Is Recovery Ever Out of Reach? Exploring the Limits of Overcoming Addiction

Of course, no one is beyond hope. If you're still alive, you are still in the game as far as I'm concerned. However, as optimistic as I am, and I would say I'm a pretty optimistic for an addiction professional, there are certain factors that I think point towards or make someone more likely to get sober. And there are other factors that maybe decrease the chances that someone's going to get sober. And that doesn't mean they're not going to. I'm just saying like sort of factors stack up in a certain way that make things more likely, more probable, or maybe even just more difficult. And I want to share with you what those factors are and let's explore so you can be thinking about. Do you or your loved one have some of these positive factors? And if they have some negative ones, some of the ones on the negative side, are there some positive ones to sort of compensate that out a little bit? So there are the factors that sort of, I think lend towards someone that's more likely to get sober. The first one is like if someone was an adult and had, and was a functioning adult before they became addicted, you know, maybe they drank alcohol, but they didn't drink it problematically. Maybe they did some drugs here, there in college or whatever, but they weren't addicted to them. And the reason why this is so important is because it means that this person has developed adult, good, healthy adulting skills and they have, they're sort of, they're just, they have some wisdom there and they have some skills and abilities there that even though the addiction takes over, those are still there underneath. And I do think that makes someone more likely to get sober than not. The, the other thing is, is if the person has, I think the more a person has to lose, the more likely they are to get sober. So as addiction goes on, you start to lose everything, right? You lose your money, you lose your relationships, you can lose your career, you lose your self esteem, you lose your dignity, you lose your talent, skills, abilities, all of that. The more of those things that a person still has intact, the more chances that they have at sobriety. Because once you get to the point where you don't have much to lose, it's really, really hard to engage someone to find those motivators to do the work that's necessary to pull out of it. Another characteristic that I think sort of adds to the advantage column is if this person. Well, let me say this first. I'm going to give you some sort of personal personality kind of characteristics, but I'm talking about before they were addicted. Because when people are addicted, their personality characteristics all look the same and they don't necessarily have these. So, so when you're thinking about this, I need you to think about before the addiction happened because you're probably thinking, oh, they don't have that, they don't have that. But in their addicted stuff, they may not have these characteristics. But did their, does their real self have these characteristics? Okay, the first one is an ability to sort of self reflect, right? To think through situations, to figure out what happened, to take ownership when appropriate, of problems, of relationships. The more ability a person has to do this, the more likely they are to get sober because the more likely they are to to be honest with themselves about what's going on quicker. Because they do take time to self reflect and sort. They're not just sort of going through life and just sort of ping ponging off things. They're stopped, they're intentional. Along with that characteristic, if the person has the ability to be humble, that probably is the number one requirement to get recovery in my opinion. Because you don't have to have money, you don't have to have any of those other things. But you do have to be able to accept that you have put yourself on the wrong path. And you do have to be able to accept that you're going to have to do it somebody else's way. Now a lot of you that watch this channel, you know that I think there are lots of ways to do it. It's not like you have to do it my way, do it anyway. But there's a many methods. Pick one. But you're going to have to do it somebody else's way. Because if you completely rely on yourself, you're going to trick yourself. Because that's the nature of addiction. You're going to rationalize, justify, and keep tricking yourself back into relapsing. So you're going to have to follow somebody else's pathway. That humility is extremely important. If a person in their natural self is a caring, has empathy, kind is considerate person, means they're aware of the other human beings around them and they care how their behaviors affect other people, that is another strong indicator. These are all like strengths that people have inside of them that even though you may not be able to see them when they're addicted, these are sort of like ingredients that will brew that I think really do make someone more likely to pull out of the whole situation. And along with that, if you're dealing with a person who has the ability or Maybe even propensity to take self responsibility about things. You know, if they've caused a problem, they'll admit it, they'll apologize, they'll say they're sorry. They'll own, you know, the difficulties that happen to them in their life. I'm not saying they have to own everything, but if they have that capacity before they were addicted, that's another really good sign. Because all of these characteristics is. These are. These characteristics make someone a lot more likely to be honest with themselves. And that's the key. You got to be honest with yourself about what's going on, how it's affecting you, how it's affecting everyone around you, the whole thing. You've got to be honest and look at this. And it's not easy to look at. So if you as a person don't naturally have some of these skills in there, it's going to be harder. Okay? Like I said, I'm not saying that there's anybody out there that's beyond hope. I have seen people come back. In fact, this happens all the time