The Hidden Pain of Loving an Addict (Why Families Feel Trapped)

There's a kind of heartbreak only a family knows. It's not just watching somebody you love destroy their life, it's watching someone do it again and again. It's holding on to hope long after everyone else gives up. It's writing the check. It's planning the intervention. It's taking the midnight calls only to be lied to, manipulated, stood up time and time again. It's the sleepless nights, the double life, the chaos, the silence, the the endless cycles of crisis, fear, and guilt. It's not loving the addict, not loving the addicted individual. It's loving them so much that we start to lose ourselves. This is a quote, you guys, a direct quote from a book that Kim has just read that I'm getting ready to read. It's coming on Sunday. It's by Brooke McKenzie and it's called— oh Lord, it's called You're Waiting on You. And this book is the essence of what happens to all of us in addiction. And I think it does a great job from just hearing what Kim saying in today's topic of letting us figure out what we're waiting for and what do we need to do for ourselves while we wait, to ourselves and for ourselves, which I think is something that's often not talked about in the world of addiction. So I'm glad we're doing this today.

It's, when you think about it, it's pretty easy to spot what addiction looks like, especially if you know what you're looking for. You can see the behavior changes. You can even see the evident evidence left behind, but it's really hard to spot it in families because it looks different. We don't, we don't see pills, we don't see bottles, we see generally a lot of times families that are really from the outside put together. And, and you guys being a family of somebody that's struggling with addiction, you know how much effort that takes. So if you think about it, when you think about it from the family standpoint, they— you guys are engaging in very predictable patterns. And so these patterns They, they show up in different ways and we can even fluctuate from one pattern to another based on how, how we respond. And so we really need to adjust that. So the patterns, what they can look like is they can look like they're overly controlling. They can be controlling conversations. We can beg, we can plead, we can have volatile emotions. We can take on responsibilities that aren't ours. We can go against what you swore you would or would not do. You It's desperation that's morphed into panic, morphed into guilt, and it depletes you. It depletes the families when you engage in these patterns. And so you start to lose yourself oftentimes so silently, you don't know what's happening. It's one dream, it's one hobby, it's one event that you just stop going to, or you stop engaging in because it takes too much effort. You don't have the time, you don't have the bandwidth, your brain or your heart is just not there because we become so obsessed with what's going to keep them safe, what's going to keep them alive. And when we do that over and over and over again, then we get stuck. in these patterns I just listed more so. And then as we do that, we lose ourselves just a little bit at a little bit at a time. So when you think about this, how can we stop these patterns?

Well, I think there's a couple of ways to stop them, but I think the first thing is you have to recognize that you, we live in this, what I call salty world. And the salty world is we are sad, we are angry, we are lonely, We are tired and we are yearning for this to end. And because of all those emotions that we're feeling, that's how we get into these patterns, is to try to protect ourselves from them. I think what we have to do is sort of figure out what is our relationship with addiction and then change that response. Ask ourselves, what role am I playing? Am I Columbo the investigator? Am I searching? Am I checking? Am I sniffing? Am I the silent enabler? Because I'm crippled. I don't know what else to do. It's easier to give in. Is it, I have a spouse or someone else in my family that's fighting with me, so I'm just like, it's easier to give in than fight? Or am I— and we see this the most— the anxious controller?

Mm-hmm.

This is like, I'm going to manage their recovery. I'm going to make them get a sponsor. I'm going to get them to bring the receipts to me. I'm going to do all these things that we do. But they don't really do anything but suck us dry. I think addiction relies on people seeking short-term relief. Families seek relief by trying to find certainty. And the certainty is, I know they're using, or I can't find any proof, so they're not. So both of those are non-truths that we live in, I think, but it makes us—

Or even if I can get them in with the right counselor, if I can just say the right thing at the right time, if I can manage their money, If I can tell 'em that they can't live here anymore unless they do all of these box checking.

