Making Choices You Can Live With For People With Addicted Loved Ones

Hey everybody. Welcome to the live for Facebook. Today we are talking about something we hardly ever talk about, and we're talking about navigating the gray areas of addiction support. When you think about it, or in my mind at least, it's all sort of gray, right? Because there's a billion different ways that we can handle this with our loved ones. There are some that we would recommend over others, but it can be very gray. But what we're going to talk about today, I find the most gray. So for those of you who know me, I talk about constantly like this funnel of unmanageability that we have to work our loved ones through. And that's sort of allowing natural consequences to happen, allowing their lives to become unmanageable. At the bottom of this funnel are 3 exit points. The first exit point is I realize that substances are causing unmanageability in my life. And I decide to quit. That's door number one. We don't see that very much at Hope for Families, but it definitely exists. Door number two is very, very similar, which is I realize I have a problem with substances and I cannot stop. And so I reach out for help and I either go to treatment or go to counseling or I get some level of support. And then door number three is the one that we don't like. No one likes door number three is what we're talking about today. And door number three is. I realize I have a problem with substances. I don't care. I could care less. And I let my life fall apart and I keep using. And that's the one we don't like. We don't see that much of it, but it does exist. And I want to talk about that because I have some clients, um, every now and then I've got a couple right now that are fairly new that are, that have, are living with door number 3 and door number 3, frankly, just makes us, it's the one that makes us the saddest, the loneliest, the most fearful, the most tired, the most hopeless, because the bottom has fallen out of our loved one's life and they don't care. So things that can contribute to that would be they've become homeless and they're comfortable with that. They have a drug-dealing boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse who is completely piling drugs into their lives, and there's nothing we can do to stop that. Maybe there's a spouse that won't hold her boundaries, whether it's someone we're married to. Or it could be a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, grandmother. It could be anyone that sometimes goes behind our back and enables this. It could be another person providing shelter. And I had this in when I was dealing with this with my son, which was a friend of his mom let him live there and let them just run rampant doing drugs, not going to school. And she just was completely heedless to my request to stop doing that. She just didn't care. Could be a previous death of another child or sibling or friend, which is I can't hold any boundaries because I'm terrified that this other child, if I said you can't live here, would would die on the streets, and I and I can't live with that. Mental health issues absolutely are a factor in in someone exiting door number three. Sometimes it's trust in professionals that. are telling you things that might not be right, or just basically, I don't really trust this person in general, so I'm not going to do what they recommend. Therefore, my kid ends up out there. And popular opinion definitely makes it, you know, happen for that kid. Like, we hear this a lot from kids in the West, which is drugs are legal, um, I have housing provided by the government, my life is not— there's no problem, and the parents are just helpless. So basically what I think, if you're looking at this door number 3 exit point and your loved one is just going at it hard and there's nothing you can do to stop them, then I think we need to move from non-intuitive love, which I talk about all the time. Non-intuitive love is to not protect, manage, make your child's life easier or simpler. And I always say with addiction that you have to go to non-intuitive parenting, non-intuitive spousing, non-intuitive loving in general. But I think when we're in door number three, that would be the only time I would say it is time and okay to revert to back to intuitive, which is to do the opposite of what I just described. Intuitive loving is to protect, manage, control, make their lives easier. And in this case, we're reverting to intuitive love to help ourselves. Okay, this is when enabling. Is okay and and even advisable. I've advised two new clients this week to to do it is good for them. It's not good. It's not going to help cure their disease, but they're past that right now. They just I want them to be able to put their head on their pillow at night and feel good about themselves. And I think this is really just not talked about. This is really not advocated in our profession. There's all this tough love. There's the craftman. There's all these things. But at the bottom of that, there's boundaries and Things that we do are no longer willing to do, which I'm a massive advocate of. But when we get into this, I just don't think that we need to hold that. And this is where I just think one size fits all isn't appropriate. So what I like to do is encourage whoever I'm dealing with, like if there's like two parents, is let's look at who, where everybody's heart is. I always work with the softer heart and the softer heart is the one that just cannot Help themselves. They keep giving money or they keep doing whatever. And that's the one we always work