Amber Hollingsworth (YouTube, Dec 20, 2018) advises how to get sober without inpatient rehab by creating "ironclad" accountability because people with active addiction cannot trust their own thoughts. She describes how the disease uses short-term lies and a long con (building resentments, pulling people away from recovery supports). Practical outpatient tools discussed include monitored drug/alcohol testing, medications that block effects (Anabuse for alcohol, Vivitrol for opiates), wearable alcohol monitors and a 24/7 drug patch, plus counseling and sponsor support. She argues these measures are not 'cheating' but evidence of commitment, and directs viewers to her website for more information.
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In this video, I'm going to be telling you how to get sober without going to rehab. I know going away to rehab is the absolute last thing that anyone wants to do. I mean, who wants to be locked up somewhere, told when they can go to the bathroom, when they can eat, what they can do, watched under a microscope, told basically every, everything that they have to do, when and how and why, and everything no one wants that no one has the time to take off of school and work to get it done. And Sometimes to be 100% honest, sometimes you just gotta do it. Like sometimes there's no other way around it. But if you want to try to get the job done without going away for 30, 60, 90 days, six months, all that kind of stuff, there's one very important absolute have to gotta do this or it is not going to work. Are you ready for it? That one thing is you have got to create some serious ironclad accountability for yourself because you can't trust your thoughts. If you have an active addiction to drugs or alcohol, don't trust yourself because that disease or you or however you want to think of it, it's gonna lie to you. You have spent years and just long, a long, long, long time rationalizing, justifying, minimizing, building resentments, feeling sorry for yourselves, thinking of every excuse, heck, I have to do it this weekend because I have to pull an all nighter and I gotta pass my finals. You're gonna come up with 10,000 reasons why to get or use that drug, that substance, alcohol, whatever it is, you can't trust your thoughts. And I like to say the stronger your will to recover is, the stronger your disease gets. In fact, when you get really into it and you really mean it and you're trying it really hard, your disease will start doing what I call. It'll play the long game on you. You know, the short game is when you're a newbie to this whole recovery thing, your disease just has to say this is the last time or you're just gonna do two today or you're just gonna do it every now and then and no one's gonna find out and it's not gonna hurt anybody. It's gonna tell you those simple things and you're gonna fall for it. But if you've been through those things enough, you know none of those things are true. And when you get stronger in your recovery and in your willingness, your disease gets stronger too and it starts to play the long con on you, it'll start to get you mad at the People around you at your sponsor, you'll get sick of the meetings. You'll say, I hate going. Everyone always says the same thing. You'll pick a fight with your counselor. You'll get angry at your loved one. Because if it gets you angry and if it can get you away from all the things that are holding you sober and in recovery, eventually you. It's going to get you. And so it's not even. Your disease isn't even going to talk to you about using. It's going to talk to you about getting away from some of the things that are helping you stay sober. And it usually does that by building a resentment or telling you you don't have time for that and you've got to work or you've got to take care of kids and just pulling you away from your recovery. That's the long game. So to beat this thing, you've got to stay ahead of it, five steps ahead of it. And to do that, you need to make it where you can't use, you can't drink, you can't get the drugs, you can't get a hold of it. You've got to create some accountability. Now, in our office, we do that in several ways. Number one, we monitor for drug and alcohol use, which creates some accountability because it says, if you're using, we're going to catch it. Now, I know what you're thinking. This isn't my first day on the job. People can get around drug and alcohol tests. You know what? That's true. But if they're an addict or an alcoholic, they can't do it consistently. So if you've got someone in your life that's consistently testing you, you're gonna slip up. It is just way too much work. And your disease, it might go through all the process of getting pee or doing this or cleaning out your system or whatever, or doing alcohol math to try to pass those tests. But it's not gonna do that long because you're not gonna be able to control it or manage it enough to do that very long. So that's one level of accountability. Now, there are other things that we help people do in our office that makes it possible for people to get sober without having to go away, so they can do it on an outpatient basis. We do things like encourage people to take things like Anabuse, which is a blocker. It's actually a medicine that you can't drink on, doesn't do anything else, but you can't drink on it. If you want to know more About Anabuse, go to our website. There's lots of information about it. I can tell you more in detail about what that is. Another thing that we do similar is sometimes we recommend people, if they have an addiction to pain pills or something like that, we might recommend that they get on a medicine called Vivitrol. Vivitrol is actually an opiate blocker. So it doesn't make you sick if you use a pain pill or heroin, but it doesn't allow you to get high. So pain pills and heroin is kind of expensive, and people don't waste their money on it when they know it's not going to work. Obviously, I'm not a doctor. I'm not prescribing a medication for you. What I am prescribing for you is accountability. And if you think one of those two things might help you, then go talk to your doctor about it and see if that's a good option for you. Another thing we do in our office is we do some alcohol monitoring. We use this super cool, really innovative new technology that creates some serious accountability. I'm telling you, you can't drink on it or it's going to be known. Your counselor is going to know. Your sponsor is going to know it's out there. You know, you're not going to get around it. We have a similar thing that we use monitoring drug use. We use this thing called a drug patch. And it's really cool new technology, too. That's 24,7 monitoring. If you want to get sober without going away, you are going to need some help doing that. You need some accountability in recovery. They say you can't really do it by yourself. And the reason you can't do it by yourself is because you can't Trust yourself. Okay? 95% of the time, you might be strong and good and your willpower is in check. But when you have that bad day when things aren't going right, when you haven't slept well and you've had a fight with your spouse or made a bad grade or whatever, your defenses are going to be down. They're like looking for the weak link, and your disease is waiting on that weak spot, and it's going to pounce on you, and you've got to be ahead of that. That makes you. That's going to hold you solid in those really weak moments. Accountability. Okay, last thing I'm going to say here, a lot of times when I talk to my clients about these things, they'll say, well, do you think that's cheating? Maybe people in their 12 step meeting think that that doesn't count. Like it doesn' if you're not drinking because you're on animus. Are you kidding me? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It is not cheating. In fact, it's the opposite of cheating. It means that you're extremely willing to do whatever you've got to do to stay sober. It means that you understand perfectly how cunning and powerful this disease is and that you better stay five steps ahead of it. I think creating these accountability systems, the opposite of cheating, it means you mean it. You're gonna do whatever it takes to get sober. You understand just how powerful this thing is and you are gonna stay ahead of it. So create accountability. If you're trying to do this without being away, this is an absolute must. It is necessary. And if you're coming out of a treatment program and you're trying to stay sober, same thing. Because you're back to the same thing. You're back to the whole idea of I'm trying to do this on my own and you can't do this on your own. You know, you need some system of accountability. There are lots more than the ones that I named. If you want more information on those, check out our website. We've got information on those. You can look in other places, but the key is accountability. Create your own accountability. I'm not talking about when a family member is following you around and chasing you around and telling you what to do and trying to catch you. I'm talking about you creating accountability for yourself. It means that you get it and you're gonna beat this thing. For tons more information on all things addiction and recovery and lots of free expert advice. 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