What Therapists Get Wrong About Self-Esteem and Addiction

Addiction and self esteem is a tricky, intertwined, complicated issue. And it's easy to get wrong. Some people look at addiction and they think, well, people have addictions, they're just really selfish. Other people look at addictions and people struggling with addictions and they think, oh, they just don't have any self esteem, they're just self medicating. But as always, it's not as simple as one or the other. It's complicated, it's really mixed up. And honestly, it's a little bit of both. A lot of people with substance abuse problems have a real low sense of self worth. But on the other hand, they may also display very sort of selfish or self absorbed behaviors. And it's really the combination of two things. One leads to the other and back and forth. And not only does it create this sort of feedback loop, this dynamic with inside of a person, but that dynamic and feedback loop then pings off of the psychology of what's going on with their family member. And then they also get into a self esteem, low sense of self worth, but then may also engage in self absorbed or self seeking behaviors. And then once we get all those two things tangled up, we start in the blame game where we have the addicted person blaming the family, the family blaming the addicted person, and then it's a whole big mess in there. If you can relate to what I'm talking about, raise your little hand emoji. So I know that I'm talking to the right people here. Let's dissect it a little bit. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. You are watching the YouTube channel put the Shovel down where we talk about the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life or your family back on track. All right, so let's, let's talk about this topic. It's what, what typically happens is someone. Well, let's just start with this. A lot of therapists believe that it's the low self esteem that leads people to having an addiction. And I guess in some cases that could be true. But what I see more frequently is that it is the addiction that leads to a sense of low self esteem. And that sense of low self esteem, low confidence, low self worth, leads us into a victim type of a thinking. And believe it or not, that victim type of thinking leads us into justifying our own selfish behaviors, selfish decisions, and then we end up hurting the people around us. Then those people then get very upset with us because of what we're doing. And then that reinforces the victim type of thinking. I see this all the time in my office. As most of you know, in our office we see whole family systems struggling with an addiction. And we, we try to address it from every side of the equation, from the family side and from the person struggling with an addiction side. And most of you know that I'm usually the one in the office that sees the person who has the actual addiction. And I can definitely attest to you that pretty much everyone I talk to struggles with this conflicting cognitive dissonance, you might call it, that's the fancy word for it, but these conflicted feelings between being really, really angry with themselves, being upset with themselves, being mad at themselves, disappointed. They carry around all this shame, guilt and remorse and regret, but they simultaneously have a lot of resentment and anger and they feel very unfairly judged. Just this week I was talking to some newer clients and I think it was about three different new clients I talked to this week. And each of them said in a different way, they're like, I have this problem, I've really got to stop. You know, it's making me be the kind of person I don't want to be. But then they also like in that same breath say, but I'm not like those people. Hey, hey, I'm not that bad. I don't know why everyone's pointing the finger at me. I go to work every day. So there's this low self worth and then this justification, a way of sort of minimizing it. So it's, it's holding both thoughts at the same time of saying, you know, I'm doing something bad, I feel guilty about it. But then they self medicate that thought, not just from the addiction, but also from this way of minimizing it. It's kind of the way we can admit sometimes that we're doing something not great and not lose our entire whole sense of self. So it's really a defense mechanism and it's, it's actually okay. And it's helpful. What a lot of people try to do is they try to, when they run into this kind of thinking, which you will run into when you're helping somebody, has an addiction or just living with them is you want to reinforce to them how bad it is and how bad their decision making is and how they're ruining everyone. But what ends up happening is, is their, their ego, their sense of self is so low, they can't really tolerate that. So you have to do this delicate balance of helping them to see that, yes, you're making Some bad decisions. Yes, your behaviors are hurting other people and yourself, but you're not necessarily a bad person and it's not your intention. And when you can see both sides of that coin with the person, they're going to trust you a lot more because they're going to feel like you see it a lot more accurately. When people don't see that accurately, then the person ends up feeling judged or they end up feeling controlled, or they end up feeling unfairly criticized. And that usually just results in more self medicating through the addiction and also through the minimizing and the rationalizing of their own behavior. And it actually, when that process happens, it keeps people stuck in denial a lot longer than they otherwise would be. Most people that I see that struggle with addiction on some level blame their families. Some of them blame their family. 