with because we don't want to work with a harder heart because the softer heart might be mad at the, at the harder heart. So we always work with that. So I think that it's fine to build a plan, develop some sort of system that works for either the spouse or the parents, whoever we're talking about. According to that heart, because that heart is what's connected to your ability to put your head on your own pillow at night and say to yourself, regardless of the outcome, I did all I could. We did all that we could. And I think often that that really just becomes the goal we have to hang on to, and the only goal we can have, and the only thing we can achieve. And I think that as sad as that is, I think we need to make it okay for people who get there. So there's a song, um, it's by the Emotions and Luther Ingram sang it. And the line is, I cannot sing at all, so I'm not even going to hum it. But the line is, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right. It's a pretty good song. It was big in the early '70s. Listened to it in college a lot. But to me, this is a really good example of If what I'm advocating here is wrong in the profession, in popular opinion, in your head even, you don't, you don't have to be right. You, you can be wrong. So I think what you have to do is you have to give yourself permission to follow your own instincts. I think you have to disregard popular opinion, popular thinking, and maybe even professional Um, opinion. Like, sometimes you just have to go against. And if you're— if your child has gone through all the unmanageability and still is determined to use, the outcome is not going to be good. It's going to be jail or something negative. And you just have to morph and go back to this intuitive way of loving. So I think at this point, like, disregard popular thinking. Disregard traditional codependency thinking. And remember, codependency is an anxiety disorder based upon fear. So when I say traditional codependency thinking, I mean that you can't not hold boundaries because of your fear. In this case, I think you should just embrace your codependency and recognize that my anxiety is going to cause me to go against the grain, To do what's not recommended, but I need to do that for myself. So go against other people's advice. So what this could mean, you guys, it could mean a lot of different things. It could mean for the couple I talked to earlier this week is they're going to move to a different state where their child is living homeless, and they're going to rent an Airbnb. And whatever time they can get with this child, they're going to offer home-cooked meals and a bed to sleep in. They're fully prepared. She will come and go that she will be out on the streets. She may opt to sleep in the tent every now and then where she is currently living, but they want to offer this so she knows they're there. She knows she's loved and they see her some. It could be doing that. It could be paying for an apartment or a mobile home or a hotel room, just providing somewhere for your child or loved one to live or to have the ability to live. To sleep, you could be even giving them cash. And you know, I say all the time, don't give them cash. Amber says all the time. Kim says all the time. But in this case, if you got to give them cash because you want them to have money for food, and you don't care if they spend it on drugs because they're doing it anyway, but you want to at least know that they've got twenty bucks in their pocket that they could buy a cheeseburger, whether they do or not doesn't matter. You want them to have the twenty bucks. It could be buying them a car to live in. Like, like that sounds bizarre, but at least you know your child or your loved one is not sleeping in the elements. They're not freezing to death. They're not being poured on. They have a place they could opt to go to and and sleep. I think sometimes it even means like going to look for them, and there's all kinds of. Of stories out there, I can't remember what book it was. It was a famous guy, and his son was a cocaine addict somewhere in I think Chicago. And he this whole book was about his journey to find his son, and he found him in a flop house eventually and and got him to treatment. I don't know. I can't remember if it was successful at the end, but this guy decided I I cannot let my child not be known. I have to know where he is. I don't care how bad the news is. I just cannot sit in my house and not know where my child is. So it could be. Going to look for them. It could be letting them live with you, and I'm not a big fan of that in door number 1 and door number 2 strategies. But in door number 3, if that's what you got to do, that's what you got to do. I used to have a client years ago whose older son had died of an overdose. Her 50-year-old son was using and stealing from her, and she not only let him live there, but she continued to buy tools. That she knew he was going to steal and pawn for drugs, and she would come in every other week, every third week, and say, "I know, I know, I know what you're going to say, but I just can't do it." And I said, "You don't know what I'm going to say because I'm not going to tell you to stop buying weed whackers, and I'm not going to tell you you can't live there. If that's what you need to do for your heart, then by God, buy him new sheets and buy weed whackers. It's." Okay, so I think you know the tagline for today's talk is making choices you can live with. And in this gray area that we're talking about today, that's what it's all about. I think that we absolutely have to be able to live