Unveiling Hidden Family Dynamics in Addiction

There are 2 sets of secrets that are destroying your family if you're living in an addicted family. And I'm about to expose both of them to you right now. One of those sets of secrets is the set that person struggling with addiction or alcoholism is keeping. And the other set is the set that maybe the family member's keeping. And those secrets all combined turn into a toxic, toxic mess. Stick around if you want to hear both sets and what to do about it. I've been dealing with families or not families, but just people and families struggling with an addiction professionally for more than 20 years. And I grew up in an addicted family. So I guess you could say I've been dealing with this my whole life and I've seen it from every So by the end of this video, you're going to recognize exactly which secrets are operating in your home, and you will be able to know what you need to do to untangle that big, giant toxic. Let's start with the secrets that the addicted person is keeping. There's some of the ones that you might expect, like you might think of off the top of your head. We'll talk about those. And then there's some that you might not have even thought about before. So first and foremost, the one that you probably think of first is they're very much likely to be keeping a secret about how much drugs, alcohol, whatever it is they're doing that they've consumed. Like even if they're openly drinking or using, they're probably not openly drinking or using the entire amount. Like a lot of times, sometimes we'll, a lot of people will, for example, Drink alcohol in front of their family, and they'll purposefully drink a set amount to try to send a message to the family. See, it's fine. I just drink two, or it's just a glass of wine. But secretly behind the scenes, they're drinking a lot more, and it's it's kind of like the drinking that's for show, and then the secret behind the scenes drinking that no one knows about. Problem with this secret drinking keeping is it really escalates the whole situation. Because typically when you're in this kind of cycle, you have alcohol hidden everywhere, like in your car, in the garage, you know, and all these in your closet, all these little hidden places. And so when you're secret drinking, you're sneaking, sneak drinking, I mean, you have to like chug it down really fast. So like, you know, your partner's head's turned, it's like, turn it back, drink it down, and then hide it away. Then there's all the hiding of the evidence. We'll get to that. And In a minute. But when you do that, you're drinking it really fast. And usually because you're drinking it really fast, you're probably getting something kind of strong and it can feel like it just hits you all at once. So in my mind, when someone starts the sneak drinking, well, they're already in alcoholism or addiction at that point, but it really escalates the tolerance and the unmanageability that happens, really starts to go quickly. After that, then there's like I said, there's the hiding the bottles and the stash. Particularly with alcohol, this can be difficult because bottles can be fairly big, even if they're just the little mini bottles. There's a lot of evidence to get rid of, I guess is what I'm saying. And you wouldn't imagine the amount of like mental energy that goes into doing it. It's like. Can I keep them all hidden in my closet in a secret bag and then take them out when my spouse isn't looking? Or can I put them in my neighbor's recycle bin? Or can I hide them at the bottom of the trash? I mean, so much more thought goes in this than you could imagine. And that's why addiction creates so much unmanageability, not just because of what the substance does to you, but it's really the preoccupation. The mental obsession, the getting it, using it, Hiding it, all the things. Then there's the money spent on the substance. And again, there may be some money spent on the substance that is seen by the family, but there's very likely to be money that is hidden. And a lot of families that are stuck in this kind of cat and mouse dynamic when someone has an addiction, you can easily get caught in this whole like, well, you have to show me receipts and you think That you're managing it by doing that. But when you try to outsmart someone who's in active addiction and they're not trying to stop, you're just not going to win. You really do get caught in a cat and mouse game that you're not going to win because they'll have secret credit cards. They'll use gift cards. They'll get cash back at the grocery store. Any number of things. I did a video recently Um, which was kind of a true crime video about a guy whose wife was looking at all the receipts to make sure he wasn't drinking. And so he was stealing alcohol, even though they had plenty of money. He was trying to get by with it without his wife seeing the receipts. So he was stealing it and it got caught on like some, some like store security footage. That's a whole nother story. But I'm telling you that because that's a common way. You may think you're managing the money part, but you're not managing the money part if you're On the family side, there's the drinking during the day or even at work. The pattern that I see that's probably most common that happens most often is even if people aren't drinking at work, they might leave and drink during lunch or use— I'm saying drinking, but you can interchange the words for whatever substance you want. It all is the same. But what you typically see is that they're going to stop on their way home. And they're going to buy alcohol and they're going to drink it really fast. And what