The Horrible Cycle Addiction, Guilt, Shame, and Resentment

When it comes to addiction, everyone these days tends to want to focus on the biological changes that happen when someone develops an addiction. You know, they call it the disease of addiction. And it is very true that there are some significant brain changes that happen when a person becomes addicted. And I think in some ways, it's a really good thing that we focus on that, because since there's been a lot of scientific development about this, it really gives a lot of legitimacy to the issue which has opened up so many avenues for getting people help. However, I also think there is a major downside to this predominant focus on the brain changes. The neurochemicals, the dopamine, all that stuff. I am 100% believer in that. You can see tons of videos on this channel where I talk about that. The problem is, because everyone is so fixated on how do we fix that part. There's a lot less focused attention on how to fix the psychological part of addiction. And to tell you the truth, the physical part of addiction is actually pretty easy to fix. I know that sounds kind of harsh, right? But it is. You can. You can detox people off of almost any substance, physically, safely, and readjust those brain chemicals to at least a safety norm in about five days. And they even have these things called rapid detox, where they can put a person under, like to sleep and detox them. It's almost like addiction surgery or something. They have these other processes. There's a video on my channel where I talk about something called nad, which is some new, more natural ways that they're detoxing people. The point is, the physical brain changes, the neurochemicals, the serotonin, the dopamines and all that. It is a very important part, but it's the easier part to fix. What is not easy to fix and what is tremendously more complicated is psychological addiction. And there are pieces to that component as well, because there's the piece about, you know, the psychological habit of something. Like if you're going to quit drinking coffee, you have this habit where you drink coffee first thing when you wake up and you. And you brew the coffee and you have all these habits. But I'm talking about even deeper and more than just the psychological habits and triggers, people, places and things part. You see, when someone has been addicted, you know, that doesn't happen immediately. It happens over the course of time, usually over the course of years and years. By the time they come to any kind of treatment or are trying to get better. So not only do they have these. These physical brain changes, they have these psychological habits that have developed, but they have developed these psychological defense mechanisms which by the time a person decides that they're going to get help or they want to change, these things are like hardwired in. And this is the difficulty in treating addiction. It's these things and, and these things are the very last least thing that gets attention. But it's these psychological principles that lead people back to relapsing and using over and over and over again. In fact, it's way more the psychological principles that lead people back than it is the physical things. After someone gets clean and sober, it's not the physical dependency part that brings them back, it's the psychological thinking. And like I said, and I'm talking about more than just the, the habit of it. We're talking about the years and years and years that people have spent in a psychological cycle defense mechanism state. So let's take a look at what that looks like, how that develops. And we're going to spend a little time about talking about how do we get out of that, which like I said, isn't, isn't all that easy. So the, the cycle I'm going to tell you about, we all do. You don't have to have an addiction. We all do. We all have these defense mechanisms, right? It's just that when you develop an addiction, these defense mechanisms really get up on high gear because we're defensive a lot and we start using these defense mechanisms so regularly that they get really ingrained in our everyday thinking and even to the point of being almost ingrained into our personality. Right? So let's, let's think about how that works. We're gonna really sort of zone in specifically on this cycle of addictive behavior, shame, guilt, pride and resentment. Because what happens is you get almost a domino effect. And it happens in just that order. Almost exactly that order every time. Addictive behavior, shame, guilt, pride, resentment. And so let's take a look at how that happens and let me give you a non addict example here. Just so everybody can follow and everybody can relate to it. Let's say you are, you're a college student, right? And you have this big exam coming up and you haven't studied for it and you meant to, but you were really busy and you, you know, you've got a lot riding on this big exam and you decide you're gonna cheat. Okay? I'm not saying that's a good decision, but this is what you decide, right? So you, you go to school and let's say you, you made a secret list of answers on your hand or you wrote them in your pocket, or I don't know, however you decided you were going to cheat, those are probably old school ways of cheating. There's probably new, more modern ways than that now. But let's say you, you go to school, you, you get caught cheating by your professor, teacher, whatever. The very sort of first reaction, right, is going to be probably humiliation, shame, guilt. But very quickly after that, you probably notice that most people will move into this psychological process where they immediately start to justify and rationalize and defend their