with ourselves. And this is a family disease. This journey is as much ours as it is theirs, unfortunately. And all the effort seems to be focused on. What do they need? What should we do for them? What should we not do for them? How do we try to get this to our end goal? And if the end goal may not be possible now or ever, then you, your job is to take care of yourself. And I am hereby giving the blessing that it's okay to do that. And for all of you out there who are struggling with this decision or getting crap from other people who are telling you you're doing it wrong, or what you need to do is blank. Watch this video and live with yourselves and be peaceful. And that sometimes is all we can get. And that that would be my hope and prayer for you guys is that you can find that peace in this crappy journey that we're on if that's where you end up. So that's that's what I have to say on that. Let's see what kind of questions we have for the next 18 minutes. All right, Jennifer Baker. Oh, I have a cousin named Jennifer Baker. Um. What about the wall between door number two and three? Like they know, they acknowledge, and they say they want to quit, but they won't have the conversation because they have failed in the past and say, "I can't do it." I think for them, door number two is still an option. I think that that's part of the bargaining process. I've heard this this last week from someone who said that they didn't want to go to treatment because they had heard that when they If they came out and they used again, that they were more likely to overdose. And I just think that's bargaining talk. And I'm sort of thinking, Jennifer, that's what your question is about. I think that's the disease talking, to be honest. I can't do it is I just didn't do it the right way. Not I can't do it. I didn't do it right. Remember, 100% of the people who do what they're asked to do, recommended to do, told to do for several years. Those people stay sober, and the people that yeah but or I'm not like that or I don't need that, which is the bulk of them really, then then those are the people that have to go back over and over and over or have those kind of conversations that you put into this place between door number two and three. But I think it's door number two still. All right, Misha, what is my name? My name is Campbell Manning. Um. Oh, that's very nice of you. I'm glad that this has been helpful to you. Yeah, Campbell Manning, you can call and make an appointment or go online. We're, we're here for you. Is that it? For me, I would just tell my name a bunch more. Um, wow, no more questions. I'm gonna give it a minute. Also, while we're maybe hopefully hoping someone else will ask a question, is let's talk again about non-intuitive parenting, which I came up with the term. I made it up years ago. So I'm gonna go back over this again because this is really important. Intuitive parenting is again to control, protect, manage, make my child's life easier. Most of us were parented intuitively, and most of us intuitively parent as our peers do, as our neighbors do, as our children's friends do. And for about 75% of the children— I made that number up— but for a lot of the children, intuitive parenting works fine. Most kids figure out how to take care of themselves and they do well. With addiction, intuitive parenting Kicks the can down the field, postpones the the stopping. It's it's just totally not going to work because as we control, protect, manage, make our children's lives easier, we are enabling or slowing down the process that is going on anyway behind the scenes or whatever. Like I talk to people all the time; they're like, "Well, I'm just gonna make him come home at nine, and I'm gonna drive him to school, and I'm gonna drive him to work, and he won't use." I'm like. That's insane. He absolutely will use despite all that, so that intuitive parenting is not going to work. So intuitive parenting, wonderful parenting, non-intuitive parenting is really what you have to focus on, and it doesn't feel good. It doesn't look good. People don't like it. I was a huge non-intuitive parenting person. I Literally didn't even log have a login to the parent portal. The school was like, "I'm not giving you my email because I don't want to log in the parent portal." They're like, "Well, how are you going to check their grades?" I'm like, "I'm not. I don't go to high school. They know their grades, and they can take care of their own work." So that's sort of the bulk of it is is you just sort of allow your child to make mistakes, to deal with the consequences, to learn, to grow. And if we parented like that from 4 on, our children would really figure life out pretty solidly by 12, but we don't. And so then we send them off into the wild at college and we are shocked that they don't know what they're doing. The, the, you missed the first second. So hang on, I'm gonna do this one real quick, Bree. Um, the 3rd door is they recognize that substances are a problem, but they don't care and they continue to use despite utter unmanageability. So they're homeless or they just— the unmanageability is not mattering to them because the addiction is so strong. All right, Tracy, trying to decide if I should let my addicted son live with me while waiting for a bed in rehab. That's a good question. I guess it would depend on how long you're waiting for the bed. If it's a couple days, probably. The problem is the longer Between yes, I will go and going, the longer that time frame is, the most likely or more likely that addiction will pop back in and say, oh, hell to the no, we are, we