Amber Hollingsworth (Put the shovel down) addresses people who have been to rehab multiple times and keep relapsing. She shares poll results (183 votes) showing 76% reported needing more than five attempts for long-term sobriety, and reframes repeat rehab as common rather than a personal failure. The video lists frequent relapse causes — unwillingness to give up relationships, resisting core recovery practices, risky jobs, swapping one substance for another, secrecy/dishonesty, untreated trauma/mental-health issues, and fear of social rejection — and emphasizes identifying and giving up the single holdout that keeps causing relapse. Closing CTA asks viewers to share the video with someone struggling and to watch a related video on thought patterns that lead to relapse.
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So what if you've been to rehab multiple times, but you just keep relapsing and falling back into it? This is actually the case for a ton of people. In fact, on one of our lives just recently, we had a mom on there who was asking a question about her daughter. She said that her daughter has been to rehab like at least four times and she tends to get about 60 days or so. And then she relapses and falls back and this time she's in a relapse and lately she's been saying she's just done with rehab, it doesn't work for her. Now, while I can definitely understand her frustrating, it is for sure not the best way to think about it. Which is why I'm going to give you a much more effective and productive way of looking at that situation in this video. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the shovel down. This YouTube channel is all about helping you get your life and your family back from addiction. And this is the only channel out there that helps you understand addiction from both angles. The person struggling with the addiction and their family. Because we want you to get your life and your family back on track so you can get back out there and live the life that you want to live. Alright, back to our topic. What if you've been to rehab a bunch of times and it's just not working for you? Does that mean that rehab just isn't the right thing for you? Man, do I have a lot to say about this topic. A couple of weeks ago I put a poll out there just to find out how many times it takes most people before they get long term recovery. So the question was, for those of you who are in recovery or have a loved one in recovery, how many attempts at sobriety did it take before you or they found recovery? Feel free to elaborate. And these are the results as of today when I'm making this video. So so far we've had 183 votes and here are the results. 5% of people said they got it after one time. 6% of people said they got it after two times. 10% of people said it took them three tries. 3% of people said it took them four tries. And 76% of people said it took them more than five tries before they got long term sobriety. So as you can see, multiple times is the rule, not the exception. Now, when that mom made that comment on my video the other day, what I first said to her, I said, oh my goodness, you know what that is? Her addiction Talking to her, trying to tell her that recovery just can't work for her, Trying to tell her she just doesn't have what it takes so that she won't even try. But you got to stop listening to that junk because it's just not true. Especially in that example the mom gave me because she said her daughter gets about 60 days. Let me tell you what, if you get more than three weeks sober, like not in rehab sober, dude, you are really getting it. You do not get that many days on accident. In fact, you don't get four days on accident. But if you can get yourself to two or three weeks, at least you are really doing something. That means you feel figured out some system that's working for you. You have pulled it together, and it doesn't necessarily mean that rehab won't work for you or hasn't worked for you. Now, I'm not saying that because I think everybody needs to go to rehab. In fact, if you've been to rehab multiple times, you may not need to go back. But here's the deal. Even if you went and you've relapsed, it doesn't even mean that the rehab you already went to isn't working for you. Those seeds have been planted. And in my experience, most people that are new to the whole recovery thing, they come to see me, I talk to them about how it works, make some suggestions, tell them what works and what doesn't, and guess what? They usually go out there, they take some of my suggestions, but they don't want to take all of my suggestions. And they try to, like, customize the plan to work for them the way they want it to work. And that's why it doesn't work. In fact, usually when you're really trying to get recovery and it doesn't seem to be working, it's probably because there's like one thing that you know you really need to do or stop doing that you're just resistant to. It's that last holdout that you just don't want to let go of, and you just want to do it your way. And it's like, okay, I can give up substance, but I can't give up this. And you're just holding it in your life. And it's that one thing that keeps throwing you back over and over again. Of course, that can be anything. But I'm going to give you a list of some really common things that I see that hold people back and throw people into relapse over and over again. And if I say anything on this list you recognize, let me know that in the comments below. And if I don't say something on here that you feel like it's been hard for you or throwing you back into relapse, let me know. Because if it happened to you, it's probably happening to someone else and