. From the family perspective, it's still these three things. But You've sort of got to do this double time. You've got to help remove these things from yourself. And if possible, when possible, you can do some things to help remove those things from your addicted loved one. But I want to start with, how do you remove them from yourself? Because when you remove them from yourself, you stop instigating them over there. So if you can go to self, you know what they say, like, you have to work on yourself. You have to get yourself better. That's more than just like counselory talk or al Anon stuff. You know, it's. There's some truth in it. The same three things is what is fueling your addictive codependent behavior. They're addicted to whatever they're addicted to, and you're addicted to their situation. And it's a parallel process. And so if you. If you want to give them a chance to unhook, you've got to unhook first. Because one of the things that happens is addiction, because it's like a parasite. It'll, like, take everything they have pretty quickly in some cases. And so they're sort of like bled dry, but they're. But you plug into them. And so now the addiction is taking everything from them. But because you're plugged in, it starts to suck everything from you. So first thing you need to do is unplug a little bit from them, like, get back some distance. Stop fighting every single war. Today, because they're drinking today. Okay? They're drinking today. Let's think about what's gonna happen tomorrow and what's gonna happen next week and next month. We ready for it? Okay, so first thing we're going to do is we're going to back up and look at us. Because addiction is not only going to make this other person keep secrets and do things that they're ashamed of and feel sorry for themselves. It's going to make you do those three things. And if you're watching this as a family member, I know you know I'm telling the truth. I know because, you know, I say on here all the time, which is probably not the most professional, but I always say, as family member, it's going to make you crazy because it's gonna make you cry. And when you get crazy, you're gonna be keeping secrets. You're gonna be feeling terrible about what you did and what you said because you got so mad and you couldn't take it anymore. And you just do this fit. And you just, like, do all these ultimatums out there. Amber done told you not to do that and all that stuff. And then you start to feel bad about yourself. And then when you start to feel bad about yourself, the way you make yourself feel better about feeling bad about yourself is you say, well, I can't help it because it's not my fault because they made me do that. They're trying to guess like me, I couldn't take it, or whatever it is self pity. So you can see how even like as a family member, that three prong cycle is happening with you. If you will do the exact same things that I just told the person with the addiction to do, if you will do those same things, you will start to get better. And when you start to get better, usually by the time someone gets pretty addicted, the addicted person isn't a fuel source very much anymore. Because I've already said their blood dry. They're really getting their fuel source. The addiction is getting the fuel source. Through the family, you can cut off the fuel source. And I mean that in a much deeper, more comprehensive way than a lot of addiction counselors. When they say stop giving them money, okay, that's one of the fuel sources. But there are some more powerful fuel sources. I'm not saying don't deal with the money thing. I'm just saying like that's, that's like a piece of the story. The other big piece of the story is what we talk about on this channel all the time. You're providing them with distraction. You're doing things that you know, you're acting out in ways that make them feel sorry for themselves. They're holding you hostage. And then, you know, this is cycle between the addiction, the person and you. And anywhere in that cycle, it can be broken. And when everything comes together and everybody works on the same time, then even better, we're going to win this war like super fast when that happens. So to fight your shame, I want you to become a person you are proud of. And in order to do that, step number one is you got to stop revolving your life around that person. Because you know when you revolve your life and your thinking 247 about what they're doing and what they're lying about and what they're sneaking about and how they're not going to get by with anything on you and how you need to protect yourself and all these other things, you don't feel good, you don't have a life anymore. It is literally controlling you just as much as it is controlling them. So if you're mad at them and you're saying, you know, you're letting this addiction control you. You're letting this addiction take everything from the family. I'm telling you the same thing. It controls you vicariously, like a puppet master. So step back, do whatever you need to do to like you again. You know, start writing, you know, take your yoga, you know, build your motorcycle you always wanted to build. Take your class, whatever you need to do to feel good about you. Go do your exercise. Whatever it is that you really know that you've been needing to do or wanting to do for a long time, but you just haven't. You haven't had energy, haven't had the money, you haven't had the time. Just stop and just say, hey, I'm gonna pour into myself and I'm gonna unplug from this addiction. And by