Yeah. And that's exactly what that is. And we talk about that all the time. I call it placating or box checking, which is just false, but we feel better when they're doing it. And I think that's sort of, it's a false feel good. It's a false feel better. So basically we have to realize that we're seeking comfort that's false and isn't really bringing us the comfort that we need.

So it seems like, Campbell, what you're talking about then is that you really have to have a mind shift in the fact that we're not going to seek the false sense of comfort that these predictable patterns provide.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. We have to believe, we have to figure out that these will not bring us the comfort that we want. We have to figure out what that would look like. But I think before all that, and this is something like that we don't really People don't do; they just sort of start trying to manage themselves in the relationship. But I think there's a couple things. What do what do I really understand addiction? Do I understand the science behind it? Do I understand the impact? Do I understand what I'm dealing with before I start to try to deal with it? Do I have power and influence? Do I have the ability to change the situation, or am I just being dragged along like? Behind a ski boat. Do I have the resources to deal with this? And people feel like they have to have the resources, but the answer can be, I just don't. So then I have to figure out, do I have the ability to learn about levels of care and how to, how to manage that with the resources I have at hand? Do I have— this is the big one— do I have the heart? Mm-hmm. Or the ability to even have a boundary or hold a boundary. And so people start doing everything we've talked about before, heretofore in this video, but they haven't really analyzed, well, what am I going to do? What can I do? And then they've done all this work, but they don't have the ability to do anything. And I think this is where we find that things are most helpful. Like Beyond Boundaries is good for that. And Amber's Challenge is good for that. Like these things that are in those links are in the description, you guys. That's what they're for, for you to do sort of that pre-work to understand, well, who am I and how am I going to show up with this? And then, and then how and when do I choose me? I think that's a really big one. I think we can hyperfocus on them, but it's not going to solve it. And then we lose ourselves so terribly, which goes back to that sad, angry, lonely, tired, and yearning thing.

Mm-hmm. Campbell, you often say like we have to go towards ourself. And when I was, you know, as I'm reading this book, they talk a lot about, you know, that addiction seeks comfort, it seeks relief, you know, through substances or a process addiction or whatever the person that's struggling with addiction, they're seeking relief through their addiction, you know, short-term relief. And family members, we seek relief too. So we're seeking the relief from the anxiety or from the stress or from the fear. So So you often say when that topic comes up, you have to go towards yourself. Can you explain what that means?

Yeah, I think in a nutshell it means don't let the addiction be the maypole around which you completely dance and that you have to sort of remember, because we give it all up in this process. We become depressed, we become anxious, we cut ourselves off, we don't eat well. We don't socialize. We don't even seek joy so many, so many times in an effort to either deprive ourselves to fix it, or because I don't have the bandwidth to do any of those things. And I think ultimately we have to be able to go toward ourselves to— we have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired of the role we're playing in addiction. And then as we can give ourselves permission to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, then we have to go toward ourselves, which means Be able to have lunch with a friend every other week, be able to go for a walk, begin to reclaim who we are because we forget that and we don't feed it. And then we don't have any battery, any emotional bandwidth for when the real work is going to start, which is how do I get this person into treatment? How do I keep this person into treatment? How do I help this person manage? Not manage, but How can I be a support for their early recovery? And we're done. And this is where so many families, like, they take their loved one to treatment or sober living or whatever, and then they're like, whoo. And then they're not ready because they have taken their eye off who they are and they haven't charged that battery. So it's okay, you guys. It's okay to watch a movie. It's okay to exercise.

It's okay I'm going to even interrupt and say it's not, it's not only okay, but it's imperative. Because once we lose ourselves, we become, from my experience of personal experience and working with lots of people, we become either a silent shell of who we once were, or we become this angry, vicious, ready-to-attack person. And we, and we can vacillate between the two.

Oh yeah.