that means is it's probably going to happen in the car. The reason that's happening is because the family's monitoring it and they're saying, you know, that they're telling their family usually that they're not drinking or that they're only drinking a little bit or only on certain days, but they're getting it on the way home from work and they're either drinking it while they're driving home or they're sort of stopping somewhere. A lot of times somewhere kind of close to the house because it's the way that they convince themselves, well, I'm not driving that far. They're kind of trying to damage control that, but there's still a lot of sneaking and hiding. And a lot of that happens in the car, which is, as you can imagine, sort of a double, triple problem, more than just the family dynamic piece of it. There is their, their other thing they're hiding is how intoxicated they are. And that takes a lot of work. So you're trying to play it cool all the time. You're trying to Look like you're fine and you're not intoxicated at all, but you really are. And so when you're doing that a lot, the easiest way to do that is to try to kind of spend time away from the family. So to have work excuses or be in the garage working on something or just sort of being away is a good, easiest way to do that. Another secret that you're going to see happening with who has an addiction is Especially if it's alcohol or benzos or something, they're likely to be hiding the fact that they don't remember the things that happened the day before or the conversations that have been had. And if you're the family member in this situation, you get really frustrated because you're like, we talked about that. And it can just be something simple about who was going to take care of a certain chore or pay a bill or pick up the kids or wash the car or whatever it is. And then You're constantly frustrated as a family member because you're like, we talked about that. We decided this is the way it was going to work. And the person doesn't remember. But when they don't remember, they try to play it off and they may just play it off. Like, what are you talking about? We didn't have that conversation. Or they may do some gaslighting or something like that. But that's difficult to hide. It's also difficult to hide the fact that they feel really embarrassed about that and ashamed of that. And so they're hiding the fact that they can't remember and they're hiding the fact that they feel embarrassed about it. Another something along those lines is like, they'll do things that are really embarrassing that they regret, and then they realize it the night before. And if they can't play it off because other people know it happened, they'll play it off and hide the fact that they care about it. They'll be like, whatever. And they may laugh it off and they may act like it's nothing, but deep down inside, they feel horrible about it, humiliated or upset with themselves. So it's just hiding every which way you look. It's, it's not just the substance, it's the feelings, it's the thoughts, it's everything. You hide a lot of close calls. Like maybe you were driving yesterday and you almost hit something, or you're smoking and you were, you dropped it in the car and you were trying to pick it up and you almost wrecked doing it. You know, there's all these other things that you're hiding and you're definitely not going to tell those. To friends and family members, because that would really bring to the surface what you're trying to hide in general, which is you're probably trying to hide, I mean, physical concerns, like either lab tests, but even if it's not lab tests, just generally the way that you feel, differences in your breathing, your stamina, all the things that you have depends on the substance, but you're having a lot of physical health issues and you're trying to play that off like it's not happening too, or you're, maybe your family knows it, but you're trying to minimize it. You are trying to hide most of all the constant mental preoccupation. And this is where it really gets unmanageable is the word they use in recovery a lot because it becomes a 24/7 nonstop job to be planning, scheming, thinking about it, obsessing about it. It's just hard to explain to you if you haven't had this experience, just the depth of it. You're thinking about where you can get it, who's going to have it, if stores are going to be closed. And then, then there's just levels of it. Like, for example, if it's something that you buy at a store, you may feel embarrassed that you're buying it at the same store all the time. So then you have to have like 5 or 6 different places you go so you're not going to the same place every day. So you're hiding the fact that you're getting the substance from your family. You're feeling embarrassed about how much of the substance you're using. So you don't want to like run into the same cashiers. And as you can imagine, this just starts to take over everything in your life and then everything else in your life, the other stuff, the regular life stuff, family, work, hobbies, interests, all the things start to fall. Through the cracks. And at first it's just little things which you could kind of excuse away because anybody could make a mistake or forget or not follow up on or something like that. But as addiction goes on, bigger and bigger and bigger things fall through the cracks more and more frequently. You have probably, if you're having an addiction, trying to hide the fact that you've been confronted about it. So maybe your spouse is on your case about it. Maybe your friend even called you out about it, but you're definitely not going to tell your