behavior. Now, they may not say this out loud to that professor at the time, but this is what goes on inside of the thinking, right? Because immediately if this is you, you get caught cheating, right? You, you're immediately like, you think to yourself, well, if they didn't push us so hard, if the expectations weren't so ridiculous, if this whole situation was more manageable, or if I didn't have to work full time, you know, I don't have parents that pay for everything. You know, you start going through this justification process and you start defending to yourself why you made the decision that you made because you really do feel bad about it. And it's a really uncomfortable, intense, sharp emotion in the moment. And we want to, we want to get rid of that. This is almost like the way we psychologically self medicate that shame and guilt is that we move almost immediately. It's almost like a reflex, right? Like the doctor goes, they hit your knee and it just happens that fast. And you move into this just justifying why you had to do that. That is a very typical process that we're all guilty of. All of us are guilty of doing this. Anytime we make a bad decision, we go through a very similar process, right? Well, I ate junk food for dinner because I freaking work 14 hours. I'm exhausted. I don't have time to stop and cook a healthy meal. I said do what I had to do, right? It's a justification. I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it. The thing of it is, is when you are dealing with someone who, or you yourself are dealing with an addiction, you're making some decisions that you really, really, really, really feel bad about. When you really come down and think about does not fit with your value system. Like way more than I eat cookies for dinner, way more than I cheated on test me. You'll find yourself doing some things to fuel this addiction that you can't even imagine that you would have ever done. And, and As a way of like an ego protection, defense mechanism. You get in this cycle of justifying and rationalizing. And that's why to the people that are around the person that has an addiction, it is so frustrating. This is a horrible process for anybody. This is not fun. This is, this is awful for everybody, okay? Because if you're the person that's the loved one, the family member of the person who has addiction, you feel like they always blame you, they always make it your fault. They never take responsibility for anything. Which is all true. And I'm not saying that to sort of beat up on anyone who has an addiction. Because you beat up enough, you don't need anybody else to beat up on you. I'm just explaining how and why that happens. How is it that it's always someone else's fault? How is it that they stand denial about it? How is it they keep doing these things which you know that they know better than, right? And that they don't really, really feel good about? It's this, this horrible cycle that you get caught up in, which is you feel guilty about it and then you medicate that feeling guilty about it by making a reason or justification for it. Now some people have a justification that looks slightly different. Like most people will make it someone else's fault. Like 90% of the time it's somebody else's fault, right? It's my wife's fault, it's my boss's fault, it's my parents fault, it's my husband's fault, whatever. Or you know, it's something that happened to me a long time ago. So right. There's a reason for it. A few people will blame themselves and it may look initially like this person is taking more responsibility, but a lot of times that's not exactly the case because the way that that goes on is like, I'm just a loser. I'm a terr person. I don't deserve anything, you know, I don't deserve my good family. And it may sound like, well, at least they get it and they're taking ownership, but that's not exactly what's happening here. What's happening here is it's almost like they're beating their self up so much, they're bullying themselves is what I call it. And then they feel sorry for themselves and they use that as a reason to let themselves off the hook. Like, I'm just a loser. I'm just a no good, sorry, whatever. I can't do any better. So it looks a little different outwardly, but it's really a very similar process. It just has a different look on the outside. Have you seen this before? Have you done this before? Have you been on the other side of it before? If you're watching this video, you've. You've been somewhere in this cycle. In fact, I'm willing to say all of us have thought this before, this blaming cycle, this justification cycle. Like, even if it's just you went shopping and you spent way too much money on a pair of shoes impulsively, right? And you kind of felt bad about it, and then you came home and your wife or your husband was like, I can't believe you spent all that money. And immediately you justify it, right? And then immediately it's a big fight and it's. It's their fault because they're controlling and you never get to have anything. It's almost reflexive. Like I said, it's a people thing, not just an addiction thing. It's just that when you have addiction, it happens like a lot. So much so that you really start to lose your grip, your reality of the situation. And you have these thoughts so frequently that you really convince yourself of these things on a very, very deep level. You convince yourself of this storyline that you're telling yourself because makes you a victim one way or the other. You can't help it because. And in some ways you're a victim, but you're not a victim of the college. That was too hard. You're not a victim of all those things. You're a victim of addiction, right? But your thought process