Negative Thoughts To AVOID When Your Loved One Is Getting Sober

Most of you already know that I'm always encouraging you to be smart and strategic with how you interact with your addicted loved one. Because when you can make really wise choices and how you interact with them, you actually have a lot more influence over the situation. Not saying you can control it, but you can definitely influence it. And I think by now, if you've been watching this channel for a while, you probably agree with that. And you know, yes, this is what I should be doing. You watch the Amber videos, you're practicing stuff, but sometimes you just mess it up. Sometimes no matter how hard you're trying or what you intend, you get in your own way. You let it get to you. You have a meltdown, you. Something happens, you bust into a rage, you say all the things that you've been holding in. And hey, I totally get it. You are a human being and there's only so much that you can take. But a lot of times what causes us to do that are these self sabotaging thoughts. These little narratives, these conversations that we have in our head get us worked up. And it's when we're having these thoughts and conversations, this is when we kind of lose it. This is when we get off track. A lot of you that watch videos are actually in our invisible intervention course. In that course, I teach you all kinds of skills, Communication, ways of talking. We even have a scorekeeping mechanism so you can see exactly where you're at with your loved one and you know all the right things to do, but still you hit the wall sometimes. So once you be able to recognize these self sabotaging thoughts when they happen, so that hopefully you can eradicate them or at least dismiss them pretty quickly. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth. I'm a master addiction counselor and I've been helping people overcome addiction for more than 20 years. The goal of this channel is to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get five steps ahead of it. Today we're going to be talking about what are those little trip up roadblocks that even though maybe you got five steps ahead, you start thinking these thoughts, you mess it up. And now you're back to the beginning. Now, the idea of this video actually came to me from one of our moderators in our Facebook group for people who have addicted loved ones. You see, there's this video I have out there that's actually made for the addicted person where I talk about what I call monster mouths, which are these thoughts, these rationalizations, These justifications that people with addictions have where they talk themselves into making bad choices, basically. And the moderator in our Facebook group says, hey, there needs to be a monster mouths video out there for the family members. And I was like, you know what? You're right. So this is that video. This is your monster mouths. These are the conversations that you have that lead you to make bad decisions. Most of these thoughts are based in fear or sometimes ego or anxieties, and they just get in our way of making smart decisions. So as we go through these, you know, try to keep a count. Go along and let me know how many of these you have or maybe what's the big one that bothers you the most? Number one is the thought that he or she is never going to change. How many times do you have that thought? Do you have to push that thought out of your head? Maybe your loved one has failed many times. Maybe they've made multiple promises, and it's easy to get in your head and say they're never going to change. In fact, there are probably people around you emphasizing that and telling you that over and over and over. Now, I'm not saying that everyone has the capacity to change or that everyone will change, but when you have that kind of negative thinking, it makes you want to give up. And then you just. It's so much hard work, which I totally get, and it makes you just want to throw in the towel. And this is when you're going to get reactive. Just because someone has tried and failed multiple times does not mean that they are never going to change. In fact, I really like it when people come to see me that have already tried and failed multiple times. Because now I know we done checked all that off the list. I see it as a good thing because it's going to have to happen. The tries and the failures. The thing I call bargaining is going to go down. My goal is to make it happen faster. So I like to see people who've tried and failed multiple times because then they've tried a lot of these things. We don't have to do that anymore. We can mark it off the list and we can move forward. In some respects, you should see it as a good thing instead of a negative thing. The other thought that comes to us that really upsets us is this thought. They only care about themselves. Now, I know when you're dealing with a person who has an addiction, their behavior can be pretty doggone selfish. And when you're dealing with someone who has an addiction, they do behave in ways that are very selfish. But it's not usually because they're selfish human beings. It's because this addiction has gotten them to a point that they're inservation, survival mode. They're on this merry go round, this triangle which sometimes involves being in withdrawal or sick or anxious or having a lot of difficulty if they can't drink or use. And because of that, they can't quite step out of their own way to be consistently concerned about other people's needs. The best way I know how to describe it to you if you've not been there is kind of like if you're really, really sick, if you're like, got the stomach virus. Me the other day, I had a bad episode with kidney stones. Let me tell you what, I wasn't thinking about much of anybody else at that point. You're survival, you're just trying to get through the moment from moment to moment. And it really is hard to pay attention to what other people need around you and for sure not be able to do that consistently. Another little sneaky monster mouth sabotaging thought that you might have is everything out of their mouth is a lie. Now, I know when you're dealing with someone who has an addiction that they're going to be lies and dishonesty or omissions or avoidances. There's definitely going to be some deceit going on there. And some people with addictions get to the point where they just literally lie about. They really do kind of lie about almost anything. When it seems like, why are they lying about that? It does happen because they're keeping so many secrets. They're keeping up with so many storylines that it's hard to keep up with. But for the most part, people that have an addiction, they mostly only lie about the addictive behavior or things surrounding the addictive behavior. So they might lie about where they were. And that's because they went another route so they could stop at the store or meet up this guy or whatever and get the thing and it feels like they're lying about everything. You might use the term compulsive liar, but most of the time when it's addiction, the lying actually does serve a purpose. It's kind of one of the ways that you can differentiate somebody who's really lying because they have an addiction versus somebody who maybe really is like a compulsive liar. You can see that the lying serves a purpose, which is to protect and fuel the addiction. Now this is a big one. Of all the sabotaging thoughts that I'm going to tell you this is the number one that you need to watch out for. And that thought is think to yourself, I am such an idiot for fill in the blank, for staying with them, for not seeing this sooner, for putting up with that crap. And you start beating yourself up and you start to feel a lot of shame about yourself for continuing to care about