How to stop giving money to the addict/alcoholic in your life

All right, today I want to tell on myself. Well, actually tell on Frank, my husband, for a second. I remember when, 2009, we were going through addiction with our middle son, and we were trying to figure out, like, how to squeeze him so that his life got a little bit more unmanageable. And he was in and out of Amber's Iop. And Amber said he and he got a job at the car wash with his fellow user, Bob. Let me just point out, these guys were not an Iop very long for any particular stint. They'd come in and out, in and out. So Bob and my son were wicked bad together. So they got this job at the car wash. And Amber said, do not get involved whatsoever with cashing their check because you know he's going to do with the money. I'm like, damn skippy. So I'm. I've got it. So I'm upstairs, I'm puttering around the house dusting or something, and the phone rings and it's my son. He says, hey, man, I got a paycheck. Can you meet me at the bank to cash it? And I was like, oh, man, I'd love to, but no, can't do that. Super busy. Can't make that happen. He's like, that's ridiculous. Everybody else's parents do that. I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't do it. Click. Meanwhile, my husband is out in the backyard mowing the lawn. And I said, I know it's been to happen. So I'm watching out the window, and sure enough, I hear him kind of look down in his pocket. Turn the lawnmower off. Hello? Yeah. Huh? Give me 10 minutes. Let me take a super quick shower and I'll be at BBNT in just 10 to 15 minutes. Can you wait? And I'm like, you did not, dude. So I opened the window and I said, no, sir. And I closed the window and he's like. So he comes in the house, he comes upstairs, he goes, what? I said, did you not hear what Amber said? He was like, what? I said, do not facilitate cashing the check. Do not get involved in money. Don't give him money. Don't help him get money, dude. And he's like, yeah, but I don't want to make him mad. I'm like, well, do you want to buy his weed or drugs or whatever he's doing with this right now? And he's like, no. I'm like, then call him back and tell him that unfortunately your situation has changed and you're no longer going to be able to meet him at the bbnt. I was like, so I hear these kinds of stories all the time. I have lived through the story. That's not the only time. Tough girl, Campbell. Nice guy, Frank.

Oh, everyone knows. Everyone knows. Frank is the good cop.

Frank is the nice.

I was your kid. I would have called Frank first to begin with. I don't even know what your son was thinking.

Well, he might have tried to call Frank and he didn't hear it because he was. I don't know.

That makes sense.

But. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah. But in your story, I noticed that, like, when he tried with you, he tried the little like, well, everyone else's parents do it. So he sort of threw that on you, right?

Oh, yeah. It's a total manipulation. Totally trying to make me feel bad about the situation to get exactly what he wanted, which was cash in hand.

Right.

And then with, with Frank, he used a slightly different method. And that's just that he knows Frank doesn't want to start an argument or, you know, deal with, you know, make things uncomfortable.

Right, exactly.

So the whole situation about setting financial boundaries, how do you stop giving money to your addicted loved one is complicated. And by the time most families get to us, they've already been doing it a really long time. And so it's not an easy way out. The first thing I think you got to do is you got to figure out what buttons are they pushing in you? Like, what button is it pushing in you? What button is it pushing in your husband? Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Because that's really why you're doing it. You're making an emotional decision. So talk to us about how all that works.

Yeah, I think you're. I think you've hit the nail on the head is you have to figure out what's behind that for you. Is it fear, as in the case of Frank in that particular story? Is it a bargaining. If I do this, then maybe things will get better. Is it hope? Is it flat out acceptance? Like they're doing this bad thing and I don't. I just can't get involved. I'm just going to do it. You know, it's definitely. Usually it's fear or anger most of the time that let people cave. And I hear this all the time from people like, well, if I don't give him the money, then he won't go to school. If I. I don't want him to get a job because he'll do drugs. So I'm going to give him money. And there's always a reason, but it's usually fear this behind it, right?

And they'll. They'll push your guilt buttons. They'll emotionally blackmail you. Like, if you don't. If you don't give me this, then this bad, then I'm gonna have no electricity. I'm gonna be sitting in the dark. Then I'll have to drive. Then I'll be able to get groceries for my kids. I mean, like, they'll put it on heavy. They'll throw the ace cards out there.

Oh, sure.

And they'll even play the one like, that's so blatant, which is, if you loved me, you would do this.

Oh, yeah.

And it's really hard as a parent when someone starts to do that, and it's just emotional blackmail, manipulation. It's creating the backstory purely to get whatever it is that they want for their. For their addiction. Well, frankly, what they need for their addiction. And so. And parents are hardwired to. To love, to trust our kids. So when they tell us a whopping lie, part of you is like, I don't know. But the other part's like, well, maybe could be true. And we don't want the ensuing negative thing, like, I'll get fired. I'll get in trouble at school. We don't want that negative thing to happen for our children. So we cave, and we could. We give it to them, right?

Because we're being.

And they lie. Like, one of my kids blatantly was out in a serious relapse, unbeknownst to me. And he said, called. And he was so, like, convincing. He said, mom, you said you were going to pay my car insurance, but I haven't gotten that money. And I was like, I didn't say I would pay your car insurance because. Yes, you did. We were talking, like, a week and a half ago. You were making spaghetti. We were talking on the phone, and you said, oh, honey, I'll totally help you do that. And I'm thinking, did I? And then I was like, no, I didn't. I said, well, I'm sorry if I said that. I changed my mind, But I don't recall saying that.

He just made a whole story. That's funny.

The whole story up. Because he needed 300 bucks for drugs.

