Is It Okay to Give Gifts to Someone Who Has Addiction Problems? 🎁❓

It's the holiday season, and I know that many of you are struggling with how to balance gift giving during the holidays. But also, you might be a little bit fearful that you could either trigger someone to relapse with giving someone money or gifts, or you could be enabling an addiction that's. That's already sort of in. In player, an active addiction. And I know that's a real difficult balancing act, and it can make you pretty stressed, honestly, because it feels like there's no easy right answer. You want to do something nice for your loved one, but you don't want to do the wrong thing. And so in this video, we're going to talk about where is that line between gift giving and enabling? What's okay and what's maybe not the best idea? For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the shovel down. This YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction. Because it's our goal to help you get your life and your family back on track so you can live the life that you want to live. And on this channel, we really, really work hard to give you practical, realistic strategies. Not a lot of philosophy per se, not a lot of story, although we do give stories because those are helpful. But we want you to have the actual tools to beat addiction for good. All right, so today, let's explore a little bit, and I want you guys to join in this conversation with me about the dilemma of giving someone a gift who's either in active addiction or maybe in early recovery, because both of those scenarios might be making you a little bit nervous. Now, some of you, if you've watched me for a while, you may have heard me say that I, as like an addiction counsel person, am not nearly is uptight about gift giving and money, as most probably addiction counselors would be, or even other people in recovery, even what they might tell you, because, I mean, a lot of times families feel this pressure. Like if you. If you give them $5 and they go out and they buy drugs with that and they kill themselves, and that's on you. Well, here's what I say to that. That's ridiculous. Okay, first of all, $5 never made or break made or can't make or break any addiction. And secondly, even if they did go out and buy drugs with your $5 or whatever it was, it wouldn't be on you. Right? It's on the illness. It's on the addiction. So the first piece of advice I want to give you about this topic is take the pressure off, because you're probably as a family member, a friend, a loved one, you're stressing yourself out about what's the right thing to do, what's the right thing to do. And those same people out there that are telling you you can't control it, you can't cure it and you didn't cause it, they're telling you all them three Cs, they're also telling you, but don't give them this and don't give them that. And if you give them a gift card, they're going to trade it in for drugs. If you give them this gift, they're going to take it back. And you know what? That could definitely be the case. I'm not even trying to say it's not the case, but what I'm saying is that's not on you and it's not on you to try to have to control or worry about or put on yourself. So lighten the load a little bit and let's, let's pull it back down from Super Stressville into reality and let's get a little bit more rational, I guess I would say, about the situation. You know, the thing about gift giving is it's just, it's a token of care, concern, affection, love. It's, it's something from your heart. And if you try to get all that tangled up into the. What will they do with it? Is this the right thing? Is that the wrong thing? Am I enabling? You're just going to upset yourself and you're going to cause yourself to have not as good holidays as you could have. So let's rein that in. In general, I advise, if you've got a loved one that's addicted, yeah, it's probably not the best idea to be giving them money every week or every month or paying all their bills. We've dealt with a lot of families who own businesses who have like the addicted person on the payroll who's literally earning a paycheck, earning like a good living usually without ever even working. Now that, that's just flat enabling, right? Like, that's pretty clear. Giving someone a Christmas present is giving someone a Christmas presentation, right? And I know you're you stressed because you're like, even if I give them a thing, even if I give them socks, they could take it back to Target or whatever. They could take it back to Walmart and they get their money. And I'm telling you, just let go of all that. You need to sort of do what feels right in your heart. You're not trying to don't do anything extreme, don't be silly about it. But don't feel like you have to make this choice out of a fear place because it's not your job to control what they do with it. Okay. And it's not your responsibility. It's not, it does, it doesn't fall on you. Whatever they choose to do with the gift. And when you start going down that road, you get yourself stressed out because sometimes people are like, well, give them a coat, you know, maybe they are cold or give them food or something like that. Well, yeah, they'll, they'll take food back to the grocery store, have seen it done lots of times. So there's no way around this. How do I say, sort of try to set this up so that I can give them something and I know they can't do anything sketchy with it. And I, what I'm telling you is just stop stressing