Important Advice For Anyone With An Addicted Loved One

You're too controlling. Have you heard that before? If you're a family member and you have a loved one who has an addiction, I bet you've heard that before. So I bet they've told you that you're too controlling. And the reason why that's so predictable is because it's a natural thing for us to do, to want to try to control the situation when your whole life seems to be spinning completely off the rails. So, I mean, obviously that's a natural reflex that you want to do. What we're going to talk about in this video today is we're going to talk about what you can control and what you can't. Because in recovery, if you're anywhere in recovery, you've heard of the Serenity Prayer, which is controlling things that you can and the wisdom know the difference. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to look at what you can and what you can't. And we have our special guest family recovery coach, Scott Nunnery here with us, and he's going to share with you some of his wisdom and his personal experience. Scott, I like to start out with the what doesn't work. You got any stories for us about that?

Yeah, it certainly takes a while to get that wisdom that you talked about. It took me a while, for sure. And, you know, I think as parents, when we find out that our. That our child is struggling with addiction, fear just takes over. And because we don't have the knowledge, we just go to trying to control the situation. And I certainly try to do that, like I'm sure many of the families on the line with us today have done. And you just get out of control very quickly because you're trying to control a situation that obviously you learn that you can't control. But I think we just go spiraling down very quick, and then our lives become just as chaotic or even more than the addict.

Unmanageable. That's the recovery word. Our lives have become unmanageable.

Absolutely.

What were some of the things that either you've tried to control the situation or even stories, because Scott runs two. Two different family groups. And so I'm sure you've heard a lot of stories, too, about other things people have tried. You got any good stories for us, Scott?

Yeah, you know, I think all the classic stuff, but like you and I were talking earlier, you know, you try. First thing I try to do is try to control the money. I thought if I could control the money, then he couldn't Go buy the drugs. So, you know, at 18 years old, I was asking him to hand me receipts at the end of the week for everything he had spent, whether that was a fast food or when he had gas. I asked for these receipts. Well, you know, a normal 18 year old obviously doesn't keep receipts, much less an addict at 18 years old. So that was a disaster. It didn't work.

Especially someone's probably trying to be sneaky shady with their money.

Exactly. So I never, I never got receipts. And you know, the, the crazy stuff where we obviously get out of control with our nagging and preaching and punishing and I did all the punishments. You know, I took the phones away, I took cars away. I, you know, all that stuff. None of that worked. I think the sneaking around, trying to snoop is a classic where Facebook stalking.

And stuff like that.

Yeah, we, we had, we had a mother in a group that used to share the story that she would dress in all black and go in her son's room at like the morning and belly crawl across the room and sneak his phone off of the nightstand and snoop through his phone at night. And that makes possible. Exactly. That makes us crazy. I think just the normal stuff of trying to control it and fix it, and it just doesn't work. I used to talking about people crazy, take time off of work, and I would go and follow him around to see if he showed up for his work and would try to find his car and just, and sit out in the parking lot for a couple hours to see if he actually came out after work. So, yeah, I've done, done most all those.

You've done all those things and it wouldn't be so bad, but they just don't work. Right. And so like I always say, if you try to control this problem externally, you're just never going to win. Yeah, I mean, it's this cat and mouse thing where they're constantly trying to outsmart you and you're constantly trying to outsmart them and nothing happens but a bunch of resentments on both sides.

Well, exactly. And then that's where the arguments and that's where all the chaos and then you obviously start to just really dislike one another and, and all that just, it really create, and then it creates so much turmoil in the, in the extended family, you know, because this is going on with you and the addict and now, now everybody's kind of going crazy because your, your relationship with your spouse obviously is suffering and your relationship with the other children are suffering and, and what, what it becomes is you actually have no other life other than trying to control the addict.

Yep. And then Grandma and Grandpa, if they know about, they get involved and they say you're just being mean to my grandbaby. And they sneak in money behind the scenes, behind your back anyway, or they're picking them up, trying to, trying to sort of undermine you. They're not really trying to undermine you, but they feel like, oh, you're being mean because the person with the addiction is splitting between you and it's just, it just mess of chaos and toxic toxicity.

