When "I can quit on my own" Becomes a Broken Record

So your loved one's not in the completely in denial stage anymore. They acknowledge that whatever's going on is a problem, but they seem to be stuck in this pattern of I can do it myself. You know, it's this, okay, I know I've got a drinking problem, I know I'm smoking too much, whatever it is. But it's like, I don't really need help. I don't need to go to treatment, I don't need to talk to a counselor. I don't need to watch no videos. I can do this myself. And I. What do you do when your loved one gets stuck in that pattern? And they've said that like a million times and you know, it's just not gonna work. So maybe they make some progress. They, they do good for a little bit and they keep falling off and, and they say to you, maybe they have big relapse. And they say, I know I've relapsed, I know I gotta get this under control. You know, they're having all the right change talk. But again, they just want to keep doing it their way and not getting help. It's very, very frustrating to be in that. That's the family member, the spouse, the parent, the brother, the sister, but it is somewhat normal. So I want to talk to you guys about how to. How far do you walk down that I can do it myself road before you either ask and sometimes insist on something else, because there is a time and a place to kind of like draw the line. It's not so much that you tell them they have to, but you can say, you know, where you're comfortable and I'll tell you a little bit more about how to do that. So just hang in there. I want to tell you my sort of breakout of the bargaining plan. It's like sort of the steps that I use to get someone through this. I call it bargaining, you know, that I can cut it back. I can just drink on the weekends. Let me do dry January and I'll have, I'll reset my system, all the things. Right. How do you get someone out of that? Well, step one is you let them try their plan. And I like to get the person to articulate fairly specific to me what their plan is. Especially if the plan is cutting back somehow. Like if it's, I'm not going to drink during the week, or I'm only going to drink on the weekends, or I'm not going to allow myself to ever have more than three, or I'm only going to drink on special Occasions and only so much if it's the cutting back method. I like to get them to say whatever their limit that they want to set for themselves is. And then what I like to do is I like to say, you know, add. Add a little extra room on top of that. So if they say, I never want to drink more than three whatever's at a time, I don't, I only want to smoke, you know, on the weekends. Whatever it is that they say, I might, I'm going to give them a little extra wiggle room. I'm gonna say, all right, let's try this plan. So if they say three, I'll say like no more than four. I mean, I'm going to give it extra. The reason I like to give it extra is because if the person breaks their plan, they don't stick with what they said and they don't even stick with like the extra, extra room. It's really hard to deny, you know, it's really hard to sort of convince yourself to the plan worked. You kind of have to like, see it more honestly. So get them to say what it is that they're trying to do. If they're going to cut it back, if they're going to stop completely. If they say, I'm just done with this, I don't drink anymore, but I don't need to, you know, I don't need help, I don't need a sponsor, I don't need a counselor, I don't need anything. Say, okay, fine, and you let them try it. That's stage one. Stage two, you do the same thing again, nothing different. But. But what you're doing is you're allowing them to collect evidence for themselves. Because no one gets to the point where they stop, like go completely sober with an addiction until they've tried, like all the ways that they can think of. And honestly, normally they've tried a bunch of times before they've ever even said it out loud to you. Because even saying it out loud to you as the family member, that is. That's a new step in and of itself. Because we know when we say something out loud that now the other people are going to hold us accountable. So they've probably been trying in secret already. You don't even know about those attempts now that they're saying out loud. I like to let them try it exactly like they want to. Whatever. I don't. It doesn't matter what their plan is. Let them say whatever their plan is and agree with it and say, yeah, I think that sounds Good. Because usually whatever their plan is is fairly reasonable, but a lot of times it just doesn't work out so well. So let them do that at least twice on their own. Then the third time that you come around to this, you know, well, it, you know, it's not working. They've had a big relapse, you know, they're hit a bottom or something again. And, and they're saying, okay, I know, I promise I'm going to do better, but I'm going to do it myself again. What I want you to say on this third bargain step is I want you to say, okay, but if, if this doesn't work, then will you agree that we need to, like, get some other kind of outside advice on this subject? The reason I like to say outside advice, it goes over better than if you say if, will you agree to go to treatment or will you agree to go to 12 step meetings or talk to a counselor or whatever? If you say then are you going to agree