unplug, I don't mean that you have to, like, kick this person out or never speak to them again. What I mean when I say unplug is stop revolving your life around it. Because what you need to do to help them, but it will help you tremendously to do that. When Al Anon says, you know, detach back up. Detach your love. That's what it means. But it's more than just back up from them. If you want to take that up a notch, you. You start taking care of you, whatever that is for you. In the comments, if you're watching, tell me what would make you feel proud of you, Whether you're the family member or the addictive person, tell me, what is that thing that you know that if you would either do or not, do you feel so much better about yourself? Like, write it in the comments. That's, that's actually. If you write it in the comments, you're actually already starting to do step number two, which is the secrecy one, right? You're bringing it above board. So bringing it above board can mean, like, you know, like, not letting secrets get in there. But it also, when you bring your intentions above board, you create accountability for yourself. So it's not even just like, I'm telling my bad things, tell you good things too. Because when you say, hey, I'm gonna take a painting class, and you put it right here on YouTube next week, all of you guys that come on here every week, you're gonna be asking you, hey, did you do your thing? Did you do what you said you're gonna do? Or, you know, your. Your group that you're in, maybe you're in a recovery support group, they're going to ask you so Start saying out loud, this is my goal for myself. You guys know all the time I say this for people with addiction. Step number one, build some accountability. Tell people you're not drinking anymore. If you're the family member, tell people you're not going crazy. Take chase this addiction anymore and now you have accountability for yourself. It's going to make it harder to engage in that old behavior or it's going to make it harder to keep procrastinating on that thing that you always wanted to do but you've been putting off. All right, so you're going to bring everything above board. You're going to do something every single day to feel proud of yourself. And here's the big daddy, you're going to quit feeling sorry for yourself. Now, I know there's a lot to feel sorry for yourself about, but what do I say on here? I'm not telling you what's fair. I'm telling you what works there. There are probably a lot of truth in the things you feel sorry for yourself. Hey, guess what? Everything I said, I feel sorry for myself about 100% true. 100% true. I make videos, I run a business, I see clients, I answer emails, I take care of my family. I do all the things. I don't have much time. But feeling sorry for myself about it doesn't help anything. It doesn't make the things less true. You know, if my husband's an alcoholic and he's just being a jerk and he's not helping, I'm not minimizing that in any way. I'm saying, yes, that is all true. I'm going to validate your feeling about it. But I'm also going to say stop feeling sorry for yourself about it. Because when you let that little piece come in, that self pity piece, that's when you're gonna let yourself make a mistake. And those of you that have been watching the videos for a long time, you kind of already know what the pathway is and how you want to interact with yourself and with the other person. But. And we all know we get to that point where we can't take it anymore, we lose it, we make a mistake. This is the same thing that happens to anyone that has an addiction. And when that happens, I don't want you to feel sorry for yourself about that either. I want you to bring it right above board and I want you to say, I messed up. I got really mad yesterday and I really wish I wouldn't have said all that and I apologize. I'm gonna do better because you're gonna mess up. You gonna eat junk food like me. I'm gonna have days, I'm gonna eat junk food and then I'm gonna not feel sorry for myself about it. And then I'm gonna get right back up on fixing. So when you do fall in the trap, it's damage control, it's get right back on track. And if you want to make it as simple as possible, focus on these three shame, secrecy and self pity. I'm seeing some of you guys that are watching live. I'm seeing you guys put in here some of the things we got. Painting, exercise, routine. We got some things coming. I like it. You bring it above board. You're creating that accountability. I also see a statement up here. I don't know how to stop the anxiety about others behavior. Well, I can tell you one of a couple of things. It's G. Fletcher here. One of the things I would say to you is if you will just decide instead of saying I'm not going to think about that anymore because it's really hard, if you say I'm not going to think about something, you just think about it more. Say I am going to think about X, Y and Z. Get yourself distracted, get yourself involved in something else. Shift your thinking and, and one of the ways to do that is not to give it room to come in. If that doesn't help, then I want you to take the next step and I want you to get some help for anxiety. Like if it's something that's beyond your control, I want you to get some help from that. Whether that's like a medicine, whether that's like a counselor, whether that's like to do like an online anxiety program or some, anything. Because when you take action towards it, you're going to feel proud of yourself. You're going to be bringing it above board. You're