How To Set Assertive Boundaries With An Addict or Alcoholic

Having healthy boundaries is a constant struggle that requires us to back up, really think through a situation and make strategic decisions about how to handle it. Now, many of you have probably seen a lot of my videos on boundaries, but you may be thinking, okay, I get what you're saying, but what words do I use? How do I have these conversations? Well, you're in luck, because that's what we're going to discuss in this video. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth. You're watching Put the Shovel down, the YouTube channel dedicated to helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your family back on track. Okay, the first thing we're gonna do is define some terms. I know it's like school, right? But understanding these terms and having them really well defined in your brain is gonna help you understand which category you might be falling into at any given time. So let's talk about assertiveness, right? We hear that word all the time. Most of us have an ide what it means, but let's get down to the nitty gritty and really pull the pieces apart. Now, the way I like to think of assertiveness is more like a continuum. So if you had a line, and down here you had aggressive, and on this end, you had passive, right in the middle, you would find assertiveness. Now, there's also this other category called passive aggressiveness, which we're gonna come to, so hang in there. Okay? So on the aggressive end, the simple way to think about that is that you are getting needs met, but you're doing it by being either physically or emotionally forceful in a way that crosses someone else's boundaries. So it's like, yes, you're getting your needs met, but you're running over someone else in the process. Passive all the way down here on this end of the continuum means that you're not getting your needs met, and someone is running over your boundaries and crossing into your territory. So, as you can see, neither one of those things are very ideal. Now, the simplest way to think about assertiveness is that it is right in the middle of that continuum, and it's a way that you get your needs met, but doing it without running over anyone else across it into their territory. That is the healthy place that we want to stay. Now, I told you we talked a little bit about passive aggressiveness, and I know we've all heard that word, and we have an idea about what that means. But let me put a little bit more clarity on it for you. Okay, the problem down here with assertiveness is that it's going to cause the people around you to build up a lot of resentment, frustration and anger towards you, which is ultimately probably going to lead them to acting out against you somehow. The problem down here with being passive is it's going to lead you to building up a lot of frustration, anger and resentment towards the people around you, which is probably going to lead you to acting out against them somehow in some way. Now, I told you before we would talk about what passive aggressive means, and I know you've heard that term and you have an idea about what it means, but let's put a little more clarity on it. If you take the problem down here with being aggressive and you take the problem down here with being passive, and you smash those two problems together, you have passive aggressive. Simple, right? So the problem with being passive aggressive is you're not getting your needs met because you're not addressing the situation. You're letting things go on, but you're acting out toxically or problematically automatically in response to that. So when you're passive aggressive, other people are building resentments towards you because your behavior is offensive or problematic, and you're still running around with resentments towards them because you're not getting your needs met. So honestly, the worst possible category to fall in is passive aggressive, because no one's getting their needs met and everyone's walking around feeling upset, angry, resentful, all kind of not good stuff. Now, having said all that, I realize how difficult assertiveness can be, and I'm not perfect at it myself. But most of the time when we step back from a situation and we're not in the heat of the moment, let's zone in on that for a second. It's really hard to think about how to be perfectly assertive in the heat of the moment. So step number one towards practice, good assertiveness is think about the situations that could arise beforehand. My guess is the situations that are going to arise for you are the ones that have been arising for you. So of course you can't predict everything that's going to be thrown your way, but my guess is about 80 or 90% of it is pretty predictable. And so if you can think about how you want to assertively handle those situations before you're in them, you're on your way to some good, healthy boundaries. Now, before we go much further, let me just put this little disclaimer out there. If you're dealing with an addicted loved one and you're trying to be assertive, you're going to be being put to, like, the ultimate test. Like, this is going to be like the Iron man championship of assertiveness. Because dealing with someone that has a drug or alcohol problem is gonna make it really, really hard because their behavior is gonna be constantly challenging your boundaries, and it's gonna force you to have to address some things and make some hard decisions that you probably really don't want to make. So that brings me to the second step that I want you to address. When it comes to assertiveness, I want you to really think about, what is it that I am trying to avoid? Why is it that in the past I've either let it go down and not done anything about it, I've yelled and screamed and threatened about it, but still not done anything about it? What is it you're trying to avoid? Is it you're trying to avoid throwing them out? Is it you're trying to avoid paying for expensive treatment? Is it that you're trying to avoid them going to jail? If you can at least identify the fear that's holding you hostage there, that's going to clear the road and make it possible for you to actually behave in a strategic way. Because even if you make some decisions about how to handle something assertively, but you're still being held hostage by that fear. We have some videos on this. If you haven't seen them, if you're still being held hostage by that fear, then that fear is probably still going to be running the show. Even though in your mind you've got these perfect assertive plans. Hang in there, because I'm going to give you the steps, and then I'm