Understanding the Difference Between Anxiety and Intuition

Our brains are really designed to make sure that we survive, not necessarily designed to make sure that we thrive. And if we want to move past some of our survival instincts into getting beyond just surviving and getting into living your best life, making great decisions, overcoming your past traumas, habits or patterns, then we have to learn how to distinguish between our self sabotage, gut instinct kind of thing and our more helpful intuition, voice inside that is telling us something really important, a deep wisdom that maybe we don't know where it comes from, but we do know that it's important and we need to listen to it. So in this video, I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to talk you through this process. Basically, we're going to start by talking about how your intuition is formed. And then we're going to talk about how to differentiate between your anxiety, which is often a self sabotage mechanism, and we'll talk about why that is, and your intuition. Then we're going to talk about how to interpret those feelings and how to make decisions about them. And then lastly, I'm going to tell you about a gut feeling, an anxiety or whatever you want to call it, feeling inside that you should never ignore. Always listen to this one. You shouldn't always listen to all of them, but there are some you probably should pay attention to. And we'll talk about that near the end of this video. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. I'm a master addiction counselor and I have been helping people and families overcome addictive cycles for more than 20 years now. This channel is focused on helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction. So you might be thinking, well, what does this have to do with that? What does gut anxiety intuition have to do with addiction? It has a whole lot to do with addiction. If you're watching this video and you're not here because of addiction, it's all cool. We're glad you stopped by. You will still get a lot out of this video because it is not specifically about addiction, but, but it definitely relates. For example, if you have a loved one struggling with addiction, you probably have a very hard time distinguishing between your anxiety and your intuition and maybe even a harder time of knowing what to do with it. Same thing is if you have an addiction issue, you have a craving, you have an urge, you have an intuition. And we got to learn when to listen to it and when to, I'm not going to say ignore it, but when to maybe override it. Maybe that's a better, better way to say it. So let's start out with how our intuition is formed. That little thing that most of us call our gut feeling is actually mostly based around our trauma experience. So it's your trauma feeling in reality and trauma. Sometimes I feel like that's a huge word because it's not always giant huge, like life or death kind of trauma. Most of it is things that happen to us before we even have memory. So we don't even remember what those things are. We'll talk about that in just a second. But it's, it's our early childhood experiences with safety, trust. Are we getting our needs met? Can I count on people? Those things get wired in. Our intuition gets wired into our brains very early in life. Like before seven, most of it before five. And it happens as our, our brains develop. When we're first born, we have our emotional center of our brain works pretty good. And our part of our brain that keeps us alive works good because obviously that has to work. But our thinking brain isn't it. The hardware is there, but the software is not in yet. So the, the big compartments are there, but it's not, it's not wired up yet. Okay. So when we're little babies, we, we have to rely on mostly our, our emotional brain. And based on how our parents respond or don't respond or over respond to our wants, needs and emotions, that's going to create our template for how we interpret the world for the rest of our lives. Kind of scary, right? It's especially scary when you realize that parents, all parents, myself included, we're just human beings with our own emotional needs and our own bad templates from our own childhoods. And there is no perfect parenting. So when I'm talking about this, this isn't like a beat up on your parents kind of situation. This is mostly just an understanding the science of how this stuff works. You know, when, when babies cry, they want something, right? Sometimes they want to be fed, sometimes they want to be changed. And a lot of times, what do they want? A lot of times they just want to be held. Why do they just want to be held? Because when you hold a baby, you're helping them to emotionally regulate. It gives them a deep sense, a feeling of safety and trust. And a frustrating thing about that is, is many of us are told not to pick up our babies when they cry, not to hold our babies, like if they're not hungry. And they don't need to be changed, they need to learn to self soothe. And that is such a terrible, terrible piece of Advice because the they learn to self soothe is when you hold them and when you're calm and they're upset, your emotional brain actually syncs up. Like the iPhone syncs