going to be dealing with this behavior that you've got going on or this. You know, this anxiety is a behavior. It's a thought behavior. It's a obsessive, ruminating thought that doesn't lead anywhere good. It's just dark. I call it the rabbit hole. Let's say hello to everybody who's here with us and I'm going to take some comments and hear what you guys have to say. But before I do that, two things. The first thing is, as always, there are lots of links and resources for you in the description if you want, want some help developing some specific strategy about how to fight different specific battles with your addiction or to Help your loved one. Then consider a strategy session or consider doing the the 360 strengths based assessment so you can kind of really assess where your resources are or the invisible intervention if you're trying to get someone out of denial. If you need some help developing your strategy, there are resources in the description. The second announcement that I wanted to make is I have no idea if any of you out here want to or willing to do this. I've been kind of wanting to for a long time, but I keep thinking no one's willing. So I think, well, let me just say it. I want to record some videos using some different motivational strategy sessions and I need some people who are willing that maybe want to have some conversations with me that will be recorded. We don't have to do it live, but they will be recorded and we can try out different motivational strategies to see what happens. So in order to be a person that might be good to do that would be I want you to be a person that knows you have something in your life that you're thinking about changing, but you have mixed feelings about changing it, or you've tried and you haven't had much luck and. Or you have some like what we call ambivalence about it. It can be anything. You want something in your life that you're wanting to change. If that's you and you might want to do that, then shoot me an email. And my email is Amber at H. H as in Harold. F as in Frank. F as in Frank, R as in Rick, C as in Charlie. Amber@hffrc.com that stands for Hope for Families Recovery center, if you're wondering. All right, let's say hello to who we have here. Looks like we have a good amount of people here with us. If you're watching on the replay, we want to welcome you here as well. If you couldn't catch us live, we're just glad you're watching on the replay. If you want to catch us live. We're live every Thursday at 1pm Eastern. We also go. I go live some other times, especially when like the spirit hits me and I feel like I always need to jump on here and say something and talk about something. So if you want to catch those, I call them like bonus episodes. Then make sure you have the bell, you're subscribed and you have the little bell thing so you can get a notification. Because when I do that, I usually just jump on and do it without warning because I'm just the spirit got me. And I just jump on and do it. Hey, Nancy. Hey, Janet. Jess is here. Lori's here. For the love of God. I think that's the first time I've seen that. That profile name on here. Hello. Welcome. Glad you're here. Hey, Summer. Lori's here. Lori from New York. Vicki's here from South Dakota. Mama D's here from Charlotte. Smiley question. Let's take Smiley's question. I have suspected porn and alcohol addiction for years in my spouse and have been told I was crazy. My spouse said every typical denial when confronted. I did quit confronting, but now I have lots of proof. We started counseling with a pastor, and the pastor wants to confront him with my evidence and bring the sin into the light. Is this wise? What is your advice for this situation? This is actually a super good question, Smiley, because you. Because deciding when to confront and not to confront it is a tricky question. Sometimes it really is quite necessary to confront. And if the person that you're working with, which in this case is your pastor, if it's their professional opinion that it needs to be brought above board, then I would probably listen to them. I'll probably listen to them over me because they're working with you specifically and they know the ins and outs of your situation a lot more than I do. The piece of advice that I can lend on that, it's about how you confront. If you confront heavy and hard and with judgment, if you back someone into a corner super hardcore, super fast, they are going to come out fighting. So strategically think about how you're going to do it. Having someone else in the room is sometimes helpful. But I also want you to know too, like, if. If the pastor confronts the person with you, then one of the risk that you run is that the person is obviously going to feel embarrassed and humiliated and they're going to associate those negative feelings with the pastor. And then they might want to stop going to see the pastor or back out of it. So usually like in. In our office, if somebody's done something and I'm going to confront them, I don't confront them in front of the family member because it just feels like a thousand times harder. I'm going to be nicer to you in front of your family member because no one likes to be called out in front of other people because that's super messy. Especially if it's your pasture double especially. So just if your pastor says it needs to be called out, it probably does. But just think through kind of like, what's the best way to do it? And in order to figure that Out. I want you to think about what you know about your husband. You know your husband, he's