that we're going to get some kind of outside advice on this issue? It just sounds less intimidating to the person. And usually they'll say yes. So what you're doing on this sort of step three is you're setting the stage like, okay, we're going to try this again, but if this doesn't work, we're going to do something different. And when, when. And if. Well, really, when you get to this spot and it doesn't work again, and it's this third time, you've given them three times to try it their way, okay? And they, and they've tried it their way a hundred times before they even talk to you about these trusts. So in the background, there's a whole bunch more other than three. So at this point, they've collected enough evidence and they, they kind of know they need to do something different, but they're intimidated. And there's a lot of reasons why you might not want to take those steps. I mean, a. Jillian, like, well, I don't want people to know, you know, what if I lose my job? I can't take time off work. That's a lot of money. There's a. In roadblocks to why they may not want to get some sort of outside help, but they kind of know they need to. So they, they need this push. Now, you could come up to this line after this third bargaining stage, and they could still say, screw you, I don't care. I'm not getting help. And that's fine. But then when you draw the bound, the boundary and you say something like, okay, I totally understand. You know, it's your life. I can't make you do anything, but I'm going to need to back up from it because at this point, you know, every time this cycle happens to you hurts you. I know it hurts you, but it also hurts me. And at this point, I need to back up for me. And you define what backup means. What backup might mean is, I'm separating, or you're just getting some distance, or you're just sort of emotionally stepping back. You can decide what that means. But at that point, you probably do need to kind of go into protect yourself mode because you're exhausted by this point. You've been around this circle so many times, you've gotten your hopes up, you've been disappointed, and those relapses are almost harder on the family member than the whole original stint was cut because you've had your hopes up, you know, and. And it's just exhausting to feel like, here we are again, we have to go through this whole thing, and I just can't keep living like this. And you get exhausted. So that's what I would say to do on. On stage three or third. The third bargaining trial now in our invisible intervention, the new updates, it sort of like includes this new. I call it the credit system, where I actually sort of show you how to keep track of the credit you've built with your loved one. You, some of you guys, a lot of you guys who watch these videos, you know, I call it building trust and credibility, which is like a credit score. And so we have like a whole system for, like, tracking your credit, like how to add points and when to subtract points. And once you know, you've built enough trust and credibility with this person, if. If you've allowed them to bargain and try it their way more than once, and you know that you've aligned with this person the best you possibly can, you know that they know you're on their side and. And they know that you're not against them, and you've been super nice and accommodating and way 30 times more than reasonable, they know this. Now, if you get to the point where you need to, like, say, that's it, I'm done, I'm out, or else, like, I'm not doing this anymore. I never tell you guys to put the ultimatum out there to say, either stop or I'm leaving or stop or you're kicked out or something like that, unless you really mean it. So. But if you do get to that point. Chances that they actually will take that U turn and fix it are a lot higher because they're gonna know that that's totally fair. They're gonna know that you gave them every single benefit, chance, option, and that they've pushed it too far. And if you've done the steps right of staying out of the bag, I roll all those things that I teach you, they're gonna own the fact. They're gonna. They're going to take that in their heart and they're going to say, you know what? I really push it too far. I need to. I need to turn this around now. It may be too. A little too late, because you may be really done. And if that's the case, I don't know what to tell them. But they're going to know that it was more than fair. They're going to know you're not being unreasonable. If you've kind of like been in this stage where you're still in the bad guy roll, you're arguing all the time, you're yelling at them all the time. You know, you're telling them you're running your life, you're running my life, you're terrible parent all this stuff, you know, and then you say, that's it, I'm out of here. Here's what they're gonna think. Thank gosh. That's what they're gonna think. Because they're gonna still be in that mindset of seeing you as the bad guy. And when you exit the situation, they're even going to think, they're going to feel sorry for themselves. They're going to blame you. You're going to be in the bad guy roll eternally from now until forever. They're going to tell everyone else how you just gave up on them and you're just critical of them forever and ever. All the things, things. So if you're gonna exit and if you're gonna really sort of say, I'm