to me. I will be like on the brink of, okay, that's it. Like I'm. I wouldn't say it, but inside my head I'm like, emotionally like I'm about to give up this person. There's not ready yet. And a lot of times right when I'm about get to that point, that's when they turn the corner and it's like, what? And then, you know, they'll be in recovery later and I'll be like, dude, I was going to bet against you, man. And I'll just tell them. I was like, I think you're going to pull out of it. And then they do, and then we laugh about it. And a lot of people maybe think that depends on the kind of addiction you have or something like that. But really, I don't think that's as big of a factor weighing into this whether or not someone has the ability to get sober or will get sober than some of these other things that we're talking about. I guess we got to talk about the things that kind of stack up against you. And I don't want you to take this as like gospel. This is just Amber reflecting back over all the cases and people I've worked with and families, and thinking to myself what situations usually turn out well and which ones are less likely to turn out well. One factor that I've seen a lot is, and this isn't always the case because I have certainly dealt with people in this category that went, it went in the recovery direction full force. Okay? But if a person is older or retired, and the reason why this is difficult isn't because they're less capable of it. It's because they tend to have this rationalization. This is the last years of my life. I might as well do what I want, enjoy myself. And it's just a one to break. So it's just a strong rationalization justification that they have. Especially if they're like, you know, they're past retirement and that kind of thing. It really doesn't have anything to do with their capacity to get sober recovery. It has more to do with their willingness to look at the problem and get sober. The next one is if you're dealing with a person and remember these are characteristics that are there before the addiction. But if you're dealing with a person who even before they were addicted, they tended towards victim thinking and they tended not to take self responsibility or not to be. Not to have any insight into how they contribute to the good and the bad in their life. I think that this stacks against someone because this ability to take some ownership, to be honest with yourself is so critical when it comes to addiction recovery. Another characteristic is if someone has a personality disorder. I've seen plenty of people have personal disorders that do get recovery. So I'm not saying that if you have one of these, you're never likely. I'm just saying these are things that I think stack and make it more difficult. But if you have a personality disorder, and part of the reason for that is if you have personality disorder, you have a harder time maintaining healthy relationships. And healthy relationships are pretty critical in the recovery process. That, that connection, that stability. Many of you have heard me say connection is the opposite of addiction and people personality source. Of course they have connections, but they're, they're more fragile and they're, they're more sort of unstable and back and forth. Oftentimes if a person before they were addicted had a lack of humility. And I. And I don't mean all the way. I mean it can be all the way to the point of like narcissism or antisocial or something. But I'm just saying, like, you're just dealing with a person who always thinks they're right, always thinks everyone else is wrong. Like can, like they just literally do not have humility. They gonna have a real hard time finding recovery. Because like I said, that's the one ingredient that is necessary. There's a saying that I really like and it's Something to like you. You can either be humble or be humbled, because the world will usually do that to you. But some people, no matter what the evidence is, they just won't see it or acknowledge it. Now, important thing to think about here is sometimes. Sometimes people, because of different factors, may not. Will acknowledge things out loud. So they may not admit to things, but inside they know things. So it's really hard to know that. But. Well, actually, you kind of probably know if you've known this person pretty well or yourself. If it's like, okay, maybe I don't like to admit when I was wrong, but I knew that I was wrong. If the person has the capacity to know that they were wrong wrong, we're good even. Even if they don't, if they're not prone to telling other people out loud. The stage of addiction doesn't play as big a role as most people think. But I think it does play some role. The further into the addiction they go, the harder it is to come out. I mean, obviously, right. The longer it goes on, the more addicted you are, the more chemically addicted you are, the more you know. It's just for many, many reasons, it makes it harder and especially related to the age at which someone started. If it's gone for a long time and the person started at, like, high school or junior high school, it's really hard because, like I said, they don't even have adulting skills, and they don't even have emotional maturity. Even underneath that addiction. Like, it's just not there. And we really do need some pretty serious emotional maturity to get recovery. Because not only do you have to be humble and admit that there's a problem, but you have to be willing to do a lot of really hard work and to look at some really difficult things and to stretch yourself and to be uncomfortable. And if you never developed that emotional maturity, it's just more difficult. Now, I will say this. Once someone gets sober, that emotional maturity usually catches up pretty quickly. So it's not like it can never develop. Although when we start using really heavily, our emotional maturity just sort of stops or sometimes even, like, regresses, I would say, because we don't. We stop coping with things. Like every time something happens, we just numb ourselves. We just press it down. We just get intoxicated or avoid it, don't