Setting Boundaries With Addicted Family Members (for your sanity and theirs!)

Well, you guys are in for a good treat today, and let me tell you what, the timing is perfect. We have our family recovery coach with us today, Scott Nunrey, and he is going to give us some dos and don'ts when it comes to surviving the holidays regarding setting boundaries with your loved one, whether they are still in like active addiction Or they're in early recovery, there are some things that you really need to think about before you go into this holiday season, before you have any gatherings, if you're going to have gatherings, to make sure that doesn't ruin your experience, their experience, and everyone's time. So Scott, start us off. I think you've got some dos and some don'ts for us, don't you?

Yeah.

What you got for us?

Yeah, the first one on the dos, I think during the holidays, uh, certainly it can be a stressful situation, so So from our experience, one of the things we try to do is just we try to avoid toxic situations, whether that be here at the house within our own family, or if you're going to visit, you know, relatives and such. And when I say that, I mean, like, if they're in early recovery or in active addiction, I certainly wouldn't have alcohol at the house. We try to remove all alcohol. We don't have it here. We certainly provide a place that we can all have a good time in a sober environment. Or if, you know, if you're going to go to Uncle Johnny's and Uncle Johnny's having a drunk fest normally on Christmas Day, I probably would skip that this year. I just would not try to go into a situation that's gonna— that's gonna make things worse.

Don't, don't, don't make it harder than it has to be. Yeah, right.

I think you made it— you made a good comment. Don't add gasoline to the fire. I mean, there's no reason to add any kind of worse situation than you have to have. So that's one. I think another one is to try to have sensible expectations. Sometimes people say that that means no expectations, and I kind of agree with that, is that if you go in with no expectations, you know, you don't have the resentment, you don't have— you're not let down, you don't have all these high hopes of something going a certain way. And then when it doesn't, it's hard not to have resentment. So if you go in with no expectations, Seems to work better.

Give us some examples about what kinds of expectations that you're thinking of that, that are typical for this kind of situation.

Yeah, I think, you know, we've run into situations where, you know, maybe, maybe family tradition was that at 11 o'clock we go to a candlelight service at church. And all of a sudden at 10:30, the, you know, your loved one that's either in active recovery or active addiction They, they don't want to go to church at 10:30. Rather than, you know, making a big scene and making a big deal of it, it's okay. Just go. And if you want to go, that's fine, but don't expect them to have to go. So certain things like that, maybe, uh, you know, if you had an expectation that, oh, we're gonna, you know, we're all gonna get up and have a 9 o'clock breakfast, but they want to sleep in until 10:30 or 11, I just, I wouldn't, I wouldn't get too worked up over some little things.

I think that's such good advice, Scott. And I think it's, it's real easy to get fixated on that. This is the way we've always done it. Like, you know, and you're upset with the person because they're not just going along. But the argument over the fact that they're not going along will ruin the time a whole lot worse than just not having— not doing it the same way, I think.

Exactly.

Call that the, like, the don't sweat the small stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Yeah, and you and I were talking earlier about boundaries. You know, obviously there, there are some boundaries that you would want to set, um, if, if, uh, no matter if they're in early recovery or in active addiction. But, uh, make sure when you do set these boundaries, you know, you can certainly have these talks before they actually get there. Uh, I think you'd certainly want to do that a week before, uh, before they come. You don't, you don't want them to show up at an hour before the Christmas dinner and start setting down these, these boundaries. Try to communicate those beforehand so that if there is big disagreement, maybe you agree that this year is not a good time to get together.

Right. And if there's going to be a big disagreement, you'd rather it happen a week before than literally got family showing up, you're trying to cook dinner, whatever. You don't want it in the middle of everything.

Exactly.

That's so good. And we recently had one of our young guys that we see who's staying in sober living here in Greenville was going home for Thanksgiving to see his family. And that was one of the things that we had some discussion about. His family had some family sessions about, was he going to be allowed to go anywhere while he was home on his visit? If so, where, with who? Was anybody allowed to come over? Those discussions need to happen before the main event.