is so caught up in protecting the addiction that it has. You focus on all of these external unfair situations, which is where the. Which is where the resentment comes in. And a lot of this comes from it's ego protection. It's. It's a pride that happens to us. And that pride is not a bad thing. Like I said, it's there to protect us and we. We need that, right? But it gets toxic. I had a young man in my office just yesterday who I've seen forever. And he was telling me how he was. Was reading in some recovery literature and it was some quote. And he's like, oh my gosh, I have to share this with you. It's about guilt and pride. And I was like, oh, definitely, because I knew I was going to talk about this topic today. And he shared it with me. And I'm not going to say it word for word because I. I mean, he shared me the passage. But off the top of my head, it was something about pride. Being the opposite of guilt. Because guilt is, is designed to destroy you, the person. And pride destroys other people. And it's the same thing. It's just like a mirror image, pride and guilt. And I can definitely see that process happening. It just happens so quickly. It's an automatic. And we don't even realize that that is what's going on. So a lot of times family or people will say, you know, to me, do they realize what they're doing to other people? Do they even feel bad about it? Like, do they ever realize it when they get clean and sober? These are questions I get. And so my answer to these questions are, do they realize it in the moment? Sort of. Maybe a little bit, but not really. Right? They can kind of realize it on one hand, but not realize it on the other hand, all at the same time. In counseling there's a fancy word called cognitive dissonance. And it's where you can know two truths that can't possibly go together. Like one is the opposite of the other, but you can believe them both at the same time. And you're just not connecting the dots there, right? So they're in conflict with each other, these two thoughts. Like, so on one hand you, you know that you're doing the wrong thing. On one hand you feel terrible about what you're doing to yourself and to the people around you. But at the very same time you're caught up in the process and you're caught up in justifying what's going on and rationalizing it because you don't even understand why you're doing that stuff. Because it's not you, because it's just not who you are, right? And we all try to make sense of things. We all try to make sense of why bad things happen, even when we're doing the bad things. Right? And so we're just looking around for any possible reason why, why we stole that, why we said that nasty thing to our spouse, why, you know, we didn't show up to the, you know, grandma's dying bed, you know, at the nursing home or whatever that we feel terrible about. We have to make sense of it. And in order to really break the psychological processes of addiction, you've got to really dig deep and unravel these processes. In old school, 12 step recovery, which most of you know, I am non denominational recovery person. I'm not just like totally 12 step, you can do it any which way. But in 12 step recovery they talk about the need for self honesty in order to recover and be sober and I think this is what they're talking about there, that it's a requirement to be, to be sober, to be honest with yourself. Not just about you're using, but more than that, about your intentions, about why things happen the way they happen, about what really caused things to happen. Right. It's so, so much deeper than just the drug and the alcohol use. It's about unraveling and dealing with the shame and the guilt. Because once you can deal effectively with feeling bad about what you did, then you don't need these defense mechanisms anymore. And once you don't need those defense mechanisms anymore, you can see the truth. And so people, you know, they say, well, do they ever see it once they're out of it? Most of the time people do now, not all of the time. What are they able to admit it maybe to the other person or somebody they hurt? Most of the time they realize it. Most of the time they can admit it. Sometimes they can't admit it or say it out loud to that person. Like usually they'll admit it to me as the counselor in the office, but they may not admit it to the person. And it's just like I said, it's a reflex, it's a defense mechanism of self protection kind of thing where you just feel immediately defensive. There are times where people never realize it and they never get it. And there's an old recovery term, some people don't agree with it, I have mixed feelings about it. But they call it being a dry, a dry drunk. And what that means is, and it's an alcoholic term, but you can apply it to any kind of addiction really. It means that the person isn't drinking or if you have another addiction, isn't using or engaging in whatever addictive behavior. But you haven't changed as a person. So it's kind of like you're not using the addictive or doing the addictive behavior, but you still have all these other thought processes going on. And I, and I usually tell my clients that's like the worst place to be. That's just miserable. Right? It's like you don't have your favorite best friend coping skill, the addiction to cope with all this other stuff that's going on. So people in that state are usually not, not very happy. When people work a recovery program, whether it's 12 step, whether it's a more religious program, whether it's a more science based program, they usually work through these things. They usually work through this process and they get really honest with themselves and you can see it if you've met people in recovery, they