are absolutely not going. So if he's pleasant and it's a short amount of time, it's worth giving it a whirl. But I would definitely put the end of a parenthesis on how long you were willing to do that. Because otherwise he now lives with you and he's out using and you're back into the turmoil. So if you're gonna do that, I always say, always, whether you're paying rent for X amount of time, on door numbers 1 or 2, if you are gonna pay rent for so much time, help them out financially so much, this put a, put an endpoint on it. Otherwise you're just sucked right back into it. And they remember, you know this, you guys, they— 2 weeks is gonna be testing it, Tracy. But I would do it personally. I'm just thinking about if this was my child, I would do it. Mine, mine always went really quickly. Um, 'cause they went from detox and we just kept them in detox until they were going straight into sober living or long-term treatment. Um, so just, just be careful that you don't box yourself into now he's here and we're back into square one. All right, Dale. Um, can you get, uh, substance use dependent individuals to address an underlying issue, anxiety, et cetera, to prevent them from going door to door number 3. Yeah, that's the secret right there is, is can you get them sober enough to deal with those things to prevent them from going back out and going to door numbers 1, 2, or even 3 again? You cannot really address an underlying issue, anxiety, negative narrative, those kinds of things while someone is using because the disease likes that narrative. The disease wants them to feel bad about themselves, anxious, sad, lonely. And the disease likes that because that's how it gets them. So, you know, you watch this, the disease isolates them, the disease steals their humanity, the disease does all these negative things so that it's got them. And if it said, oh, well, let's take a break here and let you figure out why you're anxious and And what's going on in your life, then it loses its power and it probably would lose— in a lot of people, it would lose its ability to even exist in that person. So those issues ultimately, I feel very strongly, have to be dealt with because most people who have a substance abuse problem, an addiction, they have— they're using their substance to cope initially. They're using their substance to cope. Versus I just enjoy a glass of wine. I enjoy the flavor of a beer or having being high every now and then is just funny. But if you're doing it because you're anxious or your life is overwhelming, or you don't like yourself, or you have a crappy job and you don't, you can't change. If you're using it to cope, this is going to be where if addiction sits on 3 legs, if it were a stool, the first is genetic predisposition. That's pretty common. I don't know anyone that doesn't have any level of addiction in their family, even if the word addiction is not being used. Second is access to, and this is America, this is the world. It's in every middle school, every high school, at every gas station. It's everywhere. So the third thing though is, do I use this substance as a way to cope? And if I do, then what's gonna happen is I'm gonna get preoccupied With feeling the relief that whatever the substance is fixing the coping for. And so those, those are the 3 legs that addiction spins on and gets traction, just like the 3 legs of breaking addiction are time for the brain to heal, serotonin pride, and oxytocin connection. Those are the 3 legs that— those are the 3 legs that start it and the 3 legs that end it. All right, Suzanne. My son had a non-fatal fentanyl poisoning from using cocaine on Tuesday, and I had performed CPR with my neighbor. Oh, poor Suzanne. As well as I gave him Narcan until help arrived. I'm glad you had Narcan. He went to the hospital but is home now and is going to treatment in a few days. I think it scared the life out of him personally. He thinks he's coming home after the 28 days, but I'm not at that point of agreeing to that. He hasn't mentioned it, or do we just not mention anything till it gets time to tell him? That we would like, as I'm assuming, for him to not come home. I'm going to finish that sentence for you, Suzanne. I wouldn't tell him right now, but I would tell him very quickly after getting into the 28-day place so that he has the staff, that therapist, and that time to acclimate. Families, I see this all the time, make the— they know this going in, but they don't say anything until like the last week and then it's just A nightmare, and it turns into a huge fight, and people leave AMA, and it was all lost. So I'm a big believer of in that first week you let the staff know, hey, coming home is not an option. You have that conversation with him and hopefully a staff member or therapist in the room, and then you begin to sort of build. We would like him to go to long-term sober living. I'm a big fan, to be honest, of. Working, finding out, asking the treatment center up front: Do you have a transition? Do you automatically go from the 30-day, 45-day, whatever it is, to a step down to a sober living house? And then what does that look like? It's not the end of the world if that if the answer to that is no. But will they help you find one? Will they help you find one that's within two? 2 and a half hours of you so that you can go visit when it's appropriate. When he's allowed to have guests, you can take him out for dinner, whatever, when that's allowed. But so when he goes in a few days, hopefully, then I would have that conversation with a therapist, with the staff, and let them help you tell him that. And