And you do because you start blaming the addict and you start to really dislike them. And it's like if, because we, you know, certainly there's different thoughts but. But if you believe that addiction is a disease, then it'd be like you were blaming them for having a disease and you certainly wouldn't do that if they had cancer or some other disease. So that just, it kind just none of that works. One other final story, just on what I used to do. I used to wake up at six in the morning. I would go on our Verizon account and I would look at his text and his phone calls, you know, so you obviously have a history of all their stuff. And I could see what time he went to bed. I would see what, who he was texting and calling at 3 in the morning and. But what good does that do? It did. I mean it didn't do anything. Didn't. It may be confirmed that I knew he was doing all this shady stuff, but it didn't fix anything.

Right. And you're, and when you do all that, you probably are going to find out a bunch of information that you really wish you didn't find out. Right. Because once you know some things, you can't unknow it.

Exactly.

This scars you almost as traumatic. And then you have this secret information that you can't even tell them you got. Because you snuck and you got it right. Anything with it anyways, it's just, it just doesn't work for so many reasons. All right, those of you who are watching, have you done this? It's confession time. Let us know. Have you, have you done any of these? Sneaking, spying, trying to. Controlling. Have you had any luck with it? Maybe you, maybe you invented something we hadn't heard about. But yeah, I've heard some. I've heard some good ones. So many trackers on the cars, on the phones. I've had parents that did the. I don't know how you do it. Don't. Don't try to find Those people not recommending it don't. But there's some kind of software you activate on someone's phone where they. It'll literally activate the microphone in their phone and you can hear what they're doing. We had a mom who did that once. Let me tell you something. She heard some things she did not want to hear that she cannot unhear. Okay, My warning, people. All right, so let's talk about a little about what you can control. Scott, tell us what. Tell us what we can do.

Well, we certainly can obviously control our own recovery. And we always, you know, we really encourage families to go to yourself, as you will hear if you go to any kind of Al Anon meeting or any support group. But I think that's the first thing. And then the attitude. I think your attitude of the whole situation has a ton to do with it. And I like to say, like, if you live as if, you know, when we're in this chaos, we certainly ask ourselves, why me? Why did this happen to our family? And we live kind of like as if we are defeated. And so if you live as if you're a victim, you're probably going to be a victim. If you live as if you're defeated of this situation, you probably are going to be defeated. But when you start going to yourself and start trying to work on you, which is the only thing we can control is us, I think you can get a better attitude and start living as if, you know, if you live as if you do have a higher power and you believe there's a higher power in this world, you start feel a little less out of control because you believe your higher power is in control. And so that helped me calm my fears a little bit and feel like I had a little more control because I felt like, hey, I really do believe, you know, in my higher power. And it helped me calm those fears down a little bit and help me start to actually have a little more control of me. Doesn't mean you're going to have control of your. Of the. Of the addicted loved one.

But.

But you start to get a little more control of yourself, right?

And. And one of the things that's helped me along the way, because, believe it or not, counselors, we get crazy, too. When I was a baby, counselor, I did so many codependent things. I'm glad the licensing board didn't find out, because I would be licensed to help you all right now. I did ridiculous things, just chasing people down, trying to get my trouble. Can't. Can't. This silliness but one of the things that helped me along the way is I've seen the process so many times now that I almost just learned to trust the process. I know that sounds silly, but I've seen people get better so many times, and it just allows me to sort of back up and give them the space to do that. And I know that's hard if you haven't been around it a lot, you know, and this is your child or something. It's hard. But all I can tell you is they go through those bargaining phases. They do all that trial and error, and if you can just back up and let it go down, it'll happen faster.

Exactly. Well, and that's the thing, you know, obviously, we try to control. One way we try to control is we try to take away the consequences. And if you will. If you'll let the process work and let the consequences. Whatever consequences they incur for their actions, if you let those happen, we definitely believe it happens quicker, because eventually they're gonna. Hopefully they're gonna realize that I'm kind of tired of these consequences when I make these bad decisions.

Right. And sometimes, especially parents. Well, and spouses, too, really, you get held hostage by the fact that it's like, well, if I let this one thing go down, it might ruin their whole life.

Right.