can talk to you about what happened to them and why and the things they did. And yeah, they feel guilty about it, but they can talk to you about it without falling apart, right? And then sometimes you'll even see, you know, you see this in meetings a lot. People will laugh at themselves. And it's not that they're trying to act like it wasn't any big deal, this horrible, terrible thing that happened, but it means that they've sort of come to terms with, with whatever happened and they've understood why it happened. And therefore they can, and they learn to catch it so it doesn't keep happening. Because even when you stop using, you can continue in this pattern for lots of reasons. I mean, think about it. If you've been using or engaging in addictive behavior for years and years and years, you have been telling yourself why that's the way to be. In fact, you've been telling yourself that people that don't are just idiots over and over and over. It is, it's like hardwired into your identity in a lot of ways, right? Like you're Miss Mr. Fun Guy at the party or whatever. And you spend a lot of time convincing yourself of that truth to make yourself feel okay about it. That doesn't just go away immediately, right? It's more than just the using. It's an identity thing. It's a religious belief almost that you've developed. And to undo that, to change your mind about it, to be able to say I was wrong about that, right? Not just wrong about the behavior I did, but wrong about my whole thought process around it, wrong about the whole culture of it, wrong about all of it. It takes, oh my gosh, a super ton of humility to be able to do that. Like a huge, huge amount of humility. The good news is, is when you can do that and when you can get honest, then you don't need those defense mechanisms anymore, like I said, and you can catch yourself doing it. And many of you've heard me say this lots of times, which is always say people in recovery are like my favorite people because they develop muscles other regular people don't have. And that's this stuff, that's this level of self honesty and humility that regular people don't really have to have to survive. But when you're in recovery, you do, or else you're going to go back to using. You got to have this level of it. And so not only do you stop this cycle around the addictive behavior, but you just, you're able to get a hold of this cycle in general. A lot of recovery programs have this built in. They don't say, this is what's happening. Like, step four, stop justifying, Step five, stop blaming. They don't really call it that, but that's what's happening. It's an. It's an unraveling and an identification of your own psychological defense mechanisms and processes. And if you don't do that, your likelihood of going back to use them is really high. If you don't, you could be sober for 10 years. But if you haven't change the way you see yourself in the world around you, you haven't changed that. Your chances of going back are way extremely higher, okay? Because it's just not going to take much because you still see yourself as that person. You still believe all those things that you told yourself to justify the behavior. Maybe you haven't been doing it, but you still or that person you were before. And I think that's when the whole idea of the spiritual experience comes in. People talk about, well, you have to have this spiritual experience. Most of the time. I think people think that's a religious experience to me, and to some people, I guess it is. But to me, it's a shift in this. It's a shift in how you see things. It's a heart shift, it's a head shift. And it's a choice to look through a different lens and think and feel differently about the whole situation. And it does require a lot of honesty and humility. And I'll also say this, it doesn't usually happen all at once. It's not like one big moment and the veil is lifted and the person sees things clearly. When I work with people and I see them like each week in the office or virtually or whatever, I can see this veil coming off a little bit. It's like they, they can see the truth a little more and a little more. And it definitely. That process starts happening usually when they stop using, but they, they also have to be willing not just to stop using, but they have to be willing to look at the idea that maybe I was wrong about some things, or maybe I was confused about some things, or maybe I, for some reason I wasn't seeing that clearly. You know, situations around them. And each week when I talk to people who are doing really good, you can see they're like, you know what I realized this week? And they'll start telling you, and you know what? Like, I used to think this and now I think this, I mean, that was ridiculous. And you can see the unraveling of all that psychologically addictive behavior. You'll. You'll hear people that are in recovery and people that maybe work in the field. You hear them, people talk about, like addictive type behaviors. And that really means a lot more than just drinking, using, gambling, shopping, whatever it means all of this stuff. And so when people are familiar about recovery, they hear that, they understand that, oh, there's a whole thought process. There's a whole way of thinking and feeling that goes with addiction. Now let's see who we got here with us live. If you're joining us on the chat, definitely we want you to join in this conversation too. I go back, back and read every single comment that is left, and I respond to most all of them. Before we get into the comments, I will let you know. I have put a link in the description of this video to my nightly recut, my nightly recovery checklist. Hope I'm saying that, right, that you can