done, like this is it, like I'm really out, then, then if you've built that credit, it's gonna go a lot better. And even if you choose to stay out of that relationship, you've still left that person on better footing because that person knows that it was the addictive behavior, that it wasn't you. So they. Even if you, like, let's say if this is like a marriage and you decide to stay out, the chances that that person will turn around are. I'm not saying they will, but I'm saying they're better because they're going to realize that it's reasonable. And they kind of know deep down that they've pushed it too far at this point. And they know deep down that they have to, like, do something different. But they're just, they just keep trying not to have to take that big step. And a lot of times it's about, I don't want to go to detox. It's about, I don't want to go to meetings because I'm a doctor in this town and like, I might lose all my clients. I'm afraid to go to counseling and get help because I'm a nurse and I have a license. And what if it gets out and I lose my nursing license? You know, and so it's, there's all these barriers to overcome and a lot of times people do need a bit of a push to get there. So on these videos, you guys know, I'm, I'm, I'm almost always saying, you know, let them try it, let them figure it out. And, and 90% of the time that's what I want you to do. But there does come a point where you say, I love you, I am for you, but I can't have a front row seat to this anymore because we've tried it a bunch of times. So if you're going to give them the grace, every, like, amount of grace that you can possibly give them, and, and then it's still not working. You've set the stage that you. They're out of denial. They know they need to do something. Now when it comes to what it is that you want them to do as far as help, what you really want them to do is just fix the problem. So don't get too far stuck into, I'm out if you don't go to 90 days treatment, I'm out if you don't go to a meeting every single day or something like that, what you're looking for is some kind of different step and some kind of like, big action step that, that shows some kind of willingness. And I know I need to do something different here. So maybe it's get a recovery coach, maybe it's do some online meeting something. But you need a step in the right direction, like a real step in the right direction that, you know is different than the whole, like, I got this. It's not really that people can't get sober on their own. In fact, I like to say there's only one way to get sober and that's on your own because no one else can do it for you. So there is no such thing as someone. It's always on your own. But what happens is sometimes you need a little guidance on how to do it. Because the whole idea like in 12 step of powerlessness is because we keep. When you're in that addictive thinking, you keep trying to trick yourself into finding this loophole way. Well, I haven't drank in a year, so maybe I'm not an alcoholic anymore and maybe I can drink six successfully. You know, it's constantly trying to find a loophole and not quite even understanding what you're doing that's keeping this thing triggered. And that's where you need some outside help. You can't always trust yourself. Well, let me, I'll take the always out. You can't really trust yourself to be honest with yourself when it comes to your addictive behaviors. You need an outside sounding board because that other person can maybe see where your blind spots are. And there's a lot of ways to get that. So if a person really wants to stop and they'll agree to get some kind of outside sounding board or some kind of program of some sort, and it honestly doesn't matter what, which one, just pick one that works for you, works for them, then they're probably going to be successful. Not everyone has to go to big long treatment. Sometimes depending on the substance people use, they do have to go to like medical detox because some things are dangerous to detox off of like alcohol or benzos and stuff like that. But when someone's serious about it, they may need some guidance and some advice and some help seeing their blind spots. But they don't always need, you know, a year's worth of inpatient treatment. Now if you're dealing with a really young person, like a teenager or someone in their early 20s, and they've been, they've never really developed adulting skills and stuff like that, then they're more likely, I think, to need some kind of more heavy duty treatment like an inpatient or residential treatment or at least a sober living because they're, they're, they're honestly not just learning to stay sober, but they're learning to sort of like adult. They're like developing coping skills sometimes when they've never developed them before. So that can be a little bit more complicated as far as like whether or not someone needs treatment. Most of the adults that we see that come in our office, like the spouses, most of them are able to get sober on their, I say on their own. Like they may come to coaching but they, they do it without going to inpatient. A lot of the young people. So when we help the parents and it's like the son or the daughter and it's like a young adult or something, a lot of them end up needing to go to some kind of higher level of care. And that's just, that's not really sort of like a rule