Unmasking the Truth: Unlocking Honesty in People Struggling With Addictions
Amber Hollingsworth (master addiction counselor) presents a YouTube livestream about getting honest communication from people struggling with addiction. She argues families should stop gathering proof of substance use and instead look for and nurture any evidence of willingness to change — even tiny “change talk” or nonverbal cues — using reflective listening, validation, and process comments. The video gives many practical examples and Q&A covering Soberlink, interventions, setting boundaries, handling relapse, involving other family members, and dealing with advanced-stage addiction.
Chapters
If you're tired of being lied to and you just want to know what is the real truth once and for all, you're in the right place. This video is for you because the truth is always right there. It's just below the surface. You just need to know two things. You need to know one, what you're looking for, and two, where to look for it. And both of those answers are definitely going to surprise you. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the shovel down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth. I'm. I'm a master addiction Counselor. And this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can recover yourself or your loved ones from addiction and get back out there and live the life that you want to live. We're here to make sure that you are always five steps ahead, and today you might get 10 steps ahead, and you might even want to grab a pencil or a pen because I'm going to give you some really good stuff. Today's episode is actually inspired by many of you know that I have been working on the 3.0 version of our invisible intervention course. And I'm telling you, I am totally overhauling it. I've got lots of great ideas. This newest updated version is going to include lots more specific, say, these exact things. Do these exact things. Because I think sometimes it's like, you know, you understand the philosophy, but it can get a little lost in the chaos sometimes. So today I'm going to give you a little piece of some of the things that I'm working on inside the new invisible intervention. For those of you who already have the invisible intervention, don't worry if you have it. No matter when you got it, you always get all the updates. So you're in the good. All right, let's get on to our topic as far as how to uncover the real truth. When you're dealing with someone who has an addiction, which you probably already know can be a little bit complex. First thing is, and most important thing is let's figure out what truth you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong things, people. You're out there, you're looking for the evidence of what they're doing wrong and what they're doing bad and that they drank when they said they didn't and that they got high or that they spent money when they said they didn't or that they went to this place and they weren't supposed to be there. Why are you looking for that evidence? You. You Already know you're dealing with someone who has an addiction. Those details don't really even matter, right? You're spending so much time trying to prove that you know what you know because they keep telling you that it's not true. So that gets you all involved and stuck in this crazy pattern of gathering evidence, trying to prove your point. No matter which, how much evidence you ever have. Like, literally, you have all the evidence, bloody glove, everything, right? And they're going to tell you that you're crazy and that you're making stuff up and that you're just a lunatic. And everyone else knows you're a lunatic. And why are you being crazy? They're going to put it back on you. Somehow. Y' all know that's true. Put your little hand emoji in the comments or chat if you know that's true. Of course you know that's true. It's definitely going to be happening. That's because you're looking for the wrong thing. Even if you uncover the evidence, one, they're not going to admit it, be real, and two, what good does it do? You already know what the issue is when you're trying to look for all the evidence. All you're really trying to do, this might be a hard truth. You ready? Bear yourself. Is you're just trying to soothe your own ego. Well, here's Amber. I'm right here. I'm telling you, if you are watching these videos, if it's gone that far, that you've found yourself watching these videos, I'm just going to say it's already true. So there you go. Ego soothed. You're right. It's true. Now let's get out of this. Trying to find out if they're drinking, if they're using, if they're sneaking, if they're lying, because they are, they are telling you so you can quit looking. Here's what you really want to be looking for. You really want to be looking for the evidence that they're probably hiding from you, that they actually do want to change. I've been doing this for 20 years, and pretty much everyone I've ever talked to, even the big. I call them the big talkers, the big, bad big talkers. You know, they talk all the big game. There's a big part of people that does want to change. Now, they don't like to say it because they're afraid. Afraid if they say it, you're going to push them and force them into doing things they don't want to do. Or you're going to give them big I told you sos or in some kind of way, you're just going to make their life a living. You know what? So what you want to do is you want to look for these clues and these evidence, and you want to find the piece inside of them that is motivated for change. And when you find that evidence, this is what you should be looking for. Then you want to grow that evidence, and you want to figure out a way to sort of cultivate it. Sometimes I call it, like, nurturing it. Like it's a seed. You're nurturing it, watering it. You want it to grow. You want to pull it forward, basically. And so I want you to understand how to do that. But you got to understand what you're looking for. This past couple of weeks, I've talked to several people in our, you know, in our coaching sessions, in our membership group and our email consults, lots of different ways. But. And I'm. I'm hearing people, they say, amber, watch all your videos. Total, big fan. And I'm following your advice. And I think it's working. I think it's working. And I'll tell you what I found out this other day. And then I said this and this and this. I knew because I knew. I've been watching your videos. And I said, you know, that's not what I tell you to say. Now, this is just for one person. This is for a lot of people. So here's the thing is you're trying. You're still in that mindset of trying to prove that. That they have a problem. Dude, they have problem. Are you trying to prove it to yourself? You trying to prove it to them? Either which way, it's ineffective. Stop doing that. Okay? Put your Amber goggles on. And what you want to do is you want to find the thing you're looking for, and the thing you're looking for is change. So let's get in there and find it. Okay? A lot of you guys have heard me talk about change talk. If you haven't heard me talk about change talk, there's some videos on here about this. And I actually have, like, a whole free, like, workshop you can look at that shows a whole motivational interviewing course and kind of walks you through change talk. But it's any kind of, like, verbalization of I want to do something different. The problem is the reason why you guys don't see this and you're not cultivating it. The best you could be is because you're waiting for the big daddy. You're waiting for. Oh, my gosh. I'm the biggest addict NCOL you've ever seen in your life. And I've just done everything wrong, and I'm so sorry. And I've just been a terrible son, husband, daughter, wife. And I'm just going to change and I'll just do anything you tell me. Do I go to rehab for a year. And if you're not hearing that, you're missing it and you're getting yourself mad and you're stomping on the change talk that's there. Okay? So any micro millimeter of influence of something in the right direction, you want to find that, Think about it like your csi. Instead of looking for the fingerprints of the bad, look for the fingerprints of the good. Because that evidence is there, too. You're missing it, you're stomping on it. Think about yourself. You're like. You're like a crime scene investigator who just contaminated the scene when you do this. Okay, stop doing that. What I'm hearing a lot of is, you know, people are saying, well, my loved one, you know, he said he would, he would, he would talk to his friend who's in recovery about it, but he wasn't gonna talk to no counselor. And I told him that wasn't going to do it. You can't, you can't do this by yourself. You got to get professional help. You gotta change. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What. What are you talking about? Why did you say that? Somebody says, I'm gonna talk to my friend who's in recovery. There it is. There's your evidence, there's your fingerprint. There is your grain. I don't care what it is they say, I'm gonna start walking every day. I think it's gonna make me feel better. You take whatever you see that's right there. And instead of stomping on it and telling someone is not good enough and they need to do more and that. They said that before and all those other things, which you're just literally reinforcing all the wrong things when you do that, you take that little seed and you validate it and you say, you know, I think that's a really good thing to do. I think they probably have some good insight for you. I think, you know, doing your exercise every day is gonna make you feel better. I think that talking to that one person, they might. They might know something smart. And I really appreciate the fact that you're committed to dealing with this issue. Whatever they give you, you water that seed that's how you get more seeds. That's how you get that little green plant to poke up out of the earth. It's not gonna poke up out of the earth if you stomp on it. Ok? Need y' all to stop doing that. Y' all know I love you. I'm just telling you the truth. I'm a lot harder on the family members than I are on paper addiction. Because. Because I know that you guys have enough. If you can pull it together, you gotta. You. You're the same. You're the saner ones of the. Of the group, okay? And I'm gonna need you guys to be the strong ones and make the hard decisions. And this is part of it. I need you to start noticing these little seeds, and I want you to harvest them now. I want to show you how to look for some of these little pieces of evidence that aren't quite so apparent. You know, like, if you think about, like, the crime scene investigator metaphor, it's like these are the ones you got to get the microscope out to look for. It's kind of advanced. Okay? So what I want you to do is I want you to start to pay attention not to just what they say. They're going to say whatever, right? You've probably heard me say believe behaviors long way more than you believe what people say. Because behavior tells the truth. The things that come out of our mouths, not necessarily right. So we want to look at not just someone's behaviors, because a lot of times when we're trying to do that, we're not seeing the evidence that's there. So, for example, it's like someone will go a day or two and not drink or use. Or someone will go to one meeting, but they'll stop going to another. And when you're looking at that, you're seeing the evidence from the wrong light. You're seeing you don't really mean it. You don't ever last longer than two weeks. You don't ever, you know, follow through with it. Instead of saying, hey, that's an effort. If somebody has, you know, gone to three AA meetings four or five different times, instead of saying, you've tried that before. It doesn't work. What you need to be realizing is like, this person has tried that before, and they keep trying it over and over, which is at least some piece of evidence that they're trying to. They're probably okay. They're probably not doing everything they need to do. Not probably okay. They're not doing everything they need to do. They're probably not trying all the right things, but if you stomp on someone's little efforts, you're not going to get more efforts. What you're going to get is defensiveness. And it's going to make them feel more protective and want to defend their own actions and their own behaviors. And for a lot of people, then they just want to blame you for everything and that don't feel good. And then that keeps you in the cycle of looking for the wrong evidence again. So if you can pull yourself out of that cycle, I want you to start looking for their body language. I have a, I have a video on this channel I did a few years back about reflective listening. I'm making a lot more reflective listening videos in the Invisible Intervention. But. But there's like an advanced piece to it. I want you to sort of look at someone's what we call like non verbals now. You don't have to turn into one of those like really fun YouTubers who take like crime scene footage and they do like the super in depth, like body language inventory. I just want you to look for the little cues and just like you can reflect back to someone what someone's saying. They call that active listening. Someone says something to you and you say, oh, so blah blah, and you just repeat it back. It's called good reflecting active listening skills. You can actually also do that with body language, for example, at a client in the past little while. And it was like a virtual session and the person got on there and the first thing, like literally before they said, hello, how you doing? Whatever, you know, no nice things or anything. I saw them do this big, like, like this big. And first thing I like, like literally I clicked zoom. I saw this. No words have been exchanged. And I said, whoa, what is that? You got something big to tell me, right? And just commented on that. Like really quick non verbal sigh, body language, facial expression, all that kind of stuff. And the person was like, yeah. And then they just spit it out really quick. You know what? That probably saved an hour of dancing around the subject. And this person was whatever. They told me they were nervous to tell me. And then I said, oh, all right, no big deal. Here's what we're gonna do about that. And then it was like you could just see the relief on them. And then when you see that relief, you can say, man, I see the relief all over. Aren't you glad we got that over? What that's called is, I call it. It's like a process comment. Or it's like you're commenting on those non verbals that you're seeing. And so often even when you're noticing these nonverbals, which is kind of hard when you're in that really stressed emotional state that living with an addicted love don't put you in, it's hard to even slow down enough to notice it. But when you do notice it, you're so afraid to make a comment on something that's going to get someone to tell you an answer you don' want to hear that you just ignore it. Or even worse than just ignoring it, you like jump all over it, right? Like if you see someone like let's say you're telling someone your point, right? And you see someone like roll their eyes or huff or something like that and it makes you so mad because you see them rolling their eyes and huff and stuff and then you just like yell at them more or whatever. I want you to do that. I want you to stop and say something along the lines of seems like I'm not hit, seems like I'm not understanding something, or it seems like maybe I'm pushing you too far or it seems like you don't like what I just said, right? You're just so scared to even let them talk more about that that you either ignore it or you jump on it. And if you will just pull that little piece of, I might call it like a, like a resistance or something. If you just pull it forward, it's kind of like, like pulling a splinter out, right? And it's like then there's some he. If, if you can just say that and deal with it and let them say whatever it is they're going to say, even if it's something you don't want to hear. Guess what? We can move on past it. We can get on to the other part. So if someone rolls their eyes at you, you can say, okay, sounds like I had a sore spot or something. Comment on the, the non verbals then you can say, then they might say, yeah, because you always tell me this and this and this and you're always critical. I know you