100 like. Like though it depends on sort of what level of denial they're in. Some people will tell me like I don't have a problem at all. You know, my mom is crazy and she's making me come here or something like that. And others will say my family is great, my wife is the best thing ever. And they'll say all this really great thing things about them. And they'll initially they'll be like it's all me and I have this terrible problem. But if you talk to that person a little longer, you'll get underneath that. And, and even if initially they're saying all the right things there, there's more underneath that. And that's a feeling resentful and angry at the family for being pushed, judged, for past things that have been hurtful. And they're holding on to those grievances. And they are that holding on and ruminating on these things is fueling the addictive behavior. And around and around we go. Now the same cycle happens on the family member side. The family feels, the family member feels very, very victimized by the behavior of the person struggling with an addiction. And they also feel very unfairly criticized. And sometimes they feel judged. And when they feel like they're being unfairly treated and having to take care of all the responsibilities and they're building the resentments, then they fall into the victim thinking, which often leads the family member to acting out. Now they don't necessarily act out by going to engage in an addictive behavior, but they'll act out by invading privacy, by yelling, screaming, saying really nasty things. They'll start crossing boundaries. And when that happens again, now we get into the cycle of the person with the addiction. Then Feels victimized, falls into that cycle. And as you can see, it's just a domino effect where one thing pings off of the other thing. And from the family member perspective, it's like on one hand you're looking at this person, you think you are the most selfish, self absorbed human being ever. You probably watch some YouTube videos, you've probably labeled them a narcissist even you've gone that far. But on the other hand, if I talk to you very long, you'll say, but really, they just really have low self esteem and they've really been through some hard things. And so the family also feels very, very conflicted. And I think if once they, once you get past that first layer and the family member, they really do see it, both sides of it, they do see who this person truly is. And that in some ways they have been through something traumatic and that they are struggling and they have all this empathy for the person, but they're also angry at them. And so you have this empathy, resentment combo coming back and forth on both sides of the equation. A lot of people mistakenly think, and this includes therapists, this includes people trying to find their way out of addiction, their families, and everybody else involves sponsors. Everybody involved in the process feels like, well, they just hate themselves so badly and if we could just help them feel better about themselves, then they'll probably stop this addiction. But once you get pretty far into addiction, to the point that your family's mad at you, to the point that you're having to come to talk to someone like me or go to treatment or something like that, you're never going to get somebody's self esteem better. You get them to stop the addictive behavior. Because as long as someone's engaging in addictive behavior, they're going to be acting in a way that's probably not congruent or aligned with their values. And as long as we're behaving in a way that doesn't fit with our value system, we're not going to like ourselves. There's only one way to get self esteem and that is to feel good about who you are as a person. And there's just no way that's going to happen. If you're holding all these secrets and you're carrying around all this shame and, and most days you're doing things, you're lying, you're sneaking, you're hiding, maybe you're stealing, maybe you're doing other things, other manipulative things that maybe you're not even acknowledging outwardly. But on the inside, you know the truth of it. And there's just no way you're going to have a positive sense of self. So it can be difficult to help someone dig out of the scenario. One of the ways that I have found that works pretty, that works really well for me. It's part of the process of what I do in like our, our recovery coaching, which I call strength based recovery coaching for the exact reasons of what I'm talking about today. I focus on someone's strengths. We focus on, but we don't just sort of. It's not just all rah rah positive and you're fabulous and you're wonderful. If that worked to get someone out of addiction, then I'd be fine with that. I don't have a moral problem with that. But it's like you have to build someone up enough to see their good qualities and to remember their strength and their courage and then being able to