going to give you some kind of, like, specific examples, and we can talk about the word, the actual words to use. So once you've identified the problems that need to be solved, hopefully proactively, and once you've identified the fear that's been holding you hostage that's been preventing you from solving those problems. Now we can move on to the actual meat of the subject. How do I actually address these boundaries with my addicted loved one? Probably the absolute number one key is to address them. Have the conversations before you're in the situation. Remember earlier I told you you can probably predict what's going to happen. I know you're thinking of, like, five scenarios in your head right now that make you crazy and you want to eliminate them. So we're going to start plan A with. Have a conversation with them about it, an assertive conversation. So you're not going to avoid it. You're not going to pretend it didn't happen, but you're also not going to scream about it. And in order to do this in this sort of objective, non reactive way, you're gonna have to do it in a neutral kind of time. But if you'll do it in a non threatening kind of way, here's a little tip that might help you keep the situation non threatening. Don't say something like, we need to talk, or hey, sit down, I've got an issue. Just start the conversation. If you're in the kitchen and getting dinner ready or you're pouring a bowl of cereal or in the living room, whatever, and it just seems to be sort of a natural time, just open the door to it. If you put a lot of preset around it, then immediately the person gets on the defensive because it's like, okay, warning, here it comes, I'm in trouble. And so when you say things like, we need to have a talk, it immediately makes someone feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to the principal's office. Like, seriously, Might as well just heard over the intercom of the whole school, Amber Hollingsworth, report to the principal's office. That's what it feels like. I know you know this is true because this has definitely happened to you before. Okay, there's a next step. This is gonna be a little bit hard, and I'm not even gonna promise that it's going to go well. That's why we're gonna have this sort of plan A idea, plan B idea. So in the perfect world, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna have a conversation about it, and we're gonna say, hey, a lot of times we're running into this problem right here. Let's give a problem example. Maybe the problem example is your loved one is coming in really late at night, disrupting the house. They're super loud, you're trying to sleep, you got to get up for work the next morning, and it's causing all kind of chaos in the house and is making you crazy. Let's go with that scenario. So you're going to sit down, you're going to have this conversation with them about coming into the house late. Now, what could happen to you when you're dealing with someone with a drug or alcohol problem is they could flat out deny that it's happening. Now, that isn't nearly likely to happen in a normal, regular situation. But when you're dealing with addiction, it's a definite Possibility. And that could be just because it's an instinctive defense mechanism to just deny. Because a lot of things, if you say to someone with a substance abuse problem, they just immediately deny it automatically without even thinking. Or it could be, depending on what substance they're using, they literally don't remember it. Because if they're in a blackout late at night when they're coming home, like they've been drinking, or on benzos, which are things like Xanax or something like that, then they literally may not remember it. And that's some of the most difficult denial to deal with. And there are some videos on the channel about that particular kind of denial. But if you run into this obstacle, I don't want you to engage in a big giant argument about whether or not they're getting doing that or not. You can say, well, just sort of bypass the whole trying to, like, get a judgment on whether or not they did it or not and say, well, this has been historically a problem for me. It feels kind of late, it's disruptive, it's loud. And see if you can come up with a solution together. Listen to their point of view. Don't jump to a conclusion. Don't immediately jump in there with all of your thoughts and defensive. Hear what they have to say first and do some reflective listening. You know, we talked about reflective listening in an old video. Do that. And if plan A works, you guys can come up with a solution together. So if this is your child, maybe that solution might look something like, hey, if you're gonna be out past 11:30, you need to find someone to spend the night with, because the rest of us have to be in the bed. We gotta get up for school or work the next day. And here's where the plan B assertiveness can come in and you can even say, so at 11:30, I'm gonna lock the door so that I can rest easy at night and know everything's locked up and not be waiting up all night for you to come around, be startled, you know, have all that drama. So your plan in this situation is you're locking the door at 11:30, you're turning on the security. If you have security and you're going to bed and you may be thinking, well, what if they have a key? In the first step, I'd like for you to just ask them and give them the chance to make the decision to either stay out if they're past 11:30 or come home or whatever it is. Allow them the chance to make the right decision. It may very well come to the point that you have to do something drastic like change the. The locks. I know that's a pain in the butt. I know it costs a lot of money, but it may very well come down to that. So go ahead and be prepared for that. Remember, that's part of this. Five steps ahead. We're gonna hope we don't get there, but if we do, we know what. We know what the plan is. Now, since money is such a big issue and families struggling with addiction, it causes a ton of fights, It's a lot of drama around it. Let's use that as our next example. Now, money can be complicated because it's different depending on, is this your spouse? Is this your. It could be your spouse. And the money issue is they're addicted to pain pills and secretly behind the scenes, they ran up all these bills, they've got all these creditors that you may or may not know about. They've pawned things, they've sold things. That's an issue. Or it could be you're dealing with your teenage or young adult child or maybe even adult child, and there's an issue with money because they keep asking for money or