But when we start to remember what we like, what brings us joy, what brings us peace, what makes us excited. And we actually— addiction is still there and it's still a big part of our life. But when we stop becoming so entangled with it and we start to pull back, who we are slowly starts to reemerge. And that's essential as far as our recovery. And if we can't get that, then we rob ourselves, our families, and our loved ones of who we really are and what we can actually provide.

And as you're saying that, I just thought of something. We actually also By doing that, if we have other people in our immediate system, spouses, other children, once we do that, we're so focused on the disease that that forces other people to defend it in a weird way or to want to ignore it. And also, like with other children in the home, like they feel like chopped liver because mom's up in bed because she's so depressed about. John's drug use, then who am I? And so everyone feels left out and everyone feels angry because this us who are over hyper-focusing on this and losing ourselves, we become their problem. And they don't want that. And they want really sort of, they want their own partner in this. They want their own support in this, which would be us. It's imperative on that level too, so that Everyone in the family can see it for what it is. You know, we say this all the time when we talk about it, force it, talk about it, force it. The other person will defend it. It's not that bad. Boys will be boys. You're overreacting. You don't have any proof, which either makes us say, oh, oh ho, and we go get more. But we really need to just— what they're saying really is pull back, go towards yourself. You can give this a break and you need to give it a break in order for it to figure out it has to die. Yeah. Go away.

Yep.

I think for, for you guys, this is a great book. I can't wait to read it. Thank you, Amazon, for Sunday delivery. But I think it's really important to understand where you sit in this disease. At the beginning, in the middle, at the end. And we talk about it in the membership, which is like we go from reeling, which is I'll do all these crazy frantic things, to learning, which is sort of those 5 questions I talked about, and then to planning, and then we can get to thriving. And I think what Kim is just implicating there is we need to bring a little bit of thriving, a little bit of thriving in. At least while we're learning and planning, probably not in reeling because we're just reeling. But instead of waiting for that after they go to treatment or this problem's over, is bring some of that in as we go through it for stamina, peace of mind, and family stability. All right. So that's a big topic. It is an often not talked about topic. So give that some thought. Read the book, think about it. Um, we talk about this all the time in our membership, so if we can help with those things, click on those links and let us help. All right, Bree, do we have any questions? All right. Um, this is from Chloe Albert. I was trying so hard not to be the bad guy, but then my daughter called me at 4 AM drunk at a bar looking for money. I avoided the first 2 phone calls, answered the third. She lives in New York and said no and hung up. Hate it. She's been in an IOP for legal stuff, but has— that has been resolved. Right to the bar she went. I'm exhausted. Yeah, so that's a good example of taking care of yourself. Like, it's okay to turn your phone off. It's okay not to answer that call. Your peace of mind is what we're talking about protecting here. So as you answered that call, not only did you disrupt your sleep, But it pissed you off. You said no in the end, so it would've been better to just not answer the phone and have her deduce the answer is no while you sleep through the night and wake up with some level of peace in the morning. So I'm a big advocate of turning your phone off. If there's bad news, you're going to find out in the morning. You don't need to know in the middle of the night. But, um, that's what I would recommend on that one. Because you're, you're, when we answer, we train them to continue to call us and we continue to train them to continue to try to get whatever it is they want out of us, money, resources, whatever.

Yep. It also, um, you're taking, you're taking on someone else's responsibility. So you figure when the more we do that, like Campbell said, it trains them, but it also puts us, it puts us in a panic state because then we feel that that responsibility is ours. That problem has now been tagged to us. And most of us are, you know, pretty responsible individuals so that we feel like something's tagged to our side, then we want to do it and we want to do it well versus being able to really differentiate in your mind. That's not mine. That's not my responsibility. So the loved one then has to feel the consequences of that. And then you protect your own peace. And I know we could, we could have a whole conversation on, on that topic alone. Um, but that's just one side of it.