use that and harness those strengths to overcome the addiction. Because it's not until we can put that addictive behavior aside that we're going to really truly like who we are. We're just not going to fix that self esteem problem until we address that addiction problem. And it's easy for. It's a lot easier for me to do it than it is for the family to do it because I haven't been living with this person for years and I haven't been hurt by their behaviors and decisions. And so sometimes that's why you have to farm it out. Families, those of you who watch these videos, you guys do a pretty good job of it, actually. Way better than anybody else in your situation because you realize you've made some different decisions, you're reacting strategically, but you are a human being. I mean, even me, who only has to deal with a person, you know, an hour a week or something, I'll sometimes get frustrated and reach my limit. And sometimes I'll even feel hurt or lied to or something like that. And that can lead me to making bad decisions as well as far as how to interact with it. So if I can feel that way and I'm only dealing with it a very short period of time, and you're dealing with it every day, all day. Of course you're going to run out of empathy and you're going to get frustrated. If there's one thing that we try really hard on this channel to do is to help people struggling in addiction understand their family and vice versa. People, family, people have addictive family members. We want you to understand the person who has an addiction. Because once you can unlock from this blame game, from this tear each other down cycle, that's when you can start making some progress. That's when you can start having some like authentic, helpful, good conversations about it. But it takes a lot of courage. You have to put all of your defensiveness down. You have to stop acting from a fear based place in order to really look at the issue and come up with helpful, positive solutions and make take steps in the right direction. In just a second, we are going to, or Bri is going to be taking some of your questions and your comments and we're going to take a look at those. If you will write the word question in all caps or put question marks or something like that in front of your question to help it stand out, that helps Bri. We probably, we may not get to all of them, but we'll get to as many of them as possible. And the more related to the topic it is, the more likely it is that we'll be able to address your question. And while we wait for those to get up there, I will tell you, as always, there are resources in the description for, for both sides, for family members and for people who are either thinking about overcoming addiction or in the early stages of it, or who are doing pretty good and just want to make sure they're still on the right track. Be sure to check out those resources if you're interested in strength based coaching, which in my mind is recovery coaching, I call it. It's coaching that's designed to build you up, not tear you down. Because I feel like so much addiction counseling and treatment is all about tearing you down and then building you back up. I kind of feel like you have to like build people up a little bit and help them. It's not, it's not a build you up as a, in a false way, it's in a true way that gives people the strength to let go of this crutch that they're holding on to. Because that's what you're really trying to do. You're trying to get people to let go of a crutch, right? And the, the more scared you make them, the more you beat them up, the more they're gonna hold them to that crutch, right? So it's like, how do we get someone to let go of that? And in my experience, helping to make people feel safe, helping to build people up, helping people to realize that there are lots of solutions makes, makes them a lot more willing to consider letting go of this crutch or this safety net that they're holding on to. All right, Bri, do we have some good ones today? Happy Halloween, by the way, everybody. All right, here we go. We got a good question. My loved one keeps lying and drinking. I'm not calling him out either, following your advice, but he's exhausting me. Please help. He refuses therapy or treatment. I heart you and your team. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Oh, there's a second part. Second part of first message. Oh, look, these people are getting smart, Bri. They're like, labeling them 1 and 2. I love it. I'm aware that therapy and treatment do not fix anyone. They give you the tools to navigate living a sober life. For me, it's anorexia. For him, it's booze. And I'm actively working on mine lately. It's. Lately. Is it self esteem or self image? I have thought it was the latter or your. What are your thoughts? Bless you. You can see my desperation. I have great respect for you and your advice, my deepest things. Okay, so I think what the main question that you're. That you're asking me here is, I'm trying not to call him out, but he keeps lying and he keeps drinking. And this is what I tell people in our invisible intervention course. The first couple of steps to helping someone is just building rapport and credibility. And the first step in doing that is exactly what you're doing, which is stop calling them out. Now, usually when you do that, it is going to get a