Had backstory and everything. Spaghetti.

And I think it's important to recognize that even with all these emotions we're talking about, you have to use your wise mind and recognize even if that story were true, he's not going to use that $300 to pay his car insurance. Most likely he's going to use it because he has an immediate need, which is now why he's having this immediate lie and having this immediate phone call. Or even if he did, he used his money for drug drill call.

Right. And the money he was supposed to pay his insurance.

Either way, you have to sort of get into your head that I am basically funding his addiction one way or something.

I think that's important because most of us sort of know, like, don't give somebody has an addiction, like loads of cash or whatever. I mean that's kind of obvious. But these financial boundaries really are a lot more complicated than just giving someone cash. Because in fact, you and I say to families all the time, like, if somebody's like, I want $5 to go to Burger King or whatever, like, okay.

That'S not gonna, that's not gonna make or break.

I wouldn't freak out about it. Doesn't mean I necessarily give it to them, but I wouldn't freak out thinking I couldn't buy them a burger or something, you know?

Right.

Because that going to make or break anything. But, but more we're talking about financial boundaries can be a lot more than just giving someone cash. It's. It's paying their bills, it's letting them.

Live at your house.

And the big problem with this, the bigger problem than the fact that you're enabling them, because that's not even the big problem. The big problem is, is you're going to cause you to have a ton of resentment and you are going to be angry. And then when you get there, then you're going to be your nasty self. And then you and your spouse are going to fight. And then one of the two of you is probably sneaking money and the other one doesn't even know it to the person. So it's a mess in there. Tell us about it. What kind of situations do you see?

I see one parent or the other sliding money in some form or another, whether it's paying bills or cash or food or whatever all the time. And, and they think, and it's a lot of times as people who are coming to see me alone and they are the ones doing it because their spouse is done. If by sometimes spouses won't come see me because they're so sick and tired of being sick and tired, they don't even want to come here. What I have to say, they're just done. And so the other one that's coming in to see me is still sliding money. So I have to help them figure out what is that emotion behind that that's doing that and let them be able to see rationally really what they are actually doing. And again, $5 for a burger is not going to make or break any addiction. But car insurance, car payments, rent, when.

You'Re making their, when you're holding their life together for them completely, you know, like you're holding all the strings, then you're kind of in another territory. Right. Then you're really, you're making it too easy.

Right, Right.

Because I say all the time, like, you don't have to hit bottom to stop using substances. It has to get uncomfortable. You're not going to stop if everything's working well for you.

I use the word unmanageable as long as it's manageable with what you're doing. No, no one in the whole world, you guys, changes the negative behavior until they determine their life is unmanageable. So, like, think about it. All kinds of things we do. Like, I mean, I, I fully admit I have a little Netflix addiction and you know, but my life is for the most part manageable because I can get up early in the morning and do the things I was supposed to do at night that I didn't because I watch Next. But you know, if I couldn't get up in the morning or it caused me to not be able to go exercise or whatever, then my life would be unmanageable with Netflix and I would have to determine this is a problem.

Right. So. So there's two big reasons. One is you have to let the unmanageability. So you've got to let some unmanageability happen for a person. You just have to. And second, I really think if you're doing something that you know you're going to resent later, it's a bad decision.

100.

And if you're doing it and you're secretly not telling your partner, bad, it's a bad decision. Just like I would tell someone struggling with addiction. It's like, you know, if you're doing something, you can't tell people. It's probably not wise. Same thing for the family. Yeah, yeah.

And, and I think that that sort of goes to a different slightly segued point, which is we actually do emulate their same addictive behaviors if we don't have some pretty good self awareness, which is we, we start to lie, we start to be consumed by them, we start to sneak, we start to do the same things because that's what we're talking about. We're talking about lying to our spouse, sneaking money, whatever is. We're doing the same behaviors that our kid is doing.

Right.

It just feels better, looks better, but it's the same negative behavior.

Parallel process.

Exactly.

And not only are you acting the same way, but you feel the same because you actually just like they feel shameful and guilty and bad about it.

You do too.

Down.

You do too.

Absolutely not. Me.

Feel like you feel tough about it. So. I know you do a lot, Campbell, with helping parents to sort of like back out of this complete financial support. I mean, we see situations all the time where it's like, maybe the family has a company and they're literally got the person on the company payroll. They don't even work for the company. Like, they don't. They're not even going to work get the paycheck. Paycheck, so.

And they're usually living in their pool house rent free.

Yeah.

And then the parents are like, I don't know why he continues to drink. I'm like, I do.

And they're like 33 or something. Yeah, right.

So, yeah. What I do is, it's very. It's like kind of like Jenga is. I have to figure out like, are the parents on the same page where the parents heart. What is the full picture of financial support look like, what's going on with the person? And then we sort of just make a personalized plan to figure out how do we begin to change this situation to either change it or gather information. Because sometimes people will say, oh, I don't really know how much she's drinking. I just know this is going on. I'm like, okay, well, why don't we say, hey, starting November 1st, you're in charge of your car insurance. And if they can pay that, great, then we don't need to freak out about what they're doing or not. If we say, hey, January 1st, you need to pay your rent, your car insurance, and your boat payment and they can't do it, then that's going to give us some information like, oh, okay, so that money's going somewhere because they're fully capable of paying it based upon what they're working. Or let's say we're not going to give you your paycheck unless you come to work between nine and three every day. And if they don't, then we stop paying them. And then we see now what information do we have? So we just have to figure out. But I always have to figure out first is what can either or both parents heart tolerate? Because I can tell you what to do clinically, but if you can't tolerate it, you're not going to do it or you're not going to stick to it, and then the problem really is just going to get worse, right?