Also in that, in that Um, situation that she just described is your codependency went into high gear. And remember, codependency is an anxiety order just based upon fear. What will or will not happen if I do or do not do something? So I imagine what crossed your brain was, if I say no, will she get money from somebody unsavory? Will she steal? Will she make a bad trade to get the cap— the Whatever it is she's trying to get with her money, and so that's not only did you disrupt your sleep, but you really fed your codependency versus in the morning when she said I tried to call you for money. Say sorry, I was asleep. You kept your codependency way down here, Tracy. I don't feel. I feel if I don't overly help him, he will eventually be homeless, and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do. He's 35 and doesn't seem to be able to manage himself, but I am so tired. Yeah. So this is where I would do some thinking that's slightly different, Tracy, in that I'm going to do some learning and some thinking about rather than saying, I'm not going to help you and homelessness be the option, is I'm not going to help you, you can be homeless, or I have the sober living in mind. I have this Treatment facility in mind. I have whatever that is, so that you can say no and not overly help because there's a there is a viable alternative that you can stomach. I'm not saying he will take it, but at least I think I don't know any parent in the world would that would say be gone. I don't care if you're homeless. I think they would be able to stomach like I had to. I it looks like you're choosing to go out into the world, but if you change your mind. We will get you help. If you change your mind, we will give you treatment. That's a lot more palatable than adios muchacha. So I think for you, Tracy, it might help you to do some of that analyzation of what do I know about addiction? What do I know about levels of care? What do I know about what's really required to beat this bad boy? And then what are my resources and what are— what am I willing to allocate financially Toward that end, if and when we get there? Those are big questions that we don't ask ourselves until all of a sudden the person's like, holy moly, I'll just stop. Like, get me help. And then we're like, oh, know those things ahead of time so that you feel better about what boundary you are going to put down, whether that's not overly helping, can't live here, whatever that is. But if you continue to overly help him, he's not going to change anything. Sadly.

And, and this is talking to Tracy, but also just other people too. For all of us, we have, we have to— and Campbell, Campbell talks about this a lot, but we have to work our heart into whatever the next best decision is for us. And so if from a heart standpoint, we're not ready to stop doing what we're doing, that's okay. But on the back end, for us to do a lot of personal investigation and figure out what do we need to do to get ready, or is this as ready as I will ever be, and then find peace with that decision, knowing that it is making the addiction easier, knowing that it's making change harder, but also being able to recognize that at this point, I can't do anything different. Therefore, I'm not going to shame myself for it. I'm not going to beg and plead and take on responsibilities that aren't mine, but also recognize that I can be learning in the background and maybe I'll be ready for a different decision later on.

I think that's a huge thing. And I think we beat ourselves up. If we can't do something that maybe is being recommended or someone's telling us we should do, but we have to live with ourselves. We have to be able to put our heads on our pillows at night. And there is nothing— doesn't make you bad or weak, or if you can't hold a boundary or you can't do the thing, you can just not do the thing for right now. But to Kim's point, keep learning, keep thinking, keep talking. Keep watching. Sooner or later, most of us do get sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's just on this continuum, is it really early or is it really late? Or is it, to Kim's point also, I'm never going to get there because I had another child that died of an overdose and I can't tolerate getting there. I'm never going to get there because my first husband died. Like, they— we run into these scenarios all the time. Like, We're not even going to talk about you getting there. You're not going to get there and it's okay. So how do you live, rebuild your life around this blatant hole in the road that's your life that you can't do anything about?

Right. And for a lot of mostly women that I work with, not all the women I work with, but mostly women fall in this category that's, I can't leave because it will be World War III in my home and I can't expose my kids to it. Or I can't financially afford to do it yet. And so in those situations, it's being able to identify what parameters are you stuck in, and then how do we rebuild within those parameters, knowing that eventually the end will come. You know, the kids will grow or something. You know, no situation is permanent. And so, but being able to really look at it from a realistic lens. And this also, again, supports not taking on responsibilities that aren't yours. And so this is, you You know, all of these situations are very delicate and personal, but they're matters of the heart and the head. And so we have to honor both the heart and the head.