your husband, you know him, you know him really well. And you know what you're going to say that's going to set it off. And what, and maybe other ways that you can present it that might be less likely to set it off. And sometimes you gotta do it even if it is going to set it off. And in that case you want to do it, you want to say it, but with lots of respect and kindness. And then you want to get out of the situation fast. You don't want to stand there and let that heat and pressure build up in them until they either start lying, start blaming you, start a fight about something else. Because that's what they're going to do when they're backed into a corner. That's. I shouldn't say that's what they're going to do. That's what we all do when we're backed into a corner and we're embarrassed like that. It's like a reflex. So say it. Get out of the, not get out of the relationship. Get out of the conversation quickly. Like remember stuff. That way it lets them process and think through how they want to respond or handle that instead of feeling like they got to do something right now. Because when they feel like they have to do something right now, they come out the gate with like a weapon. So don't, so don't stand there and wait for that. Let's see. Oh, I see another piece of your thing there. You said you're afraid to show your hand because he will also get better at hiding, is you don't have to worry about that. It's not your job to find it. So when you let yourself off the hook for finding it, which is one of the things we're talking about here, Smiley, about bringing things above board. Stop looking for it. Who cares? You could say, I know you're hiding spots in the garage under the, you know, tool belt or whatever it is. And, and you're right, he's going to start hiding it somewhere else. You're not going to win the war that way. So if, if you stop worrying about that, then, then it's a non issue. You're not trying to control them hiding. If you try to focus more on these three things than trying to control their drinking or where they're hiding it or what they're lying to you about, you're going to get somewhere faster. So you're trying to control them in yourself. And when you Control them in yourself. You actually help the other person. When you don't control these things in your. In yourself, what you do is you keep secrets because you're looking for it and you have all this information that they don't know that you have. And you set traps for them because you're trying to catch them and you're trying to prove that what you know is right. And that is secrecy, which leads you to shame, which ultimately leads you to feel sorry for yourself, to act out in such a way that actually triggers their shame and secrecy and self pity. So when you remove these things from yourself, you stop acting out in those ways, which kind of like takes their excuse away. Takes their trigger away. And that makes them usually figure it out faster. There's a really good question with several pieces. Hey Kelly. Kelly says stop digging. Kelly, thank you so much for the super thanks that you left. I think it was yesterday. I was super nice and generous of you. Appreciate that. Thomas says something here. Let me see what you're saying. Thomas. The thing I know to do definitely feel better is smoke crack. That does not make you feel better, Thomas, and you know it. You feel guilty leading up to it. You feel kind of good for about whatever, a couple minutes and then you feel crappy again. So when you bring above board the truth of that situation, you'll think differently about it. You know that you would not be watching this channel if you thought that really made you feel better. I know you know that. And so we're going to bring that right above board right now. So this is an example of bringing above board with being honest with yourself. It makes you feel worse and worse and worse. Makes your finances a mess. It makes your relationships a mess. It makes you feel physically crappy. I just don't think you just. It'd be hard for you to convince me that it really makes you feel better in the big picture. Let's see here. Facebook user, one of our Facebook viewers says so absolutely true what you say, Amber. I still feel so upset and angry and insulted by am I? And abused by my ex when we meet. And the only way to replace that relationship is with positive activities. For me, meeting with easygoing people, drawing, painting and home decorations. Oh, I love that you said meeting with easygoing people because that's one of the other strategies we talk about. As far as controlling your energy is putting yourself around people. Have the kind of energy that you want. If you're surrounding yourself with people who are angry, upset, who are feeling sorry for their self, who are full of resentments who are full of addictions, who are full of everything else. You're going to feel that way. So I love your strategy. It is perfect. It's dead on. It's controlling your energy, it's controlling your focus. You got it. You getting an A5 gold stars. All right, let's see here. Hey, Anthony. Nancy says my son uses fentol. Not living with me, backed away from me, senses my worry. We have open talks, but gives him anxiety if he senses my worry and told me to do something for myself. That's a good point. And I think that's really insightful statement that you have there, Nancy, about how your energy feeds their energy. And so there are certain subjects that if you start talking about them, you're going to feel anxious. And I mean it. You're a mom of someone