of thumb. That's just our experience and findings on the subject. All right, so for those of you who are watching live, we are about to take some questions from you. We Bri is behind the scenes. You can't see her, but she's there and she's going to help moderate so that, so that I do a better job of finding your questions and answering them effectively. She's going to help us out with that. So while you get your questions up there, in the meantime, I will remind you there, as always, there are resources in the description. Recovery coaching for the month of March, as far as the strength based is awful. There's no more spots. We've actually sort of overbooked a little bit because I'm on vacation some this month. But if you are interested in recovery coaching, the strengths based coaching with me, you can go ahead and apply. But we can't get you until April. But if you want to start in April, you may want to go ahead and look at that and fill out the application because those spots are going pretty fast. And. And Bri, are we ready? Do we have some questions? All right. All right. She says, my loved one finally went to rehab, but I still don't want to be with him or part of his recovery. How do I work the program for myself? It sounds like it was one of those too little, too late kind of situations, or maybe not too little, but too late kinds of situations. RH and I, I totally get it because sometimes by the time this person really comes to terms with, okay, I really, really, really got to do it, you're just done and there's too much water under the bridge to go back. I get that. As far as how you work the program for yourself, everything that you learn in any of my videos, everything that you learn, like whether you're going to Al anon or codependency groups, is applicable to any and all relationships. These skills that we talk about, these boundaries, all these things that you've learned through the course of this is going, if you keep applying them, that's going to make you a better person. You're gonna feel like you're more effective. You're gonna feel like, your relationships are more successful. So I don't know that you'll ever get to the point where you'll say, I'm glad I went through this. But I think you will get to the point where you say, you know what? I'm glad I learned some of these things along the way, because it's always going to be helpful. Maybe you have a friend who's going through a bad relationship, you're trying to help any of these things. You know, maybe it's. You need to have better boundaries at work or, you know, something like that or with your kids. All of these things you learned. They're not useless. So please do keep applying these lessons, because they will transform your life. They will make things better for you. What else do we got, Bri? All right, here we go. Should we make it say out loud if we know they are trying in secret? Oh, like, if they're doing. That's a good question. So, like, if they're doing one of those. Like, they're trying to cut it back, but they're trying not to tell you. No, I don't think. I wouldn't necessarily make them say it out loud. You can maybe, if you notice that they've cut it back or they're doing better, you maybe could comment on that saying, hey, you really seem like you feel better lately. You're in better mood, or I've noticed you're really drinking a lot less. Like, I can really tell a difference. You could maybe comment on it in a positive. Like a positive reinforcement way, but I wouldn't necessarily say, I know you're trying to, like, not drink or whatever. I wouldn't necessarily say that. Bailey says, what if my loved one drinks and drives in the car? Should I call the police? Heavy drinking after gastric bypass. Was supposed to talk to Dr. Yesterday about drinking, but she didn't bring it up to him. This drinking and driving question is probably, like, one of the hardest ones I get. If they're trying to drive and drink with you in the car or with someone you love in the car, then you do whatever you have to do to get yourself and your kids or your loved ones safe. As far as whether or not you call the cops on them just because, you know, they've left and they're drinking and driving, you really gotta sort of search your own heart for what the right answer is there. And I don't. I don't have a strong answer for you one way or the other. And if it's on your heart and you feel like you Just, you need to call the cops on them, then, then do it. But if you're like, look, I can't stop them, you know, they need to, to make their choices or whatever. You need to know whatever happens, it's not your fault, okay? You didn't put them in the car drinking and driving. You didn't put them behind the wheel and pour alcohol down their throat. So I do want you to understand that whatever, if anything happens, it is not your fault. So I think you can go either which way on that. Robin s been hanging out there for four years waiting and hoping something will motivate him to get sober. Only change was switching to light beer. Says since he's 60, it's not worth the effort to give up the alcohol. I have no more patience for him getting drunk pretty much every day. I've pulled away before, but keep getting sucked back in, trying to stay away. This time. It. So it sounds like you're dealing with one of those situations, Robin, where it's not so much that they're in denial, but they're