about it. Just be more natural about it. I also don't want you to feel like that you're having to give or give someone something from that opposite fearful place. And that's the fearing that you have to do something for someone. Like if you, if you don't give them money, this bad thing's going to happen or if you. And feeling like you're obligated to give financial support or a gift or something like that. When you are making a decision based on fear, it's probably the wrong decision. And honestly you're probably just over complicating the situation. Now the other little piece that I want to kind of add on to this is in this topic, everybody tends to worry about what's best or not best for the addicted person. And I'm not saying that that's not important. But what I am saying is your needs and the family needs are important too. And if, if this is your kid or this is your spouse or this is your parent and literally your heart cannot take the idea of not giving them a gift or not inviting them to the holiday dinner or something, then if you need to do that for you, you do that for you. Because it's your holiday too and your needs matter too. And if it, if it just upsets you to know when and it's going to totally ruin your whole holiday to think, I can't believe I just left my kid out there, it's Christmas, or my spouse or my parent and I didn't do anything for them and you just feel like that's so wrong, it's messing you up. You feel like you need to do something then, then do it, right? Like I'm telling you, you're not going to make or break someone's addiction with a gift. Especially like a one time gift, right? If you're, if you're constantly bankrolling, then that's a different story, right? But trying to feel like you have to resist, you have to give them the cold shoulder, you have to not speak to them, you have to cut them off that number one, it's not gonna make someone conquer their addiction, I promise you. And number two, it's just gonna stress you out to the maximum, right? And you're just gonna upset your own holiday. I remember a couple years ago I did a live video on this topic and somebody, I can't remember exactly who, but somebody was saying that their kid, their kids water heater or something went out and they were really stressed about it and they wanted to help them fix their water heater. But I think maybe like the husband didn't or something like that and there was all this stress about it. And that's where I say I don't want you to feel like you have to do it. So like you're doing stuff that's putting yourself in financial jeopardy or you're not paying your own water bill because you're paying their water bill or something like that. Don't do that because you're still making that decision out of fear. But if you're scared that you paid a water bill one time or you help someone get their hot water thing fixed or whatever and you're thinking, oh my gosh, what if I'm like. Because people will tell you you're killing them, you're contributing to the illness and if you know something happens, it's on you. Come on. People like its own addiction, like let's, let's call it what it is. The problem is the addiction. There's nothing you're gonna say or give someone that's going to make a break, especially on a one time gift. Right now let's see who's joining us, who's here with us. And I want to hear what you guys experience are with it. If you are a person who struggled with addiction now or in the past, or if you're in recovery, I for sure want to hear from you because you guys are the expert witnesses. What do you think about this? And if you are wondering this question because you're not sure what to do because you have a loved one struggling, then let me, let us know what your, what your situation is. What's your Dilemma. And maybe together we can figure it all out. All right, let me get over here and see if I can see you guys. We have Hannah. Hey, Hannah. Hannah says, this is awesome. I'm a Recovering Addict and YouTuber. This is a great video. Glad to have you here, Nana. We have someone here. I can't pronounce your name. I wish I could. And we have Ant. And Anthony says, what would you suggest for an addict that wants to stay clean but has trouble having money around? That's a really great question. And I feel like if. If. If the person that has the addiction, they're trying to be better, if they're acknowledging that they are triggered by having money and they ask their family, hey, don't give me cash. Or a lot of times people even ask certain family member friend to, like, keep a watch over their bank account or kind of help them be financially responsible to help them avoid the trigger. I think that's totally fine. If. If you're the one asking for that help and you're the one asking your family to do or not do certain things, that's wonderful. That's insightful. That takes a lot of willingness. It takes a lot of humility. You do that if you're the family member and you're just trying to impose that on the other person because you think that's what's best. That's where we get into them boundary issues, where it's like your side of the street and their side street. I used to have a client, long time ago, and he's like, dude, if I have more than 53 cents in my pocket, it's a trigger I'm going to use. And he knew that about himself, right? And he. He knew that early on he didn't need to have money because it was such a trigger. And that's. It's a pretty common trigger. A lot of times, if someone hasn't been working and then