don't want to hear that, but this is like pieces of evidence that you need to collect. Understand? If you're gonna win this battle, if you're, if you're gonna solve this case, if you're gonna get your loved one back, you need to collect the evidence, even if it's evidence you don't want to see. So if they say something like that to you, then you just reflect it back and you say, yeah, I Guess you're right. I got a little upset. Probably took that too far. My tone was all out of whack. And then guess what? You're past it. Even if they're telling you something you don't want to hear, a lot of times when someone tells you no or someone is resistant, they'll tell you the things that come right after. That is really important information. So if you said, if you got someone to say, I don't suggest you say this. Y' all know I don't tell you, but let's say you did, because I know y' all still did. What you say, you need to get help, you need to go to treatment. You know what they're going to say is, I don't need treatment. You're going to get the. No, you're just going to take that, right? And then they're going to say, I just need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? You don't have to agree with whatever they say after that, but it's telling you the truth about what they're thinking. And that's the problem is, is you don't want to see some of these things. So you just keep ignoring it or shoving it away or arguing with it. And if you could just collect this data, you can make strategic decisions. And you guys know I'm all about making strategic decisions. I'm all about doing what works. Some of y' all know that the name of my business is Hope for Families. And it. There's a story behind that name, but I didn't even pick it. Like I just said, okay, yeah, that. But I wish it wasn't. I heard someone say recently, like, hope is not a strategy. And I was like, that's so true. I'm like, I'm kind of with you. I'm about the strategy, right? Hope is not a strategy. But these things that I teach you on this channel, these things that we learn in the invisible intervention that we coach you on in the membership, all these things, these are strategies. So when you get those non verbals, when you get those even verbals from someone, instead of fighting it, ask about it. What's making you feel that way? What is it that makes you the most nervous about going to treatment instead? If someone says, I don't want to go to a counselor, instead of saying, you know, well, you really need to, and you've said a hundred times you're going to do it yourself, and that's just not working. Don't say any of that. Just say that kind of sounds kind of weird. To talk to some stranger about your personal business, isn't it? And you can say some of them counselors out there are kind of crazy. I don't blame you. If you'll just like, acknowledge their point. You don't have to acknowledge the entirety of what they're saying, but there's probably like some grain of truth in there that you could kind of agree with. Right. If you'll take whatever that is and you'll partner with them on it. What happens is they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel understood. They take the walls down and. And then guess what? They show you more of the truth. And the truth is, is that there is this peace inside that wants to stop. But there's fears, there's concerns, there's reluctance. Maybe it's reluctance or fear about what they're going to have to do to stop. Maybe it's fears, concerns, or resistance because of what they think life is going to be like being stopped. And you just keep ignoring those and ignoring those, ignoring those and trying to push someone in this direction that you want them to go. And that's why they fight you so hard. You know, if someone. I hate to go to them dang meetings because it's just same people saying the same things forever. And then they just say they're alcoholic for like 20 years. And it's like they. It's like their whole life's like their new addiction going to these meetings. Have you ever heard someone say that? I've heard that a lot of times. Right. What you can say to that is, yeah, I know there's some truth in that. Right. You can even say, maybe you've been to sound on me. You can say, yeah, I've been smiling on amazing. There's a little bit of that goes on there too, Right. Because there's some truth in that. That's not completely wrong, is there? So is there a lot of good things that happen to those meetings? Of course there is. But if you want to acknowledge where someone. What someone's trying to show you, they're not going to acknowledge the other thing that's in there. Because if you'll just say that, if you'll just acknowledge what they're saying about the meetings, Trust me, I've done this a million times. Yeah, I know. Those meetings. It's like you hear the same thing. It's like same person talks like you can't. You couldn't even talk if you wanted to. Sometimes they're like, I know, right? And then you let them talk about it, and then about three minutes in, they say, but you know what? Sometimes some of those meetings are kind of good. Like, I know I don't talk a lot, but some of the stories people share kind of is helpful. So if you let them say the thing that you don't want to hear, if you just wait and just let them talk and maybe even, like, use some reflective listening or something and join their team, they'll tell you something you do want to hear. You didn't even know that was in there. How many of you have tried any of these strategies I teach you, even just on the bare minimal basic level, and seen that wall come down. I've done this for 20 years, and it works, like, almost every time. Does it get someone sober immediately? No, but it makes the relationship better almost instantly. Now they. If you've had a long, like, years and years of battling with someone, they may not show you that the relationship's better instantly, but they're going to instantly be sort of watching you different. And especially if you'll just say something that's, like, different than what you would normally say, it's different than what they expect you to say. So, you know what? I was wrong about that. Or say, you know what? You got a point on that. I can kind of see where you come from. And don't just say, I understand. If you're gonna say, I see where you come from, then follow up with the sentence about what you see. You're right. Some of those people in those meetings are annoying. Some of them dang counselors. They need to get their own counseling. Whatever it is, go ahead and add on. Don't just say, I understand or I get it, or whatever. Like, I get it. Fill in the blank and say what it is that you get. Because then what they're going to say is they're gonna say, I know, right? And they're gonna tell you more. And then you're gonna say, I know, and you're gonna add what they're saying. And then it's like you're digging, right? And you're gonna get in there, you're gonna find the seeds. This is where the truth is. This other junk that you're looking for isn't truth. It's just addiction. I can tell you what's there. You don't need to look for it. You know what's there. Why do you want to collect that evidence? It's of no value to you. Get in there and start looking for what you want to find, which is the truth. And the truth is, is that People get trapped. People feel ashamed. People feel stuck. People feel defensive. People feel resentful. People feel nervous, worried, whatever. They're afraid their depression, they're afraid their anxiety. They're afraid their grief's going to surface. There are a lot of reasons why they're hanging on to this thing. And instead of telling them that their reasons are stupid or not letting them acknowledge them, you don't have to agree with them. But if you just let them have that peace, they'll give you the thing that's underneath it. It's been there the whole time. They just didn't want to say it. So the more trust, the more credibility you have with someone, the more truth you will get out of someone, and the easier it is, the more influence you can have, especially if they feel safe with you. They don't feel like you're trying to force them anything. They don't feel like you're judging them or criticizing them. You. They can know you don't