And so you constantly feel like you. You have to make sure they graduate high school, or you. You have to make sure that legal thing that, you know, they. You pay this big lawyer and they get out of it, you know, and. Because otherwise, it's going to ruin life. The complicated thing, though, is, is that the thing you got to focus on is this addiction part, because that's going. Is already ruining their whole life. So it's sort of put your energy in the right places.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And I think the other thing that you can control, which goes along with. I always say the formula is allow the natural consequence. That's part A of the formula. Part B of the formula is to manage your relationship with that person. Because I. The power in the relationship is the power that you have. And I've learned that myself a few times. I learned it as a school teacher. I don't know if you know this, Scott, but one of my first jobs was I was a. I was a high school teacher right out of college. I was, like, barely older than these kids.

Bless your heart.

I don't know. I don't know if y' all are old enough. And y' all remember this old movie with Michelle Pfeiffer. In it called, like, Dangerous Minds. If you do. That's about the kind of school I was in, okay. And I was just like a baby. I got called a B word every day, and I was probably. I was just out. And it was one of these schools, like, where the principal would not expel people or they. And they wouldn't fail people because it was, like, his mission to save all these kids who would never graduate otherwise. So it was like, there was no sending them to the principal's office. And you call the parent, they just curse you out, like. And I learned that you had to build a relationship with someone to get them to do what you want. The relationship is the power, and I've learned it over and over and over again. If you build that relationship with someone they want to do, they want to make you proud, they want to do what's right. And so when you're engaged in all those things where we're trying to control them, we're damaging the one tool that we have, which is that relationship.

I don't think there's any way to have a good relationship when you're trying to control. As a parent, when we get so crazy. There's no way. I mean, Zach and I had a really close relationship, and then when I started trying to control and fix it, our relationship went really bad and stayed bad for a couple years and obviously started learning and started realizing what wasn't working and started changing and going to myself and working and learning, learning about the process, learning from others who had been in it before me, and. And then started trying to rebuild the relationship. And it certainly started helping.

Yeah. Because it. Number one is you're. You know, I always say this. Y' all hear me say it all the time. You quit distracting them. You're distracting them from seeing the problem, number one. And secondly, you know when spouses say this a lot. Right. And I've got a video coming out soon about it, but it's like, if you loved me, you wouldn't. Well, the crazier you act, the less appealing you are, and the more appealing that drug is.

Exactly.

I know that's not fair, but it's reality.

Well, you know, we as parents try it all. We try the screaming. We try the crying. We try the begging. And all they do is look at us like we are. We've gone insane. And they go out and say, I wasn't going to use tonight, but because that guy has gone nuts. I mean, he's driving me insane, so I've got to use because I can't deal with him.

It's just an excuse for them. Yeah, right. I had somebody, one of the people that's in our invisible intervention course, they were. They sent me a message today, and they're giving me some feedback. And one of the. I wrote it down because I thought, oh, my gosh, it's so perfect. But she said, my new goal is to be the kind of person my husband wants to spend time with. And I was like, okay, this person is getting the message.

Yep.

When I used to run Teen Teenager Iop, that was rough, people. My goal was to sort of make the group a situation where it's like, we like you more than you're using friends like you. It's like, I'm gonna win and beat this addiction and beat these using friends and beat these drug dealers by being more appealing, not by being crazy. And that actually is, believe it or not, you can win that way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

You know, in talking to a lot of parents, I think sometimes early on, I think parents get the misconception that when we talking about boundaries and certain things, that it's almost like, well, well, I can't love my child. You can love your child through the entire process, whether they continue to use. You're going to continue to love your child, or obviously, if they get better, that's even better. But never do we say, you can't. You can't have that relationship. We want you to continue to build that relationship. But. But you got to do that even when times aren't good, Even through relapses especially, is hard because you get, you know, people get angry and. And they get so. They blame and they don't understand that relapse is a part of the process. But you're going to love them all the way through. It's hard at times. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's easy, but we. When we're talking about setting boundaries and working on yourself and all that, we certainly want you to continue loving them through the good and the bad.

Right. The. There's a saying, recovery, we say all the time, which is connection is the opposite of addiction. If there's one thing that can heal or cure or fix addiction, it's connection. The problem is, is that when the person starts to go awry, they just do everything possible to push everyone away from them, and that destroys the one thing that can fix the issue. If you're trying to stay connected to the person in your life has a substance abuse problem, one of the best ways to do that is to have good boundaries for yourself. And what I mean by that is don't do a lot of things that you don't want to do and don't put up with a lot of behavior you don't want to, because it's going to be hard to keep liking them if you're letting them treat you like, dude, right? Like, yeah, that's. That's another key to it.