spouse that because you're trying to keep the people in your life separate because each person in your life may know one piece of the puzzle and you're trying to keep all of those people separate from each other because you don't want all your puzzle pieces coming together. Like this one may know you did this, that one may know that. So you're trying to keep everybody separate. Sometimes in order to do that, you do a lot of what we call splitting, like pitting people against each other and that sort of thing. Does any of this sound familiar? Put in the chat which one of these things you've either experienced yourself on either side because you've struggled with addiction and you found yourself doing that, or because you have a loved one struggling with addiction and you know for sure that that has definitely happened. Was it drinking during work? Was it money spent? Was it the amount they were consuming? Was it the hidden bottles and the stashes? Was it other people confronted them? Was it the constant preoccupation, the health problems, the memory gaps? Which of these have you experienced from being the addicted person, either from being that yourself or from being their family? Now there's something that not many people talk about, and that's while you're discovering their secrets, while the family member's discovering their secrets, guess what's happening? Family is keeping secrets of their own. This isn't just a one-sided issue. Everything in families becomes twisted up because everybody starts to keep secrets, not just the addict and the alcoholic. Reason why families get so dysfunctional is because everybody gets caught up in all of this secret keeping and everybody's pitted against each other. And family systems are supposed to work together as a team for the most part. I mean, sure, all families have their issues, but for the most part, family members are there to meet the needs of themselves and the other people in the family. When you have addiction going on, the person with the addiction becomes less and less and less able to meet other people's needs because that takes more and more of their mental energy, their money, their time to keep this addiction going. And so their energy starts to go inward. The family begins to get frustrated with them for various reasons. And so then the family members' energy is going towards getting this person to stop. Guess what happens to the running of the family? It just falls apart. And the family secrets can be just as damaging as the addictive So before, before I share with you the family member secrets, I mean, we gotta be fair, right? If we're gonna call out one side, we should call out the other side. Before I share with you those family secrets, how many of you have convinced yourself that if you're the family member, you're the only one holding it all together? It can feel like that, right? Because one of the things that happens if you're the family member is you're probably Most likely taking up a lot of slack as far as like the responsibilities that happen in the family. Like maybe your loved one's still going to work, but they're not doing great at home. So you're running interference with the kids and you're doing all the driving because you're afraid to let them drive and they forget things all the time. So now you're managing all the bills and you're always walking the dog and doing all the chores. And it can be super frustrating and isolating to feel like. You're the only one holding it together. Now let's take a look at what are those other secrets that the family might be holding. The family secrets are secrets that can be happening from the spouse, the children, from the parents. It can be happening anywhere in that mix. Number one, probably trying to find how the Fact of how bad things are, right? Maybe if this is your partner that's addicted, maybe you're trying to hide how bad it is from the kids or from your parents or from work colleagues because you don't want other people judging you or because you don't want other people to— you don't want to burn any bridges that maybe your addicted loved one has with their coworkers or your family or something like that. So you're trying to kind of keep the peace or keep things going in that way. You're probably hiding the fact that you're walking on eggshells all the time. Just like the addicted person is trying to pretend they're not as intoxicated as they are, you're trying to act like you're not as dysregulated as you are because you know that if you move into your dysregulated energy, that's probably going to start a big old something and things are going to get worse. So you're trying to act like you're fine. Yeah. Not just for everybody else's sake, but for your own sake too. Here's a big one. A big one is the fact that you are hiding the fact that you are growing more and more and more resentful and maybe even rageful at the situation. We just ran our second Motivation Unlock Challenge, which is specifically for people who are married to functional alcoholics. And probably in both times, both of the challenges we ran, both times, the big obstacle that family members are facing, and in this case it was spouses, it's not so much that they couldn't pull off the techniques that I was teaching them to do, but just managing their own emotional energy and their own exhaustion and their own rage and their hurt and their sadness. That's the hardest part because you're trying to keep it together. You're trying to be very strategic. You're trying to pull off all these Amber strategies, but inside, you feel like your house is on fire. It is on fire, to be honest. And that's the hardest part, keeping all