Navigating Lies and Secrets (PART 2)

If you're trying to get into recovery, you're trying to get sober, and you're also trying to mend relationships with your family, your friends, your loved ones, should you tell them all the secrets and lies that have happened? Should you tell them if you've had a relapse? Do they need to know all the details? What is the right thing to do in this situation? Well, that's what I told you guys I was going to talk about on the second half of the last live video. And we got cut out halfway through, so I hopped back on here to make sure that I give you guys this answer, because I did. I felt bad that this whole part was cut out. So in part one, we had Campbell on here, and she addressed from the family member side, do I call out lies when I see them? What questions do I ask? What boundaries should I have around lying, sneaking, and all that kind of stuff? So if you haven't seen part one, hop over there and take a look at that. But for those of you who were interested in this, part of the question is, what should you tell? As the person who is trying to turn your life around, how much information do you need to give? This part's for you guys. All right, so this is a. This is a question that I. That comes up in our coaching clients a lot. And the question, it comes in different forms. Sometimes it's like I had a lapse. My family doesn't know about it. I've already stopped it. Do I need to tell them about it? Another way this question comes up is more like my spouse, my loved one, my family member, they want to know every single detail about everything that happened. And a lot of that's going to be very upsetting. Do I tell them all of it? And if I don't, is that considered lying? What do I do in that situation? And the answer isn't always black and white. But there are some general guidelines that I can give you to help you think through this decision and make a wise decision on your part. So in an overall sense, it's my thought and feeling and philosophy that addiction can only live in the dark. And turning the light on it and bringing it to the surface right out there for people to see is the best way to conquer an addiction, because it doesn't. Addiction only lives in secrecy and darkness. It cannot live in truth and lightness. Okay? So whenever possible, you want to bring the truth to the surface, especially when it comes to something like a relapse. If you have a relapse and maybe. Maybe it's not that bad, and maybe it doesn't last that long. It's so tempting to think to yourself, like, look, I don't want to upset everybody else. I'll just keep this to myself. I've got it under control. I've already stopped it. There's no sense in, you know, stirring the pot and getting everybody upset, which is totally understandable, and I get that completely. But it's not always the best thing to do for you as a person in recovery because. Because it happened and you were able to stop it. It's just allowing a lot of, like, those secret thoughts to come back in those monster mouths to talk to you. And it. Because you got away with it and no one knows, you're still flying on the radar. It leaves a lot of room for more lapses. So I definitely think you should tell someone when that has happened. And I do think it is very helpful to tell your close family, you know, whether it's your parent, your spouse, or whoever it is that you're living with, that that's helping you on this journey. I think it is most of the time helpful to tell them. There are a few circumstances where I say maybe not tell the family, but definitely tell someone that can help hold you accountable. Your coach, your sponsor, your counselor, your group mate. Whoever it is, talk to someone about it, because leave it in the secrecy and it' come back. Right. You definitely want to turn a light on it. Sometimes with family members, if you. If you know that they kind of already know and they've been asking you, but you've been lying about it, I would just come clean because they already sort of know about it. And when you keep lying to their face, your trust is just nothing and they're just not gonna believe anything you say. So that's the case. Tell them. If. If your loved one is the kind of loved one who's going to get so reactive and so upset that it is literally going to cause, What, World War 10? And they're not going to get over it, and you're not going to get over it, and everything's just going to come crashing down, then it's not always the best thing to tell the loved one. Now, I'm hesitant to even say that because I don't want you to use that as an excuse. Oh, it's going to upset them, not tell them. That's not what I'm saying. When you give someone bad news, it's going to upset them. That does not mean you get to not tell the truth, because someone's going to be upset. No, everyone's going to be upset. I'm talking about the situations where it is literally going to self destruct and blow up and it's not going to end well. And you know that. And they're just not going to get over it. It's just going. Going for months or whatever. In that situation, it's not always helpful to tell them if they don't know it. You do need to get your butt back in the right place and get yourself back in line. And you do need to tell