Stop Telling Your Addicted Loved One They Need To Get Help!

What if you're making things worse?

I know you're only trying to help, but if you've been saying any of these following statements to your addicted loved one, you have got to stop. You are only making it worse. If you're saying you need to get some help. You can't do this alone. You've got to go to treatment. Have you called your counselor? Did you make your meeting today? If you're saying anything like that, seriously, seriously, you have got to stop. Because all you're doing is hitting their defensiveness button. And when you hit someone's defensiveness button, all they can think about is why. You're all wrong.

Marcus, you've got to stop.

Now, you may be right when it comes to the idea that maybe they do need counseling, maybe they do need treatment, maybe they do need to go to their meetings. That's not the point here. The point here is what is a better way of influencing that to happen. Now, if you're following along in the series, this is step four in how to get your loved one sober. If you haven't seen the videos on the previous three steps, don't worry. You can go back after this one and take a look at those. I've got them all situated in a nice, neat playlist for you. So instead of directly coming at someone to tell them that they need to get help, they ought to, they should, you know, all that kind of stuff. What you want to do is you want to get them to come to the conclusion that maybe a little help would be helpful. You make them think it's their idea. So you're asking, well, how do you do that? Amber worry. I'm going to tell you. Your job in the situation is to gently encourage. And in most situations, you want to really avoid pushing directly.

Hey, partner, come on. You got to relax. Don't force it. Get a blow out your.

Because naturally, when you push, they don't push back. Timing is everything when it comes to addiction, and certainly timing when it comes to when you should maybe offer or suggest or recommend any kind of additional help for your loved one.

Because in the end, it's all about timing.

What you want to do here is wait. Basically, you want to wait until the right moment because you see your loved one, they'll have these, what I call, like, moments of clarity. Now, usually these moments come after some not so great things have happened. So you're waiting for these windows to open, these moments of clarity, because during this time, the person is going to be open to doing something different. But you have to wait until you see, see those moments. How will you recognize those moments? Don't worry, I'm going to tell you that too. You're going to recognize it because they're going to say something or do something that's going to make you know that they're open to something different. Like usually it's pretty obvious. They'll say things like, man, I'm sick of doing this. I can't believe I did that again. I don't want to do this anymore. They will literally say statements out of their mouth that let you know that they're wanting to do something different, that they're searching for something else. When you have those moments, this is the time where you can kind of gently slide in a little recommendation.

Let's do it. It's go time.

But you've got to wait for it. Think about like it's the ace card in the deck. You can only play it so many times. So don't play it too soon. Wait until the timing is right. If you really want it to work now, you might be worried that you're going to miss it, that you're not going to know when the windows open. Don't worry. If that's you, I am going to put the link to my free download in the description that will help you understand what change talk looks like. That way you'll be sure not to miss it. Now, while you're waiting for this window to open, this is very important. Listen up. While you're waiting for this window to open, you need to be doing a lot of research behind the scenes. Now listen carefully. This is a very important rule. Long before you ever mention anything to your loved one, you need to find out what options are out there, what goes with insurance or not insurance. If that's important, what might best suit your loved one. There's a lot of things that need to happen behind the scenes, and I strongly encourage you to go ahead and do that now, even if you don't think your loved one is close, because the last thing you want to do is scramble around trying to put this together. When the window opens, you need to be ready. And if they're willing to get more help, you need to be ready to act quickly. Quickly. Finding the right treatment options takes quite a bit of time. There's a lot of calling around, a lot of checking benefits, a lot of finding out costs, a lot of finding out do you have room for a new patient, all that kind of stuff. You need to have already done that footwork. If you're not sure. Where to start with that process. Then I'll put another link in the description to my free insider's guide to understanding addiction treatment options. It'll tell you all the different kinds of options out there, what to look for, what fits with what, how much it costs, all that kind of good stuff. You can download that for free links in the description. All right, so you've waited for your right moment, you've done your behind the scenes research. Now the window's open and this is your moment to make your suggestion.