Exactly.

That will make things go so much smoother.

And they have to be clear. I, uh, one of the stories that we have that, uh, we, we— I set a boundary. Zach was, uh, in about his 3rd rehab. He was in there for 3 or 4 months, and he was coming home for Christmas, and we were excited about it. So I set a boundary that, hey, if you come home, you can't leave the house. I, I just— my feelings won't allow me to do that. My anxiety will go out of the roof, and I just feel like, uh, you know, if you come home, we want you to stay at the house. And he said, fine. So he come home and about 15 minutes before his buddies were coming over, he told me that, hey, you know, a couple of my old using buddies are coming over, but, you know, nobody's going to be drinking or using. And I thought, well, how bad could that go? So I said, okay. So he lived up to the boundary of not leaving, but he had these guys come over. And I sat in the den with him. We all were talking, but within 10 minutes, They sat there for about 2 hours and talked about war stories of them using, and about this party, and this time we got arrested, and remember we did this, and it was miserable. So I sat there for about 2 hours and got angrier and angrier until I had had enough, and I just finally said, okay, it's time to go. But it— that did ruin my— that was on Christmas Eve that we sat there for 2 hours and listened. To all their using stories. So that wasn't a good—

I bet your face got redder and redder. I could see you reliving it when you was just telling it to us, Scott. I felt it happening.

I was ready to kill them. I was ready to vote to really— I was, I was very angry. But yeah, that kind of ruined that Christmas Eve. And so I learned a lesson that, you know, with old friends like that, old using buddies, there's just not much good that can come out of it. So don't, don't, don't have that happen.

Right. And what's going to happen too, if this is something new to you, is If you say that to your kid, loved one, whoever, they're going to say, listen, I've already told them, you know, I'm sober now. I'm not going to use in front of them. And the thing of it is, is even if the person, not even that they're going to come over and use or offer your loved one something, but like you said, it's just going to remind them, whether even if they're not talking about it, of all the times. And then they're going to, your loved one's going to be sitting there knowing, oh, they're going to leave at 8. When they leave at 8, they're going to go party. It's going to trigger your loved one. Now, I wouldn't get into an argument with your loved one and say to them, well, Amber said, or Scott said, it's going to trigger you. Why don't you say this? If you got to say it, you can say, I know it's probably fine, but it's going to trigger me. I'm going to get crazy. And you know, it's terrible when that happens. Say it's going to trigger you for sure. So you can say that.

Absolutely.

All right. Those are good. What else you got for us, Scott?

Maybe switch over to a couple of the don'ts. If they are in active recovery, We hear this a lot at Purple, families asking us, you know, how do they handle it when, let's just say your loved one's been in rehab for 4 months and he's coming home for the first time in the 4 months. You know, don't bring them home and start just grilling them on how their recovery's going. If they want to talk about their recovery, they will, they'll bring it up. And then certainly you can talk and have good conversation around it. But they do that all day, every day in recovery. And probably they're ready for a couple-day breather when they get home for the holidays. So they probably won't want to talk about it a whole lot. So I wouldn't grill them. Just don't bring it up. You know, don't ask them about sponsor or what step you're on, those kind of things. I would leave that alone unless, unless they want to bring it up.

I think that's super good advice. Yeah. Now, it's not— I would say, you know, at the holiday, the special event, that's not the time to have the conversation. No, period.

No.

It can wait.

Exactly. And then, you know, we hear it all the time, well, should I give them money? Whether they're in active, especially if they're in active addiction, that answer is no.

No.