agree with them on things. Like, they can know that you like most of my. The clients come see me, they know that I think they should get sober. I'm an addiction counselor. Like, it's a given. I don't even need to say it. They. They just kind of know it, right? It's not a secret. I don't act like that's not where I'm coming from, but I also don't act like there's not other sides to the story and other pieces to the puzzle that need to be dealt with. And because of that, you know, it's not like I'm saying, yeah, you should keep drinking every day. There's nothing wrong with that, right? But I can say, yeah, I guess I could kind of see where it come from. Like, you're. You're in a stressful situation. You're not sleeping good at night right now. It's the only thing you know of that's like, making you be able to wind down at night. There's truth in that, right? That's not me agreeing with them. Several times over the past month or so, I've either seen it in comments on videos or. Or heard from you guys that it's like these techniques, they just feel like they're enabling. And I know that they feel like they're enabling because it feels like this person's doing wrong, and I'm being nice to them, and I'm not calling them out, and I'm not punishing them for it. It's not your job to punish. It's not your job to call out. The more you do that, the more they're going to stay dug in. And actually, when you do that, you're enabling them to stay dug in because you're distracting them. You're playing the villain, you're arguing with them. That, in my mind, is enabling. If you just step out of the way, their own natural guilt, remorse, shame, fear, all of that surfaces. And once that stuff surfaces, then we get movement in the right direction. That's the goal of being out of the bag of robe. It's not that. Not, it's not that being nice to someone's going to make them change. It's being nice to someone makes them feel safe enough to talk to you about the pieces of them that wants to do something different. And if you'll play that game long enough, you will see those harvested pieces come forward. And the earlier in the cycle you can do this. Like the earlier in the addictive process, the better and faster this works. For some people who are in that stage four, end stage addiction, maybe they're like completely non functional. They're not working at all, they're not taking care of their hygiene. Maybe they live on the street. These techniques are harder because you have less access to the person and they're slower. But I can promise you this, if you do these techniques, your relationship is going to get a lot better and your relationship with yourself is going to get a lot better because you're not going to feel as upset with yourself as you have been because you get mad at yourself every time you stomp all over the evidence and every time you yell and lose your mind because you're watching these videos. So I know you feel bad when you do it. You're like, dang, I shouldn't have done that, Right? So you're going to feel better, they're going to feel better about you, and then you're going to be in. At least no matter what happens, you're going to feel good about the situation because you're going to feel like, I dealt with this situation in the right way. I treated myself and them with dignity and respect. It doesn't mean you have to let them treat you crappy. It's not what I'm saying. But you're just going to feel bad, not feel better knowing you did the right thing. All right, for those of you who are watching live, I'm about to take some questions, so go ahead and pop them up there. We've been having so many lately that I don't get to all of them. So I try to kind of go for the questions that are first. I see some of you already doing this, which is to put the question marks in the front. That helps me know that this is a question that gets my attention really fast. So I'll try to go through and look at those. And some of you may already know this, but the little chat, it'll only let you put so many characters in before it moves it into another chat. So try to tell me your questions sort of succinctly. Otherwise it like, puts it in like eight different chats, and then there's ones in between and I can't find it. And then I give you the wrong answer because I don't have all the right data. So it's just a limitation of this YouTube chat. All right. And while we get those questions up there, I will say to you there are resources in the description, as always, if you want some specialized coaching on how to deal with this and you're the family member, you want to look at our coaching membership. This week is the last week to get our no more Mr. Bad Guy. No more Mr. Bad Guy challenge, which is in the membership. Next week, Campbell's going to release a new one which is all about self care, and it's a good challenge. So check out the invisible interventions down there. Even if you get it now, you'll still get all the updates coming. I mean, what's in there now is really good. I'm just adding a lot of new things, and those are coming too. So let's take some questions. Thank you. For those of you who showed up live and for those of you who are watching the playback, I appreciate it. Appreciate you taking the time. Let's see here. Hello, Joanne. Hey, Katie. And Peggy and Jennifer. Hey, Robin and Leanne. Look at all the hands. I see all those little hands, those little pink hands coming up there. I love it. Heather says it's not my ego, but they're so good at making you question what is true and what isn't. So I start to question my own judgment and don't know what's true, what isn't anymore. I think the thing of it is, Heather, is you get bogged down and maybe trying to prove every little thing. It's like you get caught up in each day's little crises. You know, whether they drank two or three or whether the paraphernalia you found was old or new, or whether they said they'd be home at 5:15 or 5:30 or whatever. And those. Those details are sort of irrelevant when you look at it in the big picture of the war. Do you know what's going on? Big picture? I think you already do because you're here on the channel, so I'm guessing you do. I'm gonna go with your judgment. So just consider that information found and start looking for how do we get. How do we get on the other side of it instead of how do we find the evidence that's happening? You've already found enough evidences to that, or you wouldn't be here. So I believe you believe yourself. Debbie says, is it a sign they want to change when they make a point of telling you they used. I took medicine with a shot of whiskey today. I would say telling you that they used is definitely. Well, not definitely. Most often in most situations, I would say that's at least a piece of evidence that they're trying to be truthful with you, which in my mind, is evidence that they want to change. If nothing else, they want to change this cat and mouse dynamic with you. They're at least trying to change the fact that they're trying to be truthful with you. There might be an occasion I could see that, where Debbie. Where someone's telling you that. Purposefully trying to start a fight. So you probably know, based on the tone of how they tell it to you, which thing is trying to happen. You know, it's all about the tone. Unless you're getting that I'm trying to start a fight with you tone. Then you just say, hey, you know, I appreciate you being honest with me. That helps me trust you, you know, helps me be on your team. And you just appreciate the honesty. You don't have to say, I appreciate you drinking or I'm cool with it, or that you think it's a good idea to drink on medicine. You're not saying that, but you're saying, I know it's probably not easy to tell me that because you're probably worried I'm going to flip out, but I'm not, because I appreciate you being honest. Thank you. I'm gonna be honest with you, too. And then you're gonna move on. So in. In 99 of the cases, unless they're saying it with a weird tone, I would say that's a good piece of evidence. Good example, Debbie. Cheryl says I say nothing, and that may be worse. Yeah, I think ignoring it doesn't usually make it worse, but you could be missing an opportunity. Say ignoring. You don't have to. I'm not. I don't mean