someone. Okay, let's move on to the question about, do you tell all the details about everything that's happened that's gone on during your addiction? Now, if you work a 12 step program, they have like a whole process for that. And it is helpful to tell to, to say out loud those things that you've done and to talk to someone about those things that you've done. Because it, the reason is because it alleviates the guilt and the shame and you feel better about yourself. It actually feels really good. It's almost like pulling a splinter out. It's like you can heal then, so it is helpful to shed the light on it. Like I said, secrecy and darkness. You want to avoid it, so you want to talk to someone about it. But when it comes to your close family members knowing all the details, it's like traumatizing. I tell these films like, you don't want to know what I know. Okay. Like, you would be traumatized to hear all these things. So if you're a family or you're watching this, like you don't want to know all the details. What you really want to know is you want to know that they get it. You want to know that they know they have a problem and that they're going to do something about it. That's what you want to know. You literally don't want all of that stuff because once you know it, you can't unknow it. So if you're the person who's trying to change your life and you're in this situation and your loved one is asking you for that, I would, I wouldn't outright refuse, but I would say, look, I don't think all the details are helpful. I'm telling you like the main part, like the, the main storyline here, you know, so it's like it's all above board, all that. But there may be some difficult, uncomfortable things. And I don't think that you need to talk about that. All the little teeny specifics of everything with your family member. Unless it's something that they already know and you know that they know, and you just keep lying about it. Like you stole 50 bucks from them or something and they know it and they've been asking you about it and you keep lying. Yeah, you. You just need to own that. Right? Because you're just harming yourself and them by continuing to lie and lie and lie about it. I'm talking about these, like, really hurtful things. It's kind of like in 12 steps, they say, like, make amends, except when to do so would be harmful to yourself or someone else. But you got to be real honest with yourself about this. This does not let you off the hook to, like, not be honest just because you don't want to deal with some uncomfortableness. You got to get real with yourself about the situation. Okay? Either which way you need to talk to someone about it. One of the things that comes up real frequently with the coaching clients that I see is, is I'll tell them when they first come. I'm like, look, when you first come see me, you're probably already in the doghouse. Just about as far in the doghouse as you can get, okay? So if there are other secrets in the box that are could come out, maybe likely to come out, let's go ahead and tell them now. Not necessarily me. I mean, you tell me whatever, but, like, let's go ahead and get them out with your loved one. Because if we get three or six months down the road and you've been doing awesome, and you've won back trust, and then all of a sudden some secret comes up, like, somebody knocks on your door and says, your son here owes my $3,000 for drugs. It hasn't been me. Like, and it's going to surface and. And it's going to come out. You wanna. You wanna bring it out before the other person finds it out. You want to bring it out before your call, whatever. It is always better to do that. So when I see new clients, I say, listen, if it's gonna happen, just tell me now. I will literally go down the hall, I'll talk to Campbell, I'll talk to Kim, and I'll say, we need a free pass, but we need to tell this because we don't want it sabotaging us two months down the road. And a lot of times, it's like owing money or having stole something or having hung out with the wrong people. Just some stuff like that that, you know, that could surface and just completely destroy any kind of trust or credibility that you've built. And then your loved one's gonna be so mad at you and that's gon. And your recovery and your self esteem and everything else. I'm like, let's just get it out there. If you're watching this and you're a family member and you know your person is hiding some of those things, the thing that you can do that would be helpful is just give them room to be honest. Because it really does help them to be honest. Because that secret keeping is no good. It creates shame, guilt. You start subconsciously backing up and backing away from people because you're holding these bad things. So it's helpful for them to say it. So anything you can do as a loved one to allow it to come up, please do that. You can literally say what I say. Listen, free pass. If there's other things you don't tell me, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to be any worse than it is right now. Right? Like, I'm not gonna retrospectively go back and you're not going to get more punishment and more trouble or whatever. And you can even say, and if something comes up and you think of something next week and you need