Sick of Fighting About Alcohol? (Do This!)

Is alcohol an issue in your marriage? Is it to the point that you've had lots of conversations? You know, the kinds that turn into arguments about drinking? And are you noticing that you're obsessing about how much your spouse is drinking or whether or not they're drinking? If so, you're going to be really glad you found this video, because we're going to talk about how to stop obsessing about your spouse's drinking. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your family and your life back on track. Get back out there and live the life that you want to live. I want you to know you are not powerless. You do not have to hit rock bottom. And there are many things you can do to help an addicted loved one. When one person in a relationship develops an alcohol use disorder, it causes problems for everyone. If you're worried that your spouse has an alcohol problem, then it's quite natural for you to be kind of preoccupied with it. Most people in that situation do a lot of spying and checking and questioning and even smell checking, because a lot of the times when you ask your spouse about their drinking, you don't get the truth. And so you get really, really preoccupied with trying to find the truth, especially when you know deep down inside that there's more to the story or that something is wrong. They keep denying it, but you know deep down inside that there's definitely a problem. So you get really, really focused on proving that there's a problem, which makes them really, really focused on hiding the problem, which will create a huge ginormous trust issue in any relationship. And eventually it becomes a total cat and mouse game with resentments building up on both sides. Now, the first thing I want you to know if you're worried about your spouse's drinking is if it's an alcohol use disorder, which is fancy word for alcoholism, it will show itself. You don't have to obsessively look for it, because the unmanageability which comes along with an addiction will make it evident. You don't have to prove it. You don't have to find the evidence. You don't have to start arguments. In fact, by doing all those things, you're actually distracting the person from realizing how big of a problem that it is, and you're actually slowing down the recovery process. Because instead of realizing that this alcohol is causing so many problems, the Person gets really resentful because they feel like you're trying to control them, and then it's unfair and that you're bossy and you're mean and you're mad and all that kind of stuff. And they stay fixated on that. And they use that thinking as a reason to justify their continued drinking and most importantly, to hide their continued drinking, which only escalates the issue. Now, if your spouse is in complete denial about having an alcohol problem, then I'm going to link up some videos here at the end which will tell you how to get someone out of denial and into recovery. But if your spouse acknowledges that they have an alcohol problem, you and you can actually have a productive conversation about it, then one solution might be to ask them if they would be willing to get a soberlink device. Now, Soberlink is a sponsor of this channel, but I've been using soberlink for years and years, long before I ever had a YouTube channel. And I am a huge fan. So I definitely want to tell you what a soberlink is. It's essentially an alcohol monitoring device, a breathalyzer that gets assigned to you, but it's more high tech than your standard alcohol device that you can get pretty much anywhere. When a person agrees to do soberlink, they come up with a schedule for times when they'll be tested each day. I usually recommend being tested between two and three times a day, especially in the beginning, like, usually once, pretty close to when the person wakes up, once before bed and somewhere in the middle. And I do allow that person to have a lot of say in when those tests happen. Because the best thing about soberlink is that it's designed to give you the flexibility and freedom to actually live your life with minimal disturbance. Now, you might be thinking, well, how does that help me stop obsessing about my spouse's drinking? Because if your spouse agrees to do soberlink, then you don't have to monitor them anymore because you know they're being monitored. I know what you think. You think, what if they try to cheat that test? Well, like I told you at the beginning, I'm here to make sure you're five steps ahead. And soberlink is definitely one of those tools that will help you do that because it actually has facial recognition software. So when you take your test, it takes your picture up close, like really up close, and make sure that you are. You kind of like your phone, which can look at your face in order to unlock, so there's no getting someone else to do it or something like that. And if you're taking tests three times a day, you're not going to be able to misuse alcohol without the soberlink picking it up. Now here's where the trust part comes in. When you use Soberling and you come up with that schedule, the person who's taking the test actually gets a text message. It's all automated and it tells them when their test is. So for example, if they say they want to be tested at 8 in the morning, then they'll get a text message at 7:45 in the morning that tells they have an 8 o' clock test and they actually have all the way up to 9 o' clock to take it. So really they have like an hour and 45 minutes, which makes Soberlink very doable. In your regular everyday life, if the person misses a test or they're late or they're positive, then their support person also gets a message that lets them know what's going on. Now in the case of my clients, I'm usually the one that gets that message, but it can be anyone that you identify. It can be your coach, your counselor, your sponsor, a family friend who's a mentor for you, anyone who's involved that you want to have that accountability partner position you can set up for them to get those messages. And you can even have more than one person if you need to. Soberlink is hugely beneficial to the person using it because it takes drinking off the table, which means you don't have to do the will. I won't. I, you know, maybe I've got time for my spouse comes home. You don't have to do that decision making a hundred times, which means you have a lot less cravings and it's easier to stay sober. And it helps the family out as well, because now you can stop all the spying, monitoring, digging, trying to prove it, trying to come up with evidence, arguing, fighting, yelling and screaming, because soberlink is handling it and it's right there in black and white and it's pretty objective. And you can even get the soberlink report printed out anytime you want. And it has all the dates and the times of the test right there with your picture. So you don't have to do all this back and forth arguing about anymore. I can't tell you how many clients that I've had that were able to get sober using soberlink who without it would have had to go to 30, 60 or 90 days of treatment. And I personally think getting sober in your regular home environment is so much better than getting sober away in a treatment center. Now, I'm not knocking treatment, because sometimes that's necessary, but eventually you got to learn to live life clean and sober. And soberling is a really great tool for helping you do that. Now, if you're not sure if your spouse is, like, really an alcoholic or maybe they're a functioning alcoholic and you don't know exactly how bad it is, then I want you to watch these videos next, because they're going to answer that question for you.