If they're in early recovery, that answer probably is still no if it's really early. But certainly the answer to that is no. And even, you know, okay, most of the time parents get that. Sometimes grandparents and aunts and uncles don't get that, and, and they give them money. And we had a situation just last Christmas where one of the grandmothers gave one of, one of my sons money, and he was in active use. We knew he was, you know, in a long relapse. And so he was in a bad mood all morning. He gets his present. He— it's only $50. And I think that was her mentality. Well, it's only $50. And then on the way home, he was in such a better mood. He was all giddy. And what we found out a couple days later with viewing some text messages, he was making the drug deal in the back seat on the way home while we're in the car, telling his, uh, drug buddy that, hey man, I've got some cash, leave me 3 bars in the mailbox. And he did his drug deal on the way home. And you know 7 or 8 o'clock that night, he really needed to go take the dogs out for a few minutes, and he goes out and gets his bars in the, in the mailbox, and he was, he was good. He was okay.

He got his Christmas present.

Got his Christmas present. So his, his, uh, he was actually okay that night for the rest of the night. But that certainly, when you find that out later and see the text messages and actually see that that went on, that's, uh, that's hard to take. That, that will certainly ruin a Christmas.

Right. And so I think that just that topic you're bringing up is important. Like, what in general, even just besides the money, are there things that you should talk to the extended family about, not talk to the extended family about? What's your general guidance on that?

Yeah, well, you know, our view is, as parents, is to be open and honest about your loved one's addiction. It's hard when you have stuff pent up in you and you don't share it with, you know, immediate family. You don't have to go tell the whole neighborhood, But you know, if you've got grandparents and sisters and brothers, we believe that it helps you if you're open and honest about what you're going through. Some people, and I get it, let's just say you got a you know a grandmother up in age that's 90 years old. Some people think that Granny at 90 probably doesn't need to know about you know the addiction. So I understand that. So if that's the case, you know, I just would make sure we communicate with the with the family that's going to be at the gathering that. If Granny's the only one that doesn't know that, you know, your son's in recovery, I would make sure everybody's aware of that so that we don't spill the beans right there in front of everybody and have a total, you know, uncomfortable situation at the table.

Right. That reminds me of, you know, that young guy I was telling you about just a minute ago who went home. His grandmother, it was a similar situation. Like everyone else knew, like all his siblings, but the grandmother didn't know. And it was just like you said, it was like she was older. The parents decided not to tell her because it was just going to upset her.

Right.

Worry her and all that kind of stuff. And so it's important that everyone knows that Grandma don't know, or, you know, that kind of thing.

Yep. And again, I understand if people want to go that route. What I would— what I have seen from experience is normally if you tell Granny, she's probably one of the most supportive and understanding ones. You know, these people have life experience and they understand more than we think they can. Um, so I, I would vote for telling them, but if Everybody's different.

Everybody's different. The time I say don't tell is if the person is super rigid and judgmental. Yeah, that to me is a reason not to. You know, I think sometimes it's if they're gonna worry, maybe, you know, but like you said, they're wiser than you think. They've been through— they're old, they've been through some stuff, right? It's not their first rodeo, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Now what about— oh, I was gonna say, what about telling them just Should you tell family not to bring up topics? Should you tell fam— should you give them instruction, other instruction?

Oh, you know, I wouldn't go overboard with it, but certainly I would share with them that, hey, you know, unless he wants to talk about his recovery, don't, you know, yet you haven't seen him in 6 months, sitting down at dinner and starting to grill him on what step he's on and, you know, what he's doing at the recovery and all that. It's probably not a good idea. It's going to make him feel really uncomfortable, probably. Uh, so just talk about other things unless, again, unless, you know, your loved one brings it up. But I would certainly coach them a little bit there. And then, you know, we talked about if you can control more what happens in your house as far as who comes over and those kind of things. But if you certainly, if you're going to go over to extended family, uh, to an uncle, aunt, brother, sister, and there's a lot of people there, um, and you, you feel like there's just no way to control that situation and not everybody knows, and you certainly can't coach maybe 20 people of what I maybe skip that event this year. Probably wouldn't go if you thought that there's a big chance that it because you got to remember the you know your son coming your son or daughter coming home is really nervous themselves. If there's peers, if they got cousins that you know just graduated from college and are going to Harvard to go get their master's degree and and that's all going to be the talk of the table and they're going to ask you what you're doing and you're three months in rehab that's not. There's not much way to feel good about that.