up with the icloud to the baby's emotional brain and helps it learn to self soothe. That's when this wiring is taking place. So depending on what's going on with our caregivers, are they anxious? Are they distressed? Are they going through something terrible? Are they exhausted? Right. Parents are exhausted. They're just tired. And no matter what their intentions are and how wonderful they are, they haven't got enough sleep because, you know, there's babies crying all night and they're just not capable of completely meeting all of our needs. They're not always there. We want them or need them to be. And development, those templates are being purity. Am I okay in this world? Are my needs gonna be met? Is everything going be okay? Am I. Is there a threat? Is there a danger? Is something wrong? We're picking up all of those cues from our caregivers, and they can control some of that, but they can't control all of that. You know, if your caregiver, when your baby is going through something horrible, maybe they lost a loved one, maybe something really bad happened to them, maybe their house burned up or something horrible, their emotional brain isn't the most stable, it's not the calmest. And it's only through their emotional stability and being able to calm themselves that we learn to do that. So the reason I'm telling you that is because you can't. I want you to know that you can't always trust your gut feeling. It's very important to sort of know when you can trust it and when you can't trust it. I think you should always sort of listen to it. I just don't think you should always act on it. It's kind of like, you know, when you drive your car and how you know your car really well, you just know how it's going to behave in certain situations and you feel more comfortable driving your car. Now you can get into someone else's car and the basics are the same, right? There's a brake pedal, a gas pedal and a steering wheel. You know, the windshield wipers, all the. All the main components are there, but you don't know exactly how fast their brakes work compared to yours. And it's a little uncomfortable driving someone else's car. The way you understand the way your car drives is the way you should understand the way your intuition works. You should Stop and think about where is it that I know my intuition really works well and where is it that. What are those sort of, I call them blind spots that my intuition kind of leads me wrong. And maybe we don't know why it leads us wrong in that category, but we just, if we stop to think about it, we know I don't always make the best decisions when it comes to certain types of situations. And probably those types of situations have to do with some kind of difficult experience that you went through at some point in your life and it's possibly happened when you don't even remember it. So you don't even, you don't have to be able to pinpoint some kind of experience. Okay? So it's like if I'm always rush into relationships too fast, if I know that I feel like other people are not going to pay attention to me, other people are not going to give me what I need unless I throw a fit. You know, those are. You see adults doing that, right? Where do you think that's learned? That's learned from little babies who couldn't get their knees met unless they throw a fit. We see grown up people doing that every day, don't we? Right. And sometimes we're thinking that's not necessary because usually it's not. But in their mind and their template and their filter, it's an automatic subconscious almost kind of learning knowledge, understanding and way of trying to get our needs met. So thinking about where your own blind spots are is super duper important if you are currently going through something really difficult. Like if you are struggling with an addiction or you have a loved one, especially if that loved one lives in your house, is struggling with an addiction. Your intuition, it's going to be hard to hear because your anxiety, your alarms are going to be going off so loudly that you can't quite hear your real intuition. You see, anxiety screams at us. It yells at us. It's thoughts that go on and on and on, don't let us sleep and bothers us to death. That's when we know we're in a fear based state, when we are in an anxious state. And it's not that we should ignore that anxious state, but we should analyze it. We'll come back to that in a second. Intuition is kind of like a softer, quiet knowing. It's almost like a whisper. It's one little thing that crosses your mind really quickly. And it's so easy to ignore those little quiet thoughts that just sneak in there real fast. You don't even know why it came to you. It just came to you. Those are the ones we need to listen to. Those are the ones that are usually trying to communicate something super duper important. But a lot of times the volume on our fear part of our brain is turned up so loud we can't hear that it. This is the reason why people that are in active addiction really don't have that intuition. They don't have that ability to stop, slow down and listen to their self on a deep level and tap into that inner wisdom. And knowing they don't have that ability because they're always in some kind of activated fight flight, totally high, totally drunk state. You know, they're either in withdrawal, they're messed up, they're mad at you because you're snooping through their stuff. They're sort of always over activated. And when, when your brain is just overstimulated, you can't hear that little voice because it's such a little whisper. It's actually written into the, into the 12 steps. I think it's in step 11. Yes. No, 10. 