Surviving Your Loved Ones Addiction

Welcome to our live show. Today we have a special guest here for you. We have Scott Nunnery, who is one of our family recovery coaches. And Scott has the professional and personal experience he's going to share with you. He's got two sons who have struggled with addiction, sort of are on their journey in recovery. He's got a lot of wisdom to share. Now today's topic is it's a little bit of a heavy one, but I know that it is very much needed. Scott's going to talk with us about making it through those darkest days. You know, when you, when you have a loved one struggling with an addiction and you care for someone who's struggling like that, there are days where it just feels like, is it ever going to, is it ever going to get better? You know, are we ever going to turn the corner? You know, am I going to have to live with this fear every day? And I know that that's something that you have faced that maybe you're facing right now even today. And Scott's got some wisdom he's going to share with us on that about how to find the hope, you know, how do we get through those toughest, darkest moments? So, Scott, jump in there and I'm going to let you lead us through this. This is a tough one. Yeah.

I thought I'd start out, Amber, in asking you, and obviously the people that are with us today, if, if you know what a boat is in a boat, the spelling B O a T. What do you think of when somebody asks you what a boat is?

Well, I think of a pontoon boat because I always want a house on the lake. That's sort of my, that's my dream thing.

Yeah, that's what I think of exactly. Well, I hope, I hope not many people on with us today know what it is because there's a different term that they use for boat when, when someone's in jail. So if you're in jail, a boat is basically like a plastic kind of a canoe looking container that when jails are overcrowded, which in today's, in our times of today, every jail is overcrowded. So if you were to go into a jail today, you'll be most likely given a boat, this plastic tub and you're given a mattress that's maybe a quarter of an inch thick and that's what you sleep on when you're in jail. So I'd like for everybody to think for a moment and when we're talking about hopeless times, imagine you're 20 years old and you get put in jail for vehicular homicide, manslaughter, and you're only 20 and you're sleeping on a boat in a crowded jail cell and your lawyer comes in and tells you that it looks like you're going to spend the next four years in prison and you're only 20. And so that's about a fifth of your life, if you're thinking about it, that, oh my God, I'm getting ready to spend the next four years in prison. That's hopelessness at that point in time, and especially for the family, you can imagine if that's your son or your daughter. So just imagine that for a second. Imagine that you're kind of in a meeting like we are today with a parent meeting possibly, and you're trying to learn more about how to handle this. Your phone's buzzing in your pocket and at some point you kind of look at it and in that meeting you're reading your text and that text is telling you that your son is doing heroin and shooting up and that he's, he's in bad times. Later that night you get a call and you found out that your son's overdosed and he's on the way to the hospital and you're not sure if he's breathing. That's pretty hopelessness. That's a tough situation to deal with. And then the last one I get people to think about, think about you, you're leaving your 21 year old son outside of a rehab and he's chosen not to go in. He, you got him there. You thought he was going to go into the rehab and start to get better. And he says, I'm not going. And all he's got on his back is a backpack. And you leave him walking down the sidewalk because he's choosing to be homeless versus going into the rehab that you thought he was about to go into. That is hopelessness at that point. And the reason I wanted to kind of get people to imagine that in those three scenarios. I'm happy to say that in each of those I'm really close to two of those situations. One of them is personal to me that it happened to my son with the odd one of those scenarios. Right now, that gentleman owns half of a rehab now in Lawrenceville and has been sober for 11 years. My son works at that particular rehab and has now been sober three years. And then the other gentleman that I talked about has been sober two and a half years and works at a rehab as well. So those three guys in a hopeless situation Found a way to come out on the other side. And again, if you think about their parents and their family at that particular time in their life, they never pictured the other side. They never pictured getting better and how they may be sober now for three years, 10 years, 11 years, and certainly never dreamed that they might own part of a rehab. So that's what I wanted just to try to share with the families today. And then how, as a family, can we deal with that in that particular moment? And I think one of the things that I wanted to share first and foremost is I think we have to turn it over to our higher power. We all. You know, I think probably a lot of people on the line today are familiar with the 12 steps. And the first one of those is to turn. Turn the addiction over to a higher power. But I think as a family, that's. The first and foremost, is that we have to turn this over to a higher power and have faith that somehow that situation is going to get better. And then the second one is that we have to let the loved one feel the complete consequences of whatever that hopeless situation looks like. I mentioned the jail. I mentioned the overdose. I mentioned being homeless. We can't cure this. We can't control it. We can't fix it. We have to let our loved ones suffer those complete consequences, because most of the time, that seems to be the catalyst that turns them around and gets them going in the right direction. And too many times as a family, it hurts us so bad to watch this and to experience it, that we want to help. And we think by taking some of that hurt away, some of those circumstances away, we believe we're helping. But in. In most cases, we. We're not helping in that case because we're not letting them experience the full circumstance of it.