Right. For the parent, for the kid, for the spouse. It's just going to make everybody feel terrible. Yeah.

So I'd probably just try to avoid those. And, you know, early on. Now, again, if you're a year or 2 down in recovery and, you know, certainly you've got so much more to be proud about, about your sobriety than any kind of master's degree or anything. But early in recovery, that's really hard for the Right.

I definitely agree. And I think from the addicted person's side, I've seen a lot, like they're nervous because they know everyone knows that all the mistakes they've made, all the bad things they've done, whether they're still in active addiction or they're in early recovery, and they're really nervous about going. They're afraid like Aunt Jane's going to bring it up. Yeah. Or Uncle Tom's going to weigh in and put his opinion in or something like that.

Exactly.

And I think it might be helpful to even ask your loved one, whether they're still using or they're trying to be sober. Hey, what can I do? I don't want you to have an uncomfortable time. You let me know, I'm going to run interference for you. Is there a signal? Because I got your back. And y'all know I'm a big fan of aligning with your loved one. You need to get yourself on the same team. And that's one really good way to do that. Say, hey, what, what do you, how do you want this to go down?

And, you know, it's always good too, Amber, is to have an escape plan. And so what, no matter what situation, if you're over at, you know, in-laws or even at your own house, if it's just getting too uncomfortable, you know, it's okay to have an escape plan. And the addict needs that. They teach them this in recovery is to have that escape plan.

Mm-hmm.

Is that, you know, hey, I'm just not feeling well, you know, we're gonna have to leave, or whatever excuse you would want to make. But certainly if it's just starting to get too uncomfortable and causing, you know, crazy thoughts, triggering thoughts, whatever it may be, is just to be able to get out of there and have an escape plan.

Right. It could just be that it's just stressful and it just makes the person nervous. Or maybe they have social anxiety and this is their first one to try to do it without drinking or something. You know, it could just be a lot of things and you want your loved one to know that you got their back. You know, and And they just give you a signal and, you know, you got them covered. You're like their wingman. Yeah, I think it's a good way to go about that.

Well, speaking of a wingman, you know, one of the things too that, uh, when Zach went through, uh, 2 or 3 different recoveries is that they— a lot of the recoveries encourage them when they come home, if they can, to bring a buddy and the buddy system. And, and, uh, I think it's important as, as parents that we be flexible and allow that. And so we certainly did. I think about 4-year period, Zach brought home a couple of times a complete stranger to— as a buddy, um, to come home with. And, uh, we were flexible and just, you know, ran with the flow, and it worked out great. It's some— a couple of the best Christmases because it helped Zach relax. Um, it helped us relax a little bit that he had somebody there that's going through sobriety with him. And, uh, it worked out wonderful. We kind of You know, just brought them in as a normal family member and had the Santa Claus for them and, you know, wake up the next morning and it just went really, really well. So I strongly encourage if that's something that your loved one wants to do, if they're in recovery and they want to bring a friend, is to allow that. It seems to work really well.

Yeah, and I could just see how that could, that could go so well because the friend is less defensive towards the parents. When I used to run intensive outpatient years ago in a facility We had all these parent mentors, we had all these kids who had, like, they were like alumni and they were mentors. What was really interesting that we saw, because there was a lot of interaction between the parents and the kids, is a lot of times the kids would really befriend the parents, but not their own parents, right?

Right.

Because it's easier to talk to somebody else's parent. You had all these other parents who were really almost like the go-to person for these different kids, and it was just beautiful. Like, it worked. Great. And it's just easier. Somebody, you know, maybe you need some fatherly advice, but you don't want to talk to yours because you're mad at them or whatever. Yep. I really like that.