10 or 11. I can't remember. I should know this, right? But the one where it says we became able to sort of. I think, I think in this step they, they basically call it hear God or whatever. But it's really like listening to that inner wisdom. Once we get sober long enough and our brain isn't so activated, we can hear our deeper wisdom. But when we're in no matter. I'm not saying when you're just intoxicated. I'm saying if you're anywhere in the active addiction state, you're over, your brain is overactivated and you cannot hear that intuition the same if your loved one is in that state. You're kind of in a similar fight or flight response almost all the time yourself. Most family members are highly aware that they're in this anxious fight or flight state all the time. And it's really hard to stop and slow down and listen to your gut. You gotta get underneath that constant loud ruminating, thought like crazy urge, go underneath that and, and tap into that other thing that feels calmer and quiet. And, and actually it's almost like this little voice that you, you, you, your instinct is to dismiss it. We want to just push it away and say oh, whatever. Because it's usually kind of telling us something that's fairly inconvenient. Or maybe it's telling us something that's going to be awkward or embarrassing or to get out of a situation, but it's going to Be really hard to get out of. And so we're just like. And it's easy to push away that one. That's the little voice that we got to do a better job of paying attention to Once we tap into that. That little voice. You should. You should usually always listen to it. The big anxious voice you should listen to also. But you shouldn't use that as. As a piece of information on how to react to the situation because it's. It's a hyper. It's like your alarm system is overreactive. So it is probably telling you something that you need to know, but it's. But it's probably giving you the urge to react to it in a way that's not going to be helpful because it's usually run, yell, scream, fight, demand, throw fit. I don't. Something giant. That's probably not. Not the most helpful. If you will just stop and say, what is this trying to tell me? And one of the best ways to figure it out is just to stop and journal about it. So don't ignore the feeling. Don't cram it away. If it's a frustration, if it's a resentment, if it's a fear, listen to it. But then bring that emotional thought into your thinking brain and then try to sort through what it's really telling you. Try to sort through. Is this one of my buttons? Am I over? Am I overreactive to this kind of situation? How do I want to handle this kind of situation? And then make a strategic and logical decision about how to interact with whatever that voice is telling you with the external situation. That's why on this channel, we talk about staying five steps ahead of addiction. It's about knowing the next five moves ahead instead of being constantly stuck in a reactive state. Because that's what happens to people that are struggling with addiction, and that's what happens to their family members. They're constantly reactive. It's like fireman mode. They're putting out fires, putting out fires. And because of that, they can't ever get ahead of it. And you've got to quiet down that loud alarm and get underneath it and think through what is really going on here. Like, for example, a lot of people who have loved ones with addiction, they hear all these terrible statistics. You know, like, only 10% of people beat addiction. They have to want it. They're gonna have to go to rehab. If they're not working 12 steps, it's not gonna work. You know, they. We hear all these things, and then we convince ourselves not to be Hopeful. And we tell ourselves little things like, well, don't get your hopes up and you won't be disappointed. And because of that, we give up. We try unsuccessful tactics. The first time that your loved one tries to get sober, and then they fail. Then you're like, I knew it. And then you just give up, and then you're really mad at them, and then they give up, and it's just a mess. Because of that external influence, a lot of times the people around us are trying to keep us safe the same way our brain is trying to keep us safe. But it's not always the most helpful because most of the time your brain and your friends and your family members are just going to tell you to run because that feels in the moment like the safest thing to do. And sometimes it is. Sometimes you really should run. I have videos on this channel about when to stay and when to walk away. If you're trying to make that decision, check those videos out because it talks more in depth about it. But. But you've got to think through, where is my person at? Are there. Is there any change talk? How many times have they tried? You