Yep.

And our, our last one, which Scott mentioned earlier, was the last, not, probably not the last thing, control, but it's the next thing on the list, which is you can make sure that you understand what you're dealing with, meaning you understand addiction and how it works, and also that you understand what the solutions are to the problem. That's so empowering because now you know what you're dealing with. And y' all know on this channel, we like to say, and then you get a strategy. Tell us about that, Scott.

Well, I think the first mistake we make when we're trying to figure this out is we talk to people, whether it be, you know, mother, the grandparents or brothers and sisters or neighbors that haven't been through it, and they're going to give their opinion, which normally is wrong. Until you start going to support groups or to parents that have been through this ahead of you and that have the experience that really understand it and can tell you some things that you ought to be trying, then I think certainly that starts to help. And when you start to see the hope of other families that have gone through this but have actually gotten better, or you hear from all the wrong things they did, which obviously is my situation dealing with this for seven or eight years. Like, somebody used to tell me I've made all the mistakes, so just ask me. I'll be glad to tell you all the mistakes so that you don't repeat them. And. But yeah, I think you just got to educate yourself and learn as much as you can and then just really try to work on you. And I think that really helps. I don't know how I would have went through it without going to a support group. And it's very helpful.

Tell us a little bit about where your son is now, because I feel like it's just super helpful for people to understand how bad it can get in the darkest of days. And, and we're. And if you guys want to hear Scott's personal story, it's actually on this channel. I'll try to link it up for you guys after this video. You can hear about sort of the depths of where it got to, which was pretty bad.

Yeah, the real short version, but it got really, really bad and you know, an OD to where he probably should have died and. And somebody gave him C CPR for 15, 20 minutes to keep him alive. And so obviously he lived through it, but it's just this month, I think it's about a week and a half ago, he celebrated his third year of sobriety and so he's doing so much better. So really, really, really proud of him. And he's got a girlfriend now. He's seems to have fallen in love, but he's been working at the rehab that he got sober at now for a little bit over a year and a half and he just loves it. And they. I think he's doing a really good job. They love his work. And so, yeah, he's doing great. And then. And then my stepson, he just celebrated a year and a month sobriety, so he's doing better as well. So, yeah, I mean, you know, obviously the depths of both of those, again, really, really bad to where you just didn't think it was ever going to get any better. And to see both of them in a much better place is a miracle. But, but, but miracles work. And I just think it gives other people hope because, you know, sometimes I was at a point, many times over the last eight years that I never thought it would get better.

And Scott and I were talking before we went live about one of Scott's son's really good friends is someone that we both know and we were kind of teasing. We said, man, if there's a kid I thought would never get it had been that kid. And he's doing awesome too. And they're like good buddies in recovery now.

It is to see that is certainly miracles. And so, you know, I hope that gives people hope. That. And again, I think that goes back to the more you can go to a home group or go to these meetings and you hear these stories. It's uplifting, you know, and again, my situation, I would go to these meetings and hear people say that, you know, addiction was the best thing that ever happened to their family. And I thought they were nuts, but truly I can say the same thing today. And you know, I think many people, if they'll continue to go to these meetings and stuff to get that hope and all, it. It'll happen.

It. Do you ever. When you're in the depths of the darkness, you know, is it ever hard to hear stories like what you were sharing where. Where people's situations have Turned around. What's that? As a parent? Is it kind of annoying? Is it aggravating?

Sometimes it can be, it can be maddening. You know, you go to one of these meetings and your life is just in shambles and you walk in and everybody's laughing and talking and, and they, you know, they, they may talk about that, oh, how, how their son just did this and he's been, like I just said, three years sober and, and you know, your son is, is on his fifth relapse and you know, don't, don't even know if he's under a bridge or you don't know where he is. It's hard to hear. But, but honestly, I think you just got to keep going back. And you know, certainly there always are times that, or there's times that are tough when you go to those meetings. But most every time, even, even at the beginning of the meeting, I might have been very angry and bitter, but normally after the meeting I felt better that I went. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's hard, it's hard to hear sometimes when you're in the, when you're in the deepest, darkest times.