download for free. And what that is is a series of questions that you can ask yourself on a daily basis to make sure you keeping your thinking straight. So that's all about making sure you're not falling back into this negative shame, blame, guilt, pride, resentment cycle. It's. It's almost like the daily cleanup list. Okay. You go through in 12 step. They call it an inventory. This is kind of a way of a series of questions you can ask yourself to make sure you got your head on straight and you're clear up. And you can go to bed knowing that everything's in good order. And you can wake up and go to good order the next morning. All right, let's see who's here and what you guys have to say about this. Hey, Sarah, sue and Amanda and Shelly. Hey, Laura, Mark. Thank you for the kind words. Hey, Anthony, how are you doing? Carla's here, Amanda's here. Amanda says something. See what Amanda says? Blaming myself always ends up with me being able to say, I might as well just. Thank you for saying that, Amanda. That takes a lot of humility. I really appreciate that. Right. We beat ourselves up and then it's like we make ourselves feel so crappy that we then have to, like, find a way to make ourselves feel better because we beat ourselves up. Right. Beating yourself up is just as unhealthy as letting somebody else beat you up. It. It doesn't end well. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate that. Tony says when addicted, it's the brain that says you need a Fix. Exactly. And then it drops off. Yeah, your brain says. Your brain says you need a fix. That's where those brain chemicals come in. It's like you think your brain begins to rely on it and need it because it's dependent on it. But the psychology is what allows you to keep making those decisions without completely self destructing. Right. You. So your brain is almost like forcing you into this. I need it, I need it, I need it. And then you do the behavior, whatever it is you had to do to get it that day or that moment, and then these other processes wrap around it and ways that you justify it or you make it okay, or you tell yourself, okay, that was the last time, but tomorrow is different. All of these other psychological processes that occurred. Sandra says, I really feel like he believes lies about using. Is that from this process? Yes. You do this so long and so much. You convince yourself completely of these things. When I'm dealing with people that are brand new in the process and they're still in their addiction, this is all they can talk about, and this is all you can get them to hear. And it's really difficult to start unraveling this with people. Sometimes when I deal with people that are actively addicted, I'll start trying to get the person to gently see the truth and unravel some of this. And. And so sometimes once they can start to see the truth and unravel this in a safe place, then they can make the choice to stop using. A lot of times the person makes the choice to stop using for whatever reasons, usually because they're wrapped into a corner of some kind. And then these processes start to unraveling, but somewhere in there, this needs to happen. Sandra says, I go through this process around continuing to have contact with the Attic, even though it's only when he's sober. Let me. Let me read that. Let me read that one more time. Sandra. I go through this process around continuing to have contact with the addict, even though it's only when he's sober. So, Sandra, in this, when. And I could be reading this wrong because it's text, you know, and you don't get a lot of context without seeing your face and hearing your tone. But what I hear and I see this is I go through this process of continuing to have contact with the addict. And I almost hear guilt. I don't know if there's a guilt emoji, but if there were, I would like see it right there in the first sentence, then in the second sentence in the little parentheses there, even though it's only when he's sober. That is exactly an example of what I'm talking about. It's like you feel bad, you feel like maybe I shouldn't be doing this, maybe I shouldn't contact him. And then it's like immediately you're helping that feel better by saying but it's only when he's sober. So I'm keeping my boundary. I'm not saying what you're doing is right or wrong syndrome. I'm just saying like to me when I read that, that's what I hear. I could be, I could be seeing that wrong though. Let's see. Beverly says thank you. My husband and I are listening. Hey, Beverly and Beverly's husband learning so much. You're awesome. You've been referring people in Alanon and Naranon to Facebook pages to come watch you. Hey, thank you so much to Beverly and your husband and thank you to everyone out there who shares these videos, who tell your other people that maybe need this information to come see these videos. Who all of you who like the videos and comment on the videos. It is not just helping me, but it's helping to get this information out there to other people because that's. That sends signals to Google and to Facebook and to all of those online platforms. I don't know what to call them to that says this, this information is important and it causes them to put it out in front of other people. So I appreciate your help. Thank you so much. Amanda says our, our addicted persons are trapped in some kind of fantasies, future success. Fantasies and consequences of it is ignored. All the real things that can heal them up and improve well being of life and situation. Okay, hold on. Wait, I'm confused. Let me, let me try to read that one more time. I think what you're saying is are they trapped in some kind of fantasy about future success? Yes, usually. Usually the person has