know, there's just a lot of factors that go into this before you just throw in the towel. Even if you're the person in active addiction and you think, well, I've tried four times and it hasn't worked. I'm like, well, dude, everyone tries a bunch of times before it works. It's a learning process. So we have to sometimes ignore that. Screaming loud voice. If it's very negative and critical, that's another indicator that is probably not the best intuition to listen to. It's probably some kind of, like, inner critic that got developed in your childhood. And so if it's telling you very negative things about yourself, very negative things about other people, that's one you, you should. You should listen to, but you should question. Okay? And you should think more deeply about it. Now, I told you that there is at least one instinct that I want you to always listen to, and that is when you have that instinct that says you're gonna regret this. You know that one? I have that one. Do you guys have that one? When you have that one and you're about to make a decision and you know you are going to regret it. You like, no, in your gut, it's a bad decision and you do it anyway, don't you always end up regretting it? And aren't you extra mad at yourself because you knew it before you did it and you did it Anyways, that's the one I always want you to listen to. I'll tell you a funny story about that. This past weekend, my. My son, he does. He does American Ninja Warrior. Do you know what that is? It's, like, with the obstacles and stuff. And he was in, like, the world's competition, which was super exciting. It was in North Carolina, and my brother and his family live kind of close to where this competition was. So I was like, why don't you come down on Saturday? We'll meet up, we'll hang out, we'll do something fun with the kids, whatever. So we went. We rode go karts. We did fun things. And then we were hungry, so we were trying to figure out where to go eat, and somebody said, Chinese. So we're like. We're in a town that we're not familiar with. So we're on our phones, trying to figure out what restaurants nearby. We're looking for a Chinese restaurant. And then my brother says, well, as long as it's not by a food lion. Which I didn't really know what he meant by that, but it was kind of like an inside joke he had with his family because apparently he had eaten it. A Chinese restaurant that was by a food lion and did not have a good experience, got food poisoned, sick, whatever. So we just kind of laughed or whatever. Then we just moved on, looking at our phones, and he said, okay, here's one. Or whatever. And I was like, all right, you drive there. I'll follow you. So we drive, we pull up, and the first thing I notice is it's my food lion. And I'm just, like, laughing. Really? We pulled up now, and I looked at him through the car window. I was like, really? It was like, the food lion. And then he's laughing or whatever, but. But we're just. You know, we just think it's more funny than, like, we should listen to it. And so I see this Chinese restaurant. It's just, like a takeout place. And I walk into it. I think I'm the first one to walk in. Or maybe, like, my son walks in. And then I walk in, my brother's not in yet. And I look around this place, and I just start laughing because it looked so sketchy. You ever been in a restaurant? You're like, oh, this is bad. This was bad. Like, there was, like, food sitting out that looked like it had been sitting out. I don't know. It didn't really have flies swarming around it, but it looked like it should have. There was, like, workers Laying down in the booth. I don't know, it was bad. And I just turned out, look at my brother. I was like, you gotta see this. And then he comes in and he looks. I was like, I don't think we should do this. The thought that I had in my head is I was like, this is one of those moments where you don't listen to your intuition. And you're like, I knew I shouldn't have done that. And so luckily this time we did leave that place. We found a ton other Chinese food place and it was great. But it's, it's. Sometimes we don't want to listen to that because we could have just as easily ignored that because we were tired, it was late. My brother has younger kids, they were hungry, it was way past dinner time. And we were just like, we just want to get something, we're gonna take it out, we're gonna go back to the VRBO and eat it or whatever. Because a lot of times our intuition is telling us something that's inconvenient. A lot of times it'll tell me like, don't take that road. But I'm like, but that's the shortcut. And then I take it anyway. And there's a traffic jam, right? And so it's. Can we stop and listen to that? Even if it's. Sometimes it's telling us to reach out to a person that we know, it's. It's telling us like, hey, I think something's going on with them. You should check in on them. And then we might feel like, well, that's just gonna be odd. They're gonna wonder why I'm calling all of a sudden. Or that might be like kind of weird or embarrassing or whatever. Those are the voices that we should pay more attention to. As opposed to the screaming, loud alarm bells. Those are the ones that are usually coming from some kind of trauma