YouTube talk by Amber Hollingsworth (Put the Shovel Down) advising family members how to handle common excuses from addicted loved ones and how to increase their motivation to seek treatment. The video lists frequent excuses (holiday timing, childcare concerns, cost, denial), emphasizes that resistance and ambivalence are normal, and recommends responding with empathy, avoiding arguments, pre-acknowledging likely objections ('say it first'), offering practical help, and using motivational enhancement techniques; links to a demonstration session and a playlist on motivating loved ones are provided.
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If you've been trying to get your addicted loved one to get help for some time now, then you've probably heard every excuse under the sun as to why they can't get help, don't need to get help, shouldn't get help, whatever. I know you've heard it all, which is why in this video, I'm going to help you understand how to deal with all of those excuses that you've heard, all the reasons why the they can't, don't want to, whatever, get help. And I'm going to help you understand how to overcome those roadblocks and obstacles. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. This is the YouTube channel that's designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction and get your life and your family back on track. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor, and I've been working with families dealing with this problem for a very long time. And my goal here in this channel is to give you practical advice, as in real life, steps you can take to solve this issue, which is exactly what you're going to get in today's video. So let's get back to our topic. Okay, so before we go much further, I want to hear, what excuses have you heard? Now, I've heard a lot, but I'm sure there's some of you out there, you've got some that I haven't heard before or, hey, if you're in, recover yourself, what excuses did you give? What have you heard and what have you said? Let me know that in the comments. Now, I'm going to go through a few of the really common ones that I hear, and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about probably how you want to respond to those and give you some advice on maybe how you should respond to those excuses. Okay? Now, if you've heard any of these before or like a variation of these, let me know that, too. How about, well, I can't go get help right now because it's Christmas time. I'll go after Christmas. I don't want to miss Christmas. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you're probably going to ruin Christmas anyway. Everybody wishes you would just go get help. Gonna have to say, probably not the best way to respond to that. But hang in there. I'm gonna give you some solutions and some workarounds. How about, I don't want to go and get help because I don't want to leave my kids. Now, that one's kind of a hard one to go against. But I know what you're thinking in your head. I know you're thinking, hey, you're not doing your kids any justice or service by keeping this active addiction going. I know you're thinking that probably not the best thing to say. How about it's too expensive? I guess there is a little bit of a point there. It can be expensive to get help for an addiction, but. But there are all kind of free options. And if you're thinking like I'm thinking, I always say addiction is always, always more expensive than recovery, no matter how much you spend on it. How about I'm just not that bad. I don't need that kind of help. I just need to decide, I want to stop and then I'll stop. The I'm not that bad excuse. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you're so wrong. You are in denial. Telling people they're in denial, not so helpful. Have you heard any of those? I bet you have, and I bet you've heard more than that. So let's take some time now and talk about how do you respond to all those excuses that your addicted loved one has given you? The very first thing that I really want you to understand is that resistance is normal. It doesn't mean that something is wrong. It doesn't mean that they're not going to get better. Resistance is a normal, natural part. And I'm telling you, if it was you, you would resistant too. I mean, who wants to do it? It's not the funnest thing ever to go somewhere, to be locked up, usually to be told when you can eat, sleep, what you can do, what you can't do. Like literally handing over all the control. And that's not even talking about the whole stopping the substance part, just the whole practicality of it. It's difficult. So the first thing I want you to understand is it is very normal for them to have some resistance. Anyone would. The second thing I want you to really understand. Hear me loud here. Ready? Do not argue with their excuses. That is the worst thing you can do. Because when you start to like go against them or say your side against their side, all they're going to do is dig in further and further. And those little resistances that they have now become like stone cemented walls that cannot be taken down. When a lot of times they're just starting out as these little obstac that could be overcome as long as you deal with it the right way. Anybody who's got a big problem in their life, naturally is going to have what I call, like mixed feelings about it. Or the fancy word for it is ambivalence. Where you have feelings on this side and feelings on this side. Part of you wants to stop and part of you doesn't want to stop or you're scared or all these things where you're sort of all mixed up about it. And that is totally normal and totally okay. It's just important. How do you respond to that? One thing you can do that's pretty helpful is actually have some empathy for their reasons, their fears, their excuses, their doubts. Give them some credit where credit is due. You can say, yeah, it is kind of hard to go away for the holidays. Or just go ahead and have some empathy with it. Do not argue with it. Because when you have empathy for someone, what you're doing is you're making the emotional part of their brain relax and feel safe, which allows the thinking part of their brain to kick in, the part that has good judgment and good decision making. When you're going against all their excuses, it inflames that emotional part of their brain, like putting it on fire, shutting down the thinking part, which is not what you're trying to do. You guys know this channel is all about strategy. We're all about what works. Now here's another solution that you can consider. I talk about this concept, I call it say it first. You know your loved one really well. You know what roadblocks that they're probably going to be coming up with and giving you. So if you're going to bring up a topic, say it before they say it. This is a really good method for having any kind of conversation with anyone in your life where you know they're going to resist your idea or your thinking, Go ahead and just say it before they say it. When you do that, it actually pulls that roadblock out of the way because they don't have to be standing there thinking it or saying it to you because you've already acknowledged it. You know, have an empathy statement. Say what they're thinking before they can even think it. It's gonna get that guard down. It works the same way as that empathy statement does because it gets that emotional part of the brain to simmer down because they feel like you understand their side. And when they do that, they can take their wal and when their walls come down, your words can get through. Another thing you can do is if you know they're going to have some practical or logistical roadblocks like, who's going to take care of my dog? Or I'm supposed to move out of my apartment by this date. I've got to do that. If there are some things that you can help with and take care of that are like these like, logistical, practical kind of concerns that they have, offer that help and assistance. And lastly, you can always just redirect the conversation in a more positive way. Now, you can't ignore what they're saying. You need to have those empathy statements first and then redirect to something else. The big thing here is not to lock down with them. And this is actually a huge part of some specialized addiction counseling techniques that we call motivational enhancement. Go to this link and you can watch me have a real life session with someone talking to them about something that they want to change. And you can watch how I handle their resistance and their excuses. Because there's one thing is me telling you and there's another thing for you to see it in action. I'll put that link in the description for you in case you want to check that out. Now, of course, everything I just told you in this video is how to overcome their resistance, their obstacles for getting help. But before you can even have that conversation with them, you've got to get them motivated. You got to increase their motivation to even get to the point of having this conversation. Which is why I'm going to put the playlist up here for you to watch next about motivating your addicted loved one to get help and get into recovery.
