The Secret Formula For Dealing With An Addicted Loved One 🤐

Hello. Hello and welcome. Today we have a great topic for you because I'm going to be giving you my insider secrets on exactly how to deal with an addicted loved one. Specifically how to get that loved one motivated to change. Because I don't really think just dealing with it and keeping it around that problem without any progress one way or the other, not really the ideal solution. So let's talk about how to actually get your situation changed and on the road to recovery. Now, I know a lot of people out there will tell you that there's nothing you can do, that the person has to want it for themselves. Now, those of you that know me, you know that I don't disagree with the fact they have to want it, but doesn't have to be for themselves. And there are some things you can do that might help them want it. And that's what I'm going to be telling you in today's video. If you're an new here welcome to Put the Shovel Down. This is a YouTube channel designed specifically to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your loved ones back on track. Because you deserve to be living the life that you want to live, not being held hostage by this problem. Now, if you've got an addicted loved one, you probably already feel like that, that your loved one's problem really holds you hostage. That it dictates if you're going to have a good day or a bad day. That even on days when things are going good, you may. You may. Well, probably not may you probably feel like that you're walking on eggshells, that you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even those of you who have a loved one in recovery may still feel like that you're always scared about going backwards. What if they relapse? And you probably feel like, I just cannot go through that again. And I gotta tell you, I can't blame you for that feeling because it's a real. It's just a terrible, terrible situation to have a loved one with this problem. And I know a lot of people say, well, just detach yourself, just go on with your life, just take care of you. But when you're in that situation, you know that it is not quite that easy, that no matter what you do, it feels like there's no good choice. Yeah, sure, you can detach and cut your loved one out of your life, but that is so painful. I mean, if this is your child, if this is your spouse, your sibling, your parent, this is someone that you care about. And it's not just as easy as other people make it sound like, well, you know, they just need to figure it out for themselves. They say hit their bottom and you need to take care of you. Hey, I know a lot of us wish that we could do that, but it's just not quite so easy because if you let go of them, you literally lose a piece of yourself. It feels like you're ripping a piece of your heart out and giving it away. And there's just no easy solution to this problem. The best case scenario is for your loved one to get better. So let's talk about how to do that. Now, the two main factors that are sort of the foundational piece for motivating a loved one to get sober are building trust and credibility and stop playing the bad guy. Now those are things that I talk about a ton in other videos. So I'm not going to go over those two things so much. I just want to let you know that those are two foundational pieces. The other piece I would add to that would be having good boundaries and taking care of yourself in the process. But like I said, I've got a ton of other videos on that and I will link them up here for you. I actually have a whole playlist on motivating someone to get sober. So we'll get that linked up for you here at the end. But in the meantime, let me just add a couple, or not a couple, actually three other little really important factors or things that you can do to put in place to increase the chances of success. Now this is really insider information. You know, I have a therapy practice, y' all know that, and we help families with this problem and a lot of you already know that. I have other counselors, they work with the family, but I'm the one that usually works with the person that has the substance abuse problem problem. So I have a pretty good look inside their thinking, inside of what makes them tick, inside of what families do that makes things worse or makes things better. And this is like your secret super spy information right here. Alright? Now the first piece of inside information I want to give you is it's all about identifying whether or not you think your loved one actually needs help to get better. And if you think that they need help to get better, then you've got to identify what that help looks like. Now everyone, most everyone, family members seem to think that their loved one needs to go away and stay somewhere and be sort of away, locked up in some place for some long period of time. And that does have to happen sometimes. And when that has to happen is usually if the person cannot get themselves to stop, like they've tried and they just can't do it, or if the person is surrounded by bad influence or not a good recovery environment. Like if they work in a job that just can't support recovery, or they live in a neighborhood or they have other family and friends around constantly. These are situations where someone really needs to sort of be taken out of their environment, put somewhere else so that they can actually get their feet under