Right. And I think, you know, for. If anybody's out here watching and you struggle with the higher power concept, what I. What I might say to you is that for me, I've done this for so many years, and when I call it when I was a new baby, counselor, I used to be just scared to death. You know, somebody would not realize I was just balling in my office. I've had some bad days, too, and I've seen it so many times that you begin to learn to trust the process. Now, does that mean every story ends happily? No, it really doesn't. However, I've seen so many people who I thought, man, this person is never going to turn it around. You know, they're just saying all the wrong things. They Just don't get it and they turn it around. And so I call it trust the process, because I've seen it so many times. And sometimes if you can just stop trying to control it and find either your higher power, your sponsor as a family member, your group, your support group, and listen to that, instead of constantly trying to manage it yourself, you're going to get a lot further. And that's the very same thing that we teach the person. Recovery. You know, one of the first things they have to learn recovery is stop trying to control it, because that's what they try to do. They try to manage the addiction and the family tries to manage the person. And it's just around and around we go. You know, it's like a merry go round that you can't. You can't get off of. And at some point, it's. It's a faith step of some point. You know, it's a. It's a step back. Listen to what other people who've gone before me are saying, even if it feels scary and take that leap.

And I think that's huge. Amber, the family group concept that was the third thing is certainly we encourage people to join a family group, whether it be Al Anon or whatever parent group that you've got locally. You should have several choices, but you need to be part of a family group to be able to hear, to hear successes. Like I just shared, because it was so important to me when I was in it with both of my sons, is that at times you think it's never going to get better. And you think, you know, because your situation. My. Both situations were fairly bad, you almost think your. Your situation is the worst. Well, when you go to some of these groups, you'll find out that there's many worse situations than yours. That's number one. And you can, you can, you can experience those with those. When those other families share and you find out that there's worse situations where their loved one got better. So it's like it gives you hope to say, okay, well, wow, these other families, you know, saw some success and maybe it can happen to me. And I think that's very important and in the fact that they understand and they'll listen and they won't judge. And I think all that's important. So I think family group is huge.

It really isn't. And it's funny because I found that, you know, most families that we say they. They want their addicted loved one, they want them to go to some kind of meeting, right? They just hound Them, you know, they say you can't live in this house unless you go. But trying to get the families to go to a meeting is like, it's like they really don't want to. Their worst, it's harder to get the families go to sometimes than it is the person with the addiction. So if nothing else, lead by example, you know.

Exactly. And what, what you'll find is that your addicted loved one will, will notice that you're going to a family meeting more to them than you know. They may not communicate it to you at that particular time, but they'll certainly, and I think it's important that you're not only going to support them, but you're going to work on yourself as well. Not only do they have work to do in their recovery, but we certainly as family members, you know, it's a family disease, so we have our role in it and we have to figure out what that role is and how I can best play that role to help support this. I might need to be doing something that I'm not doing or I may need to be stopped doing some things that I'm doing. But certainly we play a role in it. And by going and working on ourselves, I think shows them that we're, you know, we're committed to the process.

