The Fastest Way to Break Their Addiction (And Most People Never Use It) | Denial Crash Course Pt. 3

If you're trying to help someone with an addiction get better faster, this video is definitely for you. I'm going to tell you how to expedite the whole process. Now, this is actually the 3rd video in our crash course on denial video series. In the first couple of videos, we talked about how to get someone to see and face the truth, because in order to get someone to change, we have to get them to acknowledge that everything's not perfect over here. It's a little bit uncomfortable. And maybe I need to make a change to get this discomfort to go away. So videos 1 and 2 are all about that. And even if you don't do anything else, that right there by itself is enough to get people to change. But if you want the whole process to speed up and go a little faster, then layer these techniques on the top, and then you have the formula for getting someone from addiction to sobriety in the fastest possible way. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. Welcome to the YouTube channel, Put the Shovel Down. And I've been in the addiction profession for more than 20 years now, where we're all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get and stay 5 steps ahead of it. And the only way to beat addiction is to understand exactly what you're dealing with and make super strategic choices. On this channel, we like to approach things from both points of view, from the point of view Of a person struggling with an addiction and from the family member's point of view. And today's video focuses on how the family can help understand the addicted person's point of view so you can get that process to recovery moving along a lot faster. The key here is helping to get someone to shift their mindset about recovery from a mindset of sacrifice or being on good behavior or avoiding problems into a totally different mindset, into a mindset of Hope and encouragement and understanding that recovery, it's not about sacrifice. It's about freedom. But like anything else, when it comes to addiction, you got to be strategic about how you go about getting someone to unsubscribe from this old mindset and to subscribe to this new mindset or way of thinking. Naturally, there are ways that are less effective and ways that are more effective. So let's focus in on what works best. Initially, most people get sober to avoid something negative, like they don't want to lose their Or their spouse, or they don't want to go to jail, or they don't want to get another DUI, or they don't want to keep feeling embarrassed, or you know they don't want to die of liver disease. You know they want to avoid something bad from happening, and those are all great reasons to get sober. But staying sober comes from something else. Staying sober is all about liking it on this whole side of the recovery street better. But to be honest, right out the gate, that is not the way they're going to see it. And so don't give them a hard time about why they're choosing. To get sober, even if it's they're doing a temporary trial of sobriety, which we're going to talk about more in just a minute. Even if it's they're getting sober for someone else, for a girlfriend, whatever. There's no bad reason. Let them have their reason. It's cool. In fact, validate their reason because it's a good one. I don't care what it is. If you're getting sober to avoid going to jail, that just sounds like good, smart thinking in my book. Whatever you do, don't be negative about someone's reasons to make a change. For the better when it comes to an addiction. I don't know why we do this, but people do this all the time. Well, you're just doing that for me. Well, you're just doing that because X, Y, or Z. Hey, that's a good reason to do it. Don't be stomping on people's reasons. If they're moving in the right direction, we like it. Accept the reason. Now let's move into how to get bitten to move along. The truth of it is being over on the sober side is. So much better. You don't have to spend all that energy and time and money figuring out how to engage in the addiction, recover from the addiction, sneak around the addiction, hide the evidence of the addiction. Oh my gosh, the amount of time that you get back in your life, it is absolutely amazing. I have one client who's in our Strength-Based Recovery coaching program. He always tells me, he's like, oh my gosh, every one day that I choose to be sober is literally like getting 3 days back in my life because before As soon as I would start drinking, if I started drinking at 12, my day was over because I promise you nothing else was going to happen from that point forward. And so when you think about it, when he was actively in his alcohol addiction, he was drinking every day. He was just losing days and days and days and days. And so now that he's sober, he's like, oh my gosh, I have like a lifetime back. I get to do all these things. I put my energy where I want. I don't feel terrible about myself. I have energy, motivation, all the good stuff. But it's hard to convince someone of that. Right out of the gate. The best way to go about it is to actually get them to look back at their own experiences and realize that that is the truth for them. There's a couple of ways you can go about doing this. First way is if they've had some experience with sobriety and recovery in the past, this is where you want to go. And I'm talking about like if they have more than just like a few days, more than like 30 days, okay? But a lot of people have had significant periods of sobriety. What you want to do is you want to ask them about what it was like during that time. Almost always you're going to get a good answer here. They're going to say, oh yeah, I felt better. Life was simpler. I had more energy. I got so much done. I felt good about myself. I had good relationships. They're going