little worse in the beginning, and I don't want you to see that as a sign that it's not working. Because what you're trying to do, that not calling it out is not going to make someone stop doing it. Because for a little while, they're going to be like, finally, she's off my butt. And now I do what I want to do, like, thank the goodness, right? And then they're going to think the coast is clear and it's going to escalate. And that's a natural response in the beginning. But what happens is, is if you. If you're just stepping back out of the way, you're not jumping in there to be the bad guy, they're going to get increasingly more uncomfortable with it. Like I said, the behavior is probably going to get worse to begin with. And your goal while that's happening is, is to let them witness their own behavior getting worse without having the ability to blame you for any of it. The. The less they can blame you, the better. And that's why it's so hard to sort of step back and watch it, because it feels like a train wreck during that time. If you are also. If you're in our invisible intervention, you may also be using a lot of our communication skills, a lot of our active listening skills. And I call that building credibility, right? So the first thing is stepping out of the bag of roll, which is what you're doing. The second thing is building credibility. And you do that by helping the other person understand that you get them. Like you really get them. And we go through all the steps in invisible intervention. But if I could break it down for you, just super simple here is ask yourself this question. If Amber was talking to them, what would they tell her about situation? What would be their point of view on it? Because that's going to be their side. And that may be hard for you to think about that because you may immediately feel defensive and you may be like, but that's not true. What they think is inaccurate, and that's not fair. And they're not seeing it. But that does. That's not the point, right? Ask yourself how do they see the situation and articulate it to them that way. See their side of things, because that's what's going to make them feel completely heard and understood. So you're out of the bag of roll. Step one, you're building credibility, which is kind of like building a credit score, right? The more this person thinks that you get them, the more credit you have. Then you wait for one of those moments of clarity. And that usually happens. Honestly, I hate it. But it usually happens after something not great happens. Sometimes it just happens because people just get sick and they just get wore out of it, and they just. They're just like, I'm just sick of being this way. I'm sick of waking up feeling sick. I'm sick of going to work hungover. I'm. I'm just tired of arguing all this stuff. And it's just more of a buildup process. But a lot of times it's kind of like after a big fight, maybe after a dui, maybe after something kind of not great's happened, they'll have a moment of clarity. And once they have that moment of clarity and you've got the right amount of credit built, then you can then jump in and have some options for them. That's the formula that's going to get you there. That's what I do when they come to see me. That's the formula. I stay out of the bag. I roll. I build credibility, and I wait for my moment, and then I say, hey, when they say, I'm struggling, I have a problem, I want to do something different. And then I say, well, what about this? Or this or this? Because they feel like I really understand their situation, and they don't feel like I'm making them. That's. That's another part I don't talk about as much. I throw it out as, what do you think about? I don't know. Do you think this work for you? There's not a real big push. It's just an offering of ideas, and I usually try to give more than one. They're going to be a lot more receptive about taking that. Now, if you've got out of the bag of row and you've built your credit and you're not getting a moment of clarity, there is a process we teach, an invisible intervention of, like, measuring your credit score. And when your score gets to a certain amount and you may have to push, I call it, like, pushing. Say, all right, like, I love you. I'm in it for you. I support you. I get it. But I can't do this anymore. You may have to lay down the law. You may have to put the big boundary down or say, it's time or else. And. And it doesn't always work, so you try to avoid doing that. You want them to have that moment of clarity because it's just smoother and better. But sometimes if it's just not happening, just not happening, you may have to push it a little bit, and. And you have the best chances of good results if you've. If you've sort of built this credibility the right way. I know that's a little bit complicated, but it is a. It's a bit of a formula, but I hope that helps. Dale says, I reached my limit with my addicted wife this summer. I gave her an ultimatum of rehab or divorce before seeing your podcast. She did rehab, and it did not work. Now I am the ultimate bad guy, and she's drinking and in denial. I've reversed course, but she can't let go of what I did to her. How can I help if she won't let go of the past bad guy role? She will always be able to vilify me. This is a really good question, and it actually comes up kind