Right. And it's just like you don't, you don't want them to just go just because you're making them go. You want them to really work the program, to work the steps, you know, to, to do what their counselor tells them to do. You know, if, if you want them to take a leap like that, you take a leap like that because, you know, like, like Scott saying sometimes just watching you do that, you're shifting the dynamic, which can help shift the dynamic with them. But you know, you've got to do it for yourself, regardless of what's going on with them. It's just that the chances of them doing it go way up. When you start making, you know, when you start making the changes, the chances they'll make changes really, really go way up. Scott, we've got a comment on here from Matt who is giving us a little bit of sad news. And Matt says that his 32 year old lawyer son just lost his battle. He accidentally overdosed. And I know that that strikes home because in our family group, the one that Scott runs, we recently had a loss like that. And I know that my heart's heavy today and Scott's heart's heavy today. And Matt's talking and he has a suggestion he says his suggestion is that after studying things for four years, find a way, any way possible, to get the addict into understanding their childhood trauma. And just. It. It hurts our heart. And we're not trying to say that every situation comes out the way that we want it to, but at some point, you have got to sort of do what we call sort of turn it over, hand it over somewhere. Some.

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, we don't know the answers to some situations. We don't know why things happen. You know, our hope is that their higher power has. Has some kind of bigger plan that we may not understand at the time. And I honestly think that's a way to help get through it, but it's still tough. Like you said, we certainly have a heavy heart today for a family member in our family group. And that was the. I guess one of the last things I wanted to share is I think it's important to have hope, but it's also important to kind of live in reality and to understand that it might not always work out the right way. And certainly because we can't control our addicted loved one, we can certainly try to offer all the help in the world, and we can try to support them and guide them and help them as much as possible, but at the end of the day, they play a role in it, too. And if they don't choose to go down that path, sometimes it doesn't end well. And I'll just share a story that I think is hopefully might. Might help somebody that's going through a bad situation like Matt just described. My daughter got into a car wreck a couple years ago, and her boyfriend at the time, he got thrown out of the vehicle and he got killed. And she luckily made it through, had some really rough injuries, but, you know, she was lucky. And she. But in that situation, trying to understand how that family was dealing with the loss of their son, it was hard to understand. It was hard to understand how Emily made it through and he didn't. But over the last couple years, just seeing. He ended up donating his body, all his organs and skin and everything. And right now, he's touched over 50 other families that he's helped either by donating, by their skin helping or their organs. And one crazy story is that since then, she is now engaged to another guy. And this guy's mother is a teacher, and she's a teacher at a college. And so at the beginning of the year, she asked her students to write a little story about themselves and just share. She wants to get to know them. So this year, one of her students wrote a story about how he was 19 years old and he. His liver. He had some kind of liver disease, and that he was going to die. He was in so much pain for so long, he wanted to die. So he had told his dad on a Wednesday that, you know, it just doesn't look like I'm going to get a liver. I'm tired of this. I just wished I could leave this, you know, this world. Well, the wreck happened on Friday night, and lo and behold, this guy in her class got Taylor's liver. And he was explaining the situation to her, and she was like, oh, my God, that's my son's fiance. And just to hear that story that. And this kid now is going on to be a doctor, and it literally saved his life. So I know that doesn't ease the pain to Taylor's family, but I think it does help realize that somehow there's sometimes there's this greater plan that for some reason, you know, maybe it was meant to be, that he helped all these other people and. And he just had to, you know, be part of that process. But hopefully that story helps. It certainly shines a little bit of light at the end of the day that. Look at all these families that he's helping. So.

Absolutely. And I think. I think, too, Scott, you know, if you're. If you're struggling with the whole trust the process thing, which I. I totally get. I struggle with it myself a lot of days. You know, I want to get in there and control just like anyone else. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that you can ask yourself if you're watching as a family member here is you can say, you know, like, if I weren't trying to control this, how would I interact with my loved one differently? And if something did happen in the end, who is it I want to be? You know, how do I want to have interacted with them? And so long when we're trying to control it, we engage in this power struggle with them, we show them our worst sides of ourselves, and, you know, we end up, because of all that fear on both sides, destroying any kind of relationship. So not only does trust, the process work to increase the chances of having a good outcome, but if nothing else, you know, you're. If you can let go of that fear and that control, you can start to interact with it in a loving way and in a way with empathy. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, you let someone run all over you or you give them Everything they want, but it will help your heart shift, I think.