to tell you some really positive things. You know, my thinking was clearer. My memory was better. Energy was better. My health was better. They're going to tell you all these really positive things. It works because It's their truth. They know it from their own experience, which works so much better than when you just tell them, hey, it's going to be better over there. Because in their current experience, when you have brief periods of sobriety, as in you're not drinking or using or whatever today, and you're in an active stage, you don't feel better. You feel worse. So their immediate thought is, is life is going to suck without it. I'm never going to have fun again. You know, I'm always going to be bored or I'm going to be lame. I'm going to be a loser. I don't get to go do cool things anymore. That's their immediate thought because that's what their reality is right now. But if they've had significant sober time in the past and you ask them about it, they'll start to remember that, hey, actually, when I was sober for a period of time, this is the way I felt. That reminds them about what it's really like, things over on the recovery side of things. Now, if your person you're trying to help They don't have any like longer-term sober periods, then you're gonna probably have to start with trying to get them to have like an experiment of time. And I always start by trying to get someone to get at least 30 days. And I don't try to get them to commit to forever. I'll just say, hey, let's just see, number one, if you can do it. And number two, what it's like. Now there's something really important here that you need to remember when you try to get someone to do this. And this is kind of important all the time, but Especially important right now. You always want to tell the truth about what they're probably going to experience, because if you don't tell them the truth and you tell them it's going to be all great and gravy and it's not all great and gravy, then you've totally ruined your credibility. And those of you that are watching my videos, you hear me talk all the time about how important trust and credibility is. So you don't want to make it all rainbows and sunshine because, hey, nothing is all rainbows and sunshine. In fact, they're going to feel worse for a while. So you might as well tell them upfront they're going to feel worse for a while. That way they're going to trust you because they know that you're not just trying to sell them a load of BS or whatever. You always got to be honest to keep your credibility in check. So when I'm talking to people about what being sober is going to be like, I always sort of give them the whole truth about first week they're going to feel like this, the second week they're going to feel like this, then they might start to feel a little bit better. And I start to talk about some of the things that they might notice that they feel better, but I never try to tell them it's all going to be great. I say, you know, there are going to be some things that you don't really enjoy doing anymore. There are going to be some things, some people, You're probably either going to decide that you can't be around or that you decide you don't want to be around anymore. It's kind of sad, to be honest. Like, there's some relationships that are going to change and you'll figure that out along the way. That being totally upfront, honest, not only does it help your credibility, but it also helps them to notice the right things when they're happening. So you can plant little seeds in their mind about what to expect, which makes them more likely to notice. The positive changes when they happen. I'm a big believer in this whole like you find what you're looking for, so because you're actually filtering for it, it's not magical. It's because you're looking for it, so it's a lot easier to find. If you're not looking for it, sometimes you miss it. And so if you don't plant seeds in someone's mind about the good things that they're going to experience, they could experience them and actually not notice them. And this is especially true because they've probably spent a bunch of years convincing themselves. That life would be totally sucky without it, and so they're going to be looking for that. So we need to give them something else to look for. Think of it like you're giving someone directions somewhere, and you say to them, "Hey, look for the giant purple bookstore sign. It's going to be on your left. It's going to be neon and blinking." If you don't say that to them, they might miss it. If you do say that to them, the chances they're going to see it when they pass it—a lot better, right? So if you say. Look for these feelings to start happening. Look for these thoughts to start happening. Look for these positive experiences to start happening. And they're probably going to notice it because now they're filtering for it. Now they're actually looking for it. So an example of how I do this with my recovery coaching clients is I might say, you know, when you first get into this kind of situation, you might think, oh, this really sucks. I don't like being here. It's not really fun to be around drunk people when you're not drunk. They're gonna be like, yeah. And then they're gonna go and they're gonna experience that. And then I'll say, but one day you're gonna be in that experience and you're gonna see other people drinking or using or doing whatever the thing is. You're gonna feel totally different about it. You're literally gonna think to yourself, feel sorry for that person because you're gonna be remembering when that was you and how crappy you felt and how you feel so much better right now. And you're gonna literally feel like you have like this secret magic piece of information solution to the world that other people don't have. You're gonna be so glad you're over here and you don't feel sorry for people over there. And