It is exactly 100% the same as what the person has. Addiction. I can say, somebody needs treatment. I can tell you to go to treatment, but you have to be ready to do it. And so you have to look at where the family's at in their stages of change. Because you guys could be watching this video right now and you could say, that's it, you know, I'm not paying his rent anymore or whatever. You could be thinking that right now. But I don't even want you to do that. I do not want you to get off of this video and call up your loved one and say, from now on, blah, blah, blah. I don't. Because if you've been doing it to this point, you've probably tried to stop and you haven't. And I want you to think through not just, okay, I'm not gonna pay it, but how am I not gonna pay it?

And what's gonna happen when I don't.

Say to me, and what are the results? And can I handle that? Because the worst thing for you to do is to call them up and say, I'm not gonna do this anymore. But you're not ready. And you're not ready for all the.

Things they're gonna call your bluff, 100. And then you're gonna pay it. And then they're gonna be like, and you just lost some power. I would. I would rather someone say, I can't do that for six months or ever. I'm like, great, then don't say it right? Call me back. Let me know. Like, does the situation change? Do you get more sick and tired of being sick and tired? Like, there's a billion formula parts in this formula that we can all sort of figure it out. Some people are quick changers, Some people are slow changers, right?

And you have to wait for your spouse to be on the same page as you because it's going to backfire on you big time if you say no and they say yes. Just like in your story about you and Frank. You know it because even though you set the boundary and you tell Frank you're not going well, immediately your son's going to know that dad said yes. And then you came out there and told dad no. So you're now you're the backup again. So it really didn't even do you at that point. I just let Frank go because, no.

I don't mind being the bad cop. I kind of liked it.

But.

But I think to your point too, is you definitely have to be on the same page, because God forbid something go wrong or poorly. And then this becomes an issue between the two of you. Like he got arrested or something because he was out in the street, you weren't letting him live at home anymore. And then your spouse blames you for the fact that they got arrested. And now we have a schism. Oops, sorry. A schism in the marriage that. No, we don't want to do that at all.

Right. I think most of the time, the. If it's a parent situation, most of the time the parent that's sort of more angry or they're more like, ready to set the limits and the boundaries, they feel like the other one supposed to catch up with them that the other one is behind. And then they feel like, you're not supporting my parenting decisions, and they get angry. But the same thing. If the other parent feels the other way, you're not supporting their parent decision. And so usually the one that's further out here want to be stricter. That's the one that really needs to back up to the other one. Honestly, if you really want to get on the same page, if you do that, they'll probably come along faster because they'll start seeing it for themselves when.

You stop talking about it and stop fixating on it and stop, like, pointing out every little thing that's big, medium, small things are going wrong. When you stop pointing it out, they are able to see it more clearly themselves. I. I remember you telling me that, like, stop talking about this with Frank. He is not ready for this. And, you know, so I would hear bad stories or I didn't say a word. And then once the phone rang and it was some guy, some man who said alcohol was gone from his house or something, and Neil had been there, and Frank was like, well, if you need to, you know, do whatever you need to do, but whatever. And so Frank started talking to me about it. We were sitting in bed reading, and I was like, oh, it can't possibly be Neil. Like, there's no way. Our son would never do that. And he was like, you don't think I'm like, no. And now the option that it could have been our son is now was available to Frank versus me going, well, I know exactly who did that. He'd be like, no.

Right. So when you're trying to get.

You have to stop.

That's right. When you're trying to get another family member on board to where you're at, you have to use the same exact techniques that we guys teach you to use with the addicted person.

You.

Everything that you guys learn on this channel about how to interact with them, I want you to use those same techniques on the family member before you even try them with the addictive person.

Totally.

Way before you try to get this aligned first. And then they'll come along. Because what happens is, if you're so busy trying to, like, tell them, you know, that, you know, they're enabling. You know, they're doing all this stuff, they're just busy defending it, right? So if you stop and you just let the thing play out for a minute, they'll see it faster.

That.

But that's true of all human communication, right?

That's right. I know with. I know with me, Campbell, I have a lot more patience with the person that has the addiction than I do with the family. And even though I. You. You guys hear me right here on Public saying this out loud, like, I know that this is the drill, but it's like, I expect the family members to just get it and just jump, and I forget. So, like, I. I.

And that's so funny, because I'm literally the opposite. I literally think to the addicted person, like, get it together. And the family, like, what can your heart tolerate? Where are you guys? Like, let's just. Let's just hang on here. Let's simmer for a minute and figure out how we want to approach this. And I'm thinking, damn, why can't your kid just get this? Yeah.

See, I just think the family, they're going to come in and they're. They get it, and they're ready for the change, and I think that they're just going to listen to me. And so I forget the steps with the family more often than I forget the steps with the addictors, because I kind of expect for them to be in denial, and I kind of expect for them to take a minute to sort of figure it all out. But you're one of the only parents that I ever talked to that listened to what I said right away. I mean, usually they do eventually, but you were a good student. You're like, all right, well, I knew.

I was completely in the deep end without my floaties. It's just like, okay, just stop even. Stop even trying to think this one through.