I totally agree, and I'll share this. Last night in our group obviously, was a tough night because we were all processing the news of the family losing their son, and one of the dads was vulnerable enough to share. And he said, you know, and I felt the same way he has felt before, but he said, you know, I have thought at times that might be easier if my son, you know, did pass away. That take away the pain from him, take away the pain from the family. And if you've been in those tough situations, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about, because I've had those feelings before. But he said last night, obviously, when you deal with something like this, it kind of. Kind of brings you back to the fact of, I don't ever want that to happen. And as long as my son is breathing today and he wakes up and, you know, we can have hope. And so I think even in that bad situation like last night, trying to process all that, it does make you think that, no, I don't want to have that news. And just hopefully we can, as we all process these things together, like you say with support groups and all, is as long. As long as they're breathing this morning, they've got a chance, right? And no matter how bad it is, like, if you go back to those situations, you know, and you're in jail, you think you're never, you know, four years seems like forever, but as long as you're breathing, you got a chance, and success happens, can happen for sure.

You know, I have family, Scott, that. That calls up for those consult stuff. And they'll say, well, you know, my son says, or my husband says, they'll never go to treatment. They'll never do this. And honestly, I kind of laugh when I say that. I said, let me tell you what every, every young cowboys ever came through our office, told me they wouldn't, and every one of them did. So I call that the big talk. And they all say that, and they. They. They mean it, probably when they say it, but part of it's just trying to get you to back off and, and let. Let go, you know, and. And I don't let that deter me at all. I say, oh, yeah, I'll say, I don't care about that. You know what I mean?

Like, that is one of those. Yes. The first day Zach walked in your office, he told me, he said, I'll go to outpatient, but I'm never going to. In inpatient rehab. Three months later he was in inpatient rehab.

Yeah, so, so even though they may be telling you whatever, and you may think, you may think to yourself, you know, they went, they've already been to treatment six times. You know, it's never going to work. And we see people go six times, eight times, and it finally works. How many rounds did you go with your son?

Oh, I think Zach was five rehabs and Cameron I think is on number six. So, you know, we've been through it 10 or 11 times. And that's the other thing I wanted to share before, maybe if people have questions or want to comment, but I think the old saying is God right straight with crooked lines, is that every, every journey is different. Some people go to one rehab and at 17 and they're sober the rest of their life. Some people may experience, you know, there's, there's all kind of statistics. I don't know exactly what to believe, what's on the Internet, but the statistics you read can be anywhere between four and seven rehabs as the average. I don't know what that number is and not really sure that it matters, but I think it does matter to know that every situation is unique. And just because somebody gets sober one way doesn't mean that your, you know, your loved one has to get sober the same exact way. So there's certainly all kind of ways to get sober. I know when I first started going through it and you see somebody being successful and you see the program that they're working, I was always trying to get Zach to emulate that. You know, I was like, oh, you need, you need to be like him. And you know, he goes to three meetings a day or he goes to, you know, he does this and you need to go do this. That that's not the case. They'll, they'll figure out their, you know, their journey and their way. And everybody seems to be different.

