Why Do Addicts/Alcoholics Push You Away?

You love them, you care about them, you do everything you can for them, you forgive them 5,000 times, but they still seem to push you away. Well, probably better explained by more like a push pull. If you have a relationship with an addicted loved one, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. There's this push pull dynamic. This, I really need you, but go away. You're controlling me. Or you're being too critical, and it's confusing, for one. And it's dysregulating emotionally also. And I want to, in today's video, basically, I want to help you understand what's really going on there. Why is that happening and what's going on inside the mind of the person who's doing this. Because the key to helping an addicted loved one is to understand not. Not so much what they're going through, but how they're thinking and how they're sort of viewing their world, their environment, their relationships, and all the things that are happening. Because their filter is very, very different from your filter. Think about it like a Snapchat filter or an Instagram filter. It's like you can put that filter on and all of a sudden, like, you're not even a person. You're a puppy dog, right? It can change everything dramatically. But once you understand what this filter, how this filter works, you'll be better able to keep your sanity and you'll be better able to interact with this person in a helpful and healthy and effective way. Because when you're stuck in that push pull thing, and then you. You get very emotionally reactive to it, and you sort of lose your way, and you get to the point where you're just sort of reacting moment by moment by moment to whatever's happening right now. The problem with that is, is that's what the addictive person is doing. They're dealing with moment by moment by moment. And you got to get sort of, I call it off of that roller coaster, basically, so that you can be strategic about how to get your life back on track, first of all, and then also, if appropriate, and if that's what you're trying to do also to help your addicted loved ones. Part of the re. Part of the thing about the filter that's going on in their head has to do with biology. When you are stuck in this addictive cycle, there's this disconnect between the thinking center of your brain and the other parts. It doesn't turn it off because obviously you can think. I like to think of it like it turns the volume way down. Think about, it's like basically it's like dealing with kind of like a young teenager. And I don't, I don't mean that like, and I'm saying like, oh, you're acting like a kid. I just mean that in the way that, you know how teenagers, it's like they, they understand and they know, but they don't understand and they know or they sort of understand what could happen if they did something, but they're not thinking about it at the time. Because that connection, that critical thinking pros and cons ability isn't quite wired in correctly. You kind of go back to a similar state when you're in active addiction from a biological perspective. So, so they really do seriously lose some ability to critically think through the consequences of their decisions. Now that's one layer. We're going to add a bunch of layers here. So. And as you, as we add these layers, I think it's going to come clear and clear to you as like, oh, that's what's going on in there. Like now I'm seeing it a little differently. So you got the biology happening right then on top of that you've got this ongoing urgency to engage in a behavior, get a substance, whatever it is, which is moves up depending on how addicted to you that you are. But as you become more and more addicted, moves up to the top priority in your life. Otherwise you can't function without it. So before you can go to work, before you can do anything that you're supposed to do in life, school, whatever, deal with people, you gotta meet this need first. And depending on what substance you're on, like how long that substance lasts, you could be on. Like if it's opiates, you're probably on like a four hour treadmill with this. So every four hours you've got to secure this substance again to even be able to function. Okay, so here's what we got so far. We got this urgency which creates this distractedness. Basically. It's like they might carry a conversation on with you, but really they're thinking about something else. Planning, scheming, hiding. This whole addictive thinking process is like a full time job 24 7. It's all consuming and you try to. But while all that's going on, you try to pretend like everything's regular. You try to have regular conversations with people for a long time. You try to go to school, you try to go to work, you try to do the things. As the addiction progresses, you become less and less able to do those things. What we Call like, function. You become less and less able to function in life because that urgency just gets louder and the volume gets turned way up mixed with the ability to weigh the pros and cons go way down. If you think about. If you ever been in an emergency situation, everything else kind of goes out the window until we deal with this thing that's happening right now. And it's kind of like if you've been sick, because actually, chemical dependency will make you physically sick. Like, if you're addicted to opioids. It's not like if you're sick. It is if you're