Right? So. So the the key here, as far as how do you stop giving them money? You got to realize it's not really about money. It's about emotions. Yep. And so the key is getting your emotions lined up. Right. Getting yourself ready, getting your spouse ready if that's an issue or the other people involved. Maybe it's not your spouse, but your mother in law or whatever. I don't know. You know, like, you got to get everybody on board and then you got to come up with a strategic plan that's doable.

You cannot just cold turkey doable. Not just doable once or twice, but consistently. And that it. And that the plan is wide and deep enough so that when and if it does happen, we have, we know where we're doing next. Like, we don't just say, hey, you can't live here as a December 1st. We have to know if they do this, we'll offer this level of treatment. If they do this, we'll do that. You know, we, we have to have our plan so that when the bluff is called, we don't sit there looking like a goldfish on the brick.

Yeah. Because, you know, most people, they set these, what they're, they're calling boundaries. They're not really boundaries, but they, they'll say, you know, I set this boundary with this person. But they think that when they do that, their loved one is going to think, oh, I, I get it. Like, they're serious this time. They really mean it. Okay. They're not, you know, they're going to do what they're supposed to do. They are not. They're not, they are not. Like, so I'm telling you right now, when you first start setting financial boundaries, don't expect that they're just going to believe you. And then they're just going to get this job and they're just going to pay their own car insurance. No, like I tell parents, all the ball will drop.

They are going to 100% test you on this. So we need to be real prepared to be tested. What is next? Are we on the same page? Can we tolerate this? Like, we will be tested. So let's not put the test paper on the desk until we know we have the answer key. Oh, I should be a teacher.

You should be.

Right. I think you are. Yeah. And knowing identifying what your soft spots are will help you. Those are your triggers. It will help you manage your triggers. And knowing, like, where is it that I'm going to cave? I can remember talking to somebody. This is somebody in recovery and he used to say, I knew my mama. I have make her feel sorry for me and tell her I was suffering somehow. And my daddy, I would make him think, like. Like, I think he said if he was in treatment, he would tell his dad things like, I don't know why you're paying all this money for this. Like, I'm not even learning things. So he would sort of talk to dad about the money stuff, you know, and he knew. And. And your person does, too, whether it's your kids.

Our kids know us. They know. Exactly. Exactly. Who's going to be softy on this topic. Softy on this topic. You know, there's no way. Yeah. Even. Even our daughter doesn't call Frank for airline tickets to come home. She calls me because I want to see her. I'll buy them.

You're the soft. You're the softy. Okay.

Yeah. And she knows that, just like every kid knows. I mean, think about your own parents. Like, I knew exactly when to go to which one for whatever it is I wanted.

Oh, yeah, of course. Who? I mean. Yeah.

It's just.

That's just good survival skills.

Yeah, exactly. That's just smart fitting.

Right, Agreed. Right. So having all that alignment, I would probably encourage you to be softer, longer, rather than take this hard stance and put a big old thing out there that you're not really ready to back up. I really want you to be smart and strategic about it sometimes.

So I will. I'll interject one. Sometimes I tell people we. We kind of need to be in a hurry if they're depending on what their kid is using. So if I know we're out there and getting into fentanyl land, I'm like, you know, I hear you, but I'm nervous. And if I get nervous, then I need a faster timeline, and I'll tell them that. I'm like, we are in big boy drug land, so we need to get on the page, same page. A little bit faster here, guys.

That's a good point. I agree with that completely. Yeah. So I think if you're in this situation and you're not sure, I really think you should think it through. I think you should talk with someone about it. If you have a Alamine sponsor, you'll talk to them about it. Fine. If you have a recovery coach, if you want to call and talk to Campbell about it, one of her things is like, how do I get it, get my kids sort of not financially dependent on me? You know, usually it's like, still living at home or whatever. And how do I set up that system, which is kind of like a taper system, usually that's sort of custom to each person in each situation. How do I make that happen and what kind of timeline I need and that kind of thing. So definitely think it through with someone else that can help you think objectively and who can help you anticipate roadblocks. You're going to run into loopholes, relations. You're going to hit things like that and what that's really going to look like and help you really be emotionally prepared. Because this isn't a money problem. This is an emotional.

Emotional problem.

It's an emotional. It's a heartstrings issue. Yeah. So what I want to do now, Ken, was. Okay, if you have time, I'm going to take a couple of questions. And while I do that, I have. We have been doing this fun thing where we let somebody join us on here live if they want to. And so if you're watching and you want to.

Oh, that's bold, people.

Chance, you can jump on right now. You can ask me, your Campbell, whatever you want to ask us. But I do want you to know if you do that, you're going to be live. So what I'm going to do, I mean, it's public. You're on YouTube here, so you're on YouTube. Do not say anything that you do not want out there. And don't come on here if you don't want to be. That's totally cool.

Like, so like being on the Jumbotron, but bigger.

Right.

The kissing cams coming your way. The family recovery cams about to sweet shower tea. So if you do want to. You want to talk, you want to ask Campbell a question or talk about your situation for a few minutes, if you will guess a number, put it in the chat between 1 and 100. We're going to use our random number picker to pick someone and just put your number up there once. Don't be all sketchy and try to put 10 numbers up there. That happens. I've seen that. And if you will just put the number by itself in the chat, because it helps me. Sometimes people write a whole sentence and then put a number, and I miss seeing the number. I'm super add people, so make it easy for me. So put your number up there while I take a couple questions. And then if some of you guys want to do that, we'll let you jump right here on us. All you're going to need is decent Internet and some kind of light so we can see you. But Other than that, you can do it from your phone, your laptop, whatever you're watching from, you can do it. So. All right, let's take a couple questions while we wait and get some numbers up here. Let's see here. I saw a question before when I was looking through that. I thought, oh, this is a Campbell question. Okay, here's a good one. What are your thoughts about paying for a young adult, 21 years old, rent directly to the landlord as harm reduction strategy? Otherwise my son would be homeless. This is a good question. This is right on topic here, Crystal.