And you know, sometimes I, I feel like parents feel like, well, or not parents really just any loved one feels like, well, you know, they did this treatment or that treatment didn't work. And it may be that it didn't give you the long term outcome that you wanted. But, but in my experience, every, every little step is a, is a step towards the right direction. Like for example, when I, when I met Zach, Scott's son, he had already been somewhere else before and obviously he had had some kind of lapse where he wouldn't be sitting in my office and, and, and Scott may be thinking to himself, well, that was a waste. But it really wasn't, because by the time he had had a lapse and he came sitting office, the first thing, the first things I ever told me, I said, why are you here? And he said, I'm addicted to marijuana. Let me tell you what, that right there was a success. Just the fact that he came in, he knew what the problem was, and he told me that I didn't have to spend six months convincing him of it. We were six months ahead down the road. And the only reason he knew that is, isn't necessarily because he heard it at that treat place. I'm sure they told him that. They told him that. And then he went out and tried to prove them wrong, and he failed at that. And he realized they were right, and he was able to come and tell me that. So even when it seems like, well, they didn't listen or they're not doing it, those seeds are planted. And I always say, you can't unknow what, you know.

Yep.

And sometimes it's just this gives you a step toward that and towards that, and it's a learning process, and a lot of times trial and error process. But I don't want you to think, oh, that didn't work.

I love that saying, Amber, that. That. That seed's been planted. Now, your loved one might have to go fertilize it with more drugs and alcohol, but that seed is there. And even though they're relapsing and drinking and such, maybe they're fertilizing that seed with the wrong thing at the time, but it's there. And I totally agree. Doesn't mean it's failure.

Right. Maybe they're proving you right. Maybe they're proving that counselor right that they thought wasn't right, you know, and. And they. And they get it. You know, one of the things I see from. From working with so many young people is. And it's just easy for me. It's kind of one of the things is it's easy for me to sort of look at someone and see the. See the good part of them, because I know what addiction looks like. So it's almost like I can just sort of like, look right past him. Like, eh, that's boring. I know what that story is. And I try to sort of see who someone is. And it's so, you know, like when I meet someone like Zach or somebody else, I can see the kid that you raised. I can see, you know, this husband, this person that you married. I can see who they are in there. And if you can Learn to do that as a family member, to look past that, you know, that's just all big talk. Like, don't even. Whatever, you know, I say, I tell you that. Starting to hear that and look at who your person is and speaking to their heart. That kid you raised is still right there. That person you married is in there. And if you can look past that messiness, speak to that person, it's like you can engage them and bring them forward. I. I say sometimes I think it's like they're possessed. And that's not going to argue with no demon. I'm like, yeah, let me talk to Caroline or whatever. Shut up and just get right past it and talk to that person. They're in there and you can see them. And I know as a family member, you can see them, because I know you see those little glimpses, and it makes you know they're. They're in there.

But, God, there's so much emotion wrapped around. It is so hard to do. Easy to say, but so, so hard to do. But I agree with you. It's very important that you do it. But God is hard when you're so angry or hurt, and when you're in the throes of it, it's. That's something very hard to do. But I agree. We, you know, we tell people all the time, you got to separate the addiction from the person. And it's hard.

I know it's crazy. I do. You know, I said, I, like, think of it like they're possessed. And I think of that old Exorcist movie. I don't know if you saw it, Scott. Like, way back where the girl's head spins around and the priests are in there. You know, they're throwing the holy water and they're saying stuff, and. And they bitten pea soup everywhere and saying all these things. That's what I think about addiction. You know, that. That's that demon in there trying to engage you. Don't mess with that. Just like, on the bed. And priests don't argue with that demon. Like, we don't care about you. We're, like, right past you. Like, you're not gonna mess us up. That's what you gotta think. Gotta kind of get in the zone, you know, and. And realize what you're doing and don't let that thing throw you off course.

It's hard.

Yeah, you gotta hold it in the lines.

Yeah, absolutely.

Let's look up here and take a couple of questions and comments because we have a lot of people here with us. Our heart. We want to let you know our heart is with you. Matt, I. I am impressed that you're. That you're hanging out with us and that you can listen to and watch shows like this after what you've been through. I know that that must be. I know that must be super, super hard. Yeah. Let's see here. Karen says trust in the process has made me a better person. You know, that's a good enough reason right there to do it, Karen. You know, it will make you a better person. You know, it'll make you act in a way that you feel good about and proud of at the end of the day, no matter what the outcome is, you know, you did the right thing. Yep. Well, we.