some sort of delusions about it's going to be different tomorrow. I'm going to stop this, I'm going to fix this, I'm going to dig out and it's like every day, day in and day out, tomorrow's going to be different. You know that in the beginning they'll have these fantasies of it's going to fix, it's going to be better. I'm going to get out of all these consequences. In the end when it's really terrible, they stop having that and they just become so depressed. They see the truth more clearly. But they almost see it so clearly that they become so depressed and passively don't even want to live anymore, which is a terrible, terrible place to be. In fact, it's harder, in my opinion, to deal with someone in that state than it is to deal with someone in this other state of the rationalizing and the justifying. Because the truth eventually comes to the surface. So clearly you can't quite ignore it anymore. So that part fixes itself. But when you get so bad you don't have those fantasies anymore, then it's really bad. Amanda says, amber, are you gonna delete this live or can I watch in two days? No, you can watch it in two days. You. The lives are always there for replay, almost always. So you can come back and watch it. Rachel says, I always wonder, do they know what they say, how they act and manipulate? Rachel? The answer to that is sometimes yes and sometimes no. Sometimes they're very consciously aware of exactly what they're doing to push your buttons, and sometimes they're not because of all this, these ego defense mechanisms that are happening. And because it happens so automatically, it's a reflex. Like it's not. It's not always thought out. It sometimes is an automatic. So yes and no is the answer to that. Is it normal? Kids name seven says, is it normal act to break up with you because they are so convinced you're the real actual issue, or is this more narcissistic behavior? Yes, that happens all the time. And I get questions about that all the time. Yes, I like to say this. Their addiction wants to get rid of you because you stand in the way of the addiction getting what it needs or wants. And so it convinces the person. The addiction convinces the person that you are the problem, that you are the evil, that you are the issue. And, and they will 100% convince themselves of that and detach themselves from you, not just as husband and wife or boyfriend, girlfriend, but as a parent, any, any type of relationship this can definitely happen in. Because I see parents all the time saying they won't even talk to me. And it's because of this same process. It means that this thing that's happening is really ingrained on a. On a super deep level. Do all addicts have an addictive personality? That's a good question. No, maybe not. Not all of them, but a lot of them do. And I have a video about addictive personality I did maybe a year or two ago, where I talk about how addictive personality isn't always that bad. It's just bad when it's toward an addictive behavior. But that obsessiveness that I won't stop that. I will get what I want can be a really great trait. It just has to be put in the right direction. In fact, I call it a superpower. And I tell my clients, I say, use your superpower for the good. It's a superpower. Don' Be a villain. Jennifer says, what do you say when they say I can't do anything right? Well, Jennifer, I'm going to tell you what I say, but I'm not recommending that you say what I say. I had a client in my office just this week saying that. And I'm gonna tell you what I said to him. But this not what I want you to say. I can say this because I had a good, solid relationship with him. Strong. I knew I had a relationship strong enough that I could say that. So when the client said that to me, I said, so if you have, if you're solid enough ground with the person, you can say this, but only if you're solid. I said the person, I said, oh, that's a bunch of bull. I was like, you don't quit feeling sorry for yourself and letting yourself off the hook because you're just saying that so you don't have to try. I'm not even going for that. That's what I said for the client. And he kind of shook his head because he knew that was true. But you can only talk like that. It's on. That only works if. If, if you and that person have a level of trust and. And they don't feel like you're attacking them. You can call someone out like that when you have that there. If you don't have that there, then I don't suggest responding like that. Let's see. Hey, Scarlet. Amanda says, I have been watching for a couple of years. I have nine years. Does that mean you have nine years over? That's amazing, Amanda. Thank you. Amanda, tell us a little bit about these thinking patterns. If, if you can remember back to what that was like for you, how you used to think then and how you think about it now. Saska says, I found that as. Let me show you this comment. Saska says, I find that as an acoa, that stands for Adult child of an Alcoholic, for those of you don't know, and the wife of an alcoholic, I can too have stinking thinking and have to be brutally honest with myself about my own recovery to remain emotionally sober. Stinking thinking. I like that. I haven't heard that term in a while. That's an old recovery term and it's a. It's the term and recovery that means what I'm talking about. It's a much easier way to say stinking thinking. A much better way to describe it than all those words I used. I like it. Donna says, love what you say about honesty. After 30 plus years of drinking and nearly losing everything, including his life, my hubby, my husband gave up drinking and spoke his truth and has been clean and sober for eight months now, praying for him. Yes, it takes a lot to