How Your Addiction Has Hurt Your Family

If you currently have an addiction or you have had an addiction in the past, you might feel like your family has become a little bit controlling, maybe even to the point of micromanaging you. And I completely get just how frustrating that is. And I'm 100% sure it is not helpful for your recovery whatsoever. Definitely agree with you. However, if you really want to get your loved one to stop engaging in these behaviors, you kind of have to understand what, why they're engaging in those behaviors. And you're gonna have to look a little bit deeper than the fact that you say, well, I know why, because they're trying to control me. Let's look a little bit deeper than that. Which is why in this video, we're gonna take a deep look into exactly how your addiction has hurt your family. Now, if you feel like your addiction has never hurt your family and it just hurts you and no one else, then you probably shouldn't watch this video. For the rest of you, I will prepare you. There's a lot of truth bombs coming your way, and some of these will. Won't be pleasant. But just remember, these things are not to try to make you feel guilty. I know that you already feel guilty. This is really to help you understand and have empathy for your family members behavior. Because after you do that, then you can figure out how to actually make the situation better. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you're always five steps ahead of it and you can get back to living the life that you want to live. Now, if you are new here, introduce yourself in the comments. We'd love to welcome you to our little community. Now if that sounds like something that you're interested in, consider subscribing. Okay, here we go. Here's the list. This is going to be 10 big truth bombs coming your way that may be a little bit hard to hear. And probably not all of these apply to your situation, but at least some of these probably do. During the course of developing an addiction, it is pretty common that the person, the one that has the addiction, will villainize in their own head. Certain people in their life, they sort of divide people into like good cops and bad cops or good people and bad people. That is a way in which we continue to justify our addiction. And in our head, we need to make this other person, these people that are in our life that are trying to sort of get us to See something or make us change, they become the adversary. And the reason is, is because your addiction needs to keep those people emotionally far away from you and distant. Because they're a threat to the addiction. Now, I'm not saying that the other people haven't done anything they shouldn't have done. I'm guessing they've probably done a lot of things that they shouldn't have done or that weren't helpful. But do take into account that it's possible that in your own thinking, you've made them a bigger villain than they really are. Or that, yes, they're a villain, but maybe some of the other behaviors and things you've done have kind of turned them into a villain. So let's take a little bit of responsibility for our own psychological thinking about this subject. Number two, way that your addiction has hurt your family member. It's very likely, highly likely even, that you have done some gaslighting towards your family members. Now, if you haven't heard that term, basically, it's kind of like when you make the other person think that they're crazy. So, like, for example, if your loved one found evidence of your addiction. And then you told them that was old or that hasn't been there, or that was from someone else, and they must be crazy, and why are they on your case? Basically, it's kind of like when you get pushed into a corner and you make that other person question their sanity As a way to sort of get out of trouble or weasel out of the problem or just in general. Sometimes there's even bigger, like, gaslighting strategy. Where you pretty regularly do things that make that person question themselves. This is a way to sort of throw attention off of the addiction. Number three, this one may seem a little bit obvious, but of gotten their hopes up and disappointed them a bunch of times. And it's possible that you didn't do this on purpose. Maybe you promised something or you said, okay, I'm done. Never again. And you completely meant it when you said it. But because of the addiction, you were not able to follow through on that promise. So there's been a lot of disappointments and unkept promises. Number four, you've pit family members and loved ones and friends against each other. You've probably done this in a couple of ways. Maybe you've told a little piece of the story to this person over here. And a different piece of the story to this person over here. And this third person over here, they know a different part of the story because they were there when it happened. Or something like that. All these different people know different things. So you purposefully try to keep those people from not talking to each other because you don't want the whole story to come out. Another way you might have engaged in splitting is by pitting people against each other in the way that you get these people that you think in your mind are the good cops. To really be on your side and see how these other people over here have been treating you mean and they're not fair and life isn't right. Maybe that's a family member, maybe that's a boss or a teacher, but you've probably done a little splitting. Some of that's for practical purposes, like keeping the information separate, and some of that is for psychological purposes because you want someone to be on your side. So they sort of buy into your narrative about what's going on. Number five might seem a little obvious, and that's that your addiction may have hurt your loved ones financially. There's about 10,000 ways that your addiction can hurt your loved ones financially. If they've had to pay for treatment centers or bail you out of jail, or pay for lawyers, that definitely counts. If they've paid for college and you flunked out and they've paid for more semesters and more classes and you haven't completed those classes, that definitely counts. If you've stolen from them or pawned their items, that for sure counts. But there are other, more subtle ways that your addiction can impact someone financially. You know, a lot of times when family members are going through this, they get so preoccupied and consumed, just like you do when you have an addiction. They get preoccupied with you just the same way as you get preoccupied with the addiction, that they don't function very well and they don't work very good. And that could cause them problems at work or work performance problems. They could lose their job altogether. I've seen that happen because they've had to take so much time off work or things like that. Alright, now, I know I'm giving you a lot here. This is heavy. But just remember, this is to help you understand things from their perspective. And I know you're thinking, well, I already know all these things, but it's just good to get inside the mind of the other person so you can understand why they're doing