Is Tough Love The Best Approach To Take With An Addicted Loved One?

Is tough love really the best way to approach an addicted loved one? I mean, we've all heard it a million times. People say tough love is the only thing that works. In fact, even if you talk to people in recovery and you ask them about how they think that you should help or not help your addicted loved one, they will probably tell you tough love. But the research says that tough love really isn't the most effective strategy for helping an addicted loved one. So in this video, we're going to take a look at what it does well, what it doesn't, what it doesn't do well, and what are your options and oper. You know, like opportunities. What should you do, basically? So the thing of it is, is first thing we're going to clarify, what do I mean when I say tough love? Because I think I know I have a thought process or vision definition in my head. But you may have a different, like, awareness about what that means because it is one of those, like, really sort of hot topics that brings out a lot of emotions in people. So we may not be thinking exactly the same way about it. In my mind, tough love is that sort of if you have an addicted loved one, you have to cut them off financially, you cut them off, like, emotionally. You let them figure it out on their own, you let them hit bottom, and that is the only way that they're ever going to figure out what they need to do. Now, there's a little truth in that. I'm not 100% completely against that. I do think that there are times where you have to back up from someone who's addicted. I do think there are times when you have to back up and let people learn some really hard lessons. But in general, do I think that you have to cut your addicted loved one off emotionally, financially, logistically? Sometimes. But in most situations, that's not quite necessary. So let's talk about maybe when it is helpful and when it isn't helpful. When you make the decision to emotionally cut someone off. Yeah, you do need to do that sometimes. That decision probably should be made for yourself, though. Like, if whatever's going on with them is abusive to you, if whatever's going on with them is making you so crazy you can't even get control of yourself. If whatever is going on with you is unsafe, it's not okay for your other people in the house to be around. Like, if you have children or anything like that. Those are reasons why you may want to cut someone off emotionally. Sometimes you have to do that for yourself or to protect Other people in the family. Cutting someone off emotionally isn't usually the best thing to do for them. So I think that's really where we need to get clarity about it. It's not about you have to do or not do certain things when it comes to caring about someone who has an addiction. It's about why you're doing what you're doing, what your strategy is, and what you think is going to be the result of it. The. The truth of it is that connection is the thing that can heal addiction. Right? So cutting someone off emotionally and just slamming the door is not the most effective thing to help them. In fact, that usually makes them worse. Now, that doesn't mean. I'm saying you should never do that. We just talked about some reasons why you definitely might need to do that. Or if you know that you can't stay emotionally connected to someone with. Without letting them run all over you or without massively enabling them. That may be a reason why. It's like you don't trust yourself to be in that situation with that person. Or maybe it's like I have to cut myself off from them because I know they're going to charm me, they're going to talk me into something, and I just don't trust that I will make good decisions. That's another reason why you may want to emotionally cut someone off. But we get a lot of. I don't know, we. We get a lot of, like, pressure, I guess I would call it, from outside institutions and other people that make us feel like what we're supposed to be doing is cutting them off. And then we have all these mixed feelings inside. We feel scared to do that because we. We're scared we're their only life raft. And if we cut them off that they're going to drown, and then it's going to be our fault. We feel guilty because we're not cutting them off. We feel like, well, maybe I'm just an enabler. Why am I so codependent? Like, I can't do what I need to do. I'm not strong enough. We just have all these, like, feelings inside about what we're supposed to be doing and we're not supposed to be doing. It's really why I wanted to talk about this topic so we can get some clarity on it. Now let's move into the whole idea of the tough love financially. Because to me, there's. There's different, like, categories of tough love. This is another one you hear about a lot. Financially, you have to stop giving them Money and supporting them in any way. Because if you do, you're just contributing to their addiction and you're probably killing them. Well, let's. Let's just calm down for a second, okay? Do I think you need to be giving someone an addiction tons of money? No, I don't think. I mean, that's just crazy, right? You don't need to be doing that. Do I think it's okay to help buy groceries for your kid? Because you know if you don't, they want