Amber Hollingsworth (counselor) explains how to confront a loved one with an addiction effectively. She frames confrontation as a therapeutic tool learned from a confrontational but respected therapist ("Cindy S."), and provides concrete rules: ask yourself why you want to confront them; never confront when you are upset; use confrontation sparingly and only when it will move things forward; be brief and direct; avoid asking questions you already know the answer to (make statements instead); consider a "drive-by" confrontation (state it and move on); stay calm and avoid emotional displays; and accept that you do not need admission or agreement for the confrontation to be effective. The video ends by pointing to a follow-up on communicating when angry.
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I would be much less effective and successful at helping people if I didn't do this. 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. If you want to be back in control of your life, subscribe to this channel and I'll make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. Now, I know that on most of my videos I'm always telling you about how when you're dealing with an addicted loved one, you need to hold things back. Don't say everything you're thinking. Hold your feelings. Be positive. I'm always telling you that stuff. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, okay, when do I get to say what I think and feel? When do I get to confront them with the truth? And that's why this video is going to be your favorite. There are lots of things you can do and today I'm going to tell you one of the big ones, which is how to confront someone who has an addiction. Now, when I was like a little baby intern counselor, like not even out of grad school, one of my first jobs was in this psychiatric hospital. Now this hospital dealt with a lot of things, like the most serious of serious mental health problems. But one of the things they did is they had a unit for teenagers who were seriously struggling, like suicidal, like addicted, like having psychosis. Like the big stuff. Do you feel there are any major problems you have to deal with? And this is where I spent a lot of time in my early days as a counselor. And I learned a lot of lessons. But where I really learned about therapeutic confrontation was from Cindy S. The therapist. Now one of the things I had to do as a little baby intern was I used to have to come in, like on the weekends and after hours and I have to walk around, have this like orange plastic clipboard. I have to walk around the hospital and pull patients aside. A lot of times it was teenagers and get their like, history from them. Like, where are they from? Why are they there? You know, what's their family background? Like, just get their whole history. It was like this three page, pret, lengthy assessment I had to do. And as part of that assessment, I'd actually have to call the person's family member, whoever was on their, like, release of information or their contact. And I would have to ask them, you know, what they thought about the situation and get some information from them. Now one of the first times that I called one of these teenagers parents, the Parent was kind of fussing, saying that the teenager was complaining about the therapist, Cindy S. Saying how she said this mean thing, and she said that mean thing. I just sort of listened and took some notes down and said, okay, I'll check into it, and then kind of got off the pH. At this point, I'd never even met Cindy S. Yet. So I'm still in this teenager unit. And I'm asking, like, the staff over there. I'm like, this parent said this about the therapist. Like, what do you think? And they were saying, yeah, Cindy S. Can be, like, pretty confrontational. Like, she's direct. She calls it like it is, and sometimes people get upset about it. And in my little baby counselor heart, I thought, oh, gosh, can't believe she said, that was terrible. And I felt like, wow, she's just. She's just out of bounds. That's what I thought in my little baby counselor had. But then I got to meet Cindy S. And I got to sit in on a lot of groups that she did. And let me tell you what, those staff were right about Cindy S. She was pretty confrontational. She definitely called it like it was. But you know what? Those kids loved her for it. Really. I know. I was so surprised, too. I would have thought that they would have just hated her guts. But when she wasn't on the unit and she wasn't in group, I would sometimes ask the kids, you know, about, like, what they thought, what was going on. They almost always really like Cindy, even though she definitely called them out on their BS and that's how I learned that a teenager or an adult or anybody else for that matter isn't going to respect you if they think you're just an idiot and that you're naive and they can get anything and everything over on you. Now, when you take that little nugget of knowledge and you mix it with Cindy G's little nugget of knowledge about, that's not the hill I want to die on. Meaning you specifically pick the important things that you want to go head to head about. Now, you have a really good combination because actually, it's a hundred percent true. Yes, I am super nice to my clients. I say I'm, like, the nicest addiction counselor ever. I'm surprised they don't kick me out of the addiction counselor clan. But I'm validating. I'm positive. I see their strengths. But I'm really direct. When someone tells me something I know is just pure bs, I will definitely call that out. I might say something like, I Feel like there's more to that story, or are you sure about that? Or tell me a little bit more? I feel like there's some more behind there. I don't know. And sometimes I'll just flat out say, not believing you. What else you got? And you know what? It works. Not only does it work, but I feel really solid. I would be much less effective and successful at helping people if I didn't do this. Because actually, people want to know that you know what you're talking about and that you're not just an idiot. Well, in what way are you qualified? They respect you more and they like you more. As long as you follow the rules about confronting someone, number one, first thing you need to do is ask yourself, why do I want to call this person out on this particular issue? Because most time when I hear something, I don't call it out. I specifically pick and choose when to call someone out and when not to. And so when you're getting ready to do this, you need to think to yourself, am I just wanting to call this out because angry, because I'm tired of being treated like an idiot? Because I want you to know that I know. Or maybe you just mad at them and you just want to throw something in their face. If that's the case, go ahead and do it however you want to. But you got to realize when you do it, then you're just doing that for your own personal reasons. You're not doing it to effectively help them. You see, that's the thing. I call people out when I think it's going to help them or it needs to be said so we can get to the underlying issue or to the real truth of something. What if I said it? Why say it? Most of the little junk I just let pass because it doesn't matter. Now, if you've asked yourself this question and you've decided that you're calling it out because it's important and it needs to be called out, not for your own personal sake, but maybe for the sake of the family or so that we can get things moving in the right direction. Now we're on the right track. If that's the case, you can move on to these next set of rules as you work through them to figure out how to do it. If you're doing it, just get off your chest because you're mad. You just want to get it out. You don't have to follow the rules, but realize it ain't gonna help them because you're trying to help get them to Move along in their stages of change. Then you gotta go by these next guidelines. First guideline, Never ever do the calling out and the confrontation when you're upset, which usually means probably don't do it in the heat of the moment, like when it first occurs to you. Let it settle, let it roll around in your brain a little bit and think it through before you just call it out. Because when you're emotional, you won't be able to think straight and you're more likely to make a mistake or get defensive or reactive. Number two guideline, do this very sparingly. And Amber's rule about is this gonna help us move forward in our situation? Number three, be brief, say it quickly, do not go on and on about it. Don't lecture about it, don't turn it into a huge thing, Just say it. Next guideline, don't ask a question that you know the answer to. If you know they were drinking, don't say, were you drinking? Say, hey, I saw that you were drinking. You're calm, but you're direct. Don't ask a question, make a statement, especially when you know the answer. And a lot of the times it's not even necessary to like wait for a response from the person. Yep, you can do like the drive by confrontation. You can just sort of throw it out, hey, I saw this, I noticed that. I know this or that or whatever and then just keep on moving. In fact, when you do it that way, you don't leave room for a big argument or reactiveness or defensiveness. It's just like you just set it out there, it's yours and move on. And that lets them process through the situation and gives them a little time to decide how they want to react to your confrontation. Don't be angry or mad or crying. Be solid in what you know and just say it and move on. And if they continue to argue with you back, that's okay. You don't have to get them to admit it or have a confession or agree that you're right. You're just saying, hey, this where I'm at with it. This, this is what I think. And then you're moving on. This is actually a very important strategy that you have to do from time to time. And it is very powerful. And that's why it's important to do it the right way at the right time. And as you can imagine, that involves dealing with your own anger about the situation in a really effective way, which is why I want you to watch this video. Next. I'm going to put it right up here for you. It's all about communicating when you're angry about something.