what they're doing. Don't worry, I make them do that same thing all the time to understand why they. People with addictions do what they do. It's just your turn. Number six. And most importantly, you need to understand that your loved one is living in fear. When you're in active addiction, they're scared that you're going to ruin your life. They're scared that you're going to hurt yourself or someone else. They are scared that they're going to get that phone call in the middle of the night with that really bad news that no one ever wants to hear. They're scared that you're going to back them into a corner and make them make a hard choice to put you out of their life. And they live in a constant fear. And that fear state eventually turns into some kind of anxiety disorder that we think that at Hope for Families we describe as somewhere in between obsessive compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. It's that anxiety disorder that your family develops because all these things we're talking about that causes them to do all those crazy, controlling, nagging, threatening, bothersome, unproductive behaviors. Now, if you're really relating to what I'm talking about, and you really accept the fact that you've done some damage in your relationships and you really want to repair it, then you might want to consider taking our rapid relationship repair course. And in that course, I'll walk you through the step by step process of healing all these things we're talking about making it better so that those behaviors go away, so that everything calms down and you can get back to living the life that you want, want to live. I'll put more information about that in the description below. Number seven. You've probably, on more than one occasion, maybe even a lot of occasions, put your loved one in this sort of like, rock and a hard place position where you're trying to get them to do something or not to do something. And either whatever choice they make kind of sucks, right? Like there's no good choice. Like, for example, maybe you put them in a position to say, hey, I need money for my electric bill. Well, now they can either give you money for your electric bill, which might cause them financial trouble, if their finances are tight, and if it doesn't even cause them financial trouble, they probably feel guilty because then they think they're enabling you, right? So that doesn't feel good, or they have to make a choice of knowing that you're living without electricity, which makes them feel guilty and worried and anxious and all those other negative feelings. So it's like no matter what the family member chooses, it sucks for them. And if you're honest with yourself, you've probably put them in a position like that over and over again. Here's another example, maybe even a harder, more difficult example. Let's say if you struggle with alcoholism and you have children, your spouse has to make a really hard decision to let your children stay around a parent that is struggling in active alcoholism or to separate from you, which may cause all kinds of practical and logistical problems for them and the children. And they don't want to take the children away from you or make the children think bad of you either choice. They really feel like they're stuck in this dilemma of not having a good choice whatsoever. Now, you could be trying to tell yourself that your addiction does not impact your children. I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Even if your addiction is on the milder end, if you're addicted, it is definitely impacting your ability to be the best parent possible for your children. So let's just get real honest with ourselves about that. Now, that doesn't mean you're abusing them or anything, but come on, you know, it's not letting you be your best self number eight. Because you're pretty aware that your loved one gets in this sort of rock and a hard place situation. It's pretty common that when you're an active addiction, you guilt them into things. You think, oh, well, you don't love me unconditionally or you only love me if I'm a certain way, or are you really going to put me out in the cold and leave me? There's just all these different ways which you've probably engaged in trying to guilt your loved one. Now I know they've probably tried to guilt you back. Like I said, this isn't me saying it's all you. This is just looking at how your addiction has affected your family. Let me give you a little example of that. The other day I was talking to this woman who was telling me that her son, even when he messes up and he knows he really messes up and he'll do something like call his mom and just say, you know, I'm just a terrible person. I can't believe I did that. Like I'm just a loser. I just screw everything up. Now that may sound like the person is taking responsibility for what's going on, but they're really not. When you do that, you're really just engaging in a self pity party. Even if you're feeling sorry for yourself, you're still doing that. And it's a way of putting guilt on the other person. It's a way that the other person feels guilty if they're hard on you. If they hold a limit because they're like, oh, they feel terrible about themselves, it's definitely an unfair stance or unfair thing to do to your loved one. Okay, number nine, at the very minimum, even if you feel like you haven't done any of that other stuff, which I'm a little doubtful of if you've really had an addiction, but let's pretend that's true. You have definitely done number nine. Okay, we're just gonna accept this. When you have an addiction, you no doubt have secrets about it. Now, listen, I've had people tell me on my videos that they are completely honest and have no secrets about their addiction. I do not believe that. So if you're thinking that, think about it harder. So let's just agree on the fact that you've kept some secrets. Maybe you've told everything you've done, but you've kept secrets about where you've done it or how you've done it, or how you felt about it or other details of situation. There is some secret keeping happening when you have an addiction. And when you're keeping a secret, you consciously or subconsciously keep everyone else around you at a distance. Because it's as if your subconscious knows that if you let them in close, they're gonna see your secret. And so you're pushing them further and further away. Now, they may not be able to put their finger on this or say this is what's happening, but they can feel. Feel that. They can feel that you're pushing them away, and it makes them super stressed out and feel crazy and triggers all of those controlling behaviors that you don't like and that you really wish they would quit doing. Okay, so if you've been able to make it through all that and tolerate all those really heavy truths, okay, be proud of yourself because you've made it through a whole list of very difficult things to hear. Now your next step is obvious. How do you repair that? I'm going to put a video up next about how to rebuild trust with your family. And. And if you need a little bit more extensive help on it, then take a look at our rapid relationship repair course link in the description.