HOW TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT THEIR ADDICTION? (without starting a fight)

How to talk to an addicted loved one about their addiction. Now, as you already know, this can be a mega landmine. So you don't want to go into a conversation with someone about their addiction haphazardly. What you're most likely to get, if you don't have a real strategic plan on this is you're most likely to get an argument, defensiveness, or worse. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and you're watching Put the shuttle down. This YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and your family back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. All right, now to our topic. I'm going to break this down for you into four major pieces of advice that you really need to wrap your head around and incorporate in your strategy of talking to your loved one about addiction, recovery, sobriety. Whether it could be that they're in denial and you want them to go to treatment, or it could be that they're in recovery, but you're worried about relapse, these four components need to always be in the front of your mind when you're having a conversation with them about it. If not, you're either going to get not the result you want, or you're going to get big fat argument and conflict and a headache. So you don't want that. I don't want you running into that trouble. So I'm going to teach you the things that I've learned over the many, many years of working with people with substance abuse problems. Luckily, I've had the opportunity to be able to do a lot of trial and error in this realm. And so learn from my mistakes. It'll be less painful for you. Okay, Number one, the first thing is that you really need to think about before you try to have a conversation with someone is you need to match or you need to sort of line up, I guess, with them in relationship to what stage of change they are actually in. Now, I'll tell you just a little bit about that, but I have other videos that go into detail about the stages of change of addiction recovery. But essentially, if you're talking to someone who's in complete denial, like they don't think they have a problem at all, and you're trying to talk to them about going to treatment or getting help, you can see that that is a major mismatch. You are way down here, down this road, and they're way back here, and they're likely to think that you're crazy and to build a resentment towards you. And not only that, but it sort of destroys your credibility. You guys know I talk about credibility a lot on this channel about you have to get sort of trust established with your loved one. And if they think that you don't get it and you don't understand them at all, nothing you say is going to have any kind of impact. So think about where they're at. Maybe your loved one is in what we call the clinical term is called contemplation stage of change. And basically it means that they realize that there's a problem on some level and that they know they need to make some changes and they may even be trying to what I call bargain with it, like make small changes and that kind of thing. But they're not. They're not quite ready to make the big change or they're not ready to say, okay, I'll go to like three months of treatment or something huge like that. You need to keep that in mind when someone's in that thinking about it, that contemplative stage of change. It's okay if you're brainstorming with them some ideas or some ways, it may help. But be mindful that if you jump the gun too much too fast, you're going to lose them and again, you're going to destroy your credibility. So you need to be mindful about where their thinking is at. Right. I know you are ready. You're ready for this problem to be done and dealt with and ready for them to be sober. And it has been a long time, probably a bunch of years of terribleness. But if you jump the gun, you're only slowing down the process. I know it's hard and we can get impatient about this, but you're going to have a lot more success if you will take the cue from them as far as where they're at in their thinking. If you're dealing with someone in denial, then, then your first goal is to try to figure out how to start getting them to see that there's a problem. And hint, hint, I'm not going to go into this in this video because I have other ones about it. But it's not to tell them that they have a problem. There's other ways of going about doing that. If you've got someone who's in what we call like the active stage of change, which means they do realize they have a problem and they're ready to do something about it, then you can be more direct. Sometimes if you've got someone in an active stage of change, this happens in counseling sometimes. It's like someone says, okay, I got a problem. What do I do? If you sort of weasel around the subject and you're scared to say, hey, I think you should do this, this, and this, and they're in that active situation, they're going to get frustrated with you because they're looking for, I'm telling you, I got a problem. How do I fix it? So there are moments when you can be really, like, direct with someone, but you've got to make sure that you're assessing that that is the moment that you're in again. Otherwise you're going to blow the situation up. That leads me to my point number two, to always keep in mind, it's about being direct. You see, these first two issues both have to do with being patient. We just want to jump the gun and we want to hurry the process along. And let me tell you what, I understand why it is far past due. I am 100% sure and I get it. But. But I don't want you to slow it down any more than it's already. So being too direct or pressing the issue too fast only slows it down. So sometimes when you want to talk to someone about these issues, you don't want to go in for the jugular, right? When you go straight in at someone, even if someone sort of knows they have a problem or they're in that contemplative stage of change and you're just overly direct with them about it, you're going to shut them down, you're going to make them defensive, and all you're doing in that conversation is making them think their mind about all the reasons why you're all wrong and you don't get it and you're just mean or whatever. So you need to think about how to approach the subject. And that may mean doing what I call. I call it going through the side