to eat and you just really, it's just like tearing you up in your mom heart. I think it's okay to do that. I know other addiction counselors are going to tell you different. Other people tell you different. This is just what I think you guys can say in the comments what you think. If you agree, you disagree. And then sometimes it's like, well, I don't want to give them money because what if they go buy drugs with that? What if they overdose and they die to be all my fault? I'm like, dude, if you give someone $5 and they go out there and something bad happens to them, you can rest assured that it wasn't your $5 that made that bad thing happen. It was addiction that made that bad thing happen. Now this isn't me telling you you have to give someone money, but it's also me telling you that being really, really, really rigid about it is just going to make you feel uncomfortable because you feel like if I'm not holding these, like, hardcore boundaries that you're doing the wrong thing. $5 is not going to make or break anybody's addiction. Trust me. Okay? Yeah. I'm not saying you have to give them everything. Then there's the whole idea of like, whoa, okay, that's like the giving them money part. What about the like, paying their bills part? That's another really, really tough one. And I think that that's such an individualized situation. And it's again, it's another one where you kind of gotta like, weigh their needs with your needs. You may not can function if you know your loved one is. Is living on the street. You may not can just like breathe or think straight if you know that they're like freezing death or they have no electricity or they have your grandbabies and the grandbabies are sitting in with no lights. Like, you mentally cannot take that. Some people, like, that could be the case for you. If that's the case for you, you may make the choice that you're going to pay the electric bill. Because you can't take it, right? As long as you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it and you're not thinking to yourself, okay, I'm just gonna do this this one time. I'll pay it. And then they're gonna get their act together, and I'm sure they'll pay me back and they'll pay the next month's bill. Like, that's not gonna happen. Okay, if you're thinking that, then probably wouldn't pay it because now you're just being irrational with yourself, right? That's not what's gonna happen. If you're like, look, I know that they. They need to be responsible for themselves, and I know that they should pay their own bills, but I just can't deal with it. That's. That's what you're doing for yourself, not necessarily for them. Now, all that being said, I do believe that the best that you can back out of it and allow the natural consequences to take place, the better. If someone is running in front of a bus right this very moment, you should probably try to stop them, right? Other than that, all that other stuff that we try to intervene with, we do need to let that happen. Like, if your kid's going to college but they're not doing their homework and you know they're going to fill out, like, let them fail out, okay? Like, if you know that your son is drinking so much and he's not being nice to his girlfriend and you just really like her and you just know that she's going to break up with him, do not run interference. These are things that you do need to back up and allow those things to happen. But if you can do those things, if it's possible, and you can do those things with love and kindness and empathy, if you can have boundaries mixed with love and kindness and empathy and understanding, now that is the combination that is proven to be the most effective combination. Let me explain to you why that works. When you're coming at someone, whether you're. Whether you're paying their bills or not paying their bills, if you come at them angry and resentful about it, either which way you're going to hit the defensive part of their brain, like it's a reflex. Any human being, someone's upset with you, immediately your emotional mind takes over. And when your emotional mind takes over, your thinking mind shuts down. So you're literally, like, biologically running interference and prohibiting that person from learning. However, when you're kind and understanding and empathetic, with someone, it actually is kind of like soothe that emotional part of the brain and activates the thinking part. And that's what allows someone to think about what's happening and make a better choice. So the most effective method is boundaries for yourself. Not letting the situation run over you or cause you to just lose your sanity, or lose your house or lose your car, anything like that. You got to protect yourself after that. Once you've protected yourself and you've allowed whatever you can allow to happen to this person, the way to interact with them if they will let you. I, I understand some of you are watching this and you're thinking, oh, Amber, like they're gonna pick argument with me, they are not gonna let me be nice to them. And I know that there are those people out there, so I know that. But if they will allow you to be kind and understanding and empathetic, that really and truly is the best way to get anyone to learn and grow. Whether it's somebody who has a social abuse problem, whether it's your best friend who's making a mistake or your five year old that's throwing a temper tantrum. This activates the learning part of the brain, right? It's, it soothes the defensive part, which allows someone to think a lot more rationally. When you come at someone with resentments, anger and frustration, you're disallowing the learning process. All you're doing is making them be mad at you and then they're focusing on being mad at you, which means they're not focusing on learning the lesson that they need to learn. Another reason why you don't want to over help someone is because when you do that, it leads you to feeling resentful. You feel like you're doing things that you don't want to do for someone and then you're mad about doing them. And then because you're resentful, that's going to cause you to interact with that person in a negative way. That resentment, even if you're not saying it out loud, it's going to ooze out your pores, it's going to come out in your attitude and then again. So at that point, then you're doing things for them you don't want to do. So you're probably enabling them, right? And you're feeling resentful about it, which means you're coming at them negatively. And that is the worst combination. That blocks recovery from happening. That blocks learning that I'm going to fix everything for you on the outside. But be mad at you on the inside, that's what you don't want to do. You want to do the opposite of that. Right? You want to let the outside things fall, but be kind if at all possible. I understand that there are some situations where you really do need to back up, but I just want you to understand that the backing up part is for you, not for them. It's not necessarily what they need, but it might be what you need. Let's take a look at who's here with us live. And if you're joining us on the replay, definitely feel free to chime in on this conversation. I know everybody's got strong feelings about it. I always look at the comments and read what you guys say, and I answer most. I try to answer most of them. So let's see what's going on in our community today. Mom Moss, per favor, says, yes, it's my way or the highway. That sounds like, that sounds like a mom saying, right? I can just hear. I can just hear mom saying that right now in my head. Let's see here. Terry says, I completely agree. I always feed my children that whole thing, especially if it's your kid that, like letting them be hungry and cold, that just, that just goes against your mama heart. Right? Sometimes you gotta do it. But, but putting. And I've said this, I've got other videos about this, but putting someone out on the street in the goal, that. That doesn't make them better. I know. We think, and other people might tell you, like, they just need to experience it and they gotta hit rock bottom and be homeless before they're ever gonna get better. It doesn't increase the chances that your loved one's gonna get better. In fact, it increases the chances that your loved one won't get better. So it's a balance. Capel said, my alcohol rehab counselor told me my husband's addiction was my responsibility. What. That sounds like the opposite of what a rehab counselor usually says. Usually most rehab counselors are more like their recovery is their recovery. You stay out of it. And they just like, want to push the family, like to an extreme. Like, you're not in this. So I mean, that's, that's surprising. Wow. How to show tough love when he has control over everything. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? Are you saying like the person is addicted? Maybe they're, they're like the breadwinner or something, or they earn all the money. How do you show tough love then? Is that, is that what you're saying? I think that's what you're saying, but I'm not 100% sure. Ebony says maybe people use the term tough love, but sometimes it comes to you have to make a choice. You have no choice but to cut them off. I'm glad I took your advice and didn't let him come home without a change. Yeah, sometimes you really do have no choice, because you've got to do what you got to do to protect yourself. Because you can't help anybody if you're not okay. Right. So you've got to think about this, almost like a formula or matrix on how do you make decisions when it comes to these things. And it's always complicated. Well, it took me a while not to believe that you're talking about the counselor who told you that, told you his recovery was your responsibility. He hadn't even seen my husband. I told him I needed to go. I told him I needed to offer him chances. You know, my intervention on my terms actually worked. And it's still working so far. Sounds like you got some bad advice in there. It happens. Emily says my aunt handled this really well with my addict mother. My mom would ask for grocery money, and my aunt would, out of genuine worry about us all eating and her fear that my mom would spend the money on drugs, she would physically take her to the grocery store shopping rather than hand her money. Yeah, that's the thing that a lot of people do, Emily. It's like if the person says, I need gas money or grocery money, you might go directly to the store and pay for it, or you might go directly to the gas station, or you might