Yeah, I think we too often in this field, um, focus on the head— what you should do, what you ought to do, what books tell us to do, what methods tell us to do, what Al-Anon tells us to do, anything. But we have to be able to Sit on that seesaw of heart and head that is unique, and it's it's unique to us that no one else can know where that is. Only you can know that, right? All right, Dale. I just learned how to mute my alcoholic's text. Oh, high five, Dale! I function much better now. However, I'm still struggling to not let her issues drive my thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts take over. And I think, I think that's a good point. What's the name of the book again?

You're Waiting on You.

Thank you, Kim. I was gonna say, scroll down.

Um, You're Waiting on You by Brooke McKenzie.

I, I think those thoughts are going to come in, okay? And you can beat yourself up about them, or you can say, I'm going to give this 15 minutes, I'm going to give this blank, and then I'm going to put it in this box. And this is a Brilliant AA saying, put it down for today. Put it down for this hour. Put it down. You can pick it back up, but I am going to take a break. And that goes back to what we talked about a minute ago, which is going towards yourself. I've thought about this for 10 minutes. I don't have a different thought on it. I don't have a resolution on it. I'm going to go watch a movie and see if those thoughts can be quieter. They're not going to go away, but you can always bring them back. I think give yourself permission to put them down for whatever amount of time you can. Put them down, but muting them is a brilliant idea. Yeah. All right. Married a long time. His question is: His oldest friend is dying. How do you support them without getting involved? I think you use the empathy triangle, the empowerment triangle, and you just say that's really sad. I'm really sorry it's happening. If I can only imagine what that feels like. But I'm guessing you want to know how do we support him in maintaining sobriety despite the fact that his best friend is dying or oldest friend. So like, I think validate his emotions are real and then empower him in some way to do what is the right thing to do.

I think in that, and I'm not sure, Married a Long Time, if it's sobriety that you're trying to support, if it's your husband, or if it's the friend. But I think validation and acknowledgement goes a really, really long way. So let's say it is sobriety, then to be able just to acknowledge, you know, I'm a little nervous about how this might affect sobriety, or I'm a little nervous about how this might affect our relationship or our family or you, you know. And again, if that's not the thing, if it's not sobriety, if it's I'm just trying to again kind of detach myself from him and, you know, I know that this is going to be hard and he's going to try to consistently come over to my side. than for you to be able to say, hey, I know things have been a little bit different with us, but I love you and I am concerned about you. I know this is a huge loss and we've made some differences in our relationship and I'm hoping that we can keep that. I know it might be different, but you can hear in both of those scenarios, you're still supporting you and what you need and what you're thinking and feeling in that moment.

You could also use a phrase like, I imagine, or my thought pattern is, what I'm telling myself is that would be really difficult. And then even engage them in a, What do you think that would be helpful for both of us in this situation? So that you're again realigning with them and breadcrumbing them to their own sort of thought pattern of what they could do to hold on to their sobriety or peace of mind or whatever it is we're trying to protect. But I think you definitely have to acknowledge it. Like, that's a massive loss when your oldest, dearest friend dies.

Yeah. And I also think when we find ourselves in situations like this, whatever the situation is, it's good instead of saying, how do I engage with them? The first question that should always happen is, how do I engage with me? What do I need? How do I take good care of me? What am I working on? What's at danger? What's at risk? What might I do? How can I make sure that the progress that I am working on stays intact? And once we have that answer or those answers, then we show up more authentic to ourselves and we actually are more helpful to the ones that we love.