saying, well, I'm 60 and, and I've had this before, like I'm retired, what, you know, what's the use? Or whatever. And I think what you probably need to say is, I think you need to say, look, like when you do this, yes, you're hurting you, but you're hurting me as well. And you're hurting our relationship. And I can't make you stop or make you deal with this, but I can decide. Just like you can decide you're going to keep doing it. I can decide that I don't want to keep being ran over by this Mack truck. You can, you can stand in the road if you want to, but I, I don't want to do that anymore. And if you've gotten yourself out of the bad guy role, you've done a pretty good job with that. They're going to know there's some truth in that. They're going to know. You know, you can say like, if you're drunk all the time, like, what relationship do I have with you? You know, you're, you're either intoxicated or you're in a bad mood or you fallen asleep, you know, at, at 6:00' clock at night. It's, it's sort of like what's left for me. What else do we got, Bri? Christine says question. My 22 year old son is in treatment and sober living right now. It's been 90 days. He wants to come back home, but his team wants him to stay longer and we agree. How do we set the boundary? Christine? This is one. The whole like young adult coming home thing is probably one of the most black and white type rules that we have at Hope for Families. We never think that's a good idea. So. So it's the question whether or not he needs longer in treatment in the sober living. I don't have a super strong opinion about that, but I do have a super strong opinion that he. That he shouldn't come back home to stay in your house. Has it worked before? I'm sure it has. We may have seen it work once or twice, but even when it worked, it was rough, it was a hard Road. And 99 of the time, because what happens is they're going to be adult and you can't not be their parent. And you're going to be so hyper vigilant about what they're doing. Are they going to their meetings? Do they seem messed up? Are they sketchy? Are they where you're going to be in this hyper vigilant police role? They're going to feel that it's going to make bad dynamics between you. So we don't suggest they come back to your house. Now you could look at other options as far as like sometimes when sober living there's like step downs, there's like finding another roommate in recovery, those kind of things. You can support them and help them, but I just don't think bringing them into your house is the best idea. And if Campbell was here, she would definitely agree. All right, what else we got? Bri? Jeffrey says your pep talks are so helpful in helping me understand my love and shine the light on things I've done wr and better ways to go about reaching her ammo for my anti addiction gun. I like that. Anti addiction gun. Is it wrong to suggest they are in psychosis and they don't realize it? I don't know that I would tell you it's wrong, but I could tell you it's ineffective. If someone, if someone's really in psychosis, like they're actually like delusional. Like they're seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking things that are absolutely not true. You cannot talk someone out of psychosis. It's like a medical condition and the more you try to talk to them about it, the deeper the psychosis gets. If what you mean is they're in that sort of like end stage addiction where they're just sort of deluded about life. Not like psychosis, but more just like they're not seeing, they're not seeing the full picture the way everyone else is seeing it. Even in that case you can't hardly make them see it. What you can do is you cannot fix things in their life. You cannot help paint the picture to be prettier than it is. Like don't help them manage life, don't help them keep the job. Don't help them have good grades so that you're not at least sort of adding to the irrational view about what's happening. We have any other ones in there, Bri? Here we go. Michelle says this morning I told him it's time for us to call it on our 32 years of marriage. He seemed totally fine with it and then went outside to do his doc. He has brain damage from meningitis in 09. So you feel responsible for him. Seeing his drug and porn addiction are all. Do you force him into rehab or just leave his poa? I'm not, I'm not totally against forcing people in rehab if you have a way to do that but when they're an adult it's really hard. You, you like Baker act people in rehab or like commit them if they're a imminent danger to themselves or others. But when you do that that's usually only like a five to seven day hold where they're just basically evaluated for are they a major threat to themselves or others imminently. Not just generally but like imminently they're going to hurt themselves or someone else. You can get them committed for like five days but that won't fix the overall big problem. If you're going to sort of push someone into treatment it does need to be longer so that they're at least in it till their brain clears enough so that they can think clearly, make the decision to, to get sober and stay sober if it's just going to be a week or something. I mean if there's really, really, really like in danger like they're suicidal or something, then yeah, do that but. But it won't fix the overall addictive behavior. A week in