those feelings inside. Because every time you express them, if you express them to your partner or to your family member who's addicted, They're just going to get really upset. That's probably not going to go well. If you express them to other people, you might feel judged, or they might give you a lot of solutions that just feel annoying because it's like, if you haven't been in that situation, you don't know. You might feel like you're being judged. You might feel like you're putting your loved one's career at risk. And so you're holding it in all the time. And it feels like a volcano about to erupt. Write the word volcano in the chat if you know what I'm talking about, or if there's— is there a volcano emoji? There's a volcano emoji. Put that. You're hiding the fact that you are probably having fantasies of leaving, that you're constantly teetering back and forth on to stay and try or to just go. And it's It's so complicated and difficult because you feel guilty either way. So you feel guilty if you stay because you feel like, am I being an idiot? Am I being that person who's just going to let someone else run all over them? Like, am I falling for all their crap? So you feel guilty and embarrassed about that. But then if you think about leaving, you feel guilty and embarrassed about that. You feel guilty that You know, am I abandoning my person, you know, when they really need me? And that's why it's just so hard because there's no easy answer. It's not clear at all. And either which way you go feels kind of crappy at some point. I see those volcanoes coming up there. I see you, Christy and, um, Michelle and, and Jodi and Sarah. I see some volcanoes getting in there. Hey, uh, Aisha, like it. Um, let me throw this one in there. I know we talked about the addicted person's secrets already, but since we're talking about fantasies of leaving, let me tell you what, the addicted person has fantasies of leaving too. And their fantasy might just be not so much that they leave, but they either run you off and force you to leave because then you're the villain and they're not the villain. Or that they'll put you in a position to force them to leave because then again, they're not the bad one that left, right? It's you that caused it. So a lot of times it's the addict won't necessarily outright just walk out and leave. They will do that on occasion, mostly if there's another person involved. Other than that, they usually sort of push the family member to the limit where the family has to just draw the boundary eventually. And then again, that sucks for the family member because then they feel guilty about it. And the addicted person gets to feel resentful about it and feel sorry for themselves about it, which then fuels the addiction more. It's a bad cycle. The family member sometimes uses the kids as buffers. I've seen this fairly recently where One spouse was really, really struggling with addiction and the kids in this situation were like young adults and teenagers. And so they were pretty aware of what was happening. Of course, the other spouse was falling apart because they were sad. They saw the marriage was ending. They were desperate. They were trying to get control over a very uncontrollable situation. And the kids were seeing all that that was happening. And then what can happen when you're married to someone or you're partnered with someone who has an addiction, you're not getting your needs met there anymore. Hardly any of your needs, but you're definitely not getting your emotional needs met from that relationship anymore. And you don't realize it necessarily, but if your kids are older, as in they're like teenagers or adults, young adults or adults, then you probably might find yourself leaning on your kids emotionally because you don't have your spouse to lean on. And then that puts the kids in a strange position, right? If they're still teenagers, it can be, it can feel like it's really too much for them to handle, but they don't want to tell you that because they already feel very overwhelmed. So they might start trying to control the situation too. And that's what happened in this recent story. One of the, one of the children, it was a teenager, started trying to control it, started trying to track the other parent and call the other parent out and catch the other parent. Doing something that they shouldn't have been. And the non-addicted spouse, I think subconsciously or maybe consciously, I don't know, was glad that was happening because it felt like emotional validation. See, it's not me. Kid's upset with you too. And I'm not saying necessarily that the parent was telling that kid to do that, But it definitely felt like some additional level of control when they felt out of control. And it also felt just sort of emotionally validating, but I promise you it was super unhealthy. A lot of times families fall into their own unhealthy emotional coping mechanism, right? It could be spending, it could be eating, it could be just sort of Detaching, right? Just by like looking at your phone 24/7 or playing online games constantly because you're trying to cope and you're trying not to fall apart. And so you're finding your own little coping skills, which aren't always the healthiest. You're definitely hiding the fact that there's a loss of intimacy emotionally and physically. You feel socially isolated. One of the things that Campbell talks about a lot, which I think is super powerful, she talks about loss of dream. As a spouse, as a parent, you had this vision for how your life was going to go. Even if this is your sibling that's addicted, maybe it was your sister and you always thought, oh my