door. So, like, an example of a side door might be something like, let's say a person knows that they're struggling, they know that they're stressed, they know that they can't focus or whatever. And. But they don't necessarily think it's because of all the alcohol they're drinking. So you may not want to go in directly with the alcohol, but you may. You could say things like, you know, maybe you want to talk to someone about all that stress. You have been under a lot of pressure lately. In most situations, the person that's struggling with substance use problem. Even if they don't think they have a substance use problem, they are aware that they're having other difficulties and they'll frequently complain or vent or be frustrated about that. And that's where they're at. You know, maybe they think it's a problem with school or stress or relationship they're in. And if they're expressing concerns to you about that, you want to go right to that point, because that's an opening that your loved one is telling you, hey, I am frustrated about this and I'm willing and ready to work on this. So you want to, in treatment or recovery counselors, whatever we call that, meet them where they're at. Or another way to say it is take any open door. If this is the door they're opening, let's take that one. Right? So I know it feels frustrating because we want to get right to the heart of it, but if you will do this process in this way, this strategic way that I'm telling you, you're going to have a lot more success. And in fact, you're really going to be speeding up the process. Likely, not always, but likely. The reason why it's going on so long is because family members, we don't mean to. I've done this myself and me and times, so this is not judgment, but we slow down the process. I can tell when I've done this in session, I've done a mean times. I'm sure I'll do it a million more times. Because you can watch their body language and they just start shutting down. You can tell they've. They've shut you out. That's another. I didn't even put this on the list, but let's just add this one in. Pay attention to their body language. If they're not listening to you, stop talking or try a different approach. Don't say it louder, don't yell. Don't keep on being in their face because you're getting more and more wall and defensiveness. You've always got to be measuring and watching and assessing for how open the person is to what you're trying to say, because you're just not doing yourself any good trying to beat it in there. I've tried people telling you. It doesn't work. All right, the next thing that I want you to think about is I want you to stop negatively reinforcing and focus more on positive reinforcement. Let me give you some examples. So instead of saying something like, I'm so sick of you coming home drunk, and that's all you're doing. You don't even care about this family. And I tell you what, I'm about to leave you, I'm going to take your kids, you're never going to see them again. All that may be true and it may be fair and it may be warranted. I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying if you're trying to say that to make someone change, that's an ineffective strategy to make someone change. Most of what I'm telling you, it requires so much more work on the family members part, which I get is thousand percent unfair. You know, you're the one doing all the work already. But I, you know, I'm not necessarily concerned with what's fair, I'm concerned with what works. And it just doesn't work to come at someone like that. No matter who they are, no one responds well to that. Even if you're dealing with a real conflict avoidant person, they may not argue with you or say anything mean back to you, but in their head they're arguing with you whether they say it out loud or not. So I'm telling you, don't come at someone like that. Instead, if they do come home and they haven't been drinking, say, oh, you know, it's so nice when you get home and we have dinner together and then we can watch notes together or whatever it is, positively reinforce the right behaviors and you're gonna get a lot further. That reminds me of somebody. This was a viewer and this was a while back, I've had this on my list of topics forever. But somebody asked the question, how do you reinforce, positively reinforce behaviors when you know they're not being sober? Well, there are other behaviors in the right direction that maybe that's not, maybe you know, that they're not being served. But there's other steps that people take in the right direction and you can reinforce those. If someone's more pleasant, if someone's engaging with the family more, if someone's participating in their hobbies more, or they've done a good job looking for a job, whatever it is, those are still steps in the right direction. And you can positively reinforce those kind of things. And even if they're not perfect, but they're making progress with their sobriety, you can positively reinforce that. Which is going to lead me to my point number four in your strategy about talking to someone about their addiction. Before I tell you point number four, I will tell you that I am going to put the link, let me see if I can paste it here. For you in the comments to my free sort of persuasion masterclass. That would be the next step after this video. If you really want to kind of dig into your skills as far as persuasion and get someone to think the way you want them to think, you should check out that video. And you will get. I'll get more in depth in that about actually persuading people. But let's move on to our last and fourth point. It is extremely important for you to be tolerant as much as possible with imperfection. Now, know a lot of family members. There are some things that are boundary crossers that you just can't tolerate, like abusive behavior or stealing or putting children in jeopardy. I'm not telling you to tolerate those kind of things, which are completely out of bounds. What I'm telling you is that most people don't go from active addiction to sobriety. Like, they just have this epiphany and then all of a sudden they decide they're done and they're done. They walk away. That's not the way it happens for most people. I've heard that happening before for some people, but in my experience that's a real rarity most of the time. It's a lot of trial and error. And as long as someone's trying and they're moving in the right