Well, I think, I think it's an outlet for everybody, kind of, you know, it's an outlet for your, for your son. It's an outlet for the family to, and it just seemed to really go well. So I, that's always worked well for us.

Gotcha. Now, Scott, do you have any stories? You have any bad stories? You got any good stories?

Well, you know, we talked about one of the tough situations is if your loved one is in active, uh, use, if they're actually using and you know they're using, and, you know, do you let them come home? Do you not let them come home? How's all that going to work? Um, certainly we've had situations where both our boys were— we knew they were using, and, um, we thought we could, uh, just have a few beers, just have a little bit of alcohol and, and come over for Christmas. And that seems to have never worked well. I want one particular Christmas Uh, they brought some friends over and, you know, just thought it was going to be a few beers on the back deck. Turned into a couple girls throwing up. Um, just, just excessive drinking, always going out of hand. But I, but I kind of knew it was gonna— I mean, that was a normal situation that it got excessive. And for whatever reason, you think it's going to be different. But, uh, that's been— we've had a couple of rough Christmases with them.

Usually girls puking on the deck at Christmas.

Puking on the deck on Christmas Eve. Um, so yeah, I would say, you know, again, every family's got their own thoughts on this, but normally if they're using, um, I don't think alcohol ought to be present at the Christmas event because it's— or at the holiday. It's just probably not going to go well.

Mm-hmm.

And so I've had enough ruined that it, uh, pros and cons to everything, but I just can't see where the pros outweigh the cons in that. And It just, it ruined, and you got to remember you got other family members, right? You got other brothers and sisters, you got other family, and certainly you just want to, I guess, realize that there's more than one person in the family.

Right, right, right. And one thing that I think can get complicated is it's one thing to decide you're not going to provide alcohol at the event, which I think is smart, especially early on. But And this happens a lot, is the family members want to say to the person, you know, like, okay, you can come to Christmas dinner, but you can't drink.

Yeah.

That's hard. You can say you're not going to have alcohol there, but if you're dealing with someone who's an alcoholic, they're either going to not come, which is fine, or they're going to drink because alcoholic can't come without drinking. And so I think you're setting yourself up for failure there. So you really need to think, like, if you're 100% sure it's going to go bad, then maybe you want to have Christmas dinner, but it's 2 hours and that's it and it's over. And everybody's like a kid's birthday party. Those things are tight, right? It's like you're in, you're out, you know, like, or if you're going to have a conversation with them about boundaries, instead of saying you can't drink because you can't really control that, you don't always know if they're doing it because they're going to be sneaking and doing it and you don't want to be trying to spy. Run your event. I think you can say is, you know what, I know Uncle Jake is a pain in the butt. If you'll just do me a big favor and not start arguing with him this year, man, that'll be my Christmas present. You know, maybe, maybe you just want to say like, it's not so much the drinking, it's the behaviors anyway. It's always a target the behaviors.

That's right.

Not the substance.

Yep. Yeah, exactly.

All right, I'm gonna look through here, Scott. You can Keep talking to us if you want to, and I'm gonna pull out some questions and comments for us, okay?

Yeah, while you're doing that, you know, maybe one of the last things, Amber, on the dos is, you know, this is hard to do, but just try to be as normal and less stressed as you can. When your loved one's coming home, whether they're using or not using, they, you know, it's probably gonna be a little stressful. And the more we can do to remove the stress out of our life, whether it is if you need to get up and walk for an hour, if that helps you reduce the stress, if it's reading a book, Whatever you can do for self-care and make sure you're, you know, the best you at that holiday period. And just try to be, if at all possible, as normal and enjoy them. You know, it's again, when you don't have expectations, when you can just say, hey, we're just going to enjoy the visit, seems to increase the chances of that going well.

It's like, keep it simple.

Yeah.

It's like even things when you're saying that, I'm even thinking things like, like if you're like the one that always makes the dinner, if you're, You know, if you want to order it out this year, you know, don't make things harder on yourself. Try to just go in with ease, right? I love it.