gosh, we're going to be besties. We're going to have this cool life. We're going to go on all these adventures. And then somebody, one of those 2 people get an addiction and All of your dreams that you had for your future fall apart because of that. And so you really grieve that loss of dream and you feel very emotionally isolated. Um, I hear this from parents probably most often, but when your child is struggling, whether they're like, you know, teenager in their 20s, or even if they're 40, it doesn't matter. You feel so sad and so grieving that it's hard for you to see other parents who have other kids who are doing well. And you don't want to feel that way because you know it's not good. Like, you don't want to feel resentful because somebody else's daughter's getting married or somebody else's son is graduating from college or something like that. But you get those invitations, you hear other parents talking about it, and it's just painful. And so because of that, you start to isolate. You don't You don't want to, um, go to the social gatherings with your girlfriends anymore. You don't want to go sit in the teacher's lounge and hear other teachers talk about it because it's just a constant reminder of what's not happening in your family. You're hiding the fact that you secretly blame yourself sometimes. You kind of alternate between being resentful and rageful at the other person. Then feeling guilty at yourself and you're thinking, well, maybe I am making it worse. Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe if I would do this or not do that, this wouldn't happen. Or maybe it's like thinking something you did in the past is causing it. So you're hiding that. You might be hiding the fact that you have a secret contingency plan. Like before, when we talked about like you might have a secret plan of leaving, you might have a lot of contingency plans. You could be hiding a secret fear of enabling, mostly that you want to stop enabling, but you're scared to death to stop. If I stop paying for their bills, if I stop holding them together, what's going to happen? For example, this is your young adult child and you're worried if I stop paying their bills, they're going to live on the street, constantly managing that fear. If this is your partner and you think, if I just take that safety net out from underneath them and they fall, they could lose their job and that could hurt our whole family. So you feel very held hostage. These are the secrets that don't always get talked about. They don't always get brought to the surface, but they're there constantly, just under the surface. Of all of these secrets, which ones are the ones that you struggle with the most? Which one is the one that the secret that you're hiding and that you're holding in and that you're keeping back that's making you feel constantly lonely and isolated? Addiction is so isolating. Whether you're the person who has it or you're the family member, you can be in a room full of all of your favorite people, but because you're holding these secrets, You don't feel connected to anyone else. You feel lonely and sad and depressed and anxious. And as the addiction grows, it just gets further and further and further into that. And it's super sad. And then a lot of times that's why you hear me and other people say connection is the opposite of addiction. When you're in addiction, it's secret keeping, it's withholding, it's cat and mouse, it's every man for themselves. And breaking that cycle means letting go of those secrets on both sides. Now, most of you know that I usually, in my work, I will usually work with the person who has the addiction and I'm constantly talking to them about being above board. I'm like, if you're going to get better, you got to bring it above board. Like, even if you're still drinking and using, can we bring it above board? Because it's the secret keeping and lying and the hiding that destroys the family probably more than anything. So I always talk to them about being above board. But family members, when I work with family members, sort of the same thing because they'll be secret keeping. One I hear about the most is like, I know they've relapsed, or I know that they're still drinking or using, but they're not admitting to me that they're still drinking or using. And you're holding the secret that you know that they're holding a secret. It's like secrets on secrets on secrets, right? Like out of control. And so a lot of times I say, you're going to have to bring that to the surface because you're lying and hiding as much as they're lying and hiding, right? Like we're all playing this game and we're not sure how to serve. Now, if you're a family member and you're holding that kind of secret, I do think it's helpful to bring it to the surface, but there are some ways to do it that are more productive than other ways. You don't want to do it in a super mean or accusatory way. On our, on that recent challenge I was telling you about, this was the case with someone and we were talking about how to bring that to the surface. And I said, bring it to the surface by saying, hey, I've been keeping a secret from you. The secret is, is that I know this and this and this, and I've been letting you go on pretending I don't know it, and that's not fair. So instead of coming out accusatory, you're saying you're, you're, it's more like a confession and it's a way of surfacing it. I'm not saying it won't start a fight, but it's less likely to start a fight, or it's less likely to start a super severe fight. But there are ways to do that. And if you're holding secrets from the addict end, there are ways to surface those. Not going to go