direction, even if they have setbacks, it's okay to positively reinforce that effort. And I know it's terrible because we're so fearful as a family member of relapse and it's been horrible for so long. We just don't want to go back to the way it was. But that fear can cause you to make bad decisions or that fear can cause you to interact with your loved one in a negative way, which can help trigger things to move backwards. So make sure that you tolerate the ups and downs of the recovery process. They're going to be tough days. Maybe your loved ones doing good with a sobriety, but they don't like to go to meetings, you know. And in your mind you've been told that's the only way to get sober. And you got to be going to meetings. If you're not going to meetings and you're not going to make it, don't be so rigid in your thinking about what progress means and looks like that you sort of miss the forest for the trees. It's easy to fall into that for sure. All right, let's take a look at who's here and see if you guys have any questions and concerns. Feedback and while I am finding some of our comments and questions here. I will tell you that I'm going to try a new thing where if you'd like to write into us about your situation, give us some details about what's going on in your situation, whether that's you're trying to help a loved one or you're trying to help yourself, if you have a specific question you want to tell us about your situation, then I'm going to take those. Those I'm asking you to email in. So I want to call them letters, but they're not really letters and go over those and answer those questions and concerns on our live videos. If you want to do that, email one of our team members who is Taylor. It's Taylor T A Y L e r@hffrc.com and she'll be picking one or two really good questions each week and we will be covering those. And you can remain anonymous if you would like. Hey, Maria. Hey. All about justice. Let's see, Donna. Looks like Donna's got a question here. How long should you give them and keep trying to support them? I have been hanging in there for 10 years with him. It's actually getting worse. I'm working on me now. And he shuts down no matter what. Donna, I think that's an excellent question. And it's, it's sort of always hovering in the back of the, your mind as a family member because it is such a long process full of ups and downs. And I do have a couple of videos about when is it time to walk away? And I would suggest you, you look at those because there are some situations where it's time to just walk away completely or maybe just get some distance from it because it's just wearing you down. There are sometimes situations like that. I don't know if I can say that there's a, you know, like if it's been five years, you know, I don't have a specific time. It's more about certain situations that would be when you want to kind of say, okay, this is enough and I need a break from this. Let's see here. Jennifer says, I've learned so much from these videos. In last year, my child did get sober. Sadly, she still made a tragic end. I still watch suggesting this channel. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Jennifer. Gosh. But we really, I really admire you for sticking in there and still watching these videos. I have to imagine that that brings up a lot of difficult memories for you. So, hey, man, that's good. Let's see. Jenny says my Husband reached out and asked me to make him an appointment with a counselor, but won't let. But they won't let me schedule it. Says that he has to call and make it. He has the number. Is it okay to ask him to fall through? That's a really good question, Janet. I'm glad you brought that up. A lot of especially treatment facilities want to talk to the person themselves, and that person has to say, yes, I want this appointment, or, yes, I want to come. Even if you call and maybe you do all the upfront work, or maybe if you have to answer questions about insurance or fill out paperwork, they may still want to just hear that person say those words. Yes, I want this appointment. It's kind of frustrating in our office. We don't. We don't really require that, but some treatment centers do. It is okay to ask him to do that, but if there's any. If there's any way to make it any easier, I do suggest you do it. A lot of people think it's therapeutic. They think the person themselves needs to be the one that researches it. They need to be the one that reaches out and makes that appointment. And on some hand, you know, in some ways, I can see why people would say that. But on the other hand, sometimes the people are really deep in addiction. They just don't have the competency to do that just because they're. They're just in a mess, and they can't focus on it long enough to really do a lot of research and stay consistent, or their moment of clarity leaves too fast. So I. I do think it is fine for the family member to be involved in that process. Now, don't go behind their back, obviously, but if. If you doing the legwork gets them in there, I'm totally fine with that. I'm all about what works. Let's see. Donna says this is good stuff. I hear all the time how it's unfair. It's not fair at all. But do you want them to get recovery, or do you just want to fight? You said it perfectly. It's not effective if recovery is your goal. Yeah, I know. I. I really do feel like it's unfair sometimes. The things I ask you guys to do, I think to myself, I'm like, man, I feel bad asking you to do it, but I just know that it works. The reason I know it is because I teach you guys to do the things that I do in my office. Because sometimes you can't get your loved one in front of a counselor very easily. And sometimes you have to learn the skills. You'd have to learn you can do what I can do. There's nothing magic to it. You just need to have strategy and kind of understand how addiction works. Aline says. My husband says he wants or needs to quit drinking, and he has for a while, on several occasions. However, he still thinks he can have a few drinks on occasion. Problem is, once he starts, it can't stop. Moderation's out the window. I think his main problem is he still doesn't realize the seriousness of his addiction. He still thinks he's. He isn't addicted to alcohol, but he is. Leah, I can't tell you how many times a week I hear that same thing all the time. It is part of the process of getting better. It's part of that. I call it the