And you know, give yourself permission to laugh, give yourself permission to be light. I know it, it's almost feels like, you know, why would I do that when I'm this bad place? Well, number one, you, you're already in a bad place. You don't need to self torture any more than you already have to deal with. And it's not helping you or them. One of the ways I know someone in recovery is getting better is when I see them like in these groups or whatever and they're laughing about, you know, they're telling the stories and, and you may, if you're an outsider and you look at that, you may think, well, they're just making light of it and they don't even care. That's not what's happening at all. What's happening is, it's like they've come so far on the other side of it, the shame's not there. They can look back at the ridiculousness of what went down and they can talk about it in a healthy way.

Yeah, well, sometimes just that one hour distraction because, you know, we all, when you're in the, when you're in the depths of it, you worry so much, you know, and I, I think you guys used to tell me that, you know, at some point in the night, after you've worried about it all day and all night, you just got to say, and you kind of Got to just visually say, you know what? I'm putting this worry in a box. I'm going to set it over here to the side, and I'm just not going to think about this anymore tonight and try to have an hour or two to read or do something that you enjoy to just. And just visually say, I'm going to set this to the side and I'll pick it up tomorrow. And we'll pick it up tomorrow and we'll start worrying about it again tomorrow. But I think that distraction is a big help sometimes just to go to a meeting to get it off your mind and see people actually enjoying themselves.

Right. And let yourself be lighter. I do want to say. I do want to say that somebody recently, on a video I made about a year ago where we talking about something not exactly this, but something similar, they left a message, I just saw this, like yesterday or day before, and I want to rent my Sweet Thing. It says, this feels a lot like fake it till you make it mindset, which sounds like an inauthentic, almost induced denial, toxic possibility, positivity, or living like an imposter mindset. And the question is, is how do you stay grounded and present and working toward what you want to manifest in your life, but not sort of be in this denial? You have any feedback about that?

I don't know if it makes sense, Amber, but personally, I think. I think of faith when I hear stuff like that, is that if you have faith again of that higher power, faith helps you put one foot in front of the other when you don't want to. That's helped me. I mean, there's been many times where obviously I did not want to go to the meeting. I didn't want to get. I didn't even want to. I didn't even want to see people. I didn't want to. I didn't want to see my own family. I didn't want to talk to anybody because it was so bad. But I think, you know, having faith and just putting one foot in front of the other and you may have to fake it for a little bit, but I think it helps you get on the other side.

Right. And I. I'll just add to what Scott's saying, which is if you're watching my videos, then you're probably not in denial. So go ahead and give yourself a little cut yourself a break on it, right? Because. Because we talk about a lot of hard things on here that you makes. You really have to look at what's happening. And there's a Difference. And I know what. I know what this person's talking about because I've seen a lot of parents, and I know you have, too, Scott, which they're just in this, like, denial, like, pretending it's not happening or it's not, and that isn't healthy. This is. What we're talking about, is a choice that you're making to move forward anyways, which is slightly different than, you know, like, lying to yourself about what's happening. We're not talking about lying to yourself about what's happening. This is sort of different. It's a choice that you can make.

Well, you know, every. Every situation is different, but basically, both with my sons, it was so bad. There was no denying it. It was. You know, you can't deny when you're in jail and you're totaling cars and you're overdosing these things. So I. I don't know, maybe my situation, I never had the denial problem just because it was so bad.

Well, in the. Within the. In the early stages, when it just starts happening, you know, and. And it's just little things, you know, they're just skipping school or, you know, something like that, you can kind of not realize exactly what's happening in those stages. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we're going to take some questions. Before we do that, I will tell you that if you are in this kind of situation and you need a little help and support, whether that's understanding addiction or working on your attitude or any of those things we talked about, and you want to talk to Scott, there will be a link in the description that will tell you how you can schedule a session, a coaching session with Scott, and he can help walk you through any of those type situations. Let's take some questions. Let's see. Terry says, is there a good time to replay to the addict, that you don't believe their story that they are shaking too much because of coffee, or to let them know when they go to the car for a break, for a drink. What I think Terry's saying, can you call them out on their sketchiness? Is that what you're saying there? What do you think?