treatment. So if you got a way to get them to like commit to longer then then okay, you can do that. CCV says my husband is admitted he has an alcohol dependency and he has tried rehab, AA and soberlink but still relapsing. He still has much self pity and blames me and others Backsliding is frustrating. Is there more to that? Is there like a question there? Is it just mostly a comment? I don't see any more there. Bri. If, if I were talking to your loved One, like, if your husband was like in my office, I would just sort of go through and figure out why those things aren't working. And you're with them. So you probably have a pretty good idea about why the things aren't working. And it might be exactly what you're saying is that they're sort of still in self pity mode. And so if, if it's something that the person is doing but they're just not understanding, sometimes it's maybe you can identify what's going wrong that needs to be addressed. You know, maybe sometimes they're stuck in a terrible job and they just have resisted getting out of it, but it's such a trigger that, you know, it keeps sending them back. So is there something real there or is it, is it something else? Jennifer says, Amber, you are so right about learning lessons from these groups. I'm a better person from listening to you and Al Anon. Still traumatized, but a better friend, employee, family member and spouse. Oh, thanks, Jennifer. That's awesome. And good for you. Yeah, you, you can't get through recovery either as the family member, as the addict and, and not come out a better person because you have to get skills that other people don't have to have. So you will be a stronger, better person. I love it. Stephanie says, how do you respond to an adult child living back at home? And they stonewall, put earphones on with loud music all the time. I've had to leave notes to communicate. And working on a plan for him to leave. Yes, the last thing you said right there, Stephanie. And working on a plan for him to leave. I don't know if you're working with Campbell or not, but she's the one that's super good at this issue as far as like the having an adult child at home. That needs to kind of like launch. But, but that's it. I mean, you're right. They need to. They. As long as they're in your house, it kind of keeps you in that bad guy role. You know, it's gonna make, it would make me mad as a parent if my adult kid was living there and just totally being. Ignoring me. I mean, I would see that. I'm from the South. I would see that as disrespectful. And I'd be like, oh, heck no. And so it puts you in that position. And my guess is that that's the least of it is, is the ignoring in the headphones. My guess is there's a whole lot more to that. But yeah, you need to sort of get them a plan. And sometimes it's like a. Campbell usually advises, like, a tapering plan, where it's almost like you. You give them a heads up, and you kind of, like, give them some time, but you. You kind of put steps in place to. To make that happen. Question. How do you help them see that they are continuing to blame me and others for their predicament? She says I am arguing with her, yet she is arguing with me. She snaps a lot. Are you arguing with her? I mean, she could. It's possible that she's starting the argument, because people with addictions will definitely start arguments. I mean, they'll start arguments with you on purpose. So if you feel like that they're. That your person is doing that to you, like they're picking a fight with you, then just say, it feels like you're picking a fight with me. I'm. See, I'm not trying to fight with you. Like, and you just sort of get out of it. I've had clients do this. Like, clients that are in relapse warning signs like, that I've been seeing forever, and we have a great relationship. They come in one day, and it's like they're trying to pick a fight with me, and I'm like, what is going on? And. And I usually know that when that happens, it really is like relapse morning signs. They've either already relapsed, or they're about to relapse. And talking to me makes them feel guilty. So it's almost like their addiction is pushing me away. When that happens, I'll just say, you know what? You've had a rough day. Everybody you know is in a. A bad mood sometimes. I'm gonna give you a redo. Why don't you come back on Friday? I'm gonna talk to you on Friday, and we'll just call this one a wash. I totally get it. Rough day. So I just sort of back myself out of it. So that. Because if I keep on in the session and they keep on poking at me, I'm gonna argue. There's only so much you can take before you get sucked in. So is that all of our questions, Brie? That's. That's it. All right, thank you guys. Everybody who showed up live. Hey, guess what? Next week, y' all get special guests. Campbell's gonna be on here. A couple weeks ago, she came on here, and she's talking about, like, her triangle model, and you guys were, like, loving it and wanted more. So Campbell's agreed to come back on next Thursday. Tell you more about the triangle model. So don't miss that. And as always, there are more resources in the description. If you need some help and guidance, you can book a session with one of our with one of our family recovery strategists, Campbell Cam. You can be in our group coaching program. Lots of resources. There's free download. I'll see you guys next time. Bye everybody.