The PSYCHOLOGY Behind Breaking An Addict's DENIAL | Denial Decoded Pt. 2

The secret to how to get someone to face the truth about an addiction is knowing exactly how much truth to show them and when. It's a little bit like trying to get the temperature just right when you're trying to cook a good steak or bake something in the oven. If you're like me, I'm one of these people who patience isn't my best thing. Like for example, I always want to skip the preheating. I'm always telling myself like, well, if you just put it in there now, isn't it already cooking while it's getting to the right temperature? That's what the instinct part of me wants to think. But there's this other part of me that says, if the directions say that I need to do it that way, there's probably a reason, right? If you want something to turn out just right when you're cooking it, you have to know how much heat to apply and when to turn the heat off. It's all about the heat and the timing. It's the exact same way with trying to get someone to see the truth about an addiction. For those of you who are new here, welcome to the YouTube channel, Put the Shovel Down. We're here to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction because there's pretty much only one way to beat it, and that's to understand what dealing with and get 5 steps ahead of it. There's a lot of channels out there that tell you what you need to do to get sober or that cherish stories. And I love those channels. They're great. I mean, what's better than a good heartwarming comeback story? But unfortunately, there's just not enough information out there about the hows and the whys and why do you do things this way and how does it work and how do you help someone? That's what this channel's all about. And this video is no different because we're going to be talking about How do you get through to someone in denial? Now, I know your instinct says, let's just skip ahead like me with the skip and the preheating, right? You want to just skip ahead and say, hey, here's the answer. Here's what you need to do. The problem is when you tell someone what to do and they don't think they have a problem, it just doesn't work, right? Because they're not going to take the steps if they don't think they have a problem. And then so your other natural instinct is to say, well, let me just tell you what the problem is, or let me just show you exactly what you're doing. And normally the way that we do that is to try to convince someone that they're screwing things up, that they're all wrong. That they're making bad choices, that they're ruining their life, they're ruining your life. But that doesn't work either because of this whole concept we talked about in part 1 called cognitive dissonance. It's that uncomfortable feeling that we get when our beliefs and our value system doesn't line up with our behavior. And the issue there is that we start jumping into all these various defense mechanisms to deal with that tension and uncomfortableness inside. If you haven't seen part 1, you can totally jump back after you watch this video and watch that, and all this will make even more sense. So the key is, how do I get someone to see the truth without hitting that cognitive dissonance tripwire? And that's super important because when you hit that particular button, I know you don't mean to, but you're probably helping the person stay in denial. Now, you've probably heard before, heck, you've probably heard me even say this before, that shame is the root of addiction. And there's a lot of truth in that, but maybe you don't know why that is or how that works. After today, you're going to understand that concept completely. I want you to think about shame. It's like a temperature that's too high. Shame is an extremely uncomfortable feeling and we'll do pretty much anything to avoid it. So when we feel too much shame, we immediately kick into our defense mechanisms. We want to numb it by going back to our addictive behavior. We want to distract from it. We want to rationalize. We want to tell ourselves something that's going to make that shame feel better. Just think about something you've done in your past that you feel really ashamed of. Even think about something that you feel embarrassed about, and that's just like the lowest level of You get a little squirmy inside, right? You're like, okay, let's think about something else, right? You don't want to think about that because it's uncomfortable. So when you're going at someone and you're hitting that shame button, that uncomfortable squirmy feeling just causes someone to want to avoid that feeling by either avoiding you, distracting themselves, all of those defense mechanisms that we talked about in part 1. So it just doesn't work. Now, guilt is like shame, but the temperature is a little more tolerable. And And the reason it's more tolerable is because shame is kind of like, I'm a horrible, bad person, which makes us feel really bad. Guilt is more like, I did a bad thing, but this doesn't make me a terrible, bad person. So it's like shame with slightly less temperature, right? When my husband cooks, he wants to cook everything on high. When he cooks a scrambled egg, he wants to cook it on high. And I'm like, you can't do that. He's like, why? It just gets done faster. I'm like, yeah, but it doesn't turn out right. Same thing is what I'm telling you here. If you turn up the heat too high, it's not going to turn out the way you want it to. In fact, It's probably going to backfire on you. And what I mean by backfire is they're probably going to make the situation be where you're the bad guy, you're the problem, not the addiction, which is the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish. But you can't go straight in for the guilt button either. You got to preheat that oven. Okay? You got to turn the temperature up a little bit at a time. And in fact, actually what works best is if you get them to turn the temperature up and see the truth a little at a time. Luckily, there are some ways of doing that. It's exactly what we teach in the Invisible Intervention Program. You've probably heard me talk a lot about it. Now, of course, we go into a lot more detail there, but I want you to at least understand the basic premise, which is instead of trying to tear someone down to get them to change, what actually works better is to get someone to feel good enough about themselves that they can actually face the truth and feel confident enough that they can fix the problem. When you're tearing someone down, it makes them where they don't want to face the truth. And if they did see the truth, they don't feel like they're good enough or strong enough or have what it takes in order to fix it. That's why that just doesn't work so good. And one of the best ways that you can make the truth more tolerable is to start with empathy. When you're able to empathize with someone's situation, it actually cools the jets on the emotional part of their brain. So it turns that heat down a little bit where they put their toe into the water of truth. Okay? It makes it where they can actually step in a little bit and see the truth. So let's not make the truth too scalding hot. I guess there's some situations where you can make it scalding hot. Like if it's so scalding hot that someone is either going to go to prison for the rest of their life or go to treatment, they'll probably choose to go to treatment. But if your loved one is not in that position and you turn the heat up too much, they're just going to use all those defense mechanisms like we talked about before. This is especially true if you're dealing with someone who's in what call the functional category, meaning they have other options. Some part of their life is still working. They got