them. But the majority of people are able to get sober without that. And I know that surprises a lot of people because family members always think that that's what is needed. And I'm not saying it's never needed, but majority of the time, people don't need that. And the problem with doing things that way is that when they go away and they get sober, that's really actually pretty good for the family because it feels like, oh, my gosh, you have a break. You know they're being taken care of. You know they're safe and you can sleep at night. So it's a benefit. It's definitely a bonus as far as that's concerned. But what happens is if you send people away and you lock them up, they get better. They get way better. You go visit them and you'll think, oh, my gosh, there they are. I haven't seen. You feel like you haven't even seen your real loved one in a long time. It's like a miracle, right? You see them and they're wonderful, and you think, this is it. But the problem is, is that when they leave there, most of these facilities that you go away to are usually like lockdown, which is good. They need to be that way for the protection of the clients that are there. But they don't really learn how to live clean and sober in the real world. Like go to work, go to school, have a social life, all those things. Those are important things that have to be learned, how to do that clean and sober. So my insider piece of information for you here is, if it can be done without doing that, I think it's better if the person can figure it out and learn how to get sober, not having to go away. That doesn't mean they don't get help. There's a lot of other kinds of help other than going away and being locked up somewhere. There's all kind of things. Counseling and every other kind of help. A lot of community support, a lot of church programs, all kind of things out there. So if it can be done without going away, I really do suggest that you think about that. And not only is it sort of better for them to learn how to be clean and sober in their environment, so that they're in that same environment, they can live their life. And they've created all these new habits and rituals and routines right inside of their own real life. But people don't want to go away to treatment. It is literally the last option. Right? And I don't blame them. You wouldn't want to do it either. It's not really that it's so horrible. But who wants to be gone somewhere for 30, 60, 90 days, six months, something like that, where you're locked up, told when you can eat, when you can sleep, when you smoke, when you do whatever, no one wants to do that. And so trying to get your loved one to do that is really difficult. Now, if you have a loved one who happens to tell you that they need that, then they probably really need that. So listen to them, because no one says that they need that unless they really need that. So. So make sure that you listen to them. If your loved one tells you that, which happens occasionally. Sometimes someone will come in to see me and they'll say, I really think I need this. And I'm like, okay, let me figure it out really fast for you. Because I know no one says that unless they really do need it. So that's one of the insider scoop. The other thing is you want to make those phone calls and you want to have some help options lined up for when your loved one decides that they are ready to get better. And I know a lot of people tell you that you need to have your loved one do this, that they have to be the one to take the steps. But. And, and I've said this in other videos, so you may have heard me say this before, but if you have an addicted loved one, they're probably not going to stay stable long enough to do the work that it takes to really find a good option for themselves. Because it's just a lot of phone calls, a lot of investigation. It may involve calling insurance companies, all kind of difficult, paying the best stuff. And I know it's not fair for you to have to do it, but on this channel, we talk about what works, not what's fair. Okay, so you want to search those places out, Ask these places, you know, what is your policy on this? What if somebody relapses? What happens? You know, you want to ask all these questions, including Financial questions and every other kind of thing that you may want to know so that you have some options to present to your loved one should they get ready. So that's number one. You do the searching out for the help options. Number two is leveraging. Now, I talked about this briefly in another video, and somebody, I can't remember who exactly off the top of my head, but somebody said, hey, will you make a video on leveraging? What does that mean? And what I mean by that is a little incentive never hurt anyone. So if there's something that you can do to help leverage them, hey, I'm not above it. Y' all know what I think. Whatever works, works, and I am for it. Okay? So sometimes people get leveraged into treatment because they don't want something bad to happen to them. Like if they don't go and get better or whatever, they're going to be arrested on parole or something like that, or their parole officer is going to revoke their parole, whatever. That's leverage. And you don't necessarily have control over that kind of leverage, like the legal issue, but you may have control over whether or not you help your loved one by paying bail or by helping them with a lawyer. And I would never do