Tips for Early Addiction Recovery (2020)

Okay, this is gonna be a really great video for you today because it's all about how to get your family off your back when you are in early stage recovery. Hey, listen, I've been doing this a long, long time. And seeing people in early stages of recovery, the chief complaint is almost always get my family to sort of pry back up off of me. And if you're a client in our office at Hope for Families, we have a whole system for that. I have staff that. Our family counselors are fantastic at that. I like to tell my clients, like, that's what they do. They sit in their office with crowbars and pull your family up off of you while you find your way through early recovery. But not everyone watching this video is going to come to Hope for Families. And there's probably not enough crowbars out there to keep all those families back. So in this video, I'm going to tell you how to make that happen for yourself, which is really great, because when your family's not breathing down your neck and you don't have this constant power struggle going on with them, it makes recovery a lot easier. I mean, a lot. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth. You're watching Put the Shovel down. And this YouTube channel is designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you are always five steps ahead of it. Because if you know what's coming next, you can make a plan for how you're going to deal with it, which is exactly what I teach on the videos in this channel. Okay, so back to our topic, getting your family off your back. Okay, let me start with this. A client told me this in session. This was probably at least a year, maybe a year and a half ago. And I just loved it. I don't know, maybe it's the same people say all the time, but I had never heard before it. And you know how you hear something sometimes just like sticks in your head and just resonates and makes so much sense? It's one of those simple things which are, like, true. The client said to me, this was a middle aged guy, his wife, he was married. His wife was furious at him and acting kind of crazy and honestly had really, really good reason to do so. And so the guy says to me in the office, he says, he says, you know what, Amber? You can't throw a glass up against the wall and then get upset that it breaks into pieces. Love it. That is the perfect analogy of this. Because the first thing we're Going to start with, with how to get your family off your back is the. The step number one is humility. And we're going to practice humility right now. Watching this video. We're going to do this together, okay? So you're going to have to be humble enough to really accept the fact that you kind of drove them crazy. And if they're acting crazy and controlling and micromanaging towards you, that you built that ship, right? That you've lied to them for so long, that you've manipulated them, that you've conned them, that you've made them feel like they're crazy for such a long time, you can't be mad. That is the natural outcome of the things that you have done. I know, that sucks. I'm not here to beat you up. I'm here to have your back. But having your back means let's look at the truth and figure out a smart way to deal with it. So first things first. Own the fact that the behavior that you have exhibited have caused your family member to turn into a crazy investigator. How many times have they asked you if you've done something and you flat out lied? And not only did you lie, but you looked at them, you told them they're crazy and they're controlling and that it was them, right? And you knew inside you did it. The whole time, you're just deflecting it off. Well, because of that, your family has developed these tendencies to try to find the truth and prove the truth to themselves to catch you doing wrong. And so the fact that they're always doing that now, it should not be a surprise to you, nor should you be all that mad about it. Come on, you threw that glass against the wall, you know you did it. Alright, if we can own that, then I'm gonna allow you, if you can really own it. And you might have to re own it like five or six times a day because you're gonna keep seeing it for a while, then we're gonna go ahead and check that humility off the list, which is the first step in the process. The next step in the process for how to get your family off your back is that you're gonna have to be open. You're gonna have to be open to the idea that it is not going to happen immediately, nor should it happen immediately. Like I said, there's a long history of bad dynamics between you and your family. It's not going to happen immediately. So you're going to have to be open to the idea that you're probably going to make some progress. They're going to be some ebbs and flows and you're going to have to have some understanding that your family has relapses just like you. So like when I deal with the family side of this issue and a family member goes back to doing the snooping and the spine, I'm like, oh, you relapse. So just like you have ups and down times and you know there's some relapses involved, probably your family's going to have some relapses too. And just like you want them to have some grace for you, you need to have that same grace for them. Even if things get better for a while, there are going to be some steps backward and that's okay. And if you'll hold your steady, this is what I tell families about you. I'm telling you the same thing about them. If you'll hold your steady, it won't last long. So I always say, don't get back on the roller coaster with them and it'll stop so much faster. Okay, now, so, so far we've went over two things which are humility and open are kind of like mindset shifts that set the stage for successfully getting your family off your back. These next two things are actual action steps that you're going to need to take. This is where some things can start to change. It's just that you need those mindset changes in place to be able to pull off these next two action steps. So the first one is going to be honesty. You're going to have to practice complete 100% honesty. Even if you are being completely honest about everything else and your family says, did you replace the roll of toilet paper on toilet paper roll because it's empty in here. And you lie about that, which doesn't have anything to do with substance abuse, and you lie about it. You're going to re trigger your family back into feeling this not being able to trust you thing. So even if it's small, even if it doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything else, you've got to be vigilantly honest. And really it's more than just that. It's like transparency maybe is even a better word. So like even you're gonna have to practice transparency in a way that you wouldn't normally have to. But if you want to rebuild trust, which maybe I didn't say this, but I guess in my mind is pretty apparent. But rebuilding trust is the key to getting your family off your back. You got to get them trust. You should have said at the beginning, sorry about that. But let's put that out there in case that wasn't obvious. So this transparency, if you're running 15 minutes late, coming home from school or work, like, normally it wouldn't be that big a deal. You get home, no one think anything about it. But in the past, you've been really late for things. You have not shown up for things. And what does that always meant? It always meant you were using. So I know you're 15 minutes late and doesn't have anything to be using. And there was traffic or you stopped at the gas station, got some gas or whatever. You're going to need to make that call or text or whatever and say, hey, I'm headed home. Minnesota, traffic run, 15 minutes. Like, you may even have to FaceTime. Prove it. I don't know. But you're gonna have to be completely transparent. I know that seems excessive, but if it does, refer back to step number one, the humility. You remember the glass up against the wall thing? Refer back to that. And this last step is the fact that you're going to have to be vulnerable. Honesty and vulnerability and transparency all comes in together. And so it's going to feel very, very vulnerable. To be that transparent, to let someone see the truth, to let someone see when you're struggling. If you mess up and they find the evidence, you just need to own it. If you go back into lying and hiding and all of that kind of stuff, you will be starting the whole thing over again with your family. I know it is really uncomfortable, but trust is truly the most valuable thing that a person can have. And that's what you're trying to get back here. And you're gonna have to do whatever it takes to get it. If you're humble and you're honest and you're vulnerable and you're open, it's gonna happen so much faster. All that just requires you to take all of your walls and defense mechanisms down. Because if you're saying, I want them to take all their crazy defense mechanisms down, all their walls down, you need to take yours down first. Right? If you take yours down, you put your guns down, they're gonna put their guns, like throwing the surrender flag. The faster you can do this, the faster that your family will heal. Now, I know a large part of my audience that watches these videos are the family members. So I'd love to know. What do you think about this? What would you add to this list? Does this sound right? Am I leaving something out put it in the comments because you're the one that knows what is it that the person in early recovery needs to do to earn the trust back to get you to back off of them and quit being a crazy person. Now if you are the person in early recovery and you want to be off to the very best start possible, then check out my 30 day jump start program. It's a totally free thing. Just click the link. It'll actually send you these messages. These little bitty tiny short video messages every day for 30 days that give you something to think about that help you with this process and more. There's a link in the description.