And you know, there could be situations where it's not normal. I know Zach's been in rehab before during Christmas where he couldn't come home. And so one time we got up one morning and Emily and I, we drove 2 hours, 2 and a half hours to Winston-Salem. We went to a Waffle House at about 11 AM. First time I've ever eaten Christmas dinner at Waffle House, but it's pretty damn cool. It's packed. Because it's the only thing open. So it literally is people waiting out the door.

You gotta make a reservation at the Waffle House.

It was kind of cool. It was actually— it was unique. So we made the best of it. So, you know, go with the flow there. If for some reason that, you know, your loved one is in a rehab that they can't come home, maybe you do something totally different.

Yeah. Hey, let me tell you what, a hash brown's good on any day.

I could eat Waffle House 7 days a week.

That's right.

All right, here we Here we go.

We got Heir Apparent 1991 says, I really need help setting boundaries. I'm always doubting myself when it comes to setting boundaries and knowing what is appropriate consequence for them with my addicted dad. When it's an addicted parent, it's really, it really does get complicated because it's your parent. And so I don't know that you can implement a consequence for your parent. What do you think about that, Scott?

Well, I think, I think there your boundaries certainly what you're willing to accept, because especially with the parent, like you say, there's not much consequences. There's probably very little control, if any at all. So I would just make it whatever boundary. And then if you do set the boundary, you know, try to obviously stick through with it. But I think the boundary there certainly should be all about what you're willing to accept and not accept.

I totally agree. And I come from a family of addicts and alcoholics, and so my parents included. So I understand What you're saying. What I would say to you is it's not your job to set a consequence for them. Consequence is what naturally happens because of their behavior. If you're setting it, it's a punishment. It's not a consequence. So, you know, in my mind it's like, okay, we're gonna go over there, but I'm just gonna stay 2 hours. And that's not even a conversation I have to have with them. That's a conversation I have with myself. You know, what is it that I'm okay with or I'm not? Or if I'm gonna go over there and maybe, you know, it's like if I've got kids or there's grandkids and things get a certain way, Then I know I'm just gonna ask myself, I'm not gonna have to argue about it. I'm not gonna tell them how they're wrong. I'm just gonna say, I love you, we gotta get to the, you know, whatever that is. Yeah, a boundary is for you.

And you know, I don't know why, Amber, but I feel like, um, Christmas Eve and the Christmas Day, for whatever reason, the exact day seems to add more, um, anxiety to everything. So if you can get together with a loved one 2 or 3 days before or 2 or 3 days after I love that. And have that visit. It seems for whatever reason, the anxiety level seems to just come down because it, it's not that exact day. It's still during the holiday period, but I think trying to do something away from the exact day, if, if you know it's going to possibly go bad, is helpful.

That's actually, that's a really good one, Scott. I didn't think of because it's almost like there's not this pressure to make it perfect.

Right.

I love that. That's great. Anybody said that. Okay. Jill says, I've been trying to communicate boundaries versus ultimatums, but my loved one has said ultimatums will be helpful for him. You know where the goalpost is. How can I respectfully respond? That's interesting.

That is a good one.

You have some thoughts on that? I've got a thought or two. I want to hear what Scott has to say as well.

Yeah, you're— I'll go quick. Ultimatum, you know, is pretty much You set what they can and can't do, whereas a boundary is about I, what I'm going to accept. So I think that's the big difference. I don't know what your thought is.

I've seen, because I, like I said, I'll usually work with the person who has addiction, and sometimes it is genuine. It's like they want their loved one to set this big boundary or to breathalyze them every time they come in the house or to set this big line in the sand. But the problem is, is they're asking you to be the bad guy. And so I say decline.

Yeah.