You know, we talk about. There's. There's obviously so much. So much bad about addiction and so much, you know, hurt and troubles and all that, but we. You got to take the good out of it as well. Right. And that's why we're. When we're talking about when you're going through the process and you're working on yourself, I certainly have become a better person. So I totally understand what she's saying. It's. You got to take the good part of it.

That's right. Let's see. Hope, Faith, Terry says my teenage son was admitted yesterday to inpatient facility. Any recommendations on what things to do for him at home? What about when he comes back? His friends are a big issue in his recovery. Scott, I'm gonna let you take that one. That's a good one.

Yeah. I think, first and foremost, get some rest. When you get your loved one to an inpatient facility, you've probably been through hell the last few weeks, months, maybe even years. But try to take this time to work on yourself and just. And get some rest. For first and foremost, we normally. At the facility that I help with, we normally try to have the least amount of contact you can with your loved one in the first 30 days is to let them get adjusted and let them get into that facility. And that facility's got them right now. They're taking care of them. And we just try to just kind of back off, especially the first 30 days, and just try to let that. I'm assuming things probably haven't been good at home and. And try to just back away a little bit and let them get adjusted and get. Get to work in that particular program.

And that's great advice, Scott. And. And I didn't put it up there, but Hope said that he's 14 and one of the things you can expect if he just got there somewhere between now and the next two weeks, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But if he is allowed to contact you, he's probably going to start working on you to bring him home.

Absolutely.

I've got a video out there about top 10 things they're going to tell you to make. Make you bring them home. So I suggest you watch that right after you watch this so you can be prepared when they tell you the things. Like, you know, like, everybody in here is worse than me. I'm just gonna get worse if you leave me in here. Like, they're not feeding me in here. Like, I don't know, I've got a whole video on it. That way you can be prepared because that's coming. That's coming, too.

The first one he's gonna say is, oh, my God, I'm. You know, you put me in here with all these crazies. I'm fine. I was just smoking a little marijuana. But these people are real drug addicts.

Yeah. And that. And that's gonna work on your heart because you're gonna think, oh, my God, he's gonna be there. He's gonna meet the people's gonna get worse or whatever. Yeah, they know what to say, so. So I would prepare yourself for that. And once you get that under control, then I say start. Yeah, Start making that plan on what is the next step, because it's just the beginning. Getting them stabilized through an impatient place like that. And then the journey happens once they leave. So you're. You're right about that.

I've heard all the scare tales of how to get, you know, why I needed to come get my sons. But one time, it was about the fourth rehab, he kind of caught me off guard because he called and told me that this damn place was too nice. This place was. Was. Was robbing me. You should have never paid for a place this nice. And they're. They're screwing you out of your money and on and on and on. I'm like, well, okay, he's never tried.

This one before, and God gave him some points for that, right? At least it's original. Yeah, that's a pretty classic. Like, you're wasting your money on this. Mom, dad, paying all these thousands of dollars. I go to a meeting for free. I don't need to be here.

It was. It was pretty nice. The only reason I. I put him in, that was getting started. And they would take my insurance only. So it. I agree with him. It did look kind of nice. But.

But they'll tell you whatever, right? They'll tell you anything they think is going to work. All right. Susan has something to say. She says, I think I pushed him too far. He's totally turned cold. He's been through many rehabs. He says he won't go back again, and there's much water under the bridge. He's in a great rehab, but I don't see the rest of that message. Let me see if I can find that somewhere. I don't see it down here. So he's in a rehab, but he says he's not ever going to go back. Well, he's already in one. That's big talk. What do you think, Scott?

Well, I think, you know, when somebody has been through four or five rehabs, a lot of times they do say they're burnout and they're never going to go back. And, you know, I think after two or three or four rehabs, I don't think as a, as a parent that we ought to be pushing them towards another one. If they really want help and they're asking for assistance to go, then I think if we've got the financial means to do it, it's something we should consider. But, you know, after two or three, if it didn't work, I don't think we ought to be pushing the fourth or the fifth or the sixth one. If they're telling you they don't want to go, I think you're getting the story. They don't want help at this point.