over great. I'm not promising you that when you tell all these things, it's always going to be perfect, but it is going to be healing because the lying and the hiding is the most destructive part of everything. Secrets keep addiction alive. It's like the food that they live on. I haven't said this in a while, but I used to say all the time, addiction lives in the dark. And that's what I mean by it. And it's secrets and hiding and lying and sneaking. Those are the conditions necessary for addiction to thrive, whether it's the family member. Or the addicted person. Secrets are the fuel. It's like warm, wet conditions make bacteria grow. Secrets and lying and hiding makes addiction. Your partner's secrets are keeping them sick. Your secrets are keeping you sick. And the only antidote to all of this is to get everything above board, or at least some things above board, right? Can we start small? Can we bring some things to the surface? You can either do that inside your family. You can do that within some kind of community support, with a counselor, with a coach, with a sponsor, with a mentor, with a friend or family member who's been there before. But if you want to start feeling better, you need to surface some of this stuff you're hiding. Because it's like when you're holding a secret, it's like a splinter that's just getting infected, right? And you may think it's really painful to pull that out. Whenever I think about a splinter, I think about a time when I was a kid. I had a splinter right in the bottom of my foot. I was little and my dad wanted to pull it out. And I can remember him like holding me down. I was like kicking and screaming and crying, you know? And he's like with the tweezers trying to get it out. Probably nearly kicked him to death before he could get that splinter out, right? He was the adult and he knew if I don't get this out, I know, you know, you think it's gonna be painful, but if I don't get this out, it's gonna be a lot more painful. That's what I want you to think of when you're holding secrets inside. You can't solve the problem with the secrets still hiding in the dark. It's time to bring it to the surface. And if you're holding a super big secret and you're just not sure how to bring it out, how to say it to your person, then get some advice. Talk to a professional. Figure out what's the best way to do it. It's not easy. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. I'm not saying people aren't going to get upset or that you're not going to have some blowback for it, but if you don't, it just really does turn into this infection, keeps you feeling completely alone and isolated and eventually sick with depression, anxiety, grief, fear. It's just terrible for you. All right, we are almost to our time. I feel like I was in and on depressive. I don't want to end on a depressing note. So let's take some comments, some questions. Let's hear about your experience with this. Go ahead and throw them over there in the chat if you're watching live. If you're watching the playback, hey, we're glad you're here too. We're live every Thursday at 1 Eastern. If you want to join us live, we'd love to see you here. The software I use called StreamYard has a new feature. If you put a question mark on it, it'll alert us easier that there's a question there. So go ahead and put your questions and your comments in chat. Bree's going to be looking for those. In the meantime, there are resources in the description for you as always. We just finished our Motivation Unlock Challenge, but we'll have another one in January, in the middle of January. If you want to sign up for that, the link is down there. There's recovery coaching, there's all kinds of things. So take a look down there. Any resource, if there's a resource that's not there that you're looking for, let me know. Because even if I don't have it, I might know someone that does or somewhere where you can get that. So be sure and post that. And if I don't know, somebody else in this community probably knows. Together we could put our minds together and we could figure out some solutions. All right, Bree, we have any good questions over there? If it's so, why do they constantly push people away? I'm thinking that you mean, um, The addiction, the addicted person, Mary, why are they constantly pushing people away? I'm assuming that's what you're— Because they're holding all these secrets and they feel terrible. And the people around them are kind of bothersome, to be honest, because they're usually, if someone gets close enough to them and they see their secret, and once your secret gets seen, then they're on your case and that doesn't feel good. It makes you feel bad about yourself. You start isolating and pushing people away. Reset. He's giving me the one second. Looks like there's a question. Here it comes. Oh, hey Cheryl, thank you for the Super Chat. That's awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All of those Super Chats go to help fund video. I appreciate it. A lot goes into these videos. Editors, got all kinds of people that help. Jessica Wade says, husband is coming out of rehab next week. He's agreed to do breathalyzer each day. So thank you for that recommendation. I've had to read my impact letter on Monday and he's terrified. He said it may set back and make him want to drink. And I'm praying it goes over well and that they can work with him on it before he gets out. Sorry, the question is, do you think it is an important part of rehab to do the impact letter? Do you think it could set him back 2 days before leaving rehab? This is tough. I'm glad that you're doing it while they're in rehab because it's at least