experience, with the exception of those ones that you get out of nowhere immediately. Sometimes those are telling us like immediate danger. Like women, I think have this, like you can just be standing in a public place and maybe there's this guy nearby and something says, move away from him. Listen to that one. Okay, that's like quite. I was like, I don't like the situation. You can kind of, you can listen to those sort of more immediate ones. But the ones that are constantly going off in your head, those are the ones you got to stop and you got to think about because they'll cause you to self sabotage. Your brain's trying to protect you. But it's only trying to keep you alive. It's not trying to help you thrive, help you live your best life, help you get what you really want in your relationships, in your career, in your family. And so you got to be able to differentiate. For those of you who are watching live, we're going to take some questions and comments here in just a second. Love to hear from you guys about this topic. Bri is behind the scenes being our moderator, and she's going to pick some questions and pop them up here. If they're more closely related to the topic, they're more likely to get picked and go ahead and put them up here. Because every time when we end, like four pop up, there's a little bit of a delay, like a few seconds delay, and we hit end, and then some more pop up. So I can't promise we'll get to all of them, but we will. We'll do our best to get to a lot of them. And while you're getting your questions and comments up there, I will tell you that there are additional resources in the description. If you are dealing with addiction or you are dealing with a loved one who has an addiction, and you're trying to figure out some of these things, when to listen to your instinct, when not how much longer to keep trying those kind of things, you may want to consider having a consultation session. We do those. You can have a consultation session with one of our family recovery experts who can help you look at the situation objectively and think through what is my best course of action. And get out of that emotionally reactive zone where I'm just emotionally reacting to every single thing that's happening, and it's not getting us anywhere. It's keeping us stuck. All that's in the description. There are links to free resources. Lots of good stuff down there. Check it out. All right, Bri, what do we got? Do we have any good questions and comments today? All right, here we go. All right, Here come the granny glasses. All right. Lazy Sundays says, I had a friend that I had a feeling I should reach out to, just let him know I love him. And I had a feeling to reach out, and it was late. His response was, I really needed that right now. He wasn't, okay, I know exactly what you mean. I feel like I've had this one a lot, and I don't. I don't remember a time when this one led me wrong. That, like, sudden feeling that you're talking about, Lazy Sundays, is like, I need to check on this person or reach out or just see what's going on. I, I agree with you. Listen to that. Even if it's late, because, like what you're saying, it's easy to talk yourself out of his sleigh. I shouldn't call, but there's that, there's that wisdom inside that's telling you something. Taft says, I've always listened to my intuition, but my addict lied his way out of it. He never admitted anything, not even the addiction. Right. We. We talk about this on this channel a lot. Tough. Like, if you. It's kind of like if you ask somebody who's an addiction, have you been drinking? Are you high? Did you steal that money? They are definitely going to lie to you. It's almost their instinct. It's very difficult to override. It's like a protective mechanism. It's like a little kid says, I didn't do it. You can almost be assured they're gonna lie sometimes, depending on the personality, they'll come back later, admit it. But initially, they're definitely going to lie. And some of them will just lie to the bitter end. All right, another one from Lazy Sunday says, question. My friend wants to quit cold turkey. He's been using for 21 hours. I feel he's setting himself up for failure. He doesn't have insurance. Is there options for no insurance, Getting medications, help for the addict. His drug of choice is meth. There's not a lot of detox medications out there to treat methamphetamine like, like with alcohol or benzodiazepines or even opioids. There are medicines they give you to help you taper down. And there's not a lot they can give you medication wise, for coming off of meth. Most people do sort of do it cold turkey sometimes. There's what they call, like, comfort meds, which might help you with some of the extra, like, side effects like sleep. Other people coming off stimulants don't usually have trouble sleeping, but there's some things they can give you to help some of the other things and make you a little bit more comfortable. But there's not a specific detox med for meth. Most people that stop that do stop it kind of cold turkey. Even if they go into a detox center, they may not be given a ton of medicines. So you might even want to just consult just a regular physician and say, hey, is there anything I can