Right. And it may be that you. They need some kind of help, but maybe they don't need to go to like an inpatient 30 day. And I agree with that. Like so many families always think that that's always the answer. And sometimes that is very helpful, particularly if someone just cannot get stable outside of being like in a lockup facility like that. It is helpful, but it's not always necessary. I'm a bigger fan of sober living probably than anything, to be honest with you. And my guess is if they've been in a bunch of rehabs, they have learned a lot of skills and it's okay to ask them what they think they need, you know, and exactly like.

We talked about, there's, you know, there's just hundreds of ways to get sober. There'll be somebody go to an AA meeting tonight, pick up their white chip, and in a year from now, they'll pick up their year chip and into you. They'll stay sober the rest of their life. So there's just tons of Ways to do it. And it didn't have to be inpatient, you know, rehab for sure.

Well, I think the thing to focus on as a family is focus on the influence you have over them. Focus on the change of heart in yourself and in them. And that is going to go further and matter more than the type of help. It's really like the preparing the ground for whatever type of help comes. We've had so many families lately. I've talked to a lot of families who've gone through, like, our invisible intervention and their loved ones calling me. I just love it because I feel like, man, I love this because they're already ready. They're already telling me it all. I'm like, dang, I don't even have to do anything. I just get all the credits. Great. You know, because they. Because the. It's almost like the family's plowed the ground in the right way. The person is ready, their heart is ready, and they just call me up saying, I got a problem. What do you want me to do? It's like, man, I love this. I can do this all day, you know? Yeah.

And I feel for her. And she's saying that it sounds like the relationship is, you know, has been tested, is not in a good place. And I had to face the same thing. And it hurt our relationship, my relationship with both my sons. When I finally started changing my language and the way we had conversations and the fact that I wasn't talking about, you know, rehab or sobriety every time they called and just start to show that you. You love them. But. But again, they've got to be ready. And I know that's so hard because you're scared. You're scared to death that if they don't hurry up and get somewhere, you know, something bad might happen. And certainly that's the reality. But I think if you can start to change your conversation and not. And not be talking about the. Their. Their. Their sobriety and what they're going to do next, if you can just try to slowly rebuild that relationship. And a lot of times that means you just probably can't talk about their sobriety at the moment.

No, I think that's such wise advice. I'm glad you said that. That is if the relationship's damaged, you have got to focus on the relationship before you focus on trying to give any advice. They don't, you know, they don't care what your advice is when they don't think you understand them. They don't care what you think when they're Mad at you. So the first thing you do is restore the establishment. And it made me making some amends, you know, on both sides.

Exactly. Yep.

We got a super chat. I just want to say thank you for it only said it was. Bonnie. Bonnie, thank you so much for the super chat. I appreciate that, Scott, if you know what a super chat is. But it's kind of like someone donates money, it goes towards the channel, helping us produce the videos. Thank you, Bonnie, for doing that.

Thank you.

Yeah. Let's see, we have Tara on here. Who's got something? This is the conversation I need to have at every meeting I go to. At the end of the day, this is what loved ones of someone with a substance use disorder needs to hear. Thank you, Tara. I'm glad this is helpful. This is helpful for you. Right. Let's see here. Sorry, I'm not good at. I'm not good at this all.

While you're looking, Amber, I will say with Tara that I do think that's, you know, a lot. I know when I first started going to a family group, group, as soon as my son kind of got better for a couple of months, I quit going because I thought he was fixed and I thought I didn't need to go anymore. And of course, you know, the journey's gone over several years. But after a quick relapse and then I would go back. Then I realized that kind of like what she said kind of regularly, I think you need to get this stuff reinforced and hear it and because it takes a while, but to think that we can go to a couple meetings and all of a sudden it's over, is.