they're in rehab to have some kind of support and to process it versus just Being confronted with it at home when they're raw and they're newly out and they're vulnerable. I think that would be worse. I wish they did it before it was 2 days before leaving rehab, because that doesn't feel like a lot. If I were you, I might ask this person's counselor, because this person's counselor might know a little bit more specifically about your partner and to say, hey, you know, I know they're fragile. I know they need to hear this, but I want to do this in a way that's helpful to bring this stuff to the surface, but not In a way that's going to set them back. So maybe you want to ask the counselor about that. Maybe there's some things that you want to hold for a little bit. I don't know, but the counselor might know. Maybe there's a way to do it that's less detrimental, but I love the fact that you're thinking about that. Jody says, so true. How do you find out if they're hiding it from me and what do you do about it? Good question, Jody. I have an answer for you. You don't. You stop worrying about if they're hiding it from you. If you're dealing with an addict or alcoholic, they're hiding something from you. Period. End of story. I already told you, so now you know. You found out because I've told you. You don't have to look for addiction. It shows itself. So I'm not just being sarcastic. It will, the unmanageability will surface itself. You may not catch every Drink, every smoke, every whatever. But if someone is addicted, they cannot manage their addiction well enough to keep it hidden. So all you have to do is just step back and let it surface. And the more you don't look for it, the more likely they are to get careless and it'll surface faster. The more you're trying to find it, the sneakier and more strategic and secretive all the things that they get. You don't have to look for it. It shows itself. Like, for example, when I used to run IOP programs, part of that is you have to drug screen. So I would drug screen people at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. And I didn't worry too much about people cheating a test. I mean, we took basic precautions and we had some ways to test to see if the— we did urine tests to see if the urine had been tampered with or something. But I didn't overly worry about this because if someone is addicted, they might be able to do whatever they got to do to get by with one screen, but they're not going to be able to do it consistently. And so that's what I mean when I say you don't have to chase it down. It will surface. So you just step back and let it surface. And that keeps you out of the bad guy role too. I noticed That like professional-level drinkers use little bottles hidden around the house. You that's exactly right. I always wonder if the mini bottles were banned, would there not be any more alcohol? You are 100% right, Nick, about the little mini bottles because they're easy to put in your pocket. They're just so much easier to hide. The bottles themselves are easy to get rid of. Another reason alcoholics use them that that you might not realize is that. Sometimes it's their way of trying to control how much they drink. Like they're afraid if they buy the whole big bottle that they'll drink it all. So they try to tell themselves, if I just buy like 2 or 3 of these mini bottles a day, that's all I'll drink. Now it doesn't work because they end up going back and getting more. So sometimes it's the little ones so they can hide it, but sometimes it's the little ones because they're trying to manage. Do I think if they didn't have mini bottles, there wouldn't be any more alcoholics? Absolutely not. Like, For sure not. It might make it less convenient, but it is definitely not going to do anything to impact alcoholism. Remember, in this country we did prohibition, like we outlawed alcohol completely. It did not reduce the amount of alcoholics. So it's kind of a funny thought, interesting, but I don't think it would help. Any advice when they're from another country or culture That doesn't really believe most are alcoholics. So what you're saying, Jennifer, is there are some cultures where it's just so normal, I think is what you're saying, that somebody could be full alcoholic and it could just be like totally normal and no one thinks anything. I do think that's a little hard because the culture is reinforcing it. But you have that in a lot of situations, like the culture of being a teenager reinforces it. The culture of being in college reinforces it. And so that can be the case in a lot of situations. What you want to do when you're dealing with someone who has a problem is you want to focus on how they feel about it, not how everyone else feels about it, not how you feel about it. A lot of what we talk about in the Motivation Unlock Challenge, because no matter if the culture's reinforcing it or not, this person deep down inside, it's part of their secrets. They're hiding the fact that they don't like some things. And that they wish they could stop or they wish they could cut back or they wish they would quit making this mistake when they're drinking. There's something in there. And if you can find what they think about it, that little piece, that'll get you a lot further anyway, because that's what matters, what they think about it, not what everyone else thinks. Michelle says, my boyfriend and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend gets out of jail in weeks. I've been relieved at getting my life back. He's been an abusive. He's been abusive in the past on all levels. How do navigate my concern? Which I understand most of what you're saying. You