Uncomfortable Conversations With An Addicted Loved One

How do you get someone to actually open up to you, to tell you what's going on inside of them? This is a question I get a lot. And just yesterday in our Facebook family group, this issue came up. Someone was asking, they made a post, and they were asking, you know, how do I get my loved one to actually talk to me? Every time I try to talk to them, they just get upset or mad or pick a fight or something like that. And it really made me think, because there are a few pretty simple, actually, things that you can do that will make it a lot easier. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and you are watching Put the shovel down. This YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction. And the things I'm going to tell you in today's video are about how to get someone to open up to you, specifically if you have an addicted loved one. But everything I'm going to tell you applies pretty much to how to get anyone to open up to you. And speaking of speaking, as someone whose job it is, is to get people to open up to them, people who usually don't even want to come see me or come in my office initially, I have had to work really hard to develop a few little tips and tricks and skills, and today I'm going to teach those to you. Now, before we get started, here's what I want you to get in your head. I want you to think. Even better. If you want to even write this down in the chat or the comments, even better. But I want you to think for a second. What is that one thing that you really just wish you could get your loved one to know? If you could just get one thing through their head, what would it be? I really wish they understood. Blank. What is that for you? So, first of all, think about that. I'll give you a couple seconds. You can write it in the chat or in the comments. All right, now, everybody got that thought. Now that you got that thought, here's what I want you to know about it. That is your problem. That thought right there. That's what's holding you back from accomplishing your goal of have, you know, having these difficult conversations with someone that you really want them to open up to you. It's because you have in your thoughts something that you want them to hear or know or understand. And we get impatient about that. You see, we say, you know, I want them to open up to me. I want them to address, you know, these deep Downs things, because I know it's causing problems, and it sounds good in theory, and maybe we really do want that. But what we do is we fall into saying that when really what it is, is we want them to hear us. And because we're constantly trying to push some kind of message through with them, they just build up walls thicker and thicker and thicker. So the first thing I do is stop pushing your agenda. And you may not have even realized that you were doing that. But even when you're not even saying your agenda to them, you're not even pushing the comment. You're thinking it. And because you're thinking it, it's causing you to not be a good listener, which we're going to talk about in just a second. And it's blocking you. And so because you're blocked, they're blocked. And now we just have a big block all the way around, and no one's doing any good. Effective communication. All right, so the first thing I want you to know about how to have difficult conversations with someone that actually goes easily is first and foremost, have them very sparingly. If every time someone tries to talk to you, you're trying to have some kind of heavy conversation, some kind of difficult something, even if it's just, how are you doing what's going on? And you're just, like, treating like that, people don't like that makes people's guard come up, or if you're. If you're on their case all the time, people are gonna just sort of avoid you in general because they feel like every time you're around, you're either trying to talk to them about something heavy, you're trying to get through to them emotionally or something. And then conversations are just uncomfortable. If you will not have these difficult conversations all the time, it'll make you more pleasant to be around, which will make the. Their guard go down a little bit. So don't always be having heavy conversations. I hear this all the time from clients I have. Like, maybe they've just come home from treatment, or they're just in the early stages of recovery, and it's like, it's the only thing their family wants to talk about. And it just wears them out. It's like, oh, my gosh, can we talk about something else? It's okay to talk about regular stuff. And even in therapy, when I talk to people, I may now. Well, first let me say this. Some people come into my office and they have their. Like, they bring in a notebook. They got their notes. Like, I got my notes. For you today, they're like, amber, I got. I got a lot to tell you today, number one. Number two, number three, some people jump in there and they're okay with having heavy conversations, and they can do that. But most people, when they come to talk to me, they may have some heavy things in their heart or some things they need to talk about, but they shy away from talking about those things because they're difficult. So one of the things I do is we don't talk about heavy things all the time. We'll talk about what they're interested in, their sports team, their Netflix show, some hobby or interest or something else that's going on in their work life, because it sets the stage for every time you talk to me. It's not like coming to the principal's office. I don't want it to feel like that. Because if it does feel like that, people are going to stop coming to talk to me. It's okay. If some of the conversation we have is light, and then we get 15 or 20 minutes of heavy conversation, I consider that a big win. You've got to look at someone else's tolerance for heavy, deep, emotional conversations. And in our office, you know, we. We see whole families, but I tend to see the person that's addicted most often, and I tend to see mostly guys. And I can tell you right now that I don't want to stereotype or anything, but most guys don't like to have heavy, emotional, deep conversations all the time. But hang in there. I am going to tell you how to do it, but first, I just don't want you doing it all the time, sparingly. Okay? All right. The second thing is, and this is what's going to help you be able to have it, is don't make those conversations have such a heavy tone. Whatever you do, whatever you do, seriously, don't start with, we need to talk. If you start with we need to talk, you immediately. That's like when you hear your name at school. You know, it's like, amber, come to the principal's office. You're like, I'm in trouble. You know, your walls come up immediately. So definitely don't start with that phrase. And these conversations, these sort of more deep conversations, they don't have to have all this. I don't know what I would call it. Like, boundaries around it. Like, sometimes it'd be like, meet me in the living room when you talk. Or this is where we always go to have this heavy conversation. A lot of times, if there's a certain place that always happens. Just going to that place, going to trigger that person up because they're like, oh, gosh, here comes, like, a PTSD flashback, right? So keep it casual. You can talk about really heavy things