they start working in their early recovery, getting those paychecks, you know, having a good amount of money like that, that's a big trigger for people. We have matriarch evangelist Stella here. Hey, thank you for the kind words. Let's see, who else, Kim. Or we have Chris here. Chris says, I try to be a little more understanding. So y' all can see that there. I have more. Anthony says, I have more cravings. Having money. Yeah, I think that's common, Anthony, and it's smart that you recognize that. Let's see here. Laura says, it breaks my heart. I have no idea where my daughter is or how Deep. Her addiction is going on just like a ghost around family. Holidays are hard for me because she's not around. I'm glad you said that, Laura, because we didn't really even address that in this video. But when your heart is broken as a family member and because you have someone that you love and you care about and you don't know where they are, or they're just. Maybe they're there, but they're not there, or you know that their life is in shambles. You seeing everybody else so happy and celebrating and being around their family, it can be a huge trigger for the family. Right? Because you're sad and you're. And you're. You're grieving. Right? I remember Campbell. Those of you know Campbell, she's our family, one of our family counselors. And when she was going through it with her son, she tells stories. She tells it better than I do. She. She got to a point, she calls it being in the trough, man. She was in the trough for a long time, and she was depressed, she was angry, she was sad. She was all that stuff. And she said, I was in the YMCA one day. I was working. I was walking on treadmill, and I was like, next to the window. I could see people coming in, and everybody come in. She's like, I can't stand them. You shouldn't even know them, right? She'd see, like, a young family coming in with young kids, and she's like, I can't stand them because, you know, their family's still good and even went through this. Yet she sees old people coming in. She think, I can't. I can't even. I can't believe that. They're just awful. I can't even stand to look at them because they're not dealing with this. And it's just this. This pain in your heart that makes it difficult. I had a client once that was a school teacher, and. And her son was struggling, and she would say, tell me that she couldn't go into the teachers lounge, and she didn't like to sit with other teachers having lunch because everybody would talk about all these great things that were going on with their kids and how painful and how hurtful that what is. If that's you and you're in that situation, you are definitely not alone. And it is okay for you to let the people around you know what's helpful and what's not helpful because they. They want to be supportive and helpful of you, but they don't always. They don't always know how to do that. And if you need to limit your time in those kind of like get together kind of situations, like you don't want to go and spend hours and hours and hours, then I'm giving you permission. It's okay not to do that. Just like I would give someone an early recovery permission. Like if you're going to go to the gatherings and everyone's drinking and using and you want to go, but you don't want to stay long, just make an excuse and exit yourself. It's okay to take care of yourself. Let's see. Stacy says I struggle with how close to be with my son during his battle. He's currently in php. That stands for Partial hospitalization Program for those of you don't know after relapsing. He says I'm his best friend right now, but I'm struggling with his choices. And I think what Stacy's talking about is that I call it the having the front row seat. This is my dog. He's like down there whining, you want to say hello? Say hello. This is Spencer, my little dogs. He's got his little Christmas collar on and he's fussing, wanting to sit up here and see what's happening, what, what Stacy's talking about here. That front row seat situation is. It is hard to have that know what's going on and have all the information and, and tolerate that. Sometimes it's easier not to know all the details, isn't it, Stacy? Let's see here. Anybody else out there worried about this, Worried about the holidays? Whether you are a person in recovery, whether you are a person who has an addicted family member, there are all kinds of challenges that come up with the holidays. And I promise you, whatever challenge you're having, you're not the only one out there. Someone else has been there and there is support out there. Now, if you're wondering what types of gifts maybe are okay or not okay, go back to what, what your heart says you want to do, right? Don't feel like you have to be over extravagant, but don't feel like you have to not get them anything. You know, get somebody some warm socks and a coat and a, and a hoodie or something. Come on now, stop. Stop stressing yourself out about it. Let's see here. Stacy says my daughter clearly has. Sorry, this dog is like all over me. Has an alcohol addiction. She does not admit to it and now has a boyfriend 10 years older that's addicted to heroin. I had to put down the boundary. This addict I do not know is not welcome. At Christmas dinner. He's pretending to be in recovery but still has issues. Oh, that's a hard one, Stacy. So you're saying, like, your. Your daughter's with this guy who you know is an active addiction, and you're like, you're not bringing him over to the