ignoring every little piece of evidence. Of something they did bad. But. But start looking for those little pieces of evidence of something they did good. Like, like the, like Debbie said, like, even just telling you the truth, that's a little piece of evidence, right? Like, like not drink it for one day. That's a little piece of evidence. And start commenting on those because those are positive forward momentum steps that you want to get more of. Don't ignore the good. Let's see here. Min Glan says, that's so true. Waiting for the big change talk can be such a setback for the person in recovery. Yeah. And if they give you, like, a little tiny bit of willingness and you say it's not enough, then they feel defeated. That's exactly right. So. So whatever steps they're willing to give you, you just take that. You be excited for it. You encourage that. And guess what? You'll get more of them. Because then they actually like. Like that you're pleased with them, and then they want you to be pleased with them even more. And sometimes they'll take another step for you. Most of the time, they'll take another step for you. Robin said, that's exactly what my person said. He's inspired by a friend that got sober, doesn't like AA because of strangers. There you go. This is perfect. This is the evidence. Robin, right here is skull mine, right? You can say, ask about this friend. Ask, Say, well, how did he do it? Like, well, does he seem to like his life better? Ask these questions, because it's not just that you want to find these facts out, but you're helping them see their own evidence. When you do this, you're. You're helping them look at the evidence too. So you're. You're growing this little thing that's inside of them. And then, you know, talk about it for a minute, but don't talk about it too long so much that it makes them feel like you're getting pushy or something. Just be like, oh, yeah, like, how long was he. How long did he drink? Well, well, how did he do it? Did it take a bunch of tries? Like, what did he do? Does he feel better? Like, what do you think? Just investigate it from a very. With a very, like, curious tone in your voice. But not too long. Just harvest it and move on. Robin says, I'm worried I'll say all the wrong things and will push him in the opposite way. This live stream is so important. You know what you can do, Robin? You can say, this might be the total wrong thing to say, or you can say, I'm worried I'm saying all the wrong things. If you say a statement like that, then they'll tell you whether you're right or wrong. They'll. They'll say, you know, yeah, I know you're upset. You get a little freaked out, but I get it. You come from a good place, so they'll just sort of acknowledge it, and then they'll move on past it. Or they'll. Or they'll say, no. Really. No, I get it. Like, I know you have questions. It's cool. You can ask me. So just say the thing that you're thinking, and then you'll find out the thing they're thinking about. What you're thinking, CB Says, is wanting to talk about the pain caused during chaos. Ego seems like sweeping it all under the rug. Also, calling them out on knowing they drank wrong. Should we not call them out on a lie? Only upset them. This is a lot of really good questions. I'm going to answer these for you, CB if they're still actively drinking and you're constantly talking to them about how much they're hurting you and they're hurting their family and they're hurting themselves, they're going to tune you out. I do think it's okay occasionally to let them see that you're hurt. If your person drinks and they said a bunch of nasty things and it's the next day if you, you know, if they're having their morning coffee and you're yelling at them, you said this, this, and this. I wouldn't say that. But they're gonna be feeling you out for, like, trying to figure out, like, temperature check you, what's going on with you. And if, you know, you can just say, hey, you know what I am. Some things got zealous and I hurt my feelings. It's kind of sad. I know you probably didn't mean them, but, you know, I'm gonna get over it. I just need some space. You can let them see that you're sad, but if you're constantly trying to, like, push it in their face, they're gonna constantly be trying to block it. And the truth of it is, is that they know. And if you just will let that harvest, that guilt thing harvest itself, it'll come up. Unless they're, like, seriously antisocial. And, I mean, I know it may seem like a lot of them are, but most of them are. I've been in this 20 years. I've only seen a couple that I thought were seriously antisocial, and that's 20 something years, okay? You're not sweeping it under the rug. I know it feels like that, but that's not what's happening. You're allowing their own feelings to process up instead of blocking that process. Think about when you've done something wrong. Even when you knew you were totally in the wrong. And someone yells at you, guess what you do? You defend your actions or you make excuses for your actions, right? You. You don't want to acknowledge it. And then you spend the rest of the day in your head thinking, mumble, mumble, mumble all these things against anything they said to you. And if you just don't. If they didn't do that, that little guilty feeling will start talking to you. That little guilt angel on your shoulder will start working on you. You just can't see it, so you feel like they're getting away with it. But I'm telling you it's there. And I know you know that if you just think about your own experiences, you know, that's the way it works. I have some videos. In fact, I have a whole playlist on dealing with lying cv. You should check it out. Sometimes you should call it a lie, sometimes you shouldn't. Most of the time it's not necessary. You got to decide when is it necessary and when is it not. And I have some videos on that, so you should totally check them out. But I like the way you're thinking. You are on track with these questions you're asking. You're understanding. I can tell. Melissa says I have my son coming home. After nine months of being in prison. He tells me he's not going to go back to his old lifestyle. Please tell me how can I support his new lifestyle? I don't want to be a trigger. You can ask him that question. I would probably ask him while he's still in there, actually. And then if he's. Whenever he does anything positive, just reinforce it, right? Don't. Don't overly be hovery or where are you going today? Or are you going to talk to that old friend? You know, don't be all like nervousy in a helicopter because that. That's just frustrating and makes someone feel weird and like a kid and no, no one likes this. It's not a good feeling. But just be cool. Just say, dude, I'm so proud of you. Like you want to reinforce the message. Hey, I know this hard. You might stumble, but you got this. Like, instead of telling someone you always screw up, you want to send the opposite message because you're subconsciously planning that in Their head. Robin says it's hard to take any words seriously when there's no action to support the words. Don't worry about that. You don't have to worry about whether it's serious. If someone is saying the right words, that's the first step. So maybe they're saying it and they mean it when they say it, but something's happening and they're not following through. And that may happen a bunch of times, but guess what? Then their own guilt, their own frustration with themselves will surface on that. You do not have to put it there. If you try to put it there, you're only going to block it. You can say, you know, I know this isn't easy. I know you really mean it. You keep trying to deal with it like you just want to reinforce the effort and you'll get more effort. If whatever effort they're giving you, you're just frustrated and mad at, they're just going to stop giving you effort. Grace says this is very interesting tidbits that get dropped when you listen, if you listen. Thank you, Grace. I appreciate that. And you know what, Grace, these tips that I'm telling you, they work in every situation. If they work with an addictive person, they work really well with everybody else. So if you can master these skills, you can literally master relationships, you can