this person or missing things. And that's because a lot of the people around you are probably sending you messages like, why are you putting up with that? And how did you not see that? And you feel really guilty or you feel like you were a bad parent. And this is why this happens. You get so wracked with shame and guilt that you're constantly on this, should I stay or should I go? Should I be nicer? Should I be firmer? And you just tear yourself up inside because you have this constant guilt. One little thing I would tell you is it's real easy for someone on the outside to judge your situation. For someone to say something like, I'll tell you what I do, if that's me, I do this and I do that, and you ought to do this. And you know what? I'm not gonna lie to you. Some people are judging you for what's happened, but those are just people who haven't been in your situation yet. This is a very difficult situation. And you got to give yourself a little grace because it can happen to anyone. And all those people out there judging, like I said, it just happened. It just hasn't happen happened to them yet. Now, this next one is kind of similar to they only care about themselves, but it's a little different. And this one is. Well, they don't even care who they're hurting in this process. The truth of it is is that, for one, they're minimizing to themselves that they are hurting other people. So they're sort of in denial about the fact that they're hurting other people. Other times they know they're hurting other people, but they're so mad at you because they feel like you're controlling, you're mean, you didn't get them, you did this awful thing to them that they kind of get in this. Well, I don't care. I'm just. I'm doing it on purpose to hurt you. Like they're getting back at you. But most of the. The reason it feels that way is because, like I said before, they're so consumed and stuck in this addictive cycle, they can't consistently take the needs and wants of other people in the way that they normally would be able to. So I'm not telling you that to excuse their behavior. I'm just telling you it's not really because they don't care. Probably one of these other things that are going on. Another one I hear a lot is something along the lines of they're in complete denial. Occasionally I work with people who are in complete denial. Those are usually pretty young teenagers, for the most part. Even people who are denying it to you and minimizing and rationalizing and telling you you're crazy, when they come talk to me, they have some level of understanding that it's a problem. Maybe they don't think they're an addict or an alcoholic or whatever. Maybe they don't think that they should have to quit forever. But there's some level of acknowledgment inside that it's a problem. And the reason why this is really helpful to know is because once you know that those seeds are in there, that's what I teach. Like in the invisible intervention, I'm always teaching you. Like, go find those seeds. I promise you they're in there. And nurture them, grow them, pull them forward, because it's in there. A lot of times they have this defensive mask, and they may make it hard for you to see that. But like I said, I've been seeing people for a really long time, and most people on some level, know that it's problematic, and when you can make them feel safe enough, they'll actually admit it to you. Now, this next one, I just sort of threw in there because it's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, just because I feel like it's getting thrown around too much these days. But it's. They're just a narcissist or some kind of version of that. Now, can someone be a narcissist and an addict? For sure they can. But it's really hard to differentiate because people who have addictions look narcissistic, and maybe they behave sometimes in ways that are narcissistic. But there are ways to differentiate that out. I actually have some videos on that you should definitely check. Check them out. If you're not sure if your person is a narcissist or an addict. Let me tell you, it is kind of important to pull apart the pieces because one has a chance of being fixable, and one kind of does it. So you really do want to know what you're dealing with. Another thought that can really get you down and depressed and make you want to throw in the towel or make bad choices is this thought that no one ever beats addiction. You hear all these crazy statistics that says that one's an addict, always an addict, they're never going to change, just give up. In fact, if you look at some of my videos, you read some comments, I guarantee you you will see some comments like that, people saying, just leave, Just leave now. They're not change, blah, blah, leave. And there is a point where you have to sort of save yourself. There's videos on the channel about that, when to stay and when to go, that kind of thing. But I do want you to know that people beat addiction every single day, in fact. And research shows that most people actually beat it without ever even having to go to treatment. So don't believe those really negative statistics that you hear, because it's going to get you down. And the other thought that's going to sabotage you is this thought that they're not even trying. They're not even trying to get better. They keep doing the same thing. Well, if someone's behavior gets better and worse, Better and worse. Worse, better and worse, it may feel like they're not trying, but the fact that it gets better for a while says that they actually are trying. Now they're maybe not being successful at their trying. And a lot of times they're actually trying behind the scenes. Like, they don't even tell you they're trying because they're so scared that it won't work and they don't want a bunch of I told you sos from you. But most of the times there's some trying happening behind the scenes. It's kind of like that one of their incomplete denial. There's more going on under the surface that, you know, there is some level of awareness. Awareness, and there is some trying. Maybe they're not trying to stop, but they're trying to cut it back. And that's frustrating because you know that they need to stop. And hey, I'm with you, they need to stop. But it's the trying, trial and error that gets us there. So it may sometimes it doesn't look like it on the surface, but most of the time, on some level, the people that I see, they really are trying and have tried many things. But this is a learning process. It takes a lot of tries, a lot of trial and error, a lot of stops and starts, a lot of failures and successes till eventually they get it. What are the other thoughts that you have that sabotage you, that make you want to give up and throw in the towel? I want you to be able to recognize these. I call them monster mouths. When I'm dealing with people who have addictions, I actually give them names. And so you can almost like the thought comes in your head and you can visualize this little monster trying to tell you that thought and then you can say, I see you there, Mr. They're not even trying. Thank you for your input. And then move on. So you can have the thought that comes in, acknowledge it and move on instead of ruminating on that thought and letting it build and build and build and build until it gets you in a really emotionally reaction active state. Now if you're looking for more resources, there are more resources in the description. There's a link to free resources. You can learn about our invisible intervention. And heck, this whole YouTube channel is a resource to you. There are hundreds of videos on here that will help you get your own thinking in order so that you can strategically and effectively make choices not just to help them, but also to help yourself.