of a lot, Dale. It's like, okay, I admitted I made mistakes. I handled it in ways I wish I wouldn't have, but they won't let go of it. Part of why they Won't let go of it, Dale, is because they need you to be in the villain role. Like, sometimes it's like no matter how hard you try, they just. They're just keeping you. They're not gonna let you off the villain hook. And I think that's what you're saying. I would probably address it straight out, and it may not work, Dale, but. But that, I think would give you the best efforts. You can say, look, I know I did it wrong in the past, and I'm trying really hard to do it differently this time. And it would be awesome if you would forgive me for how I handled it in the past. And let's turn over a new leaf. And if you can turn over a linear leaf for me, I can do the same for you. That's how I would say it. And so I would bring it to this person's attention that you really are trying to change and literally ask them to reassess the situation. If they can't do that or they won't do that, or they won't even have the conversation with you, then you can even have a process comment about that. You can say, it's obvious that you're not going to let me out of the bad guy roll. It's obvious that no matter how much I'm trying to change and how helpful I'm trying to be, you're going to hang on to that. And then. And then you can set a boundary there. And. And so because of that, X, Y or Z or whatever, you know, I'm going to have to back up because whatever I do, you see, is making it worse. So you're bringing it to their attention, basically, that they're hanging on to it, won't let go. That's. That's the way I would deal with it. It's pretty directly not mean, but honest. Wakim says, how long does it take for people recovering to stop seeing themselves as victims? My loved one is going longer periods of time without alcohol, but in those periods, the victim mentality doesn't go away. Kim, if you could tell me. I know you're saying longer and longer periods, but are we talking about weeks? Are we talking about days? Talking about months? We're talking about years. What are we talking about there? Because I think it. It's going to take more than 30 days. I would say to. Really, people start to feel a little better in. In about 30 days. But after 30 days, they start to see their situation a little bit more clearly. Like they. They gain a lot more insight and awareness So I don't know how long of periods of time your person's having. Tony says, how does self esteem relate to self compassion? Self compassion is more important to have. Is self compassion more important to have? Well, the more self compassion you have, the better your self esteem will be. If you're very critical of yourself, then you're gonna be constantly negatively judging yourself and having a ton of negative self talk, tearing down your self esteem. So the more compassion you can have, the more quickly, the more resilient you'll be able to give yourself a little grace which then actually allows you to make different decisions. When you're beating yourself up and you're just tearing yourself down mentally in your own head, you tend to make even more bad choices. So self compassion first and then self esteem I'd say. Michelle says my 24 year old son Dan has no self esteem. He can't do anything adultish on his own. He is now his dad's several states away from me. No alcohol, no weed, no nicotine vape as of yesterday. No money, no hope, no motivation to do anything besides taking his cause. Empathizing with how hard it must be to have no coping mechanisms he leans on. What else can I do? Where is there space to suggest things? This is a really, this is a really good question. It sounds to me like that he's very, it sounds to me like Dan is very, very early in the process and he's probably in withdrawal. So I, I wouldn't do a lot of suggesting while someone's in withdrawal because they're very fragile, they're very vulnerable, they're barely hanging on. Right. So what you're doing right now, Michelle, is spot on, is you're just encouraging and you're, you're building them up. I, I like to try to help people see that the grass is going to get greener and help them see that it won't be this hard forever. As far as advice is going, decide how much credibility you think you have with them. Do you think that they believe that you completely understand them? If the answer to that is yes, then you can throw out a suggestion. I would call it a suggestion, not even advice or some ideas to consider. If you get the impression that they think, oh, you don't get it and you don't understand and it's just different and you've never been here before, then I wouldn't throw out any advice because, or recommendations or suggestions because they're not going to be open and willing to hear it because they're literally going to Think you don't get it. You don't understand like that. And here's the thing. You don't have to have been there before to get it and understand. You just have to be able to verbalize that you can see things from their perspective and. And that will help them feel that way. Debbie says, I have a loved one who's in a shelter mission because he hit a very hard rock bottom. He texted, I don't feel I deserve to be left here with the crackheads. How do I respond? He will waffle between that and I'm a loser. This