do to make this better, easier, or whatever to make sure I get through it? And there are options out there in almost any city that's of any size. There are, like, the state, local drug and Alcohol commission, which does have options for these kinds of things. Jennifer says, what is the first tip to not overreacting? Had a discussion with my loved one just last night. He's afraid to tell me things because he says I always blame him. I told him calm. I told him I calm down. Just takes a minute. Is there more to that one or. Well, I'm not sure if there's more of that one, but I can go back to answering the first question. First tip to not overreacting. I think the first thing to do is take space between when you're having that feeling and when you do something about that feeling. Like I said, with the exception of that immediate danger, like, don't take that road or you're gonna regret this, or this guy's sketchy. Listen to that one. But when you're just upset, you want to definitely take time and space. You may want to talk it through with somebody, a sponsor, a recovery coach, anything or journal about it. Help you think through how to do it. That's how you don't overreact. You just put some time and space in between there. That'll let you calm down, and then you can think more clearly. Cheryl says, my son seems to have the volume turned up on his emotions. He seems to feel things deeply and uses alcohol to turn it down. Could this be from previous trauma or just daily use that leads to this? It could be both. Cheryl. But one of the things that people that drink problematically almost never really understand is the reason their head screams so much is because they're drinking. So I'm not saying there's not past trauma or old things there because we all have things like that. But. But the rebound from the alcohol is a chemical called glutamate, which is an anxious, excitatory chemical which makes everything feel edgy and your nerves are tense and your head's going 100 miles an hour, and you need to calm down. So people say, oh, it's the only thing that helps the thoughts slow down, helps me rest. I'm like, yes, but it's the alcohol that's making the volume turned up. Great question, and you're spot on, Terrell. Mike says, how do you stay in your own lane while acting on intuition using the craft method? Mike, can you give me an example of what's happening? I. I understand what you mean by staying in your own lane, because I love that language. I say that all the time, but give me an example of something that's Like a specific thing. And I might can help you better with. See, Carla says. I love your videos. Thank you, Carla. Appreciate that. Do you have any experience with teens that were born addicted to meth? My adopted children had a start in life and they now struggle with anxiety and addictions. It is really. It's really difficult. And what you're talking about is, we talked about how trauma can happen in our early childhood days, even in the best of situations. So what you're talking about is not only is the limit connection not being formed correctly, that emotional part, but now you have a chemical imbalance. When the per. When the child is born, one of the best things that you can do is help to co regulate them. And I don't. I don't know how old the kids are. I think you said teens. Yeah, teens. If you will stay calm and measured, that will help them to emotionally regulate. Because even though they're not babies anymore, our brains still connect to the brains of the people around us to help us regulate. That's called co regulation. That's different than codependency co regulation. I mean, a lot of times, like, right, we have a friend we go to who when we're upset, they calm us down. They just know how to do it and they just have this, like, sense about them that just makes us feel safe and calm. If the better and more you can bring that, you know, you, you're the biology of your brain, actually, even more than what you're saying helps to regulate them. And not only is it helping to regulate them in the moment, but when that happens consistently over time, you're helping them to form a new template to rewire. Basically. Kim says, my husband, who uses crack, is trying really hard to stop. The voices screaming at him are loud. I'm not sure how to support him through it. Just got kicked out of rehab two days ago. Oh, that's a tough one. I think. Again, I don't know. I think. Let me think about this. This is kind of complicated because there's a lot to the question, how do I support him? I would. If the voices are loud, he's telling you basically, like these voices are in control right now. And that probably does mean that he needs to be in some kind of supportive environment like a rehab. So I would probably damage control the situation about being kicked out and say, hey, it's okay, it's not over, and help him look for another option and give it another try. That's probably what I would do. Oh, this is the second part of Mike's question. Good. Thank you, Mike. My functional loved one is always working or drunk. So it's extremely difficult to find a window for positive reinforcement per craft. It what you're saying, Mike, is it, it may be hard to actually like catch them at them, like