I don't have a problem in general with doing things like that for a finite amount of time. I sort of say parenthetically, define that. I can do that for three months. I can do that for four months, whatever.

But.

But do not put your name on the lease so that you're doing it for the entire period of the lease.

Wait, Unless you're.

You want to pay their rent forever, then that's. That's your call, like, for sure. But if you're trying to get them to shift, I would do it for a finite amount of time.

I want to, I want to bring you back because of what you said was so important. Do not put your name. Don't. Don't co. Sign. Don't be on their lease. Come back to that. Tell us a couple reasons why I'm not. Because, oh, my gosh, we've seen so many parents just get, oh, I messed.

Up with this every single week. I talked to at least three people and they're like, I didn't listen to you and I signed the lease. And now I'm on the whole. I'm on. I'm. And my kid is now homeless, out using, living somewhere else in treatment. Like, blank. And you're holding the bag for the rent. And then you.

Then you do have to, or your own credit's going to be ruined.

Or, or, well, even like with us with. I didn't know this, so I signed the lease. He was leaving treatment. He'd been there for nine months. He's going to move with these three other guys, and everybody's in recovery. And I'm like, oh, okay, this makes good sense. You know, two weeks later, he's like, mom, everybody here is in relapse warning signs. Like, it is awful. And so he ended up calling Purple back, and he ended up going to the transition house over the weekend and getting out of the apartment. And I had to pay that dangum rent for 11 more months. And those guys did relapse. And they trashed the apartment, and we didn't get our security deposit back on top of it.

Oh, my God.

So I learned the hard way.

The hard way. Wow. Okay, here's another one. Jeanette says, wow. Your timing's impeccable. We knew you needed this. Jeanette. Addicted homeless daughter wanted cash for her birthday today day. Her dad is easily manipulated. And I talked and I talked him into catching her storage fees.

Good call.

Okay, so instead of giving the cash, you're like, well, we're not going to give you cash, but we'll pay your storage fees so your stuff doesn't get whatever they do. You don't end up on that show Storage wars or whatever.

Yeah, and that's actually a really good solution because you're not making their life manageable. You're just keeping them from losing all their stuff down the road.

Right, exactly. Okay. And that was a good solution. And it sounds like that was kind of a good compromise between you and your spouse, which is important.

I'd be curious to see how quick. How easy that conversation was. How. How fast dad got back on the same page with Jeanette.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Her dad's on a dating site right now looking for a softer wife.

Oh, hold on. Wait. I think we have an answer to that. I scrolled down and said, so she's blocked us both. We paid 150 on her storage instead of giving her cash. So you see that right now she.

Made the right call.

That. That's exactly what I was thinking. That is just evidence. I'm like. It's like, okay, you didn't give me what I wanted for my birthday, so now I'm gonna go talk to you even though you paid 150 on my storage.

Yeah, That's a hundred percent. Good call.

That should make you feel better. Yeah. That you or your husband at least.

Feel better that I'd probably be eating their cake about now.

No, that's just mean. All right, and then we have a Facebook user on here who says, can you talk a little bit about how to handle the conversation to get them out of your house? That's a big question.

That's a huge question.

It gives us, like, a tip or two there.

Empathetically, kindly, patiently, with enough time to make it feasible.

A timeline. Yeah.

A reasonable, not angrily, not harshly, and not unrealistically. Like, you cannot go to your kid and say, I'm so sick of your behavior. You have to be paying rent by October 15th.

Right.

It's the 13th. It's not going to happen. Even if they have a job, they're not going to have the money in hand. So you have to make it doable. Not that it will be doable, but you have to make it doable. Not that they will do it, but make it for why it didn't happen.

It would be possible. The reason you want to do that is because when. If you do this when you're mad, then you're making a mad, emotional decision, and when you're not mad, you're going to take it back completely. And the other reason why you want to make it a doable situation for them is that's another way you're going to be able to keep your boundary. Because if, you know, if you set them up for something not doable, you're going to end up feeling bad about it and you're going to cave your boundary. So, yes, it's about the emotions. All right, let's see if we have some numbers. Let's see if anybody wants to come on here and talk to us. I'm always kind of surprised when people do that.

There are some people who definitely do.

There's some numbers. Oh, we got numbers. All right, well, I'm gonna get my number picker out then, Campbell, while I get my number picker. I'll let you answer that question, if you can.

All right. Sort of question. I'm thinking about paying my young employee's salary to his family not to have him use it for drugs. I like your take on this. I would maybe be drug testing your employee and not keeping him employed. If you think he's using drugs, you know, then I think you're just putting the family in the middle. I think that that one would get messy. If you're gonna hire someone that you think is using drugs, I would just pay them. Like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't get into that formula. You're.

I wouldn't either. And I think that's not your side of the street, Arthur. I think you're trying to control someone else's behavior. And I think once it's your employee, it's really kind of bounds. You can.

You can terminate his employment because you don't care for his drug addiction or drug.