to tell it to me, tell it to me. And. And you have this thing that stands. I mean, I think there's probably small exceptions to that. Like you're probably not going to give someone a free pass on an affair. O. Okay. But other things that are just continuations of other bad behaviors that have been happening, I mean, you might as well let them come out. You'll feel better because you'll know the truth. You'll know that they're not lying to you and they'll feel better because it's out. And they don't have to like hide from it or run from it or keep people separated or do a lot of splitting that's going to keep them in addictive behavior. If your loved one is doing really good and six months later something does come out and the drug dealer does come knock on the door, I get that that's hurtful. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't be upset about it. Of course you're going to be upset about it. But I'm saying if you throw a fit about it and you get back on that drama roller coaster that you've worked so hard to get off of, it's going to pull them back on the roller coaster with you and then they're going to start denying and tap Dancing and gaslighting and blaming all the things, right? And then the two of you are going to be back in that dance. If you will handle it and just say to your loved one, hate, I know this happened. Um, I know you've been keeping a secret. I wish you would feel like you could tell me things. Now I get it. You've done a lot of bad things. Is there anything else? And. And you handle yourself totally fine with will take that trust and just strengthen it so much because they're going to feel like, okay, I can trust them. They're not going to freak out. They handled it well. But a lot of coaching clients recently tell me like, something happened. And they're like, and my wife didn't even freak out and she handled it really well. And they're like telling me how not they feel good about what they did, but how they feel good about their relationship and how much better they feel and how helpful that is. It. It really is helpful to the relationship if both people feel like they can be honest with each other and that no one is going to lose their cool and go back into those all bad behaviors and start all the roller coaster of drama. Okay. If you want to stay in recovery, both sides have to sort of maintain cool. You have to be respectful to each other, kind and considerate to each other even when the hard feelings are happening. Right. If you're. If you're a loved one and your addicted loved one tells you something and it's just really hard and you're really upset about it, then you can say, I get it. I'm just going to need some time to process it. Give me some time to think. And then go to your friend, go to your sponsor and process through it before you try to hash it out with your loved one. If it's really infuriating, saddening, whatever it is, give yourself some time before you go and address that issue. A lot of. There are still some of you who have come back in the chat. I appreciate that one of the things that happened on the last live was I didn't know because it's hard to talk to you guys and read all the chats too, but it was like a whole argument apparently happening in the chat and then the live cut off. And so everyone thinks that the live cut off because YouTube got it off because of that. But I think it's really two separate issues. Campbell, who was on here, I think when she clicked out, she accidentally hit something that ended the live. So it's two separate issues. There was a Lot of people in the chat on Live one that asked questions that I actually did answer, but they didn't get recorded on the live. I talked for, like, 30 more minutes. Silly, right? I had no idea it wasn't live. One of the big questions that was asked by three or four people were, do I call out live if my addicted loved one is lying? And it had to do with they're intoxicated and they're saying that they're not, and they're going to drive My kids, that got asked a few times, and I do want to address that. Yes, you call that out. Safety always comes first, and especially the safety of children always comes first. So everything that I tell you goes out the window when it comes to safety. You do not let someone that's intoxicated drive your kids in the car. Okay? So that's just where you're gonna have to do what you're gonna have to do. The first level I would try is just try to, like, bypass it and be like, no, it's cool. I'll drive. I'll take them or whatever. We'll meet you there. Whatever you got to do, try to just sidestep and handle it. If that doesn't work, then go to the next level and say something like, I'm really just not comfortable with you driving. I feel better if you let me drive. So you're kind of saying it but not saying it. And if that doesn't work and they're throwing a fit and they're just, like, adamantly swearing that they're not and they can't believe you and you're saying they're a bad mother and whatever turn into an argument, you can say, look, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you're intoxicated. If you would like to take a test, a breathalyzer, a drug test, and show me that you're not, then I will admit I'm wrong and we can move on. But unless