master getting what you want or helping people make positive changes. These are just good communication, relational skills. Like I said, if you, if they'll work with someone who has an addiction, then they'll work really kind of easily. Won't be near as hard with someone else. So use these, practice these with other people in your life, not just with your addicted loved one. This is a good question. Sue says, how do I get my daughter in law to understand this method instead of moving out and doing everything opposite of your body advice, she uses every way possible to point out what he does wrong. Okay, perfect question. Here's what you do. You stop trying to get your daughter in law to see your way. Every single thing I'm telling you to do with your addicted loved one, which it sounds like in your case is your son, you do it with your daughter in law. Here's the thing, and I hear this, I hear this a lot from actually the wows is they get really ticked because they feel like the in laws won't hear them and then the in laws are against them and then laws aren't supporting them. What you expect out of your son is real different than what you expect out of a husband. That's the first Thing I'd say to her, I say, I get it. He's your husband. He's supposed to be your teammate, and he is totally letting you down. And that's not right. If this was your husband. You know what? I deal with my son, that's one thing. When I deal with that of my husband, that's a whole nother thing. I have a whole, whole different set of expectations. Right, for your husband. So understand where your daughter's coming from first before you try to get her to change. Help her feel heard and understood. And then, guess what? Her walls will come down, and then you'll have the influence over her. And then if you could get her on your side. Now there's two of you, the mom and the wife, man. That is a powerful team. So your goal is to get her on your side, but you need to go about doing it differently than trying to, you know, don't say, amber says you shouldn't do that because you wouldn't say that to your son, right? I know you wouldn't because I've told you, I'll tell you all not to do that. So don't say that to her. Use all these methods. Just use them with her first. Okay? You got this? Karen says my daughter's on the street. Fentanyl and meth. Is there a more urgent, serious, and different approach? I do think when someone is that far out there, they're on the street, they're using super, super serious drugs. Sometimes you have to go with trying to do like a full out, like, real deal intervention. Like. Like the kind you see on the show. Like the kind where you hire someone, they come to your house, sit in circle, you read the letters, kind. But that may or may not work. These techniques may be less effective with someone that is that far gone. I'll tell you that. That's truth. But it's still not the wrong thing to do. It's still the right way to interact with someone. Sometimes that's the only choice you have because you can't. You can't force someone to get help. And when someone is that far gone and they're on the street, like, all the consequences and the leverage, you've kind of like already lost it all. They've already experienced, like, all the consequences. They've already lost everything. So now the only power you have is that relationship. So you either have to go into some kind of, like, hardcore. Let me see if I can force the situation with an intervention or maybe a legal charge. I'm not opposed to either one or you have to use the relationship nonetheless. Interacting with someone this way with dignity and respect and kindness and empathy and understanding is always the best way to interact with someone. It's never going to hurt your situation. It's never going to make them worse. You may need to have a little push from some other angle when it's this far gone, but I still think this is the way to interact with people, just even in general. After sessions, he stops at liquor store and binges that I suggest he stops going until he's really able to receive assistance. I bet there's more to your message that I missed. Susan. Is there more up there? Oh, here it is. Addicted Loved one started Iop four sessions so far. He tell so far. Always telling him, glad and happy he's going. He's doing this for himself. Listen reflectively, talking way too much to him about what he's learning. And. However the sessions he's drinking after he goes, that's not uncommon. A lot of people will tell their loved ones they're going to AA meeting or whatever and literally stop, get whatever they're gonna get and use it. They don't even go into the meeting and sit in the place. So if the person seems interested in telling you about what's going on in the meetings, which I can tell you're listening because you're asking, you know, what goes on. Do you like them? Do you like your counselor? Those are good questions. As long as the person seems interested. If you can tell you're asking those questions and that they're just being annoyed by them, then I would back it off. You always want to pay attention to those body language, those cues that you're getting, even if you don't like them. They're pieces of evidence that you need and you have to listen to and. And I don't know that I would suggest stopping going. But if he starts saying, this isn't helping me, I don't want to go. I don't know what I would push him to keep going. If you can tell, it really isn't because timing is important. And if he goes for six weeks and it doesn't help because it's the wrong time, and then, you know, a year down the road, you try to get him to do that, he's going to say, I tried that before. It didn't work, even though it didn't work because he wasn't trying to get it to work. So don't make someone do something that's not working or that they really hate unless it's like Inpatient treatment, they're two weeks in. You just hold at that point the best you can. DJ Travel says question, what if he's lying but told me more than other family members? I. E telling me about DUIs and arrest but not his mom etc. Then when he's missing, I don't know what to do to tell them. If the person is like safety, if they're missing or something, what you can say to them is you can say, listen, you know, I get you going through a lot of stuff and I'm not trying to control you, but if you go MIA and you don't communicate with me, I freak out. If you don't tell me you're alive, then I'm gonna freak out. I'm gonna call your family because I'm gonna be scared to death you're not alive. And then I'm the only one that knows and I tell anybody, so just communicate with me. So I would try to tell them that, that first and say, listen. Sometimes like I have people that do a lot of sober link and I say, listen, if you're, if you're gonna miss a sober link, just tell me. Just tell me you're not gonna be able to take it till you get out of your meeting or whatever. If you just gonna drink and you're not gonna take. You say I'm just gonna drink. Everyone care you send them, you can send them silver links all day long. I'm not gonna drink, I'm not gonna take them. I say, okay, cool, thank you for telling me. Because I'll say if you don't tell me and then you don't take them and then I check on you and then you don't answer me back. Then I start thinking, oh my gosh, like they're dead in ditch. And then I get freaked out. Then I'm gonna call you emerg. Communicate with me. That's kind of a way that I handle that. That doesn't really ever come up that much. But I kind of like to put that out there just so that they know, you know, you can say screw you. I'm going to do what I'm going to do, but just tell me your life, because it does. It scares you. You know you want to know. Are you okay? Don says, question, can you please discuss what a parent would say to a 37 year old adult child who has been alcoholic seniors? They say things like, I don't know where to go when they get out. Are you saying there, there's more to this? Okay. And they can't come home to the parents house. You're talking about like when they go to treatment or something and then they want to come back to your house. I would look for a good sober living and I would give them that option. Now they may say, that's not fair, I don't want to go. And then if you don't still don't let them come to your house. They may say something. I can't believe you're putting your own kid on the street. But you're not. They're just sort of emotionally blackmailing you with that statement. So if you can help them with some options. Help them with some options. They may not like any of those options and they may not choose to do any of those options, but you've given them some options. But I think that you are correct in holding the line about coming to your house in 99.9% of situations. That is the thing to do. Question. Let's see here. Kerosene. 