actually catch them and get their attention where they're not intoxicated, they're not at work. So sometimes maybe if you, if you know they're at work, just send them a little positive text, say I appreciate how hard you work for this family. I know it's hard. Anything you can put that positive reinforcement, you can say, hey, I was thinking about what you said last night, dinner and actually you were really right about that. It was really wise or I really enjoyed when this happened. So maybe you just send it in a text and the more you train someone that you're pleasant to be around, the more you make this person feel good, the more they're going to want to be around you. They'll start making more time to be around you and then I'll give you even more opportunity. So it's kind of a domino effect. Matt says my addicted girlfriend is always making crazy decisions based on anxiety but says stuff like you don't understand and I just know when I get her to reconsider. Sounds like what you're talking about. I think there's a little bit more to that one. Yeah. Here's the rest of I'm trying to submit Port my alcoholic girlfriend with the craft method. Your videos failed. Hey, thanks. I appreciate the positive feedback, but I'm also trying to cover from my own cannabis addiction and finding it hard not to get mad at her when I feel she's interfering with my recovery. Any advice? This is another really great example of co regulation. Right. You're trying to, you're having a hard enough time trying to keep yourself calm and stabilized, right? And, and regulating yourself probably because your brain chemicals are rebalancing and all that kind of stuff. And so if this other person is with you as very dysregulated and you're just now trying to get yourself regulated, it's going to be very hard to be that person for her because you're both too vulnerable, right? Neither one of you is strong enough to really be that solid co regulating force. So I'm telling you to give up. I'm not telling you you can't try or you have to leave this relationship. But what you may have to do is put time and distance and so if she's making an impulsive, reactive decision, you may have to let that ride and then come back to it and get yourself some time and space to think through how to be helpful and how you know what's your anxiety versus her anxiety and that kind of thing. So time and space. Unless someone's running in front of a bus right this very moment, then time and space is what you need to do to let yourself calm down enough to think about. How do you want to interact with the situation? Male My son is living with me after numerous relapses. I know that's a mistake. Oh, there, there's that one right there. Mail that like, I know I'm going to regret this one. I hear you. Done it myself many times. He will relapse and live here while he's trying to get better and several months later relapses and it is hell. He'll lay in his room drunk walking to get alcohol because I take his keys. Etc. I'm afraid he has relapsed again now and I confronted him, but of course his answer is no. I see the signs. How can I help shorten relapses? Encourage him to stop. Can I? I'm so distraught. Well, a couple of people suggestions for you here, Mel. The first one is don't ever ask someone if they've relapsed. Don't ask someone if they're high. Don't ask someone if they've used. Think through whether or not you want to call it out or not. Sometimes you should, sometimes you shouldn't. But if you're going to call it out, then just say, hey, I noticed that you're back to drinking. And then they're probably going to say, no, I'm not. Why are you thinking that? And, and then you may say, hey, I don't know, I could be wrong, but my intuition is saying this. And so don't get into an argument with them. Don't try to get them to acknowledge it. But sometimes you. What you're trying to say is, hey, I know you're not trying to get them to admit it, but you're just trying to say, hey, I know what's up. How do you get the relapses to shorten? Actually, this may sound kind of crazy, Mel, but what you want to do when there is a relapse is you want to let it roll. Unless the person is trying. I mean, if the person seems to be making effort and they're coming to you and they're like, I relapse and they're upset, then you damage control and you hey, you haven't ruined anything and get right back on track. But if they're in denial and they're relapsing and they're just like fully in denial, they're minimizing it. They're trying to say I can control it, it's different this time, whatever, then you need to let it get bad. If you stopped it too short then they're not learning what they need to learn as far as denial, which is this is going to be unmanageable every single time. This is not going to end well. So what could be happening is you may want to let it ride a little bit longer before you interfere. All right, I think we are about to get to the end of our questions. Thank you guys for showing up live and being in this conversation with me. You have such good questions. You guys are getting more and more advanced every single week. Don't forget there are more resources in the description. And I will see you guys next Thursday at 1. Bye everybody.