you're willing to do that, then you're not driving my kids in the car. So when it comes to something like that, you. You definitely call it out, and you definitely step in for safety kinds of reasons. Someone else in the chat asked a really good question that I haven't heard before, which was. I think it was a situation where it was, like, their ex and. And I guess there were children in custody and stuff like that. And it's like, is it okay to set a boundary with my ex about not being intoxicated when they're talking to my kid on the live chat. So. So probably part of the custody stuff is that the. The kids get to talk to the other parent on like, what is it called? FaceTime or whatever. And the way the person initially asked the question is, can I set a boundary? Is it okay to set a boundary with them about that? And the thing about it is, this is boundaries are for you. You cannot set boundaries for someone else. That's called a rule and you can't really enforce it, especially if it's your ex. All right? What you can do in a situation like that is you can tell. You don't even have to tell that person. Sometimes you need to. But a lot of times you could just make a deal with yourself. If my kids are on the FaceTime or whatever and they're talking to their. Whatever the other parent and whatever's going on is harmful, like they're so intoxicated, it's upsetting the kids. They're being negative, threatening, hostile. The kids are being confused. Like, if it's causing damage, then just in the call and you may want to tell your love and listen, if things start going sideways and it's really bad, I'm just going to end the call, right? And then we could try again tomorrow or something like that. That's probably a boundary I would set for yourself. But do you. Hopefully you can see the difference in. You can't tell them they can't talk to your kids if they've had a drink because you just can't prove it and you can't back it up, but you can say, and if they've had one or two drinks and they're talking to your kids and your kids don't even know it, fine, Right? But if they're like sloppy drunk or maybe they start fighting, they're angry or they're being nasty or something bad's happening just in the call right now. All that being said, that's my therapeutic advice. I'm not a lawyer, and if you have to, like, let them talk for some events or whatever, consult your lawyer about that. Okay? This is my therapeutic advice, not the law advice. I hope that that's helpful. I will take. There's some of you guys who actually hop back on here for the part two. Thank you, guys, because I just decided to do that last minute. See if you guys have any questions. Heaven Band says, I haven't seen my daughter since a few days before Christmas. How long do I wait to go out and look for her again? I mean, I think it's fine to look for your daughter. Is it, is it like literally like walking the streets looking for them? Or is it, is it like sending a message? Is it okay to send a message unless they've told you, do not contact me, do not talk to me, do not come around me. Then yeah, I think it's, it's plenty fine to reach out to your loved one and to, to try to find them. Now. I, I, if you think something's bad's happened, like, like something nefarious, you can report that a missing person, right? If you think they're just avoiding you and they've just run off with their boyfriend using drugs or whatever, then that's a slightly different situation. And, and I think it's okay to look. But I wouldn't stalk them, obviously. I wouldn't spend every day, all day doing it. I would make some effort to let them know that you still care and that the door is still open. Basically. Let's see here. Marie says my ex live for 2 years. So much BS. His excessive drug use and all the cheating. No trust and credibility. I'd rather deal with the truth than be lied to. We are no longer. It hurts, but I finally free, right? Because sometimes a lot of these things, Marie, it's like you know already, but they're not admitting it. And it makes you feel crazy because it's like gaslighting, right? It's like they're just trying to deny it and you already know. And it is, it is infuriating. And it's really hard to build trust with someone who you know is outright lying to you. And you've asked them and asked them and asked them. I totally get it. So I'm glad that you have found your freedom and your peace. Let's see. Grace says, thank you so much. It was along those lines, but my counselor wanted me to think about it. Grace, I think you're the one asked the question about the FaceTime, aren't you? If I'm remembering right, I wish I could remember all the questions. I literally answered like 20 minutes of questions and didn't know I wasn't live. It's kind of embarrassing, but I will do better next time. We will try not to get cut off midstream. It didn't have anything to do with the argument. But I will address that issue by getting some moderators. I'll figure that one out too. But for today, I hope this was helpful for you to get this part two and hear about some, you know, some guidelines on what to do if you are the addictive person, what to tell and not tell. I'll see you guys next week at one and we'll. We'll do a better job. You live and you learn by everybody.