those things unless your loved one agreed to X, Y and Z. And they need to be big steps, not just, okay, I promise I'm not going to do that anymore. Even if they mean it when they say that, they probably don't have the capability to pull that off. So it's going to have to mean more than that. So if they're in a situation where they need some help, that's some leverage that you have. And like I said, I'm not above it. Use what you got. Maybe, you know, your loved one really needs some help getting back on their feet, or they want to go back to school, or, you know, they need help with something else in their life. If it's something that's really important to them and you want to help them do it, you don't want to ever do anything that you don't want to do. But if you want to help them do it, use those things. Not as, like, I'm trying to give you an ultimatum, like, if you don't, I won't, or whatever. Not in a mean or negative way, but in a way to help support them. And the other thing that that does is it helps with my tip number three, which is accountability. Accountability is so, so important in early recovery, and that means there needs to be some checks and balances along the way. Because even if your loved one absolutely 100% is completely motivated and they totally want to get better and they mean it and they're giving it their whole heart, right? There are going to be days that are hard. They're going to find themselves in a situation where they're, you know, faced with a decision that they didn't even expect, right? They're going to have to go to holiday events. Oh my gosh, we've got so many of those coming up. They're going to find themselves in those situations and they need something that's going to help them make the good choice even when their guard is down, even when they're wore out, even when they don't want to, and when your loved one is in a good state of mind. This is what I do with my clients who are like, they're right in the willingness and action stage and they're ready for change, is I help them come up with some kind of accountability plan for themselves that may mean that they, that I do regular urine screens on them or breathalyzers or that their family does, or there's these recovery monitoring programs out there where it's sort of all automated and done by some kind of computerized system where they get randomly drawn and they have to go submit samples. A lot of professionals use those kind of programs, but some kind of accountability program. And this is, I don't mean that to say, like, if you fail one test or if this or that, then you're out of here. That's not what I'm talking about. That's all you know, that's one of those like home contract black and white rules or ultimatums. And you guys know I'm against that. But what you do want to. It's just accountability. So you know, what happens if they don't pass their test? Well, then, then we talk about it. You know, what went wrong. It's not a punishment thing. It's not I'm trying to catch you thing. It's really a I'm trying to prevent you. I'm trying to help you make good choice even in a bad situation. You know, if it's a young person and they know they're getting screened, they can say, oh my God, my mom, she makes me take these drug screens. You know, and they can roll their eyes and they can feel like they're not that lame and they got out of it. They got out of making a bad choice anyway. That's what I mean by accountability. So those are three huge tips. And I put them for you in that order. Because that's probably the order in which you need to be going about it. You need to be looking into what kind of help options might be helpful. And I'm telling you that is a big difficult process even for me. And I'm guessing I probably know about the systems better than most, right? Because I work in the system and it's still difficult to find the right options for people. So go ahead and be doing that behind the scenes work. If you find, if they, your loved one finds themselves into some kind of position to need some kind of help, use that to leverage them. Not in a mean, evil way, in a positive way. And I want to help you, but I want to see you help yourself as well. Right. And then lastly that accountability piece. So once they are actively engaging or trying to stay sober, then you want to put some kind of accountability place. And I see all you guys who are joining me live and I am going to come back and answer your questions and look at your comments and just one second. But y' all know I'm super ADD and I don't dig it. If I look back and forth now those are the three steps that you want to put in place. Sort of when you're getting near those action stages of change. If you don't know what those stages of change are, they're pre contemplation, contemplation preparation, action maintenance. And I do have some videos on that you can look at. So I won't, I won't go into all that here, but that's when you're getting close to getting there. You want to be doing those things things. Now the things that you need to do leading up to that is the positive reinforcement, the boundaries, the building credibility, the really good conversations that help motivate them. And all of those things are the things that I've got several other videos about. And if you're really interested in that, then you can find the step by step instructions on all that inside of our Invisible Intervention course. We have several online