house, and that they're trying to say he's not using these in recovery, but, you know, different. That is hard, right? It's. It's hard to set that boundary. But if you know it's going to destroy the whole everybody else's holiday experience, it's not worth it. And probably if you did, it would just be drama anyway, right? And it. It's not going to be helpful for anybody. See, Spencer, your head's in my way. I can't even see here. Hey, Linda. Joelle says so much pressure and heavy emotions to make decisions when to reach out, give a gift or not give a gift, send a text. It's too much. I simply have decided to embrace the present moment, and if our loved one reaches out, we respond. Letting it go has allowed us to feel much less pressure. Man, that's great advice, Joelle. Right? We get in our heads and we overthink these things, and a lot of times, if you will just sort of back up and seem like, take all that fear out of it and just do what's natural. What Joel's saying is for. For her, what's natural is if they reach out, then I'll. I'll reach back. But I. But it didn't feel good for Joelle to be having to chase all the time. It wasn't helping anyone. Catrell. Am I saying your name right? Catrill. I'm sorry if I'm not. Says I'm a person 20 plus years clean and sober, and have been given sponses, Christmas and birthday gifts. So Catrill's a sponsor and he says he gives gifts. So I think that's a good. That's a good role model for us there. Linda says give them things they need, not what they want. I feel like that's a. That's an okay piece of advice there, Linda. I feel like that makes sense, right? Especially if they are in need of a lot of things. Like if they're not doing well and they're, you know, maybe they are living out on the streets and they do need a coat. Obviously, it makes a lot more sense to give somebody in a situation like that some kind of warm coat or pair of boots or socks or something than it would to give them Apple AirPods. Which it would be more likely that they would go and try to return those and get the money and do something. But even if they did, I really still don't want you to stress yourself out about that too much. It's kind of like if you walk by someone who's homeless on the street and you decide to give them money, what they decide to do with that money is their business. Right. It's your side of the street. You did what was right in your own heart. And you don't have to feel responsible for all the things that happen after that. Donnie says, my dog has a big head. He sure does have a big head. Facebook user says, not about the holiday gifting. And I'm wondering about helping family members, wife and children of the person that didn't make a wise monetary decision. Wand has caused a lack of money. So. So what you're saying is you want to help out a family where one of the. One of, like the spouse or somebody made some bad financial decisions. I feel like if that's what your heart's led to do, that's what your heart's led to do. And that the whole purpose. Right. That's the whole. That's the whole idea. I think Anthony says, I'm very concerned. I had a tox screen. The first thought after that was I might be able to get away. It was a scary thought because I'm getting invited to places that are risky. I think what you're saying, Anthony, is you had like a drug screen, and once you got it over with and you're like, okay, now I've got that. Pass me. I've got a while before I have to take another one I can use. Is that what you're saying? I feel like that's a really common one because you're like, all right, if you have to take one once a week or whatever, you know you've got it behind you and you feel like it leaves you that window, that time window open to. To make some bad decisions. And I think I heard you talk before, Anthony, about people, places and things. And if you're getting invited to some places you. You don't need to be, it's okay to. To politely decline or just to not show up, go somewhere else. Go somewhere where people around you are headed in the direction that you're headed, that there can have a good time, but not lead you in a bad situation. Let's see. Let's see if there's any more comments on here. Kelly says, I think you can give them with kindness and the intention of being a gift without punishment and judgment is kindness. Oh, man. You said it better than I said it, Kelly. I love it. Right. You know what? It's so weird because as family members, we get this message that you have to just cut the person off, right? It's almost like you feel like you have to be hard or cold towards them to make them get better. And I'm here to tell you, that's ridiculous. It's not the truth at all. Sometimes you have to back up from people because they're destroying your life. But you don't have to be cold or hard to someone because you think that's what they need. That just rarely ever makes anyone better. Right? It just. It's just not effective. Foreign. Sees without family contact over Christmas dinner. And my wife and I try to love them. That's what they need, in my opinion, especially at Christmas. You know what? I'm with you. My opinion is lined up with your opinion. Perfectly. All right, everybody, thank you for joining us. Next Thursday, I will be on here. I will be live. And I've got a really good video planned for you. It's about how to become your best self because we're moving into the new year. Can't wait to see you then. And up next, I've got a video for you about rebuilding trust in family systems.