You can. And you can care about him and love him and mentor him because obviously you care about this person. And I think that's fine. You don't really have to fire them if. Especially if they're a good employee, then keep them. But you can't. First of all, it wouldn't even be legal. But who cares about that anyways? I don't really care about that. But, like, it's not the. No, I. I don't agree. Unless. Unless that person came and told you to hand your pay. That could happen. Hand their paychecks to someone else because they don't trust themselves in that situation. Fine, if they asked you to do it, but not just you deciding to do that. It'll be completely out of bounds, I think. But great question.

That would have been like the car wash giving the paycheck to us.

I get where you come from. Like, it's a. You're trying to do the right thing. But I think that it's sort of the. Your side of the street, their side of the street issue.

I agree.

All right, so I've got our number picker out here. So zero. We're gonna shake it up. Let's see. Random.

You actually have a number picker on your phone?

Yeah, I downloaded an app to do it. So who's the closest?

Somebody was at 64, I think.

Oh, really? Somebody was that close?

I think so.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, someone.

Okay, Marina, I'm gonna put the link up here and you click it and then you're gonna be up here on screen with me and Campbell. So here it comes. Putting it up here. And all you have to do, Marina, is just click that link and then you are going to be up here. Let's see here.

It's kind of fun.

It is kind of fun, actually. It's worked out really well. I was. I just wasn't sure if anybody would do it. But every week we. We usually have somebody that wants to. Let's see. There's a question while we wait. Is there any self help books, you know, other than the Bible that you recommend for this?

I like the Parallel Process. I like Detang Disentangled by Nancy Johnston. I don't remember who wrote Parallel Process. It's floating around here somewhere. Beyond addiction. Yeah. I mean, there's not one that's gonna walk you through this process that we're talking about that I know of.

I like parenting with love and logic. It's a whole series of love addiction at all. It's about good parenting. And honestly, what it is is good boundaries. Anything they say in that book, apply it, it applies.

I literally just had a session with someone about that, and I'm like, this is the greatest parenting style ever.

It's hard sort of being the consultant.

It's hard, I think, when you're in the world of addiction to maintain that logic. Part of it Though you can keep the love part, but it's like sooner or later you're gonna get angry or you're gonna get afraid. And the logic kind of goes away with addiction. It's a great book, but it's gonna, it's gonna be a little more challenging.

It is gonna be. But at least if you understand the concepts and the philosophies, and then that's probably where you need your own coach, sponsor, counselor to sort of keep you on track with it. Let's see, we don't have our person up here yet. Give it. We're going to give you a couple of more seconds, Marina.

Lip gloss, probably.

And then if you're not here, we're going to go with the second closest number. All right, let's see if we have any other questions in the meantime. Is it, Trish says, is it common for an adult addict with a full time job to hoard or hide money?

I think it's common for an adult addict with a full time job to spend their money on what they want to spend it on. I don't, I don't really hear about hoarding or hiding. I think maybe they're telling you they're saving it, Hoarding it, but they're spending it.

Yeah.

For any day.

I don't know, I could see this like in situation, like maybe it's a spouse and the spouse is like an alcoholic. Where you're going to see the money issues, particularly where you're not going to see someone hoarding money, is if they have an opiate addiction. And the reason is because it costs too much money. But like, let's say if they're addicted to alcohol or something like that, that could be possible.

Could be possible.

But a lot of the times when I talk to family members, when there's a spouse, it'll turn out that there's secret credit cards that they use to pay for their addiction and they hoard and hide the money to pay those secret credit cards.

Yeah, I could see that. Or maybe they, they tell you they got it in savings and they don't want you to see it, but they really spend it. I don't know. You gotta know Campbell and I have that strong sketch out there. We think everything's sketch. We think everything's sketch. All right, we do not have our person on here, so let's go with our next closest number, which was, I.

Think it's 55 and Amy, but I'm not positive.

All right, you guys, help us. Is it Amy with 55? It looks like it probably is. I think so. So, Amy, if you're still watching, I'm going to throw that link up here again. It starts with streamyard. That's the software we use. So if you'll click the link, if you're still with us, then we will get you on here. So.

I see. Well, I guess Amy's going to get on and talk because I was just reading her question. But we'll wait and see if she pops on.

Okay. Oh, Marcia said she had 57.

Oh, sorry, Marcia. I didn't see it.

Our fault. But if Amy's not up here, you're the one. I guess some people put their number up and then they had to go or something like that.

Yeah.

All right, Amy, tell us if you're still watching. Tell us if we should wait or if we should let Marcia hop up here. All right, Marcia, you're the one. Here's the link one more time. You, Marcia, you're the one. Now we're picking you. We know you're still watching because you just put that comment. All right, let's see. The Hammers family says hello. I'm new here. I'm trying to find financial help for my son to get in a treatment center. Are there any philanthropists to do that? There are organizations and grant founded places. Yeah, to that do that. But you have to almost like whatever county you live in or something like that. Yeah, they.

They make it hard to get in. You have to like pretty much call every day. But yeah, there are lots of places.

All right, we have Marina here. Hey, we got you. Okay. We got somebody.

Finally.

I didn't.

I didn't hardly know what I was doing, and I finally. I think I finally figured it out.

Okay, Got it. Well, we're glad you're here. I am, too.

I listen to you guys a lot. I have a son who is a meth addict.

Okay.