bargaining stage. And it's one of those things that when I deal with people in my office that are in that stage that I. I have to use a little patience for and understand that people have to do a lot of trial and error. Now, most of the time, I'll tell my clients, I'll say, listen, like, a lot of times people figure out that it's just easier to not drink at all than it is to drink a little. But I understand you need to figure that out. And if. If it's a tolerable situation, allowing someone to go through that trial and error will get them there faster so that they can kind of figure out, yeah, I've tried that many times. It's. It doesn't work. Or sometimes they figure out, yeah, I can just drink a little socially, but it's not even that fun. Like, what's two beers gonna do for me? And they just decide it's not worth it, you know, so they usually do come to that conclusion, but it usually takes a bunch of times to prove themselves that it just doesn't work so good. Danny says, should you trust your new baby with a father that is a functional alcoholic but in denial? What boundaries should I set up? That's a good question. I don't think I can give you a yes or no answer on that. I think it depends on what kind of behaviors you've seen out of the person who has the alcohol problem. Like, have you ever seen them do something you feel like would put the baby at risk? Do they tend to just sort of pass out? Would they be babysitting the baby and then they would be passed out and no one would be watching? You know, I guess it just depends on what happens with that person, whether or not that would be an okay thing to do. So always use your good judgment when it comes to safety of children. I say err on the side of caution, obviously, but I wouldn't give you just a flat like no on that. Let's see, how do you decide how much to be involved when your loved one doesn't live in the same household anymore? That's another great question. I think you take your cue from them on it. You, if they take a step, you take a step. That's my formula for it, you know, if they reach out, you reach out. If they take a step, you take a step. As long as you're matching them in your sort of engagement and willingness this and help, you and them are going to be much happier and make progress a lot faster. If you start doing more than they're doing, then you both start to build resentments and it's just not sustainable long term. Rita says when my daughter says her health condition is making her self medicate a form of denial, how do you suggest getting around that? That's a tough one. And I see that a lot. Rita especially like pain pill addiction because sometimes people get addicted to pain pills and they, there was a reason why they started taking that medicine in the beginning. And so one of the things that I tell people in the beginning, they don't ever believe me when I first tell them this, but I set the stages sort of I plant this seed and eventually through trial and error, they, they can figure that out. But a lot of times if you're self medicating for pain, what you're doing is you're stopping your body's natural pain defense and pain is actually getting worse. And so it makes you feel like you need the medicine even more and more and more and you get trapped in that cycle. It's the very same thing as if you're drinking because you have anxiety. Well, it feels like it helps your anxiety at first, but it's making it worse long term. And so if I'm able to convince someone, I say no, it's not going to happen immediately. You probably are going to feel worse for the first little while. But your natural pain defenses kick back in. And most people, even people that I see that are addicted to people to pain pills, they've had maybe like a car crash or something like that, they, they usually, if they'll give it a chance, will figure out that their pain is actually a lot less once they get past that hump and that it is a lot more manageable than they previously thought it's just that whatever they're doing to medicate that is actually making it worse. So they feel like there's no way they could tolerate it without it. So that's a tough one. Melanie says, my son is an Iop and a sober living for several months now. Second time he does not communicate at all with me. Unless he needs something, how can I reach out to him what I would say? And you know, without knowing all the details of a situation, I just, I'll just do my best here. Melanie, I don't know what's going on with your son, so I don't know exactly why he's reluctant to doing that. It could just be because he's just busy or he's just focused on himself or he's just a young person and he doesn't even think about his mom unless he wants something. You know, it could be that. It could be something bigger than that. What I would suggest is when you do have conversations with him, try to make them pleasant conversations. Try to engage with him in a way that's going to make him want to talk with you. If you make someone feel good about themselves and if you're fun or funny to talk to, if you have interesting things to say, if you ask them, not ask them questions about like that, they're going to be perceiving as invasive into their recovery. But even just fun questions like did you see the newest episode of whatever it is their show they're watching and get them to talk to you about that. If you make it a pleasant experience, they're going to want to talk to you more. So be sure that every conversation isn't like heavy or like a principal's office visit, I call it. And people will want to engage with that. That's my best piece of advice. Tammy, you should do more. You should do some after recovery videos. They have to learn how to live life all over again. It seems no one discusses that. That is a very good point and I will put it on my list. I think I have a couple, but not very many. You're right. So we, we do need to have more after I get sober videos because the getting sober. You're right, Tim. This is. That's just the beginning, right of the getting better. And there's a lot more that goes into that. So I want to say thank you to everyone that's watching. Up next, I'm going to recommend the YouTube playlist. It's all about motivating a loved one to take steps towards recovery. There are several really good videos in there. And don't forget, you can check out our Persuasion masterclass. The link is in the comments. See you guys next week. Up.