using fentanyl. So I'm not going to be ridiculous here and tell you, well, just don't be anxious about that. That's not possible. I realize that. And so if there are certain triggers that you have, you want to kind of avoid those because you're right, your son is going to feed off of your energy. So controlling your energy is super helpful to get your own life back on track. And also it's the most helpful thing you can do for your loved one, too. So great insight. Hey, Bridget, glad, I'm glad that you made it to the live video. Steven's waving his hand. Anna from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Hello. Hello. Paula has a comment here. I want to learn this so I can heal and help others. Right now I'm dealing with health issues from my anxiety. I isolated with my addicted spouse and it is bad for me. This is another very insight full comment, Paula, because you're looking at what all this is not, not just done for you psychologically, but how that psychology is affecting you physically because you can't upset yourself psychologically without hurting yourself physically. It's all tied in together. It's like a little clock with all those pieces that have to fit together. And it's. It's pretty smart for you and you're connecting some important dots there. Hey, Victoria, thank you for your nice comment, Huffer. Billy Paul. I like it. Are you a Clemson person? Because that looks like a Clemson ball. Are you like, near me? Clemson's near me. I moved out, not even hiding my love of beer too much from anyone. But I realized it's not healthy. So now I need to get the courage to give it up for good. Just not there yet. It's a journey. I love it. Look at you. You know what you just did right there, Hufferbilly Paul, you just brought it above board. You just brought your secret thought that you've been thinking in your head probably for some time now. Not only did you bring above where you brought like above board like right here. There's 77 people watching right now exactly this moment. And there will be hundreds more watching after, after this. So very impressive. I like, I like that you said I moved out, even hiding, not even hiding my love of beer from everyone. But I realize it's not healthy. You probably. I like what you said and in my mind, I don't even know you said a total guess right here. But you, you, you might not have been hiding your love for beer, but I bet part of moving out don't even know where you moved out from. But I bet part of moving out was to have more free remain to drink your beer the way you want to drink it and not have people looking over your shoulder or thinking something about it and being judgy about it or getting on your case about it or something like that. So there was like, there may have even been just a little, a secret intention in there. I don't know. Total guess. But I see people with addiction. So I have like that sketchy eye. So I could be totally wrong and you can say it if I'm. Let's see. Janet says question. My son is an addict. I have done so much work on myself but have extended family. That is not healthy. How do I establish better boundaries? Especially with my mom. Super great question. Everything we talk about on here about boundaries, usually we talk about them in relationship. Like for the family member having better boundaries to the person that has the addiction. But there's absolutely nothing that I have ever talked on here about about boundaries that doesn't apply everywhere else. We just talk about it in the context of addiction. So anything that you know and you practice about working on yourself with your addicted loved one, same thing goes on with any. Anybody else in your life that you need better boundaries. Good boundaries are good boundaries. They're going to make you feel better. It's going to create safer relationships. It's just, it's just healthier when you have those boundaries. Steven says it helps me see the difference in my intake. I pat myself on the back for not doing that much. Is that okay? I think there may be a second part of that that I missed. Let me scroll back up. Maybe not. It helps me control the difference in my intake. I pat myself on the back for not doing as much. Is that okay? Yes. I think any step in the direction that you make, it's a good step. I will take any step. I'm not picky. And so if right now you're trying to reduce it, let's try to reduce it. What I would say is if you are able to reduce it, fantabulous. If you find that you're not able to sort of keep it reduced consistently, or you are, but it's really freaking hard because you have to concentrate on so much. All that I'm saying is just be open with yourself, bring it above board so that you can see that. And if you need to do something else, do something else. But every step in the right direction is a good step. And being proud of yourself for that will help you make the next good step. Because we all know when we're trying to do something and we feel we get a little progress and we do good, it's the fuel and motivation to take the next step. So, yes, definitely. Okay. And we all pat you on the back, too. All right, everybody, I think we are about to run out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. Don't forget, if you need help with your strategy, there are are links in the description. If you want to help me make a video talking about something in your life that you want to change, email me amberffrc. Com. And up next, I'm going to put you another video up here about strategy, because that's how you win the war. Bye, everybody.