Well, you certainly can. They're. They're going to deny the heck out of it, and they're going to make you try to feel like you're crazy. And, you know, I think you got a great video on gaslighting and stuff. They're going to just deny. But certainly, I mean, yeah, I mean, if you. If you think you need to call them out, I'm not sure how much it's going to help, but they're going to just. They're going to deny everything.

Yeah, they. Yeah, it. You can do it, but it may not. It may backfire on you. And then you're going to be mad because it's happening, and then you're mad because they lied to you about it.

And then. And then you. Then you follow them and sneak and catch them because you can prove that. You can prove that you're not crazy, that you prove that you told you so. But none of that works. So.

Right. I will say that if you have developed a good relationship with this person, regardless, you can call it out then, like, I do it all the time. I'll do it funny and be like, try again, but. Or I'll be like, yeah, not. Not even leaving you. And I'll say it funny, like, to my clients or something like that. And they'll. They'll laugh. I'll say it to my own son sometimes, like, yeah, I'm not believing that at all. And then we kind of laugh or whatever. So it's possible in those situations, you got to really think through the dynamics and how you want to handle something like that. Yep. Let's see here. We got a lot of people with us. Emily and sensible crime. Angela and Lucy says she's done it all. Let's see here. Danielle says, my ex used to do it with me, call my friends, stalk my Facebook. It just made me more mad. So Danielle's been on the other side of that. It's not helpful, is it, Danielle?

Exactly.

It does not make you want to act better. Nope.

Doesn't make you want to spend time with that person for sure.

Right. It really don't make you care what they think. Right. It kind of goes way further down that list. Donna says, yes, I did all those things trying to control, learn to let it go, and, oh, she left us on a cliffhanger. Let's see here. Brandy says, amber, you are my support group. I understand you're educating more and support group than I've been through. Well, thank you. I'm glad that. And. And doing stuff like this is a support group. It is educating yourself. It is working on your own recovery. So it definitely counts.

Absolutely.

Joel says after hearing Scott's story and their family's journey, it's such a win to get this update on both of his son's recovery. What a win. Thank you, Scott, for sharing your journey and everyone. Check out his story. My husband and I have learned so much through your sharing you do give us hope and you do help us all. Hugs and high fiving you right now.

Thank you, Joelle. That's very sweet. Yeah, it's. They've come a long way.

Yeah, I was, I was. I was there when there was the dark times. Let me promise you, it was some dark times.

Dark times.

All right. Courtney says everybody is better when you're there, even when you don't feel like go and go regardless. I think Courtney must be talking about, like, getting support and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Hey, Connie. And let's see. Vicki's got something to say here. My loved one's natural consequence is now dealing with legal trouble, but it seems to be the wake up call that she needed. Now I wonder how long it's going to take her to get her life back on track. Talk about that, because I know that that's a fe. Because big things happen, right? And you think, can my child, my spouse, my parent ever dig their way out of this?

Yeah, I think that's our fear. But, you know, just all the stories that I've seen over the last seven or eight years, it's amazing what they can overcome. You know, there's obviously, if you get into, you know, a bad DUI wreck and you hurt someone and you may not have a car. I know Zach's first counselor, who now owns part of the rehab that he went through, didn't have a car for five years because of a DUI accident and he hurt someone. And guess what? He made it. He overcame it. He figured out how to get to work. He figured out how to go places, but he didn't drive for five years. Zach has a roommate right now that for the last year he rides his bicycle to work. He has no car, he has no driver's license. So these consequences, sometimes they are very tough. But in most cases, it's what the addict needs. I say need. It's just. It's part of life. It's their. It's their consequence. They. They've incurred the consequence, and then they just have to overcome it. But there's so many stories that people overcome these things. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't let that make me help them avoid the consequence. I would just support them through them overcoming the consequence.