That's. That's so smart. What would you say if your loved one told you, I went to two AA means I'm good. You'd be freaked out. When you like, no, you better go every day. You know, you're doing 99. You. You say all that stuff. It's the same thing. You know, we gotta. We gotta walk the walk.

Yeah.

So Joelle says, Amber told us that we. The power we have with our addicted loved one was in the relationship. It was spot on and proven to be true. We thought we were. And hopelessness at the point. And she pointed out the obvious that we didn't see. You know, Joy, you know how I learned that? It wasn't through being an addiction counselor. It was through being school teacher. Isn't that silly? I had all these ninth graders sitting in my room. I was trying to boss them around. They wouldn't listen. Anything. I had to Say and. Well, I just had to learn that the hard way. I got called a B word every day for a year till I figured out I better. Better do something else other than think I could boss these kids. They're smarter, more street smart than I was, for sure. I learned that from being a school teacher. Yeah. Get people to do what you want them to do by having a relationship. Trust, respect, care.

It is amazing when you stop trying to control and just show that you care and show that empathy and love. It makes a difference when you balance.

That with what Scott was saying at the very beginning, which was allow the world to do that job right. You be the spouse, you be the mom. That doesn't mean you do everything. You be the dad, you be the brother, the sister, whatever, and. And allow the world to do the hard job of a bag hop. That is the combination that we've seen work over and over and over again.

Exactly.

Yeah. All right, let's take one last one up here. Shannon says, I'm grateful my daughter found your channel. She's finally free after six years. Wanted you to know that she finally got clean after she got off all the psych meds first. Has anyone seen this happen? That whole psych med thing is a tough one, Shannon, because by the time people get to us, they've been diagnosed, everything under the sun. Right. Because they, you know, they're not acting right. They look like they're bipolar and they look like they're schizophrenic and they look like they're personality disordered. And sometimes they do have those. A lot of times if you get substance abuse problem fixed. Yeah, a lot of that goes away. I'm not. I don't want to diminish anything with any underlying condition, but. But what I'm saying is you got to be careful giving someone diagnoses that have all these substances they're putting in their body. You know, we see it all the time.

I would say probably 60 to 70% of the men that come through purple come out taking less drugs than when they came in, prescription drugs. So they come in and they've got every disorder in the book, and then all of a sudden they go through a six to nine month program and they get sober. And after nine months, they might be on one medication, but they're not on four or five like they came in with. So I do agree with that, too.

Right. And the other thing, and I have some videos on that about you know, what to treat first, but also your loved one is going to play that Card harder. They're gonna want to call it anything else other than addiction. They don't want to call it addiction because if they call it addiction, that means they gotta quit using some kind of substance. I won't do that. So they will. They will let you call it anything else. They will let you take them to the doctor. It's. It's. It's one of the ways that they'll manipulate. And that's. That's a tough one. I have a video on that. But it's not me saying they don't have those things, but it is me saying that they will hide behind those things in order to not address the addiction. I can't tell you how many parents we've seen where their kid talked them into letting them smoke weed and do this and do that, because it's the only thing that manages their anxiety. Right? Like, they work it, and it's easy to fall into as a loved one because you're like, oh, they do. They are anxious, they are moody, they are this, they are that. But gotta be a little discerning about it. You know, have someone take a hard look. And one of the things I. If you're really struggling to figure that out is ask yourself what they were like before the substance use problem. That's a pretty good clue right there.

Yeah.

What's. What. All right, we have. We have somebody celebrating 77 days. All right. Congratulations. Thank you for sharing that. We need a little hope. Today was a little.

Absolutely.

Talked about today.

That's awesome.

Forgot to say this too. Scott. I'll put a link in the description for you guys about understanding the treatment options, because like, like Scott was telling you, impatient isn't always where it's at. You need to understand what. What's out there. So there's a link in the description. You can download that for free. You understand every different kind of thing out there. No, no. What's available. Bye, everybody.

Keep the hope, guys.