without talk about him talking about them with a really heavy tone. This is seriously my secret weapon for getting most of my clients, especially my guy clients, to talk about things. A lot of times we use humor, or I'll tease them, or I'll kind of give them a hard time about something, and they'll laugh and they'll say, I know, and I'm telling you, people talk about how, you know, how to get a teenager to talk to you. People want to talk. Trust me, they do. They just don't want it to be extremely uncomfortable, and they don't want it to backfire on them, and they don't want it to, you know, turn into something that they're in trouble for. So keep it light, keep it casual. And the third thing is be a better listener. Now, I want you to go back to that first thing I asked you, which was, what's that one thing you want them to know? You need to set that aside, okay? You're so worried that they're not going to come to the conclusion that you want them to come to. They're not going to get what you want them to get, that you can't listen to them. It's blocking you from being a good listener. And I do this all the time, okay? So this is just a mistake we all make sometimes. And I rush things, too, because, you know, it's like I just need this person to figure this thing out, especially when I feel a lot of pressure from their family. And I just feel like their family's like, please, Amber, you gotta do something. And it makes me feel like I have to rush, and then I make a mistake. So be a better listener. If you allow someone to talk about their thoughts, even if they're saying the exact opposite of what you want to hear, in fact, that's a good thing because allowing them to say those things out loud to you will actually clear the way for the other side of that conversation. A lot of times, if you allow them to say they're sort of these. Maybe they're resistant to giving up a substance. Maybe they're resistant to going treatment. Maybe they're resistant to whatever it is you're trying to get them to. If you allow them to talk about that, then it's like pulling a splinter out of the way, right? It's like pulling this block out, and it allows for the other side to come and play. Most of the time, they start saying it themselves. You don't even have to do anything. Just have to sit there and wait for it. And if you're really good listener and you use, like, reflective listening skills and empathy and positive reinforcement, which is all things I talk about in some of my videos on communication, they will tell you more and more and more. But the key thing is you've got to let go of trying to force this concept over here that you're trying to force. A lot of times people say, I just want them to talk to me, but I don't really believe them because what's really happening is I just want them to hear me. I just want them to understand my side. You know, they say I want to hear about how they feel, but what they really want is for them to hear about how you feel. So you got to be really honest with yourself here. Be a better listener. Now the fourth one. Oh, hey, by the way, if you're finding this helpful or if you're relating to what I'm talking to, give this video a. Like, it helps me out and helps Google send it to more people who might need to hear this. Okay? Number four, Keep it short. Okay? Keep it casual, keep it infrequent, Be a good listener and keep it short. I. We have a set of clients right now who I see, of course, the person that's struggling with substance use, and they say, oh, my God, it is always, like, hours, long lectures, like, constant, like, hours and hours and hours. No one has the tolerance for that kind of depth of conversation now. I guess there may be some moments in life where you really get heavy into something that lasts that long, but. But rarely, I'm trying to even think what that would be. We don't have the. We don't have the tolerance for that amount of. For that amount of sort of like emotional uncomfortableness and depth sometimes. And so you can talk about deep, difficult things without having to drone on and on about it. If you're droning on and on about, it's because you don't think they're understanding what you're saying. So we go back to that first little question I asked you. Keep it short. Walk away from it. You don't have to say your point 50 times. You don't have to drill it into their head. They got it, you know, and the more you just, like, let it sit there, the more it'll, like, marinate, the more it actually sinks in. I call it the Set it on the coffee table method. It's just like, oh, here's this little interesting piece of information. I'm gonna sit on the coffee table and we'll walk past it. I'm not gonna say, you need to read this article, because I'll tell you what, this is what you're doing right here. You know, don't do that. Just kind of leave it there. Let it sit. Let that seed take root. And they will process it after the fact a lot more if you don't harp on it. Now, if the difficult conversation that you're trying to have with someone is all about trying to get someone to take steps towards recovery, trying to motivate someone to change, trying to get someone to go to treatment, then you may want to take a look at a video. I've actually got the description. The link in the description for you. It's all about using a technique called motivational interviewing, which is a real specialized technique of how to get someone to kind of shape their thinking a little bit. And that video is an actual session I did with a young guy named Blake. If you haven't seen that, you may want to check it out. Because sometimes it's one thing to hear me talk about it, it's another thing to watch it in action. Okay, I'll put that link so you guys can check that out. Now let's see who's here. Hi. How, Linda? Let's see. Optimal Studio says, what is the best thing to say to your addicted loved one when they come with the latest catastrophe that's occurred? Great question. I'm glad you asked that. And I see that you have your little Roblox character there. My son loves Roblox. Every time he gets money, it goes on Roblox. All right, so the best thing to. Best way to talk to them about it is just to listen. Let them figure it out. What you're going to want to say is some kind of version of like, I told you so and you should have known better or something like that. Don't say that. If you just allow them to talk through it, have some empathy for them and say, fix it. I said, have some empathy for them and use some reflective listening. They'll learn from their own lessons faster. Because if you don't do that and you try to force some kind of lesson on them, they get really distracted by what you're doing. They get busy putting up their guards, and they get distracted by thinking of, you know, what a jerk you are. Here you are kicking me when I'm down like, yeah, I know I made a mistake. They don't like to hear that. So you can pull it's inside of them, I guess, is what I want you to know in that insight piece of information. It's better to try to pull it out of them than try to force it into them. Okay, I hope that is a helpful answer to you now. Up next, I have for you more videos on motivating someone to take steps towards change. Whether that's change with an addiction or change with anything else. These are the things that work. I will put them up for you next. All right, everybody, I'll catch you next time.