10:22 says, I follow all your strategies. They work. Yes, but dealing with a major relapse, alcohol. He knows he has a problem but doesn't want to do anything. What can I do now? He's stage four. So I think it's harder dealing with someone who's not in denial. And it does come to a point where you can say, okay, I can respect your decision. You know, you understand you have a problem. You're choosing basically to sort of like. It's kind of like if someone has cancer and they choose not to treat it as essentially what your person is doing at this point. And you can say, I respect that, but I can tell you that I can only deal with so much of that. Like, I can't stand around and watch you kill yourself. So I respect your decision, but you gotta respect mine. Like at some point you can say that in kindness, love and care. But it is okay to draw that line, right? Because I don't know how close to you, this person is, but the closer they are to you, the more it is going to affect you. Right? So they can make their decision, but you can make your decision too. And if you, if you've had a bad relationship with them all along and you argue all the time, that won't be very effective. If you have a good relationship with them and they know there's some truth in that, it might get through to them. Heather says four days shy of four months clean from fentanyl and cocaine. These videos are a huge help. Thank you. Dude, dude, that's fantastic. Do y' all see this? Clean from those substances. You guys give Heather some, like, claps or props or hands or celebration emojis, because that is fantastic, dude, I'm proud of you. And just the fact that you can sit here and watch this video where we're talking about difficult things to hear. This isn't. You know, these are difficult things, these videos for the family members. That's impressive. Not only just impressive that you're sober, but impressive that you're sticking around. You're listening to this. You're willing to hear these difficult things. Man, way to go. I love it. Eliza says, should I move across the country away from my daughter after 15 years of trying to be here to help her? If you. It depends on why you're moving away. If you're. If you're moving away because what you need for you, it's because you've got an opportunity or other family or there's a reason why you need to move, then it's okay. If you've been there 15 years, tried to help, you've done what you can. You don't have to, like, stay in an area after all these years. I'm assuming your daughter is obviously an adult. If you've been trying to help for 15 years, then it's been going a long time. She's an adult. It's okay to take care of you. There is nothing wrong with that. You do not have to do any of these techniques, I tell you, and you're not wrong for not doing them. So don't. Don't feel guilty if you say, I've. I'm just done, Amber. I've had enough, because I don't feel bad about it, because sometimes you've had enough. I'm just telling you to do these things if you're sort of. When you have those moments to interact or if you're still trying to, whatever, but. But there's nothing wrong with taking care of yourself. Facebook user says, my husband has been on subtext for two months and using heroin on top. Do you think he's in the bargaining stage? Part of me wants to say yes, and part of me just wants to say no. He's just in the. Being compliant or doing this to make you feel good, or I'm just doing this other thing to get me through the times when I can't get the real stuff. Like, I don't know. I don't know that I would call this a step in the right direction. This could just be sort of a veiled attempt or something like that. I'd have to know more details about it. But it's not necessarily. It's not necessarily a step in the right direction, I don't think. Julie says, how do I keep my sobriety while allowing my alcoholic son to live with me? He's going through a lot of baby mama drama. I don't. I think that's kind of hard. I mean, I'm not gonna say it can't be done, Julie, but. Because it's not just. It's not just the fact that he's drinking that's going to trigger you, but the fact that he's got so much drama and stress that's going to trigger you. So you may have to set a healthy boundary for yourself. I'm not sure. And if you're not ready to say, hey, I just can't. You can't. I can't deal with that right now because I'm clean. So you may need to say. You may need to set some other kind of boundary. Like, you can't be drinking in the house. But he's going to do it anyway, just telling you. Or I need you to keep the drama out of here. But be prepared that he's not going to follow those boundaries. But at least you've given him a chance. Maybe. And then understand that if you have to make a different living arrangement, then you at least tried. But that's going to be pretty dang hard. That's. That's not. That's not a great situation. David says hi, Amber. I used to think it was like fishing. I had them on the hook, but I pulled on the line too hard and it would snap the line and I'd say nothing and let the reel out. Then slowly reel him in. Dude, I love. This is a great metaphor. I'm gonna steal this from you, David. Right? It's exactly right. My husband likes to go fishing. Takes my son. And it's like, you feel that nibble? If you yank, you're gonna, like, lose them, right? You gotta, like, work them. You gotta, like, tire them out. You gotta get them in. Perfect. This is a good metaphor. I'm gonna keep that one. I like it. After 20 years of being together, it's now. It's. It has now been a year gone. I expressed my feelings on his addiction. He is still drinking. Anything I could do? That's the thing, is you're expressing your feelings on it, which is probably just making him feel guilty. I'm not. I'm not saying you're not. Your feelings aren't valid. They are valid, but you need strategy if you're trying to get someone to see something different in their life and this isn't the way to get it. If expressing your feelings about someone else's addiction made them stop, we wouldn't even need this YouTube. Gentle. I don't mean that mean, but I'm. I'm just saying, like, don't feel bad that that didn't work because there's. That it just doesn't work. Try some of these other things. Get them to see some of their feelings because there's some feelings inside of them that feels bad about it, that doesn't want to do it. See if you can harvest that out of them. Mary along Thomas says Amber we hugged, looked like. Like took a moment and just connected. Thank you. Your advice is life saving. Hey. Thank you. It's working. It's working. I love it. Sylvia says, I love this way of doing things. An empathetic way. The addict in my life is my ex. It's so hard to break through his victim mindset. I left after two years ago. Still co parenting with him. Yes. When you. When you get up in a situation so we have to leave, it's not fair. But no matter what, it's like you're always the villain. I can't believe you left me. And it's like, dude, I can't believe you made me le you because I really tried not to. There is. They're just not going to understand that. So it is really hard because they're just going to make you to be the villain when. When you. I'm sure you didn't want to like you're co parenting. You didn't want to have to be the co parenting situation. There's no doubt in my mind that this last thing you wanted to do. But it's hard because they just don't want to see it that way because they need to sort of be in that mindset to continue validating these bad choices they're making. CBB says my husband has been using soberlink for four months. He's had two slips get but got back on Sober Link