think about it. Then we lose that coping ability more and more and more as the addiction goes on. If a person has already lost everything because of their addiction, I think it makes them less likely to turn the corner, which is the direct opposite of what a lot of people think. And probably the opposite of like the predominant thinking out there, which is that someone has to hit bottom. You know, if they literally lose everything, they're going to learn their lesson and they're going to come out of it. In some ways, in some ways, losing everything is helpful because it gets you out of denial, right? If you have any humility or self reflective ability at all and you lose everything, you're going to know you got a problem, okay? But happens is they become hopeless when you don't have. You've already lost your children, you've already lost your job, maybe you're even homeless. The less you have, the less it's just harder to leverage or motivate that person into doing the really hard work that it causes. Because honestly, for one, they get used to the difficult situation. And if they're addicted, they're probably using substances to sort of like an anesthesia to numb the uncomfortableness that all of those things would cause. And when someone still has something to lose, I think it's easier as an addiction counselor, I think it's easier to get them sober. So like, for example, one of the things I run into all the time and Campbell and Kim and I talk about this is y', all, y' all spouses are gonna think this is not fair. It's not fair. I'm telling you right now, it's not fair. But a lot of times, like if, if you send your loved one to treatment and then you decide to leave them, you're not gonna let them come home. Or like a lot of times it's like you finally get your loved one to talk to me like your spouse and then you leave them or you make them move out. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I am saying you are like setting me up for failure. Like you like, what's, what's going on here? Because the person is homeless. I mean, not homeless, hopeless. The person usually. It also means that they're like by themselves. So there's no sense of accountability. There's nothing whatsoever to hold the floodgates back. So it just sort of, it's a free for all. Plus the person is probably seething with resentment and self pity, which you guys know if you watch these videos make you much more likely to make bad choices. There's just a million things that set it up that make it harder. And I'm not telling you that to guilt you. If you are the spouse, you got to do what you got to Do. And. And there are many situations where that is exactly what you should do. But I am saying. And this just from my personal perspective, maybe this is my selfish thing is you're making it real hard. If you're going to do that, do that before. But it's almost like I've seen this before. I've seen. I had a client once who was alcoholic and he had went to treatment and. And while he was in treatment, the wife left him, took the kids, moved everything out. Like, literally didn't pick him up from treatment. He had like uber home. And when he got home, like, all his family and stuff was gone. I'm like, what the world. I mean, I get it. Probably it had been going on a really long time and it was too little, too late. I totally get it. But that's just a really bad setup for someone to stay sober. And this person that I'm thinking about did not stay sober. Now, when I met this person, they were remarried and it was a sort of. They were in their second life. But it. That thing that had happened, this person that. That had probably happened 20 years before I met this person and they were still stuck on it. That's what they were sitting in my office talking to me about was that very thing. And that. And that was that. That ruminating. I can't believe she did that. That they just got stuck on that I think probably was keeping them stuck in the drinking. But it just not. I'm not saying that it's the spouse's fault. I'm just saying, like in the. If we're stacking up cards one way or the other, these are. This is the way that I see them. The more a person has to lose, the more likely they are to get sober. So taking everything away from someone honestly is not the best way, I think, to get someone sober. I'd love to know what you think because like I said, this is just my personal professional opinion. I don't know exactly if this fits with research. I know some of it does, but. But this is my experience and what I've seen. I want to know what you guys think about it. And would you add other things to the list either on the. The side that makes you more likely to get recovery or the side that makes you less likely to get it or makes it more difficult? I would say Brie is about to put up. Brie is behind the scenes. For those who don't know Bri, she is like the wizard of Oz. Like, you don't see her face, but I promise she's there. She's the one that manages it all and herds all the cats, which would be myself, Campbell. She's gonna, she's gonna heard your comments in just a second and put some questions. So if you have them, go ahead and put them up there. There's like a 15C delay and very frequently we hit end and then like five more questions pop up and it's just is we don't even know that they're there. Like literally they come up after we end the live call. So go ahead and get those in there. And while you're doing that, I will remind you, like I always do, there are additional resources in the description. If you need some help, if you're the family member and you need some help with boundaries, managing your emotions, making decisions to balance out your needs and your addicted loved ones needs, then I'm going to highly suggest that you get into our private membership coaching program. It's like a group coaching program. There's a lot of like education in there. But also once a week there's a private live call which is more like a zoom call for the members in there. And you can talk to Kim and Campbell and ask, ask questions and get your, get advice and that kind of thing. If your loved one