get a person to that point. But once they own the truth and let go of the truth and they. And they just own it and they'll just say, oh my gosh, I used to think this. I used to do this to my wife and it was terrible. And I manipulated. You can tell by looking at them and listening to them that they feel so much freer and lighter. You know, people stuck in addiction, let me just tell you one thing. They're not happy. They're so miserable. And they're hanging on to the addiction because it's the only relief that they get. Not because it's fun, not because they like it, but because they're desperate. So I want you to know it's not fun on any side of this issue. Stacy says, such a great topic today, so relevant to our situation. Seeing sobriety is not using is not the same as recovery. Yes, that's right. Amen to that. Hey, Michelle. Jennifer says, my husband uses this process regularly, and I don't know if he doesn't care or understand how he does this so much. I definitely see how he's ingrained this process into his personality. Yes. It happens so often. And so I'm automatically. And it happens a lot more often than just how much you hear them say it out loud because they might. He may say it to you out loud three times a day. If he does, he's thinking it to himself all day. So it's not even just when they say it. It's this thought process that's always happening because not all of them will say it out loud. Most people will because they'll get mad and they'll say it, but even when they're not talking about it, they're thinking it's. Let's see. Facebook user says, I had to leave my husband. It sounds like he stopped using because all eyes are on him now, but he still has all the addictive, manipulative behaviors trying to make me out to be the bad guy. He needs that to shift so badly. Yes, I hear you. Like I said, it doesn't immediately go away. When someone gets sober, it usually starts to get better from there, but. But it does take some pretty conscious unraveling of that. Amy says is there any way for an addict to see that everything they do can justify their behavior? Do they have to be sober to see they. The harm they're doing? No, they do not have to be sober because some of them start to see it before they get sober, and that's why they choose make the choice to get sober. So sometimes they see it first, and sometimes they don't see it till after. Yeah, I have had people that come to me, and they can see a lot more clearly. I know I said this on last week's video, but I'm gonna say it again. The people whose family do the process that I teach, like the invisible intervention, the craft method, motivational interviewing, if you want somebody to see the truth fast, you do that as the family member. And they will see it faster because you're just refusing to let them have those justifications anymore. So if you do that, the. The blinders will come off faster. Carla says after 13 years of habitual use, he's going to rehab facility and separating themselves from society. Necessary or do you stand a chance to heal on your own? I don't think I can answer you with a clear answer there, Carla, because I just have to know a lot more about the person. Like, okay, they've used for 13 years. How old are they now? How old were they when they started? What are they using? What is in their environment around them? There's just a lot of questions for that. I would say if it's a. It's a fairly young person, the answer is usually yes. If it's an adult and they have some other things going for them, you know, they're working, they have some recovery sports, then possibly no. So I wish I could tell you more directly, but it's complicated. Sandra says she's got 23 years sober. Congratulations, Sandra. I love it when you guys say success stories, because not. Not just me, I mean, I like to hear it, but other people need to hear it too. They need to hear how you did it. So make sure all of you share. If you've got sober time, talk to us about how you did it. We want to know the secret Facebook uses. My husband, my partner, denies using, but has a constantly blocked nose that runs clear and has periods of silence towards me. Yeah, those could be signs, depending on what they use. Is it. Is it pain pills? Because sometimes that can be symptoms of that. Yoga sendor. I hope I'm saying that right? Or Yaga Cindor says hi from Ireland. My guy sometimes says contradicting things about his addiction. It's like he's lost knowing what's going on. Yeah, I hear contradicting things all the time in counseling. In counseling, they teach you a confrontation and counseling, really, it's not like confronting someone saying, you know, you're a jerk ball. What it is, is it's pointing out those contradictions. But that's a delicate matter. So I don't necessarily encourage anyone to do that until they've built that solid level of trust because it only works when you have that. Pointing out those discrepancies is only going to make it worse unless you have a good foundation under you. Hey, Trixie and Rebecca and Marina. Scarlett says, can an addict get clean without going to rehab? My Dil, I don't know what that sounds worth has been using for 20 years. She's an aggressive, drunk myth user. I guess I'll have to say the same thing. Scarlett, to you, as I said earlier about do they have to go to rehab? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It honestly depends on so many factors. I just do I think everyone has to go to rehab? No. In fact, I try hard to get people to get sober without going to rehab because it's less expensive, it's less intrusion in your life, and ultimately you got to learn how to be clean and sober at home. However, all that being said, sometimes that's what's. That's what's got to happen. Sandra says, do you. Can you do a talk about couples who are both in recovery? Yeah, that's a great topic. Maybe I'll put that on my list. Sandra. Amy says our house is perpetually under a black cloud of shame. And it feels like the single reason why my spouse refuses to get help. Allowing anyone to know his secrets is too much for him to deal with. I see that a lot, especially in people who maybe have important job and stuff like that. Like, they just literally feel like they can't go and get help because the. Not just the shame of it, but just they would almost feel like they'd be outed. So if there are some ways to help them find recovery that can reduce that, I say do it. Like, do it online. Do it anonymously, you know, go see somebody that's just one person privately. There are some ways to maybe help reduce that. So much of it is about. Because Amy, a lot of it is done in groups. And people that have that fear are particularly scared about going to groups and being outed that usually gets a little better and it's not as bad as they think. But it's definitely feels intimidating to begin with. Rebecca says if they detach themselves from us and the addiction thinks we are the problem, why wouldn't the addict just leave us rather than stick around? I won't answer this question Rebecca, and it's going to sound terrible. And the reason is because they need you. You're giving them something that they need. Money, shelter, excuses, a place to live. I don't something because addiction is like a parasite and a lot of times they're just sticking around for those reasons. I know that sounds terrible because we hope that it's not that it probably is or if they're married to you, they just may they could be doing it sticking around because they feel like it's too hard to get out or something like that. But it's usually not for any nice romantic kind of reason. Let's see. Mark says the thinking and continued bad choices often stem from despair and the effects of years of bad choices causing one's life to be out of control and unmanageable. It seems unattainable to fix. Very well said Mark. You know what it's like I'm one of these people. I'm. I'm definitely a Netflix binge person and I love these like shows that leave you on the cliffhanger. And what you see a lot of these days is people that make one bad choice and they get themselves in a bad situation that requires them to make another bad choice and like Breaking Bad or something before you know it like you're stuck in this horrible situation and it's this web of bad choices and you're so far and you think you can get out. That is exactly what happens in addiction. One little bad choice leads to another one and another one and another one and you feel buried in this hole. That feels insurmountable. It's not. But it feels that way. Sandy says. Hey Amber. After five years dry, refusing to let go of toxic behavior and one without help, is it possible to finally come to self truth and admit to choose to be honest humble person instead? It is definitely possible Sandy. But some it probably won't just happen magically out of nowhere either. Something will probably have to trigger a shift like that and it will probably involve exposure to something whether that's church counseling, 12 Step Recovery podcast. Something's going to have to probably trigger a shift of heart. It's probably not just gonna come out of nowhere. A mentor near death experience. I don't know something, it's gonna have to sort of shake the person almost like into seeing things differently, I would guess. Lifts a trip, says, I'm still waiting for my husband to hit his rock bottom. Going to the hospital yesterday when he couldn't even get himself up, standing for hours on end and still didn't do it. I think your name is new here. Welcome to our community. I haven't seen your name before. If you are new, we're glad you're here. I do a lot of talking on this channel about the fact that you don't really have to hit a bottom. You don't have to hit bottom. You just have to know you will. And there are things I think that family members, friends, loved ones can do to help someone figure it out faster. And in fact, there's a whole playlist on this channel all about it. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's. It's called how to motivate someone to take steps towards recovery. Let's see. I see a comment up here, but it's in a language I don't understand. Anyone understand what this says and can translate it for me because I wish I knew. I know you're talking to me because I see my name, so I just don't know what you're saying. Mark says, therefore, choosing to feel good, numb it out and run from it becomes a pattern ingrained in the mind leading us to further bad choices as the norm. It has to be stopped somehow, often in bad ways. Yeah, there's usually some level of wake up call there, right? Exactly. Or put in a situation of having to make a choice. All right, guys, we are about out of time. I have thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with you. I'm going to put up next is my playlist on the psychology of addiction. If you want to know more about these psychological processes. Because like I said, this is the important part, this is the harder part to break the more complicated issue. And don't forget the link in the description to the nightly recovery questions that you can check out. You, you can ask yourself this if you're a person. Early recovery, if you're just a person trying to be a better person, or even if you're in family recovery. These are just good questions to help you think straight and keep your relationships and your mental health in good working order. All right, everybody, see you next time.