is a really good example, Debbie, of this sort of complex dynamic of, like, victim thinking, and I hate myself. And it's. It's strange because they seem to be opposed. That's why I call it cognitive dissonance. Like, I'm such a loser. I hate myself, but I'm better than these people. So it's just this sort of conflict. I would probably try not to argue with them on the, like, I'm here in with the crackheads kind of situation. I would say I would sort of empathize with them. I would use my active listening skills. I wouldn't necessarily fix it, but I would empathize with the situation. Yeah, but that does suck. What's it like there? Let them talk about what it's like there. And. And that usually helps people to be less defensive about it and feel more heard, which doesn't fix it, but it does help them feel heard and supported. TL's question is, My son was hurt because I allowed him to feel the natural consequences of his behavior, and he wants me to apologize for this. How do I apologize, or do I apologize for how he's hurt? You're gonna have to tell me, tl, what you did, like, what you mean by allowed him to feel the natural consequences. For example, like, sometimes parents especially, will, like, maybe the person's doing something crazy and the parent calls the law and has them arrested, and maybe they need to be arrested, right? Maybe they were, like, literally being abusive, breaking things in the house, selling things, whatever. But because you're the one that created the. You're the one that called the cops, so they end up blaming you. So is it something like that, or is it something more like, well, I just didn't pay his electric bill. I just didn't bail him out. Can you tell me what it was that you did with the natural consequences? I can. I can give you a better answer if you can. Zahibia says I put a boundary out for my 21 year old son not to smoke up near the house because his younger siblings see him. He's been, and it's been over two months and he has cut me out. What should I do? Am, am I under. I'm a little confused here. Does, does your 21 year old son live with you and he's just not talking to you or he doesn't live with you and you tell him if you come over here you can't smoke near the house and because you told him that, he's just not coming around. If some, I don't know what the answer to that is, but I will say this. If someone has cut you out and they're refusing to talk to you, it is a boundary that they're setting. And even if you don't agree and even you don't like it, you, you should respect their boundary. Laura says, 10 years of up and down with my husband. I gave him a choice, get help or move out. He moved out, left me and two darling kids. Now divorced kids are so hurt. He is so angry with me. Why I feel I did, I, I don't feel I did anything. This is pretty common, Laura, when you give the ultimatum and I'm not. You may have heard me say this before, Laura, I'm not sure, but when you give the big ul made them like that, you have to be really, really ready for it because a lot of times they do choose to leave or whatever. And when they choose to leave, they will absolutely make you the villain. You know, like, I can't believe you left me. You took my kids from me. What about in sickness and health? I mean, and they'll hold on to that resentment and they'll ruminate on it every single day from now until the end of eternity. And if they were ma about it when it happened, it's 10 years later, there'll be 10 times more mad about it. So it, it definitely will happen. And at some point you just have to realize that that is a choice that that person is making at this point. He's not with you. You've already made that decision or he made the decision, I guess I would say. And sometimes you just can't control what someone's thinking. If, if you've given someone an ultimatum like that and they've chose to move out, they're going to see you as the villain. You're not gonna rash, you're not going to be able to rationalize with them on that. Hey Debbie, thank you for the super sticker. That's awesome. I appreciate It. All of that. Those super sticker donations go to help produce this content. You're the best. Thank you. Kate says, how do I get him to stop and just shut up? At the very least, he's delusional when drunk and narcissistic. Is there more going on than drinking? That's where I'm at. Okay, so there's two questions here. Oh, wait, there's more. He did four therapy sessions and didn't even mention the drink. I'm not. Not surprised. But he is using. But he is using the. The therapist against me. Also not surprised about that. It's very common when he wants his way. He'll say, my therapist said. Which of course, is made up. Oh, yeah, we call that at the office. We call that throwing. Throwing under the bus. And our clients will throw us under the bus all the time. And. And it. Sometimes they'll just like. What you're saying, Kate, is they'll just literally lie and say you said something you didn't. Other times, maybe you did say it, but they're totally saying it without all the context. Or maybe you did say it, but you said it in response to a whole bunch of not truth that you heard. So, you know, they're not. They're not giving the whole story of it a lot of times. And even if they said exactly the way that they're saying it, they're using it as a weapon, which isn't. Okay, here's