you think might be getting ready to make a change or if you're watching this because you're ready to get a change, take a look at our strength based recovery coaching program. Because what, what I do in that program is I, I really look at who someone is truly. I mean, I know the addictions there, but, but my goal in that program is to see who you really, really are. To find your positive characteristics, some of the ones we're talking about here and other ones, and to use those to help to help you find your pathway out of this, to motivate you, to help you see where your skills are, where your strengths are and turn the ship around. And there's more, there's more stuff in the description like our invisible intervention. If you've got someone to know, all that kind of stuff. All right, Brie, give us some, give us some good questions and comments. All right. Peggy says my son has been in jail for three months because of methamphetamine. He has psychosis. We're offering him a plea deal. Do you have any ideas of how to approach him when he gets home? Peggy, I would not tell you to bring him home. I know you're not going to like that. If he's inactively, if he's like still in psychosis, Then I would take him out of jail and put him in like a treatment center, probably like an acute care center to address the psychosis or if he still needs some kind of treatment related to addiction. You could look at that. If those things are pretty much stable, you could look at sober living. I know that sometimes these things cannot work out and there's nothing you can do about it. But, but I think it is very, very difficult to be an adult living back in your parents home. Especially when all this kind of stuff has gone down to, to make it work because, because they're going to want to be adults and you're not going to be able to stop parenting and it's just going to be really hard. Shelby says what about someone who started using heavy as a teenager and did not develop adult humility prior to addiction? Yeah, that's kind of what I'm talking about. It's not like it can't, it can't be there or it can't be done. But I do think that it's harder. You know, those, that emotional maturity that we get that you can only get through living life and growing up and facing problems. The more of that you have before the addiction strikes, the better off you are. That being said, I spent the entire first half of my career working with addicted teenagers and I had wonderful conversations. Sometimes they have more maturity than you might think. They don't always show it, especially if it's like to their family, but underneath that they're more insightful and self reflective than you might imagine. So I don't want you to think it's, it's impossible. Do they have any of these other characteristics that might help? On the, on the positive side, Pat says my daughter started early on her emotional skills and social skills as a juvenile. When I try to talk, she doesn't want to hear it and she throws it back at me saying that's why I don't talk to you. What am I to do? Stop trying to talk to her about the difficult topics. Start trying to build a relationship with her and just be able to talk about other things. Right. And if you can learn to become a listener instead of a talker, a safe person for her, like we teach all these skills in our invisible intervention is sort of like reflective listening, labeling, picking out how to sort of effectively confront someone, all those kind of things. You got to be a better listener. And mostly don't make every conversation heavy. If, if you can train someone that every conversation isn't going to be difficult or heavy, then they'll Be more open to talking in therapy. That that's one of my first goals is like, hey, this is not going to be uncomfortable. We're gonna laugh, we're gonna smile, we're gonna talk about other things and we're not gonna make it real heavy because the heavier tone you put on it, the more freaked out someone's going to be on the inside and the less likely they are to talk about it. Shari says, Amber, does all your advice apply to porn addiction too? My husband is an alcoholic and dabbling in drugs. But the biggest denial is porn is accompanied by the most painful behavior. She doesn't correct it. Yes, the things that I teach and talk about are pretty universal or are universal for any addiction. And actually the skills that we teach as far as how to get through someone work on human nature, period, so the person doesn't even have to be addicted. These are skills that help someone face difficult situations, see problems and make changes. So yes, I would say that they do apply. And when it comes to sex and porn addiction, people have a lot more shame than you think. A lot of times they're defensive, so they're not going to let you see that. They're going to show you like this really cocky side. And that's kind of what I meant by humility. Like sometimes they have a hard time showing it. But like, do you get the impression that it's in there or do you get the impression that it is definitely not in there, but it's not just the addiction. It's not just defensive list defensiveness. Like they really don't get it, then you're in trouble. Ryan says, in early recovery, do addicts not realize the effect it has on kids and spouses? My wife is in a residential program and it just feels like she doesn't think it affects anyone but her. Yes, that is pretty common. The layers of denial sort of peel back one by one, right? There's a bunch of layers that has to peel back just for someone to even get that they have a problem. And early in recovery, people are so emotionally fragile and they're so full of shame and they literally have no self esteem. It's like they can't, they don't have enough ego to look at that. They, they just, they have a hard time doing it. The further they come out of it, the more self esteem they have. The more they put their life back together, typically the more they're able to own it and see it. But, but you, but you're right, Ryan, that it in early recovery, it's not. It's not like immediately there. They're not immediately saying, I'm so sorry. I can't believe all the things I did. I know it's like you're expecting that, but that takes a minute. It takes a while. Okay. D. Any advice for breaking through and to an alcoholic who can days or even occasionally for a couple of weeks without drinking, it seems harder to convince him of a problem now that he's trying to cut down. Yes. In fact, most of the people that I work with and or have worked with for the past several years can go without drinking or smoking or using or whatever the addiction is for some periods of day. What that means is that they're in stage three. You may want to take a look at another. Some videos on the channel about stages of addiction. You may want to take a look at some of that. But they're in stage three, so it's. They can stop. And maybe they're not even chemically dependent, but when they do it, they can't. They don't control it very well. So very frequently if they start, they have a lot of difficulty stopping. They go on binges or that kind of thing. And the. The key here is, is don't try to tell the person that you can't, that, you know your drinking is out of control. You can't manage it because they're gonna think you're crazy. Because they can think of a million times when they did manage it. The. The words that I use is I'll say, can you consistently manage it? Can you fairly accurately predict how much you're going to drink or what's going to happen when you drink? Because in stage three, what happens is you drink or do whatever the substance is way too much. And then bad crap happens. And so then you start promising yourself you're not gonna let that happen next time. You're going to contain it to X, Y or Z. And maybe you can contain it and keep it in the manageable level sometimes, but most time when you start, it's hard to stop. And so once someone can see that they're really playing Russian roulette with it and they can't consistently control it. That's, to me, the best way to get them to see it. A lot of people try to. You're out of control. You can't stop drinking. But that makes their denial worse because they're like, you're crazy. Like, I didn't drink all last week. So. So portray it to them pretty accurately or they're going to think you're full of bull. Rachel says, what do you suggest for those who have lost everything and all the traits you mentioned are stacked against him? Homeless, helpless. Well, it's, it's really hard. If you have a good relationship with this person still, then I think I would, I would do what I can to keep that relationship intact. I would occasionally meet up with that person. I would see how they're doing. I would still use all the same skills that I teach. But you do need to understand that it may not work. The truth of this whole matter is, the sad truth of it is addiction is a terminal illness. And there does get to a point, like any other terminal illness, where you have to understand someone has a terminal illness and they have made the decision to not treat it the same way as you could have cancer or anything else and make the decision that you're not going to treat it and that you're just going to let it take you down. Now I know it seems crazy because with addiction it could be treated and it could be stopped, but people will definitely, when it comes to addiction, they will just accept it and become okay with it. So in that kind of situation, I would still use all the skills I teach you because it does increase the chances that someone is going to get out of it no matter what. But even if they don't, you'll feel good about your side of the street. You'll feel like you did the right thing. You treated the person with respect and kindness. Now that doesn't mean let them walk all over you. That doesn't mean give them all your money. That doesn't mean come let them stay at your house. I'm just talking about how you interact with this person and how you treat them. You want to keep that on the good, Wendy says. My 54 year old, I think it's addictive. Boyfriend hasn't worked since 2020. He can't work in his field anymore. He's content. His investments almost cover his living. I think it's so he can drink without strings. What can I do? I think you're exactly right, Wendy. The situation is, is now that he doesn't have to work and he's not working since 2020, it's, it's opened the floodgates and now he doesn't have to keep it under control. He doesn't have to, you know, like get up and function super early the next day or wait until a certain point to start. So I think you are probably spot on. In my experience, people tend to move from stage three into stage four. Addiction. If they, if, if their spouse leaves, if they lose their job, they go out on disability, they retire. It's like all of those things that keep us having to function and keep it somewhat under control. If, if those things go and even the money, right. If, if those things go, there's nothing to hold the floodgates back. So it is much more difficult. I will tell you this, though. I know you're saying, well, he doesn't have to work because he has money. Lots and lots of people with all kinds of money get sober every day. Lots of really famous people and rock stars and professionals. A lot of people think like, oh, if you have money, they're never going to stop. But that's not really true. Does this person have any of these other things I name? Are they, do they have humility? Do they have empathy? Do they care about other people? Do they self reflect? Do they have a sense of duty and responsibility? If those things are there, we're still good. All right, I think we are about to the end of our questions and comments. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of you who show up here live every Thursday, 1pm Eastern. I love talking with you guys. Your questions get better and better and better every single week. It's like you guys are getting smarter and smarter and I have a hard time coming up with more and more content. I'm gonna have to like up my game. You guys are getting good. All right, I'll see everybody next week. Resources in the description have a good week. Bye, everybody.