the next day. He won't talk about it. And I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. Normal. Okay, here's the thing. For those of you who don't know what Silver Link is, y' all haven't watched enough videos because y' all know I love Silver Link. I will come back in after and put the Silver Link link in the description. But I think it's like if you're interested in learning about Soberlink. I think it's soberlink.com if you put backslash amber in there, then I think there might be a discount or something if you want it. But it's like a alcohol monitoring device. Anyone who's agreeing to do Soberlink and doing it, that is a humongous, big, giant change step. Okay? Because it's a big undertaking. You're literally agreeing to get text messages throughout the day and take like, take breathalyzing tests throughout the day. Usually like three of them or more. So it's a big step. So the fact that he had two slips, he doesn't want to talk about it. I'm not surprised by the fact they don't want to talk about it. But here's what you want to talk about. The fact that they got right back on it after one day. So if they don't want to talk about it, it's because it. Because they feel bad about it. Right? Because they feel terrible. But what you can say is, look, I know it's hadn't been easy. I know there's been ups and downs. But look, look, the fact that you got right back on track, I am so proud of you. Like, that's amazing. Like, that's just a little bit. Here's what I would say. The person that's just a little bit. Blip. I said blip. We're not even going to let that mess us up. It's a nothing. We're not going to pay attention to it. We're moving on. You don't want to pay too much attention. You want to move on. And that's what they're doing. So you, you just want to say, yeah, that's right. Removing. Moving on. Because if they get too far thinking about it, they're either going to feel bad or they're going to say, well, I only drank just a little bit. Wasn't that bad. Maybe an alcoholic, like, there's nothing good in there. So moving on is an okay thing. And if you talk about that part and you make them feel good about it, they won't resist talking about it so much because they'll actually feel better about the situation. Hey, Julie. You're welcome. Thank you for your kind words. Let's see the strong 2021 says the walls are falling down. But when he messes up and I don't respond, he goes away for a while and stops talking to me. It's like the shame. Shame. It's like the shame is hurting him more. Have you seen this before? Yeah, sure, Right, like he did something bad he doesn't want. Just like the person for you, like the Silver link question, they didn't. They messed up. They don't want to talk about it, right. So they start avoiding you because they feel guilty or whatever. It's really hard. And being your situation because it does hurt you when they mess up. When my clients mess up, it doesn't necessarily hurt me. It, it used to in the past when I would take it personal and then I would think it means I'm a bad counselor, and then I would get upset with the person for messing up. But once I took that out of my mind, it doesn't bother me. I understand that's different, though, for you. But if you just say, look, I know there's gonna be ups and downs, I appreciate that you got back on track, or I appreciate that you're honest with me, or I'm just really glad it didn't last very long or whatever. If there's any glimmer of anything good in there, if you can pull that to the surface, they, they try not to avoid you as much. And, and one of the things I do with clients is I say, listen, if you mess up and you fall off the planet Earth tomorrow and you do every bad thing, guess what? What? You can call and tell me, I'm not going to be mad at you. I'm the counselor. But, but I sort of already say, if you mess up, here's what's going to happen. So that preemptively, I'm sort of setting the stage. If, if this is what happens, you're not in trouble. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to see you as your counselor anymore. I'm not going to tell you you have to go to inpatient. I'm not going to. None of that. So you can sort of set the stage for that trust safety kind of situation. But you could be doing all that and they could just be avoiding you because they just feel guilty. But it's okay, they don't feel guilty. They should feel a little guilty, right? Janet says, my son is in a 30 day program. He knows home doesn't work. He's a young adult and has had trouble with peers and sober living, so keeps asking if he can come home. What's the best way to answer that question? You're just going to have to find the nicest. You could beat around the bush if you, you want to a little bit, but you want to, you want to say no somehow, some way, you want to say it's just not a good idea. You know, if you come here, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to get all helicoptery. It's going to make me crazy. That's going to make you crazy. I'm going to be watching you every move. It's just not good for us. I don't think it's a good idea. No. And, and you let him figure that out if he's in so reliving. I get it. Like, when you're in sober living, there's usually is a lot of drama because you're dealing with people who are, you know, in the early stages of recovery. So there's some drama, there's some difficult people in there, but it's not, it's not forever. And if part of the issue is he has difficult getting along with people, I don't know if that's a part of his issue in general or just like in that setting. But either way, it's life skills that you're learning in there. Dealing with difficult people, that's something we need to learn. We need to learn to do it and say sober. So it's not the worst thing ever, to be honest. Brielle says my BF has recently started shooting drugs. We have fought in the past about his cocaine and drinking, but he has no idea that I know about the heroin. Should I keep this to myself? I would probably pull this to the surface. This might be a situation where I would pull it to the surface, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't ask the question. I wouldn't say, are you doing this? If you know they're doing this, what you need to do is you just say, you need to say, I know this is happening. And then you need to walk away. Because whatever he's going to say next is either going to be a lie, it's going to be defensive. It's going to be something because it's going to be like this reflective, defensive posture. And you're not, you're not saying it to him for some kind of response. You're saying, I know. And that puts a little more pressure on him because just knowing that, you know, like literally in and of itself puts some pressure on the situation. So just say, hey, I know. And then don't even like stay much longer because he's going to start trying to backpedal and say a bunch of junk. And you don't even want to get into an argument about it. And you don't have, because then you're going to start it's going to start lying and then you're going to want to start giving of us. Well why did I find this or where did this. Don't do that. Just say hey I know there's nothing you're gonna say. It's gonna convince me otherwise. I'm just telling you I know that's it and let it sit and let that seed work. All right everybody we are running out of time. I am here every Thursday at 1 so if you show up next Thursday at 1 and you have questions I will do my best to get to them. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everybody who shows up. I used to do these lives talk to myself so it's nice to have someone listening and having a conversation back with me. As always, there are more resources in the description. I think we have two spots left or one spot I think to start the first week of February. If you're interested in the strength based coaching program, check that out. I'll see you guys next week. Bye everybody.
More from Amber
Addiction Turns “Me vs. Drinking” Into “Me vs. You” #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness
They Admit Everything Except the Addiction #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness
Stop Trying to Make Them Admit the Truth #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness