If Your Son or Daughter Is Struggling With Addiction, This Video Is For You

You know, I ended up going to my mom crying and admitting I need help, I've got to have help and I can't do it here. I wouldn't even, I went as far as to say, like, I'm probably going to have to go somewhere else away from this town and this family to get that help because I knew that in my heart that's what I needed.

What does it take to get through their denial, get them to see that they are ruining their life and yours and finally do something about it? Well, today we have an expert witness for you here. This is my friend David. And David was one of those knuckle headed young adults that about drove his family crazy, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

I want to talk to you something about, like, how do we set the stage and get them to go? How do we know when the timing is right? Because, you know, I think timing is important. And then also once you get them there, how do you keep them there? Because even once you get them there, y' all know this. You finally get them there, they're a week or two and they either want to just run and ditch or they don't want to go to the next level of care. So it's, there's several kind of levels. It's like stages. This stage, this stage, this stage. And we want them to go all the way through. Yeah, yeah.

And I've been on both sides of it now. So I lost that knucklehead that was dragging my mom through that, my family through that, trying to get help. And then now I own a residence where we're trying to convince others to stay and get the help that they need. So. And coaching parents through that as well.

So how do you know when the timing is right to even bring up any kind of help? Go to the counselor, go to long term treatment, anything. Go to iop. How do you know?

In my experience and in my opinion, you start to see some vulnerability and some honesty around the fact that there is a problem. And that was the case for me. You know, I ended up going to my mom crying and admitting, I need help, I've got to have help and I can't do it here. I wouldn't even, I went as far as to say, like, I'm probably going to have to go somewhere else away from this town and this family to get that help. Because I knew that in my heart that's what I needed as an individual and with a substance use disorder problem.

So how did you, I mean, the parents watching this, they're like that's my dream. I wish my son would come and say that to me or my daughter. What got you to that point? What got you so desperate that you literally said, you're gonna have to send me away? Probably out of state, which young people never want to do.

So, yeah, I went to a drug induced psychosis more than once, twice. And I had this fear of if I don't try now, I'm never gonna be okay again. Like my brain is never gonna work properly. And that was such a deep rooted fear that I got to this place where I'm willing to try anything that will help me out. Physical bottoms or financial bottoms or. They lost their vehicle and their house. Mine was a mental bottom, psychological. A psychologically broken man who was scared for his life. And then we'll have other individuals that come in and, you know, for instance, we'll coach guys who aren't ready to make the commitment to treatment or anything like that. We just show up as coaches and we don't push like, oh, you need to get help, you need to get treatment. I tell the coaches, just be their friend. Just, you know, as you were saying earlier, let's build up some trust and let's put some, make some deposits to the bank so we can cash it out later. Without cashing out.

Being making that like using that influence you've built.

Correct.

At the right moment.

Yeah.

Say the right thing at the right time and now you have the formula.

Yeah. But to get there, you just have to build that trust, build that friendship. And you will see, what I was saying earlier is that, you know, that honesty starts to break through at some point. The vulnerability where they start to say to our coach, hey, man, like I've been using for the last two weeks, even though I've been seeing you, I've been lying about it and boom, to me that's like the doors open, the windows cracked a little bit.

The window just cracked. Right. You start to hear some change. Talk.

Yeah.

Now, even when you hear that, okay, steady, do not pounce, do not just play it cool because you're gonna scare them.

Yeah.

You can scare them off a few pounds, you gotta be cool. But that's your moment.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's even a specific scenario where it's like the mom and dad aren't getting that it was a coach, it was someone else who maybe was a little more understanding of what they're going through.

Right. Because I can't get my person to like, do anything.

Yes.

I'm sure a lot of parents are thinking yeah.

So that case, specifically the parent started high with negotiations and was like, hey, would you be, you know, we love you and we want to help you. Would you be willing to go to a six month treatment? No. Okay. Would you be willing to do detox?

Right.

No. Suboxone? No. And then it got down to like, would you just talk to a coach? They're like, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah, that kind of makes you feel better. And then it led to this moment where now we can maybe work back up that ladder to get the help that they need.

Right. If you pounce too hard, even on a situation like that, they're gonna get scared because who wouldn't?

Yeah. And even in my case, that still happened to me. Like, even though it wasn't really like my mom pouncing on the opportunity, it was me asking for help. Well, I went to get help and that first night there I was calling my mom saying, come get me right now.

Oh my God, I made a mistake.

This was, yeah, I want to go use again. Or in the back of my head I'm thinking, I want to go get high again. But to her I was like, I just can't do this. It's not for me. This program's not going to work. And trying to discredit the program.

So you obviously didn't say to your mom, get me out here, I got to get high right now. You said the standard stuff.

Yeah, oh, yeah. Like, oh, they're not going to treat me right here. This isn't a good program. It's not going to be a good fit for me.

These dudes do way more stuff than me. I'm just gonna learn bad stuff. Like the classics, all this stuff. Okay, so you tried to ditch when you got there?

Yeah, for probably three months. Just so you know, as like parents.

Any family, you are like, stubborn. Like you, most people usually last a few weeks, but a few minutes.

Yeah, I honestly wasn't bought into the process. And again, I'm a young man at this point. I'm 23, brain's not even fully developed. I've been in drug induced psychosis twice. So clearly things aren't working appropriately up in my head. But yeah, I like, for three to four months, I was not bought in.

Like, hammer your mom during that time pressure.

Oh, I threatened suicide. Like, if you don't come get me, I'm going to kill myself. Or I'll have a friend come get me. Which luckily I burned all of those bridges and none of my friends were coming to get me.

At that point, and I think a thing specifically with young adults, David, is not only do they have to figure out how to not use drugs.

They.

Have to figure out how to adult. Most of the time, young adults that have been using for a good long time, they haven't developed any adulting skills. Like, they're probably stuck at like 15 or 16 most of the time. Wherever they started using regularly at, that's where they're emotionally stuck.

So, you know, that's what we try to say. It's. This is beyond substance use and trying to get you clean this. We want what you want. We're trying to relaunch you in life. We want to build up those things. Campbell said it once to me, she was like, we want to refill their pride tank.

Right?

And I took that and ran with it, because I love it, because that's exactly what we do, is the clients that come to us at Greenville Transitions, they have no self worth. They have no pride. Like, that tank is depleted. And so much of our programming is to give them the life skills that they need to refill that tank.

And then I know you guys do a lot of, like, fun things too, and physical things.

So we do a lot of, like, UFC gym work where they do Brazilian Jiu jitsu. I've been getting photos this morning of the guys in the rock climbing gym with their clinician, and they're going to do a process group at the rock climbing gym. And I learned a lot from you, Amber, because this is like a side door approach. I know you've talked about the side door approach before. And just to give a short snippet of what happens. And what I mean by that side door approach is we had a guy last week who was rolling in Brazilian Jiu jitsu, and the coach had him in a hold that was uncomfortable, but it wasn't a hold that's gonna break anything or choke you out. It was just an uncomfortable hold. And the guy taps and says, let me out. And the coach goes, this isn't a hold that's gonna break anything or make you pass out. You can do this. Think through how to get out of this hold. And the guy said, no, I don't want to.

Oh, it's like distress. Yeah, yeah.

And the coach said, I'm not letting you out. You need, you get. You've given up on everything in your life to this point. You gave up on your relationships, you gave up on school. And the guy just broke down. He started crying.

He's like in the old Andy sky.

Yeah. So then the coach lets him out and was like, what just happened there? And it created this opportunity for us to talk about all of these past experiences in life that have helped that pride tank get depleted when he's given up on school, relationships, jobs, and why is that happening? You know? And it opened up a whole process group, which is a beautiful, to me picture.

Oh, that's like a spiritual moment right there. That's just like one of those, like.

Yeah. And this is how we reach these young again. We work with young men, and this is how we best reach them. You know, if you try to stick them, we have to do. We do six hours of clinical a day during the week. And if we were to do that in a classroom setting, in front of a whiteboard, we lost.

Right?

We lost. At the first 30 seconds, they're pulling their hair out. They're miserable. But with things like this keeping them active and being able to have that.

Side door, that's what usually is the thing that gets them there.

You know, it's a blend of what we were saying earlier of kind of waiting for that door to open versus, you know, parents somewhat making things a little bit more uncomfortable for them as far as, like, financial situations or providing.

Them, like, not fixing everything.

Not fixing everything.

Just let them be them. Let it roll.

Yeah. And then I think as a family, you have an option. You have the safety net that they can fall into when things get really bad. But. But it's allowing that to happen. And a friend of mine said something that I thought was awesome one time, and they said, you can don't give up hope, but you can give up help sometimes. You don't always have to help with every situation. You can give up help, but you don't have to give up hope.

What would you say is some of the other typical mistakes that you see parents make that sabotage either getting to treatment or staying in treatment?

So, I mean, we've seen a case where a dad promised his son, like, I'll buy you a new Dodge Challenger if you'll just stay another month. And when it's time for you to get your car, I'll get you this new car. And the second that he got the car, he was gone. He packed his bags, got in the.

Car, left, because he was just counting his days.