A lot of times when I see people early in the process and they've dug themselves into some kind of huge. I always tell them that's what I do is I dig people out of holes. But, you know, they feel like their situation is just past redeemable. Right. Like they have these giant legal problems or these giant financial problems, or they. No one in their life wants to talk to them, you know, or their kids won't even speak to them, you know, and they feel like they're situation is just not fixable. And I. I tell them this. It's hard for them to believe at the time, but I've done this for so long. I've seen so many people always say, I cannot tell you how because it's always different. But what I can tell you is when you get your life on track, the rest of it starts to line up and fix. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I'm just saying, like, it works itself out. Like, I dealt with somebody one time, long time ago who got in a shootout with the police because they were messed up. And it worked out. They got it. It fixed itself. And you would have thought, well, that's not gonna fix itself. Right, Tony? It just does.

I wanted to go back. One other thing, Amber. It came to my attention just thinking, you know, when I talked about going to meetings and maybe you hear people laughing when you're really down. One thing I will tell you that, that once families know that you're hurting when you go to a support group and they know you're in a really bad place, there's no other place that are going to love on you and support you than when you go to a support group. So I guess I just didn't want people to think that they wouldn't get supported if they were really down. You know, Some of my deep, deepest, darkest times, going to a meeting and people not. Not that they even tried to give me any advice. It's just. Listen to you sympathize with your situation and then just love on you and certainly makes you feel better. So.

Right.

Just. We didn't want people thinking that if they. If they've never been to a meeting that, oh, I'm afraid to go to a meeting because they're not gonna. They're not gonna understand. They certainly understand. And. And they'll just love on you.

Let's see. I just saw a really good comment that I wanted to speak on. Let me find. Here it is. Mickey says, but it doesn't feel good to sit and watch them do all those bad things and pretend we're too stupid to know the truth. Here's what I want to say to you, Mickey. One thing that can help you is knowing secretly that you know what's up. I will let people sit in my office and think they manipulate Me, because I'm really five steps ahead of them. I got them right where I want them. I don't care what they think at the time because I'm like, what do you think what you want? Because I'm win this. So that helped me. But also what I would say to that is don't let your ego get in your way. This is about winning the war and this is not about looking good every moment. Sometimes you gotta get messy to win a war and so keep your, keep your eye on the prize kind of thing. That's what I would say.

And also, you know, and you also don't, you know, you don't have to act like you're in denial. You don't have to, you know. And so if it's, if it's really bad, that's where boundaries are going to come in to where you're not going to actually let that be around you anyway. So I think with boundaries and other. What we're just saying is it, it doesn't do any good to point it out or to, to, to call them on it because they're, all they're going to do is lie and make you feel, you know, crazy. But I think boundaries. I'm not exactly sure the situation she's talking about, but boundaries may help in that situation as well. Yeah, we're not telling you to be in denial about it.

Right. See, Barbara says I currently have legal custody of my 39 year old daughter's young children. They are 6 and 9. She's incarcerated for the past month. After a short 28 day stay in addiction center, she was convinced she could move into her own apart. Lastly lasted only a week. She always asked for money, gas, cigarettes. Previously she and the children stayed through the summer long enough for me to get enrolled in school. I did not have custody, so the police did not take me seriously. She was paranoid and delusional. Got anything on that, Scott?

Oh, that's just tough. You know, obviously I commend you for trying to obviously take care of her children and all that. That's just really hard. You know, I, I think obviously just having boundaries, but trying to love her through this and, and encourage her to get help. You know, I think that's what happens A lot of times people will go through a short recovery and think that you got to jump right back into a job and maybe even jump right back into the family to where the addiction is. The, is the key thing. They have to learn to overcome that or everything else doesn't matter. And I think we See that a lot sometimes, as a matter of fact, we'll get people going through rehab, that's a six month program, and think after two months that they're ready to, hey, okay, I'm, I'm fine now, I've got it and I'm gonna jump right back in. And whether it's jump right back into school or go back into their old career, and that just normally doesn't work.

Right. I would tell you too, Barbara, just exactly like what Scott's saying, he's dead on track, is a lot of times it's not even so much that they don't mean it and that they are leaving treatment thinking, I'm gonna go use. If you're, if your daughter made it a week, that meant she intended to not use because otherwise she would have literally used power. She was out. So what that tells me, Barbara, is that she's just in those bargaining stages and maybe in denial about what it really takes to get better. You know, I talk all the time. There's all these stages, there's, I don't have a problem. I have problem, but it's not that bad. It's like, okay, I have a problem, but I can fix it easy. So that's where you're at. You're on that stage or she's on that stage, Barbara. And so, you know, it takes a lot to come to terms with the fact that it's going to mean changing everything and it's going to take a while. And so my guess is it's just, it's just a bargain that she thought maybe like, I got this and she didn't. Yeah, yeah. Angela says, can an addict fresh out of rehab for meth successfully live with another addict fresh out of rehab for meth and live happily ever after? No, I feel like I can't say anything, but I fear relapse. What you got, Scott?