You can say, what can I do? If the addicted person says, hey, if I start doing this, I want you to ask me about it. But that's going to turn on you. Even though they're asking you to do it, that's going to turn on you. If they say, I want you to hold my medicine, I don't want you to give it to me unless, in 2 weeks they're going to be telling you, Up one side and down the other and you don't know and they're in pain and what— it's just going to turn on you. So be careful. Yeah.

Don't let them make you the police. That's not— that never works out well.

Let's see. Nancy says, my husband, early recovery, and I are separated just yesterday. Had a conversation about boundaries that are there with our therapist yesterday. It was rough. Yeah, they can be tough conversations.

Yeah.

That's why you don't have them on the day.

Exactly.

Agreed. Hey, Hanny, glad to see you joining us here. Melissa, that's the problem, my friend. She goes right back to hanging out with her friends, so-called friends that use. That's a pretty common early in recovery mistake, Melissa, because a lot of people, they don't mean for anything bad to happen, but they think like, I'm just going to quit. You know, early stages is I'm just going to quit using. But I don't need to change anything else. If they're going to do that 2 or 3 times, then they're going to figure out it doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Yeah.

Because what I tell my clients is, and I don't suggest that you have to tell them this, but what I tell my clients is that, well, one of two things is going to happen. You're either going to go and hang out with them and they're still doing all the same things, and you're just not even going to like it anymore because it's not really fun if you're not all messed up like they are. Or you're going to get triggered up and you're going to join them. And either way, it's not going to turn out that well. But you You kind of have to let them do a little trial and error and it takes more than once. Unfortunately, it's a newbie mistake. Hey Heidi, I see you there. And Beth, oh, Beth has a question for us. Even during COVID no money?

Well, again, I think it depends if they're, if they're actively using. I mean, I think when you're giving them money, you might as well just visualize that you're giving them Xanax bars or a bag of marijuana or whatever it is. I mean, that's what they're probably going to go do with it. So, and even in early recovery, you know, especially if they're going to go back to the rehab, there's certainly normally rules around what money they can have, and it's normally on a card so that the card can be monitored as far as what they're purchasing. So in early recovery or in active use, I don't see, I don't see many pros to giving them money.

Right.

There's other things you can do. And, you know, a lot of people say, oh, we'll just give them a gift card. They sell the gift card faster than That's almost just like cash. So certainly, I know they can take the gift back and possibly get money for it and all that, but I would probably try to make it a gift. And, you know, even especially in recovery, you know, you're probably not going to be giving them all these lavish gifts to start with, right? But, but I, I would stay away from money.

I am— I made a video last year about this time about gift giving, Beth, and I'll, I'll link that up here for you at the end if you want to see it. Because it just goes over like the total dos and don'ts. Because I think that's always a complicated question and people really worry a lot about it. Yeah. Tammy says, hey Amber, really enjoy your show. I'm an alcohol and drug counselor and learn so much from you sharing your site with family. Hey, thank you so much, Tammy. We really appreciate your support. Pressure's on, Scott. Drug counselors are watching. You better get your game together.

They're probably going to call us and tell us what we did wrong.

Melissa says her friend was making plans while she was giving birth, complaining it was taking too long. Lord, Melissa, wow, that's really— that's too much. All right, let's see here. Let's see if we have any other questions on here. I canceled Halloween plans with my friend because I cannot handle the anxiety I feel watching and listening to her, half in the bag. I'm a recovering alcoholic. It took me so many times in rehab. Yeah.

Yeah.

If it's not going to be fun for you, you don't have to do it.

Exactly.

We feel these pressures. We say these shoulds and ought tos, and honestly, the other person might not even think that much about it.

Yep.

Your friend might be glad you didn't come because now she can just use and do whatever she wants to without even feeling guilty. Hate to say it.

Yeah. Melissa, we talk about that too, about counseling, even traditions. You know, if it's been a tradition to do something for all these years, if you normally go to Mass or the candlelight service, and, um, and you know that somebody doesn't want to go to it, just relax and go with the flow. I'm sure, you know, you canceled Halloween there, and I'm sure your life's still continuing to go on.