taking money from you. Now, if they're taking money from you, you need to be assertive and deal with that, which is probably going to mean they need to go elsewhere. You do not need to be living in a house where you can't feel safe, because to me, if someone's taking things from you in your own home and stealing them and selling it or do whatever, that's abusive. You don't need to be dealing with that. Don't just ignore it, because like I said, then you're being passive or you're being aggressive. And don't make all these little snide remarks about it either, because then you're being passive aggressive. You've got to deal with the situation. Like I said, assertiveness sometimes means making the hard decision that you really been avoiding. If this is your spouse to be assertive about it, you may need to take a step, like separating your finances to protect yourself. Because if they're ruining the credit, if they're doing a lot of things that you can't control, then you really are going to need to step back and figure out what's the best way to protect yourself. Sometimes spouses get into this whole, like, surveillance thing where they're trying to control all the money and they're trying to monitor everything. And that's kind of an iffy situation. I think if the person is in early recovery and it's something that you guys have agreed on as part of their recovery plan or whatever, then I'm kind of okay with that. If you're trying to do that when they're in active addiction, then you're really sort of doing it in a reactive stance, which is going to keep you probably in a constant fight argument. Being the CSI person, it's gonna keep you all vigilant. It's just not gonna serve you or them. If it's your kid and they're asking for money all the time, instead of doing this whole going around like on each thing they want, if they want a burger, can they have $3.45? You know, if they want to stop and get a Pepsi at the store, you know, you're like, those cost $1.65. I stopped at the QT the other day. I know what they know. Don't do that. You can decide for yourself, hey, I'm just not going to give you cash at all if you want to. That could be a decision you make assertively. You can decide, okay, I'm going to give you cash, but it's not going to be more than $20 a week and I'm going to give it to you in five dollar increments. Whatever it is, just make a decision about it that's more general and across the board instead of trying to have these conversations, each little bitty teeny thing, because it's going to save you a lot of argument, it's going to save you a lot of headache of trying to figure out are they trying to be sneaky with. Because again, you're trying to stay out of this investigative mode because it's not good for anybody. Now, sometimes being assertive feels like you're being mean. It especially feels that way when you've eventually come to the wall that you've had to make some very difficult decisions and very likely the other person is going to really even make you feel worse about that. And they're going to tell you that you're being mean? They're going to push your buttons and they're going to call you bad things, but that's their way of trying to continue to force their will and their way on you. You are mean. When you are protecting your boundaries in a totally healthy and reasonable way. You may feel like you're being mean, but you're not. What's gonna happen is if you don't do that, you probably are gonna act really mean because they're gonna cross your boundaries. They're gonna do things and you're gonna act like a crazy lunatic. You're gonna do a lot of things that are gonna cross their boundaries back. And that really is kind of being in what I would call the mean category. So if it comes to it, you may have to back up and really say, okay, am I really being mean here? Is this reasonable, not reasonable, and your own judgment, Run it by someone else who's either really objective that you trust, or who understands these kinds of situations. You know, just last week we had a really great example of assertiveness in our office. We have this young man who's still in college. The parents are paying for the courses, and it's not so much that he's doing terrible or anything like that, but he didn't want to take very many hours for the semester. And the parents are like, oh my gosh, we're gonna be paying for college forever. So they can either choose to get into this power struggle with this young man about how many hours he takes at college, or they can say, hey, we' willing to pay for school for three more semesters, two more semesters, one more semester, whatever it is, eight more semesters. Doesn't matter me what it is. But if you'll say, hey, we're willing to do this much, then they have to make the decision about how to make it work within that boundary. Either they're going to have to figure out how to take their classes quicker and take more hours so they can get out, or they're going to have to figure out how to fund it if it takes a little longer than planned. That is assertiveness. You're managing your boundaries, you're taking care of yourself and your own financial needs, but you're not on them. And you don't have to make all these passive aggressive comments. You know, if you don't deal with this and you just let it go on, you're probably going to be making all these little snide comments. I call them, like, drive by knifing. It's like, it's like you're at the dinner table, everyone's having a good dinner, and they're talking about school. And then you make some little snide comment about like, I guess you're gonna be in school when you're 30. You're just a career student, aren't you? That's passive aggressive. That's crossing their boundary and it's still not getting your need met. So please, definitely stay out of that territory. Now, before you go any further, I'M thinking of this one pitfall that you could accidentally fall into, and that is trying to take a mess of a situation where there are 10,000 problems and assertively address all of them all at once. That's going to be really difficult. You're not going to go from disaster, not addressing anything, or not addressing anything effectively to cleaning it all up at once. So I'd like for you to pick one or two problems to focus on at a time, address them assertively, a couple, one or two at a time, and you'll make more progress that way. Now, of course, boundaries is a very difficult, complicated, large subject, and this video is really only the start of it. So I want you to watch this next video about boundaries, and by the end of this, you're going to be a healthy boundaries ninja.