Also, this just triggered this. I had a client, an old client come back yesterday for the first time in a long time. And she was really frustrated with her son's addiction and how much time and energy was going into it and how it was limiting his life. Um, now that he's in sobriety, he's not going to family weddings. And she was really, really mad about it, which I tried to get her to see was grief. And then she told me that her oldest and dearest best friend had died last year. And as we were talking, I said, I actually think both of these are grief and that your focus on your son's sort of withdrawal from the family to protect his sobriety is pushing on your grief about your best friend. And so to get to be able to recognize what is this real grief and how does this real grief going to impact me is a real thing. Addiction causes grief, you guys. This is loss of dream, loss of vision. Loss of desire. And so to recognize that is really important and give yourself the grace and space to grieve. All right. There's no such thing as a dumb question, Chloe. Maybe a dumb question. I should just wait for her to make contact with me again. I'm going— I find going back and forth trying to help her by not being the bad guy, focusing on myself, so hard. So this is a topic Kim and I talk about a lot, you guys. We focus so much on not being the bad guy that we fail to recognize that we're going to be the bad guy with active addiction regardless. Okay? They're going to drag you into being the bad guy. So as long as you use pleasant words, nice tone, don't worry about being the bad guy. Saying no doesn't make you the bad guy. If you say, man, I would love to give you some money, Unfortunately, I just can't. Yes, they will drag you into the bad guy role, but that is not you being the bad guy. Really focus on that, you guys. Like, we talk about this constantly in the live calls because people are like, well, if I say no, I'll be the bad guy. But if you don't say no, you lose yourself.

Yeah.

If you don't say no, you stay down there in salty land. If you say no sweetly, unfortunately, that's not an option, or however you need to say it, That is not you being the bad guy. Not answering your phone at night while you— because you sleep is not you being the bad guy. Don't worry about their narrative of what you do or say. Worry about, did I say it or do it nicely?

Right. You can be clear and direct and nice at the same time. You don't have to be harsh. You don't have to be punitive. Then you are walking into the bad guy role. But just simply saying, you know, I've noticed I'm not sleeping very well. I've turned my phone off at night. So I didn't see that text, you know, which you're not being the bad guy. She may say, well, what if I'm in it? What if, what if I'm in an accident or what if I need you or, oh my gosh, what a terrible mom.

She's trying to pull you into that at night.

Right. And none of that's true. She's trying to pull on heartstrings, which again, people that struggle with addiction, they're not bad people. They're not, not everyone at the core is a manipulator. But when this disease takes over the brain, manipulation becomes a way of life. And so for us, as the ones that love the people inside of the addicted one, we can still love them and be kind to them, but not become manipulated as quickly or as frequently as they want us to, or at all, or at all.

All right, Tracy, what if you paid for multiple treatment centers and sober living and they keep messing up?

Yeah.

It's a big question. You have to know in your heart of hearts, what resources do I have that I choose to allocate to this? I've seen families pour in hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing. I've seen families not pay a dime and get good results. So I think this is a sort of like, you have to be able to answer, I don't, I no longer want to fund this. And there's nothing wrong with that. I say all the time, like, They need to get the message of tag, you're it. This is the last one I'm paying for. Unfortunately, I'm not paying for anymore. I'm unable to give myself financially, emotionally, or physically anymore to your disease. I love you dearly, but you will have to figure out how you want to get sober. There are lots of free places to get sober if they really, really, really need to get sober.

And the other thing on that, Tracy, is wait for them, wait for them to come to you. You, you know, and, and it could, you know, and this is definitely more than just a 30-second response, but if you're waiting for the desperation, if you're waiting for the willingness, you're going to get further faster than if you're pushing and pleading and demanding.

Yeah, absolutely. Lots of people pay for too much treatment too soon. And I know that makes us feel better. It's an immediate comfort, but it's, it's really not a long-term fix.

Right.

I always say wait for desperation. All right, guys, we are out of time. Big topic today. So hopefully this was helpful to you guys and we will see you. Amber will be here next week.

One last announcement. Amber's doing the challenge again. And it starts— you have the dates. Is it March 3rd? Is that right? Or not March 3rd. I'm sorry. When is— do we know the dates? We'll put it in the description, but Amber's doing the challenge again.

Yeah. The link is in the description.

The link is in the description. All right.

And that's a really, really good thing for you to do for yourself.

Yeah. All right. Bye, guys. Bye, guys.