That's right.

Okay to do. And, uh, yeah, I applaud you for doing that. That's cool.

Right. All right, Miss Steph says, with little kids at home, I would actually like to disinvite my addicted loved one from being here. I know family and community is important for recovery, but I guarantee the holidays will be happy or probably unhappy if they come. I'm guessing that's what you're saying. I think that's okay. I think it's delicate how you handle it. I do think this particular year you got all kinds of excuses you can use. Yeah. Claim quarantine, whatever you got. You got something on your side this year.

Exactly. COVID, COVID is— there are a couple of good things with COVID You can, yeah, you can use it to your advantage if possible.

Yeah, let's see. Oh, we got a question. Is this gonna be saved? Yes, this will be on replay. So if you're not watching it live, you can definitely catch it back on the replay. Jill says she doesn't want to be the bad guy. Jill, you are getting an A in Family Recovery Academy. You know I'm a big fan of that. I love it. My son's an alcoholic, doesn't live with us. My elderly aunt Will mail a card and money to his— to my house, $20. Do I give him the card? That's a tough one. I'll let you answer that, Scott.

That's a good question. You know, again, you might as well just be buying him a case of beer or 12-pack. But, you know, if he's using anyways, I don't think the $20 is gonna send him over the edge. But I think that's just— everybody has to kind of deal with that, and you got to be able to live with what you think is the right thing to do there. You know, I probably going to buy alcohol with it, but if it's $20, like I say, I don't think that's gonna— I don't think it's gonna push him over the edge.

I don't know if it's a situation where you could have a conversation with the aunt and say, hey, could you not? It may not be a circumstance for you that maybe aunt doesn't know, or there may be a lot of reasons why you can't have that conversation. But honestly, as the family member, I wouldn't do anything sneaky to intervene because it's going to come out and it's going to backfire. And the resentment they have toward you for intercepting that money is going to be way more dangerous than the money, than the $20.

Yeah.

So if you can't do anything with it, I wouldn't. I say recovery lives in the light, and that is for families too. You don't do anything sneaky. You don't behind their back. It's the only way to build trust. You gotta remember, they don't trust you either. I can tell you because I talked to them. They don't trust you worse than you don't trust them. So everybody's got to be up in the light. You can give it to them and you say, man, I almost kept this money. I didn't want to give this to you. You can say that if you want to, but you can't— don't be hiding stuff. Don't be sneaking.

Well, I think that helps. That makes us relapse as parents because all we're trying to do is control and we can't control it. You know, we can't cure it and those things. But If you're trying to control things like that, it certainly makes you relapse and bring you back in. You may start trying to control all other stuff again, and that's just not where you want to be.

Right. It's just perpetuating the distrust on both sides. Yeah. Ryan, finally caught you guys live. Thanks for replying to my last comment. What's the 3 coaching sessions look like for scheduling? Is it present? Is it spread over a week? Oh, Ryan's asking about scheduling coaching sessions. And you can— I'll put the link in the description for you guys about how to schedule a session. Like, if you want to talk to Scott, you can schedule those however you want to, Ryan. You can schedule one now, you can schedule them all out, you can use one and wait and use— you can do it however you want to. Yeah, that's a really good question.

Yeah, yeah, real good question.

Let's see, Emma says, my aunt knows, I've asked her not to. I'll be in the light. Thank you. There you go, be in the light. Love it. Thank you guys so much for joining us. We've had a lot of fun talking with you. Can't wait till after the holidays we'll get to hear all your fun stories. Exactly.

Hope everybody has a great holiday. Hopefully that, uh, helpful. And just, you know, relax and enjoy them. And, um, hope everybody has a good, really good holiday.

All right, everybody, we'll see you next week live on Thursdays, every Thursday live at 1. And make sure you have your bell turned on because we jump on here and give you bonus videos all the time when you don't expect