have boyfriend. He's abusive. He's in jail. He's going to get out soon. And one of the things about being him being in jail has made you feel like finally relieved. Sometimes you don't even know how bad it is till you get a break from him. And I don't understand exactly the question here about your concern. Your concern about what? Like breaking up with him? You're concerned that he's going to come and find you? Can you tell me a little bit more about— I'm sure you have a lot of concerns, but which is the one you're talking about right here? Ann says, should I tell my husband's daughter that he's doing coke after he had open heart surgery? This is a good question, and I get this a lot. Not always doing coke after open heart surgery, but frequently I get, do I tell their doctor? Do I tell? Probably not. And I'll explain that. There might be a couple of circumstances where you should. I'll just kind of give you my thinking process on it, and that might help. When you tell someone's Doctor or counselor or psychiatrist. Here's the dilemma you're at. If you tell them, but then you tell that doctor, counselor, whatever, not to tell the person, then there's nothing they can do about it anyway. All you're doing is stressing out the doctor and the counselor because if they can't bring it up because you're telling them in secret, it doesn't do any good. The other thing that could happen is they could bring it up. They could tell the person that you called and told them that. And if that happens, that's going to backfire on you. So if you are going to tell them and then you're going to give permission to say that you told them and you're ready for the blowback, then okay, do it. But if you're just going to tell them in secret, I probably wouldn't because it's just not going to get very far. And your loved one is going to be beyond furious. I know it's hard because you think the doctor should know it, but from an addictive perspective, I don't know that that's going to help you. It's really just going to put you more in the villain role, which is going to feed the addiction. If you're going to do it, I would tell your loved one you're going to do it and just say, hey, just so you know, I'm going to tell. I'm not keeping that secret. Like I said, above board. If you're going to do it, make it above board. Valverde. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right. Valverde. Him getting out mentally and emotionally abusing me and blaming me. What if he becomes abusive? My first thought is he probably will. And so I had that first thought and I felt bad about thinking it or I was trying to say it, but. True. If you're going, especially if you've not broken up with him and you're about to put the breakup on him, he's going to be mad about it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying he's going to be mad. He's going to have resentment and self-pity. He's probably going to start by trying to beg you back and be nice. And if that doesn't work, then the switch might flip and he might be ugly or nasty. So put some protection in place. You're sure this is what you want to do? I'd probably like Change the number, block the social media. Like, because you're saying is abusive, and I'm imagining in my case, like, pretty serious scenarios. So you probably need to take some precautions. Dale says, how does the family balance letting the lies out and not violating the addict's privacy and remaining self- Oh, I'm glad you said this. When I say letting the secrets out, I mean the secrets you're keeping from each other, not necessarily going and telling like the addict secrets to everyone else. You don't have to cover them. You don't have to fix things for them. So if they go out like a fool and everybody knows it, that's on them. But if you go and tell their secrets to other family members, like friends, church members, coworkers, That's not going to work well. First of all, you're probably keeping secrets that you're telling other people, but that's still secret. I don't suggest you be the one putting the information out as far as from the, does it help the addict perspective? It does not. And sometimes family members do that because they're actually trying to get support from outside people. Because especially if it's the spouse, because the spouse is the only one sees it. So the spouse is like, Constantly bringing it up to the person and they can't get anywhere with them. So they think, well, maybe if I talk to their best friend, maybe if I talk to the, you know, the people in a small group at church or to their mom or to their dad. In my experience, that doesn't help. That always blows up. So yes, you can bring the secrets, but I'm talking about the secrets you keep from each other, not necessarily telling the addict's secrets to everyone. Oh. Hope that— I'm glad you asked that because I didn't clarify. All right, Bree says we are to the end of our time for today. You guys are awesome. You're asking great questions. Thank you so much for everyone who showed up live. Sure helps to have other people here and not feel like I'm talking to myself completely. And thank you for everyone who watched on the playback. Be sure and put your comments and questions in. In the comment section, I always look at them and read. If you enjoyed this video, you got something out of it, and you're not subscribed, would be awesome if you would subscribe because it's the best way to help get these videos to other people. I hear all the time, I wish I would have found you sooner. And so we can't go back and fix that, but we can help someone else find this information sooner. 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