He is 33 years old and he has pretty much been into the drug world, the drug scene, since he turned 18. He went through high school. Everything was great. Never had no trouble at all in school with him at all. He had good grades. I can now that I have went through so much with him and I have seen so much with him. I can see the red flags now. Whereas he's my only child, he never gave me any trouble. I never had any trouble out of him in school or anything. But as soon as he got his public job, he started using. And as a child, he was molested. And I did not know this until I found out about his drug use. And it's just been a horrific, hard, hard road. And me and my husband, which is his father, we've been married for 38 years. And Cecil, 33, is having a lot of trouble with the addiction. And he has been in, I would say, probably eight to nine times. We've had him in and out of rehab, and we have completely, totally exp. Everything we know. I mean, we went every route that we possibly know. And he's been in and out of the house, in and out of the house, and mainly in the house. And we have. We have enabled him a lot, and we have paid a lot of his bills. But now he has got to where, you know, we don't pay his bills any longer. But we did. We finally did, just to give us mine got a trailer. And we actually gutted it and fixed it and put him in it. And we told him, you know, we would let him live there. He would have to pay the car bill and the water bill, and that's just to get him to where we could have some peace. Yeah, I mean, we have. We have lived in chaos all this time, and we've been in and out of canceling, and we got him all kinds of canceling for the molestation. And a matter of fact, the person that actually molested him did spend time in prison because they did. They. They were found guilty because he finally decided to press charges. I live in North Carolina, so there's no statute of limitations to the sexual encounter that happened with him as a child. And he thought he had took all he could take, and he went this route and he started using drugs to fix it. And we are Christians and we've been in church all of our life. Stephen was in church all of his life, and he claims to be a Christian, but now he has a problem with homosexuality, too, which we are totally against. But with that being said, means that we don't love him any less and that we cannot get along with him. That's. That he keeps.

He'll.

He'll stay clean up to a year, and then he will fall back into it. And my husband is employed, so he is. Actually keeps him hired, but Steven doesn't have any insurance. And we just struggle. We totally. And my question would probably be, are we looking at this the wrong way or are we doing this wrong? Is it wrong for what we done or how we handled his situation?

You want to take that, Campbell, or you want me to take that?

I'll give it a stab. First of all, no, I don't think it's Wrong. I think what we do as parents is we do the best we can every day with the information we have at hand. So you said it at the very beginning, Marina. You know, in hindsight, you can see the red flags. In hindsight, we could see where as parents we could have behaved or interacted differently. But, no, I don't think you did anything wrong. Sounds like you've done an awful lot of right. It's just he's highly addicted with a huge emotional issue behind the addiction.

Are you asking, Marina, are you asking specifically, like, did we do anything wrong by getting the trailer set up for him? Is that what you're asking about? Like, was that the wrong decision? That boundary?

I. I don't feel really. That was. That's my question. I know I. At the end of the day, I have got to live with what if we.

That's right. And so when you do that, you're doing that for you.

You.

Which is fine because, you know, you're doing it for, I call it your sanity, fun or whatever. And as long as you understand that and you're not sort of lying to yourself and saying, well, if I do this thing, then you know, he's going to turn his life around or whatever. You know, as long as you're being honest with yourself, then I think it's fine. Because that's what we mean when we say these boundaries are complicated and it's different for everyone. And it's an emotion that you have to weigh into the equation. You can't just leave it out. So. And you also bring up another. You didn't really say this, but I had the thought when you said, when you learned about his childhood abuse, that adds another layer of emotion in a parent, which makes it even harder. Yeah. To draw the tough line. And it was, you have to be.

Able to put your head down on your pillow at night with your. Your decisions, which sounds to me like buying the trailer is exactly why you did that.

It's a very close family member that actually molested him. And that is another thing that's been really hard for. For the family because it really divided our family because some of the family didn't believe it. And actually this person admitted to it. And he. He actually admitted it to me and my husband after Stephen had told us what had happened to him as a 8.

It.

It continued from like 8 to 10 years old. And this person was like 7 years older than him. And when my husband confronted him, he admitted to it. So when we actually. Stephen decided to. When we wanted to Press charges. But of course we couldn't because he was 18, and we couldn't do anything about it. Stephen was an adult, and he had to do it, and he wouldn't. And he decided at 25 that he would do it. And this person, when the investigator went after him, that he just told him up front that he had done it. So it was a real private thing. They didn't have. We didn't have to have a jury or a trial or anything like that. They just sentenced him. And we thought that this would help Stephen, you know, and even before that, we had him in it, all kinds of canceling for that very thing. And he was already using drugs then.

That's the thing, Marina, is a lot of times when there is trauma in the past, it's easy to think if we deal with that trauma and they're using drugs to cope with it, the. The drug addiction will go away, but it won't once it's turned into an addiction. It's its own entity.

It's its own animal.

It's design. You have to sort of deal with that, too, because. Because it's just created its own mess. Thank you so much for coming on here. We're going to let Amy come on for a second, too, because we had promised her, since we were waiting for you, we'll let her ask a question. But we certainly appreciate you jumping on here. It takes a lot of courage, and. And I do think you're making. You're making the right choice.

Okay.

Thank you. Yeah. Remember us, and thank y', all, because I do listen to you. And I just pray that he can get through this and live through it.

Me, too. It's. It's.

It's hard.

It's a really, really hard thing to deal with.

Yeah.

And I. I feel for anyone that's out there in that world because it. It's a monster.

It's a monster.

I appreciate what y' all do.

It's hard. It's one of the hardest situations a parent can be in. It is.

Thank you, Marina.

Thanks, Marina. All right, we're gonna take Amy one more question. Hey, Amy. Hi, guys.