not give the money to them. The money pay electric bill. But you might pay the electric bill if you're gonna do that. I do think that that's probably the smarter, more safer way. But I have, believe it or not, I have seen people take groceries back to the store to get the money. I mean, it does happen. But I don't think that you should over stress yourself about that. Remember, you're just responsible for your side of the street. You're doing what you can do. You're doing the best you can do. And if they go and do something like that, they go do something like that. That is not on you. Emily says, a balance of empathy and boundaries is exactly what I'm struggling with with my addict husband. It's always a struggle, Emily. It's always a balancing act. And you have to make adjustments back and forth, back and forth. You have to sort of reassess the situation on an ongoing, regular basis to do it effectively. He basically just got better at fooling me into thinking he was clean past month. I don't. I think maybe Ebony's answering somebody else back. I got clean on my own, not because people were mean or nice to me. I did it for myself, not because of what people think. Okay, I agree with that. What does empathy without enabling look like? Thank you. Very. Thank you. Well, thank you for your nice words, Emily. It just means being kind about. Just means like if you're, if they ask you to do something and you're not going to do it or you're going to set a boundary, just do it with kindness and, and love. And the tone of your voice is understanding. And it's not a lecture and it's not a threat. Sometimes we feel so upset and guilty or even angry about having to hold the boundary that that comes out in the way that we interact with the person. Because we're mad that they're putting us in a situation because we're upset, because they're forcing us to draw this boundary, which really sucks. Right. It's like they put you in a position. It's like a no win situation where you feel guilty if you do the thing they want you to do. You feel guilty if you don't do the thing that they want you to do. And so you're, you're angry and you're resentful. That resentment can come out towards the person. And so the empathy and kindness part is about trying to get that part under control because it just defeats the purpose when you interact with them that way. Says, I have, I had a family. Be hard and be nice. None of it works if you don't want to get clean. Well, you're right. But I do think that there are certain ways that you can interact with people that helps them along with wanting to get clean. So don't think you make someone get clean if they don't want to. But I do think that there are things you can do to influence people that might help them want to get clean. There are definitely some things that you could do that push them in the other direction. And there are definitely some things you can do to push them in the right direction. But that's not me saying it's your responsibility. I'm just saying that's the truth of it. We manage with boundaries. They know our boundaries. And the consequences for not respecting them always allows us to love and encourage the addict. Get off the roller coaster. Oh, man, I love that. Marty. That's right. When you take care of you and you draw healthy boundaries. That's what's going to enable you to interact with them with loving kindness. Right. Because if you don't take care of your boundaries, you're going to be so mad. It's going to ooze out. So you are right on track. I love it. Let's see here. He says that's a great way to look at it. If you need to back off. For you, it makes sense. If it's to evoke some kind of response, it probably won't help anything. And I will make sure my kids. Yeah, I love what you're saying there, Renee. It's like if you're doing it because you think it's going to be this wake up call for them, that's not a good reason to do it. I mean, I suppose it could be, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't put bets on it. Let's see here. Veronica says, gotta stop obsessing with them and do you for their good when they. When they do come around. I like that. I like. That's like. That's like a do you for their good. I kind of like it. Veronica, I like the way you said that. Let's see. Laura says, how do you be effective when your ad is in, when your addicted loved one is an active addiction and there is no communication? It is really hard when there's no communication. If. If they're not talking to you at all and you're not speaking to them at all, there's not. There's not a lot you can do as far as interacting with them other than try to get to an okay place with it in your own heart. So that if or when that communication line opens back up, that you're kind of in a position where you're ready to communicate with them in a healthy way for you, healthy for you and healthy for them. All right, everybody, thank you so much for hanging out. I am going to put up here for you next more information about boundaries, because boundaries really is the whole key to this thing. It's what allows you to respond with kindness. So understanding those boundaries is absolutely essential to any family struggling to get into recovery. I'll put it up here for you next. Thanks, everybody, for joining us.