other places to go. They got people who are going to support them or enable them. If they're in any of those situations, then that whole turning it all up to high is definitely not going to work. Actually, I want you to imagine that we all have a giant yeah, but button in our brains because we do. Okay? They're just like us, just like anyone else. We have this yeah, but. And so if you're trying to tell someone, you really screwed that up. You're going to lose your job. You're going to hit the yeah, but button, right? Yeah, but I hate that job anyway. Yeah, but my boss is a jerk and he's never happy. They're going to yeah, but you. They're going to rationalize, minimize, somehow make your statement not exactly true. It's like this automatic rebellious button that we have in our brain. And yeah, you have it. I have it. If you're more than 2 years old, you have the button. Some of us have a slightly larger one of those buttons than others. But the cool thing is you can actually make the yeah, but button work in your favor. So for example, if you know exactly what someone's rationalizations and excuses are, which if this person's in your life, I bet you do know what they are, then you can use those to your advantage because there's probably a good amount of truth in their rationalizations and excuses. It's not so much that they're not true. It's just that they're not the whole truth. And when you hear your loved one say these rationalizations and excuses, I know your instinct is to want to sort of go in and tell them the opposite or tell them why that's not true or whatever. this big picture that you're trying to get them to see. But if you can see things from their point of view, you can identify their yeah, buts and come at them with empathy. Guess what happens? They'll secretly yeah, but you in their brain in the right direction. So for example, if you know that their yeah, but is something like, yeah, but I'm a really good provider. Yeah, but I'm a really good father. Yeah, but I do everything in this house for everyone else and this is my only me time. Yeah, but I'm not that bad. Yeah, but it doesn't happen all the time. Yeah, but I don't get a Or do anything abusive or crazy or anything. Yeah, but everyone does it. I bet you know what their excuses are, right? Think about them. If you want to take a second, get your pencil out and write them down. I bet you've heard them a lot of times. And if you haven't, I bet you can guess what's going on inside their head because maybe they didn't say it out loud because they're not a confrontational person, but you know what they're thinking. And there's probably some truth in all of those yeah, buts. And so if you will just acknowledge that. So for example, when I'm working with someone, if I say, yeah, this is a problem, but it's not like it's the worst alcoholic I've ever seen. You're not as bad as half of mine. Or, yeah, but you got this problem, but man, you're a really great father and provider. So just go ahead and see their point of view and agree with it. And several things are going to happen when you do that. You're going to make them feel safe. And when you make someone feel safe, they don't feel like they have to be guarded and defensive around you, which actually activates the learning, thinking part of their brain, which actually helps them to start to figure out the problem. And this is where you can use the yeah, but button in your favor because they may not say this to you, but they're going to think, yeah, but I'm not that great of father when I'm drinking. Yeah, but I probably could make like twice as much money if I weren't partying on the weekends. Because like I said, there's this instinct to want to go against. And so when you can see their side, their defenses lower, their emotions cool, the temperature's warm, and they can actually see a little bit of truth because their ego feels secure enough and safe enough to be able to see that truth without totally crumbling. Because you see, that's what Defense mechanisms are. They're ego defense mechanisms. It's the way that we keep our self-view intact because it's very, very important for human beings to keep their self-view somewhat intact. Otherwise, we fall apart. We don't do well. It is traumatizing. So when you can help someone see the truth in these doses with the right amount of empathy, they actually start to come out of denial because secretly deep down inside, they've known it all along. They're just running from So you have to make it safe enough that they're not running from it all the time. I know you may think it's crazy when you hear me say that. Like, you may be really reluctant to say to someone, you are not that bad, because in your mind you think, if I say that, then they're not going to take it seriously and they're not going to get help or go to meetings or talk to the counselor or go to treatment or stop doing it or whatever. But actually, it might make them a lot more likely to do those things because it makes them a lot more likely to see the incongruence in their behavior and their value system. It just does it in such a way that It allows them to look at it without falling apart. The key here is keeping someone's ego intact so that they show themselves the truth. Like I said before, it works a lot better if they show themselves the truth. But hey, maybe you're dealing with someone who's really far in denial and maybe they're not going to show themselves the truth. You can show them little bits of the truth as long as you have that trust, safety, credibility, and empathy in play. All those things we talk about in the Invisible Intervention program on this YouTube channel. As long as you keep those things in play, people will see it faster and faster and faster because you're not trying to protect them from the truth. You're not trying to fix all the problems and the consequences and the outcome of their choices. You're just trying to get them to see that you're not against them. You're on their team. You're there with them. You see their good qualities. You acknowledge that, yeah, they have a lot of anxiety. You acknowledge that whatever behavior they're doing, whatever substance helps them with When you can acknowledge their point of view, they'll immediately reflexively start to see the other side. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to immediately quit their addiction, but it does mean that you have helped start the process of them seeing the truth, which will eventually ultimately lead to them feeling enough uncomfortableness to want to change, but still feeling good enough about themselves that they can actually make the change. Now, if you're ready to build that trust, build that credibility, get yourself out of the bad guy role, then you might want to take my No More Mr. Bad Guy Challenge. It's a free, very simple 5-day challenge where basically I send you an email one a day and I give you the smallest, tiniest task to do. In fact, when you see them, you're going to be like, that's so easy. I can do this. But these small little shifts just in communicating a certain thing in a certain way to your loved one over the course of a week, you're going to see a giant difference in the way that they start interacting with you. You're going to visually be able to see as the week goes on, their wall coming down a little bit more, a little bit more, and a little bit more. Remember, think about it like you're preheating that oven. You're making the conditions just right for them to be able to face the truth and make the changes. If I've said something in this video that's been helpful for you, don't forget to hit the like button. That helps me with the algorithm and it helps me know that I'm on the right track. And I'll see you in the next video.