Well, I've got personal experience of that, that when, when Zach first got out of his, I guess it was maybe third rehab, he, he went to sober living with three other young, very new recovering addicts. Lasted about two months and, and they, a couple of them started relapsing and using even heavier. So not saying that it can't happen, but I would certainly say that the living situation, if you can have a mix of recovering addicts at different stages in their recovery would be more helpful. But again, I wouldn't say that it just absolutely not going to happen. We see it happen, you know, certainly, but I would be, I think it would be a better situation if you had somebody being sober two or three years, but the problem with that, a lot of times if somebody's been sober two or three years, they may not be willing to take in somebody that's only a couple months sober because they're trying to protect their own recovery. So that can be a difficult situation to try to find. What you would think is your ideal living situation, what I would suggest is not to try to control it and let them. It's their recovery and wherever they got sober and their mentors at the time would be better advising them. I, I wouldn't try to, I wouldn't try to like set up their recovery saying, oh, you got to go live with somebody that's 14 months sober versus two months sober.

That's. God, I just had a funny thought when you said that when he popped in my mind when you said, when you said, like, let their mentor or recovery person or counselor, whoever advised them on that. Let me tell you what these parents gonna do call it. Right now. They're gonna be calling up the mentor, recovery coach, counselor. That still counts as controlling people. Don't do it. All right, let's, let's see what Sarah has to say. If your spouse is a functioning alcoholic and uses marijuana, seem like they hit their bottom when they went to jail and almost divorced, went to Iop but decided they weren't as bad as the people in IP Classic and thinks they can manage it, but you see them slowly spiral down. Do you just sit there? Do you share your concern or do you sit back and wait until another rock bottom type of event? I'll give that to you, Scott. What you got?

I was going to say, you may correct me, you know, certainly I think I would share my concern. It's a spouse, I believe. Right? So, I mean, I think, I think I would share my concern and express that concern. And then of course, again, it's back to what boundaries? You said if you, if you set a boundary where you're not going to live as long as, you know with your spouse, I'm just not going to live with an alcoholic. I'm not going to live with somebody using, I'm not going to live. I shouldn't set an alcoholic. I'm just not going to live with you while you're using. So that boundary and, or maybe, you know, if you hadn't set that boundary, maybe it's something for you to think about. But if that's not a boundary you set, then maybe you think about that or you at least express your concern to him.

That it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. To express your concern. I think you'll have a lot more success with it if you figure out how to do it strategically, how to watch your tone, don't talk about it too long. And then also, you know, really sort of put some positive reinforcement in there along with it. Sarah. It'll go over a lot better. Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down kind of thing. Y. All right, we're going to take one more here from Paige. My friend who's 50, has been dealing with an addiction, has recently decided to become female born a man. Is the deep addiction issue even worse or better now? Well, this is a new question. Scott, what you got? I'm gonna have this question.

I'm gonna let you handle that one.

I'm thinking about this one. Let's see. My 50, dealing with addiction has recently started to become female born in. Is a deep addiction issue better or worse now? I don't know, Paige. I don't. I think I don't have enough, unfortunately, I feel like I don't have enough details to know because you've got addiction issue, and then you've got, like, a gender identity issue. And I could see that go. I could see that go any kind of way. One thing is, when you do a gender switch, there's a lot of hormones involved, which makes people. Their mood really fluctuate, which can. Which can exacerbate addiction. But I could also see if they were completely miserable before and this is a thing they've not been dealing with, that they may feel a relief from that and they may help. So I don't. I can't give a solid answer on that without knowing all the details. But I appreciate you asking a question we hadn't had before. That's a new one. I always like that. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. If you want to talk with Scott, the links in the description, and I'm going to put up the video in case you want to see Scott's full story. And you watch that next. Bye, everybody.

Bye, guys.