what I tell my clients about that. I say, you're gonna get in a fight with your loved one, and you're gonna be tempted to say, amber said you should have talked to me like that. Or whatever. I'll say, never do that. You know why you should never do that? Because you need me to co. Sign with you, with your loved ones sometimes. And if you throw me under the bus, then me and you neither one have no credit, and I can't help you, so don't do that. So we talk to our clients actively about it, and sometimes I forget to have that conversation. And then they do this. I'm like, dude, you're screwing it up for us both. All right. But you ask a different question at the beginning. Let me slide back to that. Yeah. This one. This one. How do I get him to stop and shut up? At the very least, he's delusional when drinking. Oh, yeah. There's two questions here. The first question is, how do you get him to shut up when he's drinking? If someone's drinking, you're not going to be able to reason with them. You're just gonna have to, like, avoid the conversation or go to another room or choose not to be around them when they're drinking. You're not gonna get anywhere with someone who's drinking, and then not only are they gonna not shut up, but they're going to say the same thing a hundred thousand times. It's going to be super annoying. He's delusional and drunk and narcissistic. Is there more going on drink? I have no idea because I don't know this person, Kate. But the fact that you say he's like this when drunk makes me think that it's mostly alcohol. Because just that statement right there says he's like this when he's drunk. If he's like that all the time, if he was like that before he ever started drinking, then I might would tell you something different. But it's like I said, it's a guess. But it's a guess based on what you're saying. Oh, this is TL's rest of the question. My son got beat up because he was keeping the wrong company. And he is upset that I didn't rush to his side in the hospital. He wasn't on his deathbed, but got banged up good, hurt that I wasn't by his side. I explained I was allowing him to experience the natural consequences of his behavior. He is hurt and wants an apology. Okay, you. You, tia what you want to do. The. The natural consequences works best when you pair it with empathy. So I don't agree with your son that you owe him an apology. But strategically, I would probably apologize because if something like that happens, if you showed up at his side, I mean, you. He's done beat up at that point. He's done in the hospital. He's hurt and he's experiencing it whether you're there or not. But if you up and you're empathetic, that consequence plus the empathy actually activates the learning part of their brain and they start to learn the lesson. And what's happened now is, yeah, you had natural consequence. But somehow instead of looking at, I kept myself around the wrong people, I got myself in a bad situation. It's like he's focused on you being the villain. He's thrown you into that bad guy role. So it's not just the natural consequence. It's the natural consequence of plus the empathy that creates the learning process. So I probably would apologize because when you said to him, he's upset, and you're saying, well, you did this to yourself, Basically it's, it's going to feel a little bit like kicking someone when they're down. So I would honestly probably try to reverse back out of that. Even if it's not fair. Strategically, if you do it this other way, it's going to be more effective for you. Do you have any videos about adulting? Are there options for alcoholics who want adult? 45 year old brother is now homeless after stealing and manipulating the family for decades. It's hard with a 45 year old if you, if the person was a little younger it's, it's easier because a lot of young adult recovery programs actually naturally build in adulting stuff like getting a job, making your bed, like doing chores, paying bills, like regular stuff like that. Because young adults almost always that are trying to get recovery almost always do have to learn those skills. But even at 45, most recovery programs maybe not initially like in the detox phase and stuff like that, but when you get into the other levels of it, there's some sort of natural teaching of adulting skills because you have to take care of your area, you have to pay your bills, you have to resolve conflicts with the other people in the treatment. So there's an. The recovery process itself naturally teaches some adulting stuff if they're in a treatment program. Hey Laura, thank you for the super sticker. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much. All right, we are out of time for today. I hope you all have a happy Halloween. Thank you so much for showing up here. If you're watching on the playback, we're glad you're here to join the conversation. I read all of your comments and if you want to catch us live, we're live every Thursday at 1. Don't forget, all of those resources are in the description. The strengths based coaching, the invisible intervention. You can meet with one of our family recovery specialists to think it through. Oh, C.J. another super chat, man. I don't three super chats like wow, that's a lot. Thank you guys. You guys are the best. I appreciate it. I'll see you guys next week. Bye everybody.