then they can be selling, quote unquote, the options. Like, we have this great sober living house we work with, or look, we're going to help you find one. We'll take a look at them. And so there's lots. There's that last 2, 3 and a half weeks to sell it. And then as long as he, if this child actually believes coming home isn't an option, if he doesn't think there's wiggle room, then he will, he'll stay. The tag you're it message. I talk about this all the time. I did it a couple of weeks ago. That's imperative. So you've got to sell that to the facility. And to him and use their help. So that, that would be my timeline. My son has been in 5 or 6 different live-in treatment centers since February. He wants to move to a less restrictive place but wants money for rent. He's out of state. How should I handle it? Um, if you're, if you're asking if he's looking to go to a sober living and he would like for you to pay for that, I would pay for that. But if he's looking to move out on his own and he wants you to pay the rent, hard no, serious pass on that. Remember, if we provide their living expenses outside of sober living, outside of treatment, then we are really inviting addiction to move back in, unpack, put their cute stuff in the drawers, and we don't, we don't want that. So the purpose of good, long quality, good quality, long-term sober living Is that they work starting in phase two all the way through. They save their money. They have their launch money, their tag your it money when they finish the program, whether that's six months, seven months, eight months in. But that's sort of our goal always is to emerge financially independent. So whatever plan he's building for less restrictive, in my opinion, should only be sober living. And then yes, I would cover that. While he's in sober living, but with the message of when you leave, you're financially independent. I'll buy new shirts, take you to dinner, not paying your rent, not paying your car insurance, not paying— I'm not paying any of those things because you're emerging as a financially independent young man. All right, Kim. My husband is in between door number 2 and 3: jail, court date, no work for 2 months, still drinking, take benzos for anxiety, addicted to it too. Inpatient and outpatient treatment won't try again. Intuitive or non-intuitive best? I would still stick with non-intuitive at this point because he won't try again. I still think there's hope for this guy. I don't know enough details, Kim, but I think I would be. Use that empowerment triangle. Be kind, be empathetic, be— use nice words, nice tones, but be empowering, encouraging, and, and hold a boundary, which is, I don't want to live like this. I certainly hope that you change your mind. Um, because if you enable that, then, then you're just going to have a life you don't want to have because he's an adult. Um, that's a tough question. I need probably a lot more nuanced information behind that to answer it. Fully to the best of my ability, but I'm gonna stick with that. All right, Christy, is there ever a time that a person that may have a drinking problem can continue drinking occasionally, or do they always need to completely abstain? He uses alcohol to cope with stress and depression. I can't answer that question, but here's my pat answer: probably not, but I can't say absolutely never. But my my Suggestions to all my clients are: Let's wait till we've gone way past the two-year mark, and you have you got some neuro neuroreceptor recovery. But more importantly, is you have a lot of pride, and you have a lot of connection to yourself and to the world and to others. If at that point, two years or later, with all this pride and connection in place, if you still want to do it, then let's have a conversation about what that could look like. What some Flags would look like so we can abort mission quickly if we need to, but not not for a while. Not not initially. That I've never seen it work. I have seen it work with the caveats I just talked about in place, but other than that, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. All right, we have time for one more. This is from Joni. We had to cut contact with our addicted son, but he still emails us, try to get us to take his phone calls, etc. He claims he is sober other than pot, but he's still blaming us and making excuses, accusing us of terrible things, which is usually an indication that he's using. This has been going on for 12 years and we've reached our point and want to protect our peace. What do we do? Take the phone calls or keep ignoring? I think what I would do, and I'm not in your boat, but I think I would let him know we will speak to you if the conversations are pleasant and you're just checking in. You just want to say hi, how are we? How are you? Then we'll take your phone calls. The minute that it goes south, then we're going to say, hey, this conversation's gone south. We'll give it a whirl later on. We love you very much. We're hanging up and hang up. That would be my best case approach. But if he's abusing that, if that's not possible, then you just, you, you, you have the ability and it's all right for you to protect your peace. 100%. Like, 12 years is a long time. So, all right, well, that was fast even though we had that little lull of questions, but we waited it out and, and got to more. So thanks, thanks a bunch, you guys. I hope this was helpful, um, on any front, but, um, absolutely for those of you in the, in the dark gray zone of this, I hope this was helpful. All right, I will see you in 2 weeks. All right, have a great week. Bye, guys.