This is it, James.

What you've been working for and how you do this is extremely important. This may seem like a strange metaphor, but to me it's kind of like walking up to like a wounded animal, maybe a dog that's hurt and you're trying to help it, but it's really scared. And so if you come up on it the wrong way, it's basically just going to bite you even though you're trying to help. So you got to be very careful and very deliberate about how you go about doing this, otherwise you might get bit. So in regards to the. How do you broach this subject? Well, I would do it calm and casual. And you guys know I talk about this all the time. Calm, casual demeanor is everything. Because if you're not calm and casual, your energy, you're fearful or angry or reactive energy is going to hit their defense buttons and their walls are going to go up and you are trying not to step on that landmine.

Stay cal else mistakes get made.

Do not trigger the alarm system and ask them a question about what did they think would be helpful and they might even come up with their own solutions. If they do, great. If they don't, then say, do you think something like this would be helpful? Do you think something like that would be helpful? And give them some options. Now if you give them some options because you've researched them and you know what you're going to offer them, make sure it's multiple choice. Always give someone more than one option. Otherwise they feel like it's kind of like an ultimatum. So when you present these options, if they say, yeah, that might sound good, or if they say I've got questions about that or I'm not sure about that, then say, would it help if I called up and asked some questions for you? What kind of questions do you have? But a lot of times what people want to know is how long the program is, what the rules are. Can you have your cell phone or your laptop? Can you use nicotine while you're there. These are some common questions, especially if what you're looking at is like an inpatient detox or residential program, you want to offer to be of assistance. Now, I know a lot of addiction counselors out there, and a lot of people in recovery will tell you they have to make these phone calls and they have to put all these things in place. But I'm telling you, in my opinion, you need to do as much of the legwork as the treatment center will allow you to do. And there's a couple of really good reasons for this. Some people have very good reasons. First and foremost, your loved one, even though their window is open and they want to change, they're still really scared about it. And if they call and the treatment center talks to them long enough, the. The counselor, the center, somebody's probably going to say something that hits one of their fear buttons and they're going to shut it down. Like, oh, my gosh, you mean it's 45 days? I thought it was only 28 days, or something like that. So to avoid that, you can help explain some of the answers to the questions in a way that, you know your loved one can better, like, absorb. And the other reason why you want to make these phone calls or ask these questions is because it's exhausting, it's frustrating, it's annoying, in fact, makes me downright angry every time I do it. And if you are in an active addictive state, or even worse, if you're and withdraw, then your tolerance and ability to navigate those conversations for as long as it's going to take to set all this up probably isn't going to be there. Now, if they've said yes, I think this is helpful. If they've been open to finding out more about it, then find out, hey, you want me to go ahead and make you an appointment just to talk to them to see what's up about it? Then offer to make them an appointment. Word to the wise here. Some of these treatment centers may give you a little pushback on that. They're going to be like, well, the person has to call themselves. And. And when they do that, I want you to say, you know what? I know you're right. I'm just trying to gather some information. And then I'll have them call. Because if you go back to your loved one and you say, hey, I found out all this information. They said you can call and make an appointment. They may or may not do that. And if they. Or they may think to themselves, I'll do that. Tomorrow. But if they wait till tomorrow to make the appointment, the window might be closed because you see these little moments of clarity. These little windows are open. They don't stay open very long. So you got to make moves.

All right, let's move briskly, folks. There's not much time.

So if you're trekking along with me, it's like wait, wait, wait, research, research, research. And then make moves really fast in a very logical, strategic way. This is your fourth step for helping someone get sober. Now, you may be thinking they need residential treatment, but they may not be willing to do that. But they might be willing to talk to a counselor or get a recovery coach or go to a meeting. That's why it's important to have some options. Don't forget I've put the links to more resources in the description below. And up next, you need to be taking a look at step four, five for getting your addicted loved ones over.