courses, but the Invisible Intervention is our main course, our biggest course that has the craft method, motivational interviewing. It teaches you all about all the different kinds of help options, what they cost and where to look for what, and all that kind of stuff. So if you need some help with that, it's all in there. And because it's Black Friday and I love Black Friday, I love a sale them, I have put them for you 50% off. So if you get any of our online courses now through the weekend, they're 50% off. And you have to use this code there. I'm going to put it up here for you. And I've put it in the description as well. So if you want to get those this weekend, now would be a good time. And if you can put these things in place, then I think by the time the new year comes around, your situation can be turning around. Now let's go back and take a look at some of you guys questions and concerns here. Jay says, my boyfriend's incarcerated and possibly will be getting out in the next 30 days. I'm so scared for relapses. You know, that's a question I get a lot. It's kind of like, okay, the person's away, but they're going to be coming home. And you're probably wondering about, you know, boundaries and should they have to go to meetings and should they be in some kind of program. And I think those are really good questions. And Jay, a good way to think about that is have you had conversations with them about it? Do they intend on trying to stay clean and sober when they get out? Because believe it or not, a lot of people do not have any intention whatsoever of staying clean and sober. So you might want to assess that. And if you ask them that and they say, yeah, of course, then ask them what kind of things need to happen or change or be put in place for them to do so. If they say nothing, I got it, I'm fine, then they probably don't intend to stay clean and sober. Either that or they're in total denial about what it's going to take. Kim says, my husband says that to me a lot. Not his biological daughter. Oh, you must be Kim. You must be commenting on some other comment up here that I hadn't seen just yet. Okay. Yvette says, love your insight and vibe. You have a gift for helping families heal. You're such a godsend. Oh, thanks. Thank you. You're so sweet. Let's see. Jay, thank you for the compliment as well. Ally, I barely found your channel and it's helping a lot. My boyfriend is addicted and he's been addicted to different things. Alcohol, ghb, cocaine. He thinks he's sober when he stops doing one. Oh, man, that's a great comment. Alley. That's so common. And I call this kind of like a. I call it like a newbie mistake. People usually come see me and they think I have a problem with this specific thing. Right. This particular substance, or they think they have a problem with that. Well, yeah, I do These other things, but they're not a problem, just this one thing. And so they'll get that problem under control, and then the other things will pop up and become problems, and then they'll get that thing under control. It's kind of like if you ever go to, like. Like one of those arcades or something, and you play that game, whack a mole, where you, like, hit the thing and another one pops up, it's like that. But it's really difficult to get people to see that. And what I try to get people to see, ultimately, is that they have a problem with addiction, not with a substance. And that can change forms in every kind of way. But the whole swapping and bargaining is a pretty common thing. In fact, pretty much almost everyone goes through that. TK Says, my son got a pass for Thanksgiving from sober living for the first time. He said he felt safe there, safer than in a while, and he. And he meant safe for himself. You know what? That is good news. And I bet that really made your Thanksgiving a lot better. Did you feel safer? Were you worried about him coming home? I bet you probably were. I feel like a lot of families are super nervous about that, and they have a lot of questions like, should we have alcohol at the, you know, family function and all that kind of stuff. Yes. Laurie, you made it. You made it to the live. Yes, I plan to get mine on the shot and in counseling. He's been gone long enough. That's a good plan, Jay. I like that. Let's see. Hey, suffering Suck Attach and CJ let's see. CR. How can you support someone who's trying to do it on their own? Do you just keep. Encourage. Keep encouraging different options? People always try to do it on their own first, and I always encourage you to let them do that. Like, for example, I had a couple that was in my office last week, and. And it's a guy, and he's. He doesn't really want to stop drinking. He just wants to keep it under control or manage, which is totally typical. But his wife, of course, wants him to stop because he's always sneak drinking. She's always finding it. He stays up late after she goes to bed, and he drinks. You know, that's the typical story. And it upsets her. So, you know, he thinks he can do it on his own. And he says, yeah, I can get, you know, I can get completely sober. And so I know that the wife really wanted him to, like, go to some other kind of treatment or step up his game or something like that. But I really feel like the first step is to let him give it a try. So we created an accountability system, and we said, all right, let's give it three months. Let's see what you can do. But we had him agree at that