it would help them to see it. Alright, here we go. On the list. Lots and lots and lots of times it's a person in your life that you don't want to give up. Maybe you're trying to get sober, but your whole family uses or drinks or whatever and you're just can't seem to distance yourself from your family. Maybe it's somebody you're married to, maybe it's somebody that you're trying to date or that you have dated on and off for a long time and you just don't want to let go of that person because you really care about them. Or maybe it's because you keep going to rehab and the counselors and everybody else tells you not today in early recovery, but you just keep going back to dating in general. Man, that one takes a lot of people down. There are about a million reasons for that. Maybe there's something that your counselor or your sponsor or your recovery friends keep telling you to do that you don't want to do, like get a sponsor or go to meetings or go to counseling or go to family counseling. What's that one thing they keep wanting you to do that you're resisting. Maybe the thing is that you need to give up a job that's putting you at risk for some reason. Maybe there are other people there that use. Maybe it gives you too much cash. There can be a lot of reasons why a job is a trigger and it's. Maybe it's something that pays you really well and you just don't want to give it up because you're afraid, well, what if I can't get a job that's that good anymore? But you know, the situation just isn't good for you. Oh, here's another one. I see a lot looking at you right now, people. This is probably like the most common. Ready? People want to give up one substance, but they don't want to give up the other substances. Most commonly those other substances are like marijuana or alcohol, but they could be some other kind of prescription substance. So it's like, okay, this drug over here gets me in trouble. I need to let go of it. I need to quit drinking, but I still want to take my Xanax or I need to let go of the cocaine, but I still want to smoke marijuana. The truth of it is this plan hardly ever works for people, but everybody wants to kind of customize it like that. If that's what you're doing, you better be very, very careful because you are on very slippery ice doing that. Maybe you keep falling back because you've got some lies or dishonesty out there that's just haunting you or causing you problems. Some things you've done and you don't want to tell it to family. You keep trying to hold this one thing back. Maybe you owe a drug dealer somebody, maybe you did this or you did that, and it just keeps either messing with you, guilt, shame, or like there's some logistical or practical problems that keep coming back into your life and you just haven't wanted to tell the whole truth. Is that holding you back? Is that getting in your way of finding the recovery that you really want and deserve? Maybe the thing that's holding you back from recovery is that you know that you have some sort of underlying trauma or other underlying mental health disorder that you're not wanting to address. And you think if I just white knuckle it and I don't, just don't use these drugs and I can just ignore everything else and it's all gonna go away. But the mental health problem keeps taking you back over and over. Could that be the one that's causing you problems? Now here's another one, and I think this is possibly the silliest one. If this is the one that's happening to you, this is so easy to take care of. Seriously, you can fix this. And that one is, are you not getting sober because you're scared? Are you not finding long term recovery because you're scared to tell people that you're sober now? You're afraid that people are going to judge you, that people are going to reject you, that you might not get invited to the events, or people are going to think differently. So you're letting your ego get in the way because you're afraid of the rejection of being sober. Are you letting that get in your way? And because of that, you keep finding yourself in bad situations and being offered things which keeps leading you back. Seriously. Now, don't let your ego get in the way of having the life that you want. I have a whole video about that. What I really, really want you to know is if you've gotten several days strung together before completely sober, not in a rehab center, then you have what it takes. Identify. What's that one thing that keeps throwing you back. It's not that your recovery plan isn't working. It's that you're trying to hold on to this one little thing. You're trying not to do this one little thing that's involved in your recovery program, and that is why you keep falling back. Not the plan. It's when you veer from the plan. You know this is true. Now, for right now, you're watching this video, and you're thinking of someone in your life that maybe is struggling with this. And they've tried multiple times, but they're just not getting it. And maybe they're beating themselves up and they're getting down on themselves about it. I want you to share this video with them. Now, I rarely ask you guys to share videos because sometimes people share my videos with other people, almost like a jab or weapon, and I don't want you to do that. But in this case, if you know someone really struggling with that, ask them to take a look at this video, because maybe it'll get in your head and make you think a little bit differently about the situation. Now, up next, right after you get done sharing, I want you to watch this video about the three biggest thought processes that lead people to relapse. I'll put it right up here on the screen, and all you have to do is click it.