when you plant that seed, when they're in a social experience like that sometime in the future, they're going to be like, oh my gosh, had the moment. Happens all the time with my clients that come back and they say, I had the thing you said I was going to have. I was in this situation. I was looking at my buddy or I was looking at these people, you know, down the restaurant from me or whatever. And I could see them fighting and I had this thought or whatever. You're helping them to notice the positive changes. Another way you can do that, especially when they're either in the earlier stages or even in the experimental stages, is you can ask them questions along the way to get them to identify the positive changes. Like I very frequently ask clients, what's it like? Have you noticed that you have more energy? Have you noticed that your anxiety is less? Have you noticed that you feel more motivation? And when you get them to articulate that, it's getting them to reinforce their own positive experience. And the reason this whole thing speeds the process up is this. Most people start the process to avoid pain. But if you layer on top of that the other motivation for change, which is to seek pleasure, Now you're hitting it with the double whammy. They're avoiding pain and they're seeking pleasure by steering away from certain things. Now you've got the double motivation and that really expedites the whole process because you're coming at it from both angles. Remember, what you want to do is you want to connect them to their own experiences and truth. Sometimes people will have these little roadblocks that get in their way. These little like false irrational beliefs that they're holding. And a lot of times they're around either What it's going to be like to be sober or their ability to get and stay sober. They may tell themselves something like, well, I've already been to treatment 5 times and it didn't work. I've tried to stay sober so many times I can't count and I always fall back. But it's just a tiny little shift in thinking here, which can make all the difference. So for example, when they say it didn't work, I'll say, well, what's the longest time that you were able to stay sober? A lot of times they'll tell you like a big number. Like they may say, well, I stayed sober for 3 months. I'm like, dude, that's 3 months. Something was working in three months, and then all of a sudden you've shifted their thought from I can't do it, I never stay sober, it doesn't work to oh yeah, I did stay sober for three months, and I actually felt a lot better during that three months. And then I'll say, well, what were you doing that was working? And then they'll start telling me. And again, you're helping shift their thinking to that they can do it, that it felt better. Again, you're speeding up the process because now they're actually getting excited about it and motivated for it and encouraged by it. Sometimes you'll ask them the question. Like, well, I was sober 3 years one time. I was like, sober 3 years one time? You're telling me you can't do it 3 years? You very clearly can do it. Okay. And if you're having trouble with this, because if they don't have any sober time in the past and we haven't gotten any experimental 30, 60, 90 days sober going, another thing you can do is you can remind them of really hard things they've done in their past. It has to be truth. It has to be more than just, you're strong, you can do it. It has to be, Something that they know is true. I'll say, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? If you don't know, let them tell you. What'd you have to do to do it? Why was that so hard? Again, you're reminding them of their strength and their courage, right? So you're trying to get someone to see that life is better over here. You're going to like it better. And you have the strength it's going to take to pull this whole thing off and connect them to their experiences because that's what they're going to believe. I can't tell you how many times clients tell me, like, they'll literally hear other people, like, in meetings and stuff, talk about being sober. And they don't believe them. They truly think that this person is lying or they're putting on a mask or they think it's all great and gravy. Because again, sometimes when people are telling their stories, they forget certain parts and they just act like things are just totally fine. But when you do that, again, you ruin your credibility. So that is one of the reasons why they don't believe people. And then the other reason is just because they just can't imagine that someone can be happy without it. So that's why it's so important to connect people back to their own experiences because you're going to believe yourself, right? It's just so much better. Or like I said before, you can plant little seeds. About things that they might experience. So I will say things like, a lot of my clients tell me that they felt X, Y, and Z at certain milestone, X, Y, and Z at next milestone. And then again, you're pulling their attention to that, which is reinforcing those changes. That's what's going to expedite this whole process from addiction to sobriety. And one of the key moments where you absolutely 100% definitely want to do this is whenever you're hearing Change talk. I'm not sure if you've seen any of my videos on change talk. If you haven't, you should check them out. I'll put a link to some of them right up here at the end, but I also have a download, a free download. I'll put the link in the description where you can download examples of change talk and how to respond to that when you hear them, because those are key moments when the window's open. So for gosh sake, don't miss those moments. Those are moments to pour gasoline on this whole thing and get this fire burning. All right. Don't forget that link's in the description and I'll see you in the next video.