point, if you can't do it on your own, then will you agree to X, Y, or Z step? And that's another really good leveraging. Right. So I do believe it's important for people to try things on their own and to, as long as you can walk alongside them, be empathetic and a good listening ear. And if their plan is not working, they may come to you and want suggestions. And then that's what. When you have the opportunity to sort of speak some ideas into them, and hopefully they'll try some new things, especially if you have some options. And it's not. You have to do this. Especially if it's not. You have to go away for a million years. CJ Says the invisible intervention is awesome. Just completed her first goal sheet. I feel so much less angry. What a difference. Hey, thanks for the good feedback. I'm so glad you're having good success with that. We've gotten a ton of good feedback from it. Almost immediately, everyone that's in there within the first week says that they. In their first feedback sheet that they send me, they tell me that their relationships are much better and that the emotions are, like, almost immediately better. Rhonda says, I'm in the hospital parking lot picking up my son from another overdose. He's having major memory issues. Any suggestions? Whoo. Wow. This is time and you're in the parking lot. I don't. I said this to someone the other day, but I really. I really think that if someone overdoses, it ought to be mandatory go to treatment. And I don't even know why that is not rule. Not that you're not a rule for you to have to have, but, like, for the hospital, so. Or a legal system or something. Especially, you know, if it's something where someone had to get Narcan. Because a lot of times when someone comes out of an overdose, they've had to Narcan them or do something, and whatever they do to them puts them in immediate withdrawal. So they're very likely to go back out there. So, Rhonda, if there's any way for you to take him from where he's at to somewhere else to get some help, I would do that. And I realize that you're, like, in the parking lot, and you have about five minutes, so it May take you some time to get that together, but at the bare minimum, see what you can get him to agree to do differently. And if that doesn't work, then you may have to start from the beginning with the relationship and the credibility and some of these other things that we are talking about. And I know how scary that is, especially when an overdose has been involved. TK says, I locked up his old room and cleared the bathroom. I was worried about anything hidden. That guy, the one I just told you guys about, the one that's gonna do the three months of sobriety, I told him in the session with his wife, I said, now listen, whatever stash you have hidden, telling you right now, go ahead and get rid of it. Because when your wife finds it two months from now and it's old and you try to say that's old and that's not new, it's not gonna cut it. So that's one of the things I tell them, get rid of it now, because there's no claiming that's been there, because that happens all the time, right? That's all that's been there. And then that creates a whole big argument kind of thing. Tara says, can you do a video on medication assisted treatment, pros and cons, and how it should be supported with other efforts? Yes, Tara. In fact, I actually have a playlist on that, and I think it's called medication assisted treatment. So definitely check that out. And if there's something that I don't cover in those videos, you let me know and I'll make one on it. Hayes says, I wish I could take back my terrible drunkard actions against my family. You know what? I feel like if you are on the right track, that's what your family wants, right? They know you can't take back any bad thing that happened, but they just want you to be better and to get your life on track moving forward. And maybe you can help someone else along the way. And to me, that's kind of a good way. It's kind of a way to make amends and make things better. You can't take it back, but you can definitely control what happens going forward. My comment was regarding my husband, not the biological father of my adult daughter. He says he needs to be left out there to figure it out since we've tried to help her and she's lied and stolen from us. If your daughter has stolen from you and if your daughter causes a lot of chaos in the house, I would agree that it's probably best if she not be in your house. In fact, if you've got a young adult either in active addiction or an early recovery, it's pretty much always better for them to not be in your house. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm saying you have to kick them out or be on the street, but if it's in your house, it's going to cause a lot of chaos, a lot of friction between you and your, you and your husband, your current husband. So I know that that's a tough situation. Do you think that you think that her being out there is going to get to her? How long has she been out there? Is she asking for help? What do you, what do you think is going to happen there, Kim? All right, everybody, I think that's about our last question or comment for today. I will see you guys next Thursday live. And I do have one more special bonus video coming out for you guys this weekend. So make sure you have the bell notification turned on. It's going to be a fun one. And I will see you then. Bye, everybody.