I'm always listening to you. I have a daughter. She's an opiates addict, Oxycontin. And we realized it September of 2021, we put her in detox. She went to rehab. She did, like, six months of rehab. Then she went into a halfway house. She just recently finished the halfway house. She's moved in with her boyfriend. She says that she came back here for a couple of Weeks. But she says the home is like a trigger for her. So she went and moved in with her boyfriend. I am currently taking care of her son, my grandchild. But as I'm listening to you, as soon as you guys went live and I started listening what you guys were talking about, I was like, I'm texting her, you know what? She has two jobs now for a couple of months, but I've been paying for her car, her phone, her. Her insurance for the vehicle. So I said, you know what? You've been working for a couple of months, so the 18th is your car payment date. So when are you. When am I going to have that money back? Is it. I feel that she's had more than enough time. I don't want her to feel like this is going to be something I'm going to pay forever. I know that I've paid it, but she was in detox. She was in rehab. I do test her. She has her second job at a rehab place, so she wants to go back into. In helping, you know, the people in rehab and stuff like that. I just. Sometimes I believe her. I. I do have a tracking device in her vehicle, which she doesn't know about. And, you know, she'll tell me I'm in. In the meeting, and I'll see. And she's not in the meeting.

Okay. So first thing is, don't track her.

Turn that off.

Turn that off. And if you want. If you want to tag one of those bills to her, give her ample warning so she can have the money prepared. But then she doesn't pay you, she needs to pay the vendor. So if she's paying your car insurance, she needs to pay the vendor. And if she doesn't, then the car insurance gets canceled. You need to get out of being in the middle.

Right? I. Everything Campbell said, I'm on board with a thousand percent. I don't think you say, I want my money back. I think you say, you know, the. I'm gonna pay it through this, or, I paid it last month. I'm not gonna pay it this month.

Yeah.

And then.

And then just hand it over. The reason you don't want it to be like, you don't want to be trying to get the money out of her, because that's just gonna cause a lot of conflict and stress and relationship trauma. Yeah.

You want to be your mom, not the banker, not the insurance guy. You want to be your mom because that's going to continue to foster that ox. The connection that's under our name.

The car's under our name. So I'm afraid if she doesn't pay it, it's going to be, you know, our name that's going down. And that's why I'm thinking the best thing is you send us the money and I'll go ahead and pay it.

I sell her the car or give her the car. Because first of all, if she drives around and she goes back to using and something happens, you're liable for that car.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So I would give her the car, sell her the car, whatever first. And then I'd say, hey, as of November 18th, I'm. No, we're not, you know, we're over parenting. We're not going to pay your car insurance. That bill will be your responsibility. You can call State Farm whoever you want to and you make that happen.

Is it a situation, Amy? I think what you're saying maybe is like you co signed on the car and so the car payment, you still have to pay the car payment. Is that what you're saying? Are you saying like we bought the car and she's supposed to pay?

No, no, no. We co sign and we're. Our name is on there.

Okay, so you're in the cosign situation and that's what sucks about that because then you really do feel stuck because. And then you do end up having to. I mean, you don't have to. You could let it go, but then it hurts you. So then you, that's what's happened is you've ended up in a situation where it's like now you're on the hook and you can't really just stop paying it.

So the alternative would be to reclaim the car and sell it.

Correct.

Which is pretty drastic. So.

Right, right, right.

Okay.

You could do that. I mean, you could say, you know, we. And if you want to have it come to you for that purpose, so, you know, it's getting paid. We don't think that's the best method. But I understand when you're in the cosign situation and that' we. Because. Because parents get trapped with that because now you, you're ready to set the boundary and it sounds like you would just back out of it, but now you can't. And so, yes, I'm like sick of.

I'm sick of being sick of it. I, I totally, you know, and I was diagnosed with cancer in May. So it's something on top of that, which is like, I can't do it. Deal with these two life changing moments. You know, you're gonna have to buckle up and deal with it. If you recovered, that's great, continue on that path, but I have to pull out at some time.

Right.

And I think you can say it like that. A little. Maybe a little softer, which is just, you know, honey, you're an adult. You're doing super well. And I'm gonna pull out because I've got to keep my eyes on my own health. And so as of November 18th, you know, you're going to be responsible for that. And then, unfortunately, if you can't make it consistently, then we may have to sell the car, because I just can't do it.

And if she's in a. A fairly healthy emotional state, you could even do something like saying. Like asking her when will she be ready to take that over? And then you can even say, well, can you send me half until that day? Or something like that.

You can.

You don't have to be harsh or cold. We want you to make it doable. Because if you don't make it doable, you're more likely cave. So make it. I always say make it more than fair. Like, whatever you think spare. And then give them. Give them a little extra room because you're less likely to cave because you know in your heart, like, it's completely way fair and you're not even gonna like, question. So I say give them the extra wiggle. So you'll stick. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome. I hope you feel well.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing with us, and thanks for participating. All right, Bye, Amy. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for hanging in there with us. I know this is a big issue. If you don't have someone else to talk this through and you want to talk it through with Campbell, I've put the link in the description for how to. Like, you can learn more about scheduling a consultation so you can talk through your situation, because as you guys can tell from watching these today, it's complicated and there's no one answer. And sometimes you do have to, like, we were talking to Amy. We're like, don't do that. And then we're like, oh, but you're cosign. So now we got to rethink that, you know, and it's different for everybody. And that's why you need someone to help you think it through. That can help you be sort of objective. So thank you for joining us. Thank you, Campbell, for coming on, being our guest.

Thank you.

All right, bye, everybody.

Bye, guys.