He was doing his time, counting his days. And this brings me to a good point, but a lot of parents who work with us, they're saying, can I. Can I just tell them 30 days on the front end and then we'll see how they are after that 30 days. And I say, you can't, you can do that. But I want you to know the pros and cons of that. And the pros are, is that yes, it may get him to treatment or her to treatment. Right. Then if they, they're thinking like 30 days and I'm done. But right there is the con. As if they're thinking, this is a 9 to 12 month program. And they're thinking, okay, I'm just going to do 30 days. I'm going to just make a tick mark on each day that goes by. I'm not going to do the things they asked me to do because I'm going in 30 days.

Then they're going to come to you and say, you said all I had to do is 30 days.

Exactly.

They're going to hold you to it.

Prolonging the real conversation of like, actually, I want you to do this whole process program. Because if you, you know, and then.

They feel like you lied to them as the parent, they really feel betrayed.

You just lost trust. It just really ruined your credit. With one move.

You ruined your credit.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I'd say that's a big one. Is just, you know, being honest and up front and from the beginning. And then be careful with negotiations. Don't negotiate new vehicles or like, yeah, I'll put you up in this $3,000 apartment.

You can be, you can be general. You can say as long. You can say something like, as long as you're helping you, I'm gonna help.

Exactly.

But don't just promise, like the world. Right. Specifically, yes. You know, a thousand dollars for every day you're gonna, you know, crazy. Like, don't, don't do that.

Yeah. Because when you get into those specifics, they just locked that in.

Right.

They're gonna hold you to that to the day. You said it was gonna happen. To the amount you said that was gonna show up in the bank account.

Right. Are there any other big mistakes that sometimes parents, they don't mean to, but, you know, that was best intentioned, you know, but sabotage yourself.

There are just some who aren't really ready to take recommendations from the other clinicians or like, the parents aren't. Yeah. Because we work with the parents a lot too weekly. We're working with the parents. And sometimes they will just tell you straight up, like, I'm not ready to.

Like, what kind of recommendation?

Like, hey, why don't you not call for a month? Oh, yeah, take a month off of not calling. Give them their Space, you know, can't listen to that.

Why would you make a recommendation like that?

I mean, it could be a number of things. One that comes to mind immediately is like, if every phone call is them saying, come get me. I hate this. Threatening you, holding you hostage emotionally, like, cut it out. You're just doing that. Yeah, he's in a safe place.

They're badgers in a safe place. They're guilting you. They're doing all this stuff and let.

Them know that that's. You're not gonna listen to that, Right. Like, you deserve more than to tolerate that.

When I used to work in an inpatient facility, you would get 10 minutes a night or something on the phone, and you'd have to sit in front of the nurse's station and call your parents. These teenagers, if they called and they started that crap that n say, I'm sorry, they're going to have to go now, the nurse will just cut it off and say, you lost your thumb. Because if the. If the clinician can see that they're just trying to be mean to you. Because. Because probably some people, the way they manipulate is to intimidate or badger or threaten it. Now, other people manipulate by being charming. That's not the only game. But if that's happening, that might be a reason why you don't want that to keep going.

Yeah, but there are many cases like that.

You know, I used to see a lot where something would happen in treatment. I don't know, the coach tells them they lost their something privileged for the day or whatever. And so then they would call their mama or their daddy or whoever, and they're like, can you do this? And then the parent would then intervene and call up the cheer center and try to negotiate with. Do y' all have that?

Oh, yeah. Try to split. Splitting. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Or, you know, I've even had. This is a funny story I'll never forget, but we had a coach come into someone's room one day and they were like, man, that was a terrible job of making your bed. So that person runs and calls their mom and dad and says, they told me I was a terrible human being. Like, just took what was said, you know, put it. I was a little driving, pushed it to their favor.

I'm gonna end up in jail.

So my mom would call and it starts that splitting process. Because what they just did is they just put a little bit of doubt into the parents mind that, you know, maybe we're not looking out for their best interest. So it's important that's how we work so heavily with families, because it's important to stay all. Yeah, we're on the same front here. We're all fighting the same thing, even with your loved one that's with us in our program, you know.

Yeah. And just in case you forgot, at the same time they're calling you and they're telling you that about someone else, guess what? They're telling their counselor about you. Yeah, it's a two way street, people. They're working both angles. And some of that's just addictive behavior. And it takes a while for that to go away. It's worked for a long time. And you do what works. And so it's not that you tell them, shut up, you don't believe them, but you don't. You don't have to bite that fish either, is what I call it.

Yeah, I like that.

Okay, so if they. If you want to learn more about David or his program or even just hear his story, because it's a pretty good story, then I want you to watch this video next. I will link it up here for you so you can find out all behind the scenes of what happened to get David treatment, how his mom dealt with it. Because there's a lot. There's a lot to learn there.