sick. A couple weeks ago, I had Covid, and I didn't really have that many terrible symptoms. So I had, like, no energy. I couldn't function. And I literally. I was just, like, barely doing what I absolutely had to do, sort of 50%, and that was this bare minimum. And I didn't care about anything. Like, I didn't care if I got ahead on this or you're just barely getting by. And that was just like a mild little baby Covid. Like, it wasn't even bad. So if you. If you think about if you've ever been sick, like, if you're in sick with a stomach flu, what do you. Do you care what your hair looks like? No. Do you care if you're getting a raise? No. Do you care? You don't care about anything. You just want to feel better. That's that urgency that I'm talking about, that primitive I have to fix this, I'm not okay feeling. And that happens when you get to the point, like, you're chemically dependent. Now another layer of psychology on top of that. If you're very close to your addicted loved one, like, you're their parent or their spouse, maybe their sibling, but you're really close. Like, you are, like, maybe their number one, number two person that's, like, in their life. You're not gonna like me saying this, but it's true. You're the one that sees what's really going on more than everybody else. Like, if you're the spouse, you're seeing the truth, and everybody else doesn't quite see it yet. Parent, same thing. And because you see, starts to consume your mind, and that's all you can see about that person. And so when they're in your presence, you're basically a reminder of everything they either dislike about themselves or they're trying to be in denial about, or they're running from. So literally, just being in the room with you can be very Uncomfortable because especially if there's been like an ongoing dynamic of argument and conflict and power struggle, which is typically the case in these scenarios, it's pretty normal. Then it's like, not only do I don't want to be around you because you're, you know, you got my number, you're on my case, and I'm trying to escape that. I'm trying to not see the things you're trying to make me see. And I'm just angry at you because I feel like you're constantly on my case, you're constantly in my way. You know, you're always mad at me. And so you get this adversarial kind of interaction between the family member and the addicted loved one. But we got all those layers happening. There's still this part inside where you have all that history with them where they really actually do love you and they do connect to you and you have all that history. And it's like if you could peel off all the drama from the addiction underneath, inside of both of you, there's that love and connection that is very, very strong. And so because of that, we won't let each other go. Just like everybody in your life, you're a family members probably been saying, hey, you just need to let it go. You need to let them go on, you need to let them figure it out, but you can't do it. Same kind of thing in them, you know, they're upset with you, they're fresh over you, you're annoying them half to death, probably, but they have that thing inside that really does know they're mad at you, but they love you. Same same thing, right? And that creates a push pull relationship. And if you think about it, you're probably also doing the push pull thing, right? Because you're having a very parallel process happen in your biology. You are also in crisis because this person that you love, maybe love most in the whole world, like if it's your kid or your spouse or something, is destroying their life and your life. So it's an emergency inside your head and that begins to become all that you can think about. Just like it's all that that person can think about as a substance. All you can think about is solving this problem and what they're doing and what they're up to and are they lying and stuff. So you, you would come to get more and more and more consumed with it, which makes you very distracted from all the other things that are going on in your life, you know, your work, your friends and everything else. And you're angry at them. But inside of you, you still see that person that you love and care about. And in fact, even when you interact with your addicted loved one, you will see glimpses and it feels like, and it's, it's real. Like you can feel like, oh my gosh, like there they are. Okay, it's working, it's gelling and then it goes away. And that's the crazy making part of it because it's like they're there and then they're not. They're normal and then they're not. Well, were they faking before? What is going on? And it's just absolutely maddening. So both people have a push pull relationship going on with, with the family member. It's like, if you don't X, Y or Z, I'm not gonna do this or that. You know, you got the ultimatums and the limits and the boundari the resentments on your side and on their side. And so it's very difficult to get out of a relationship like that. And on both sides, all the other people, if this is the addict, this is loved one, everyone on this person's side and everyone on this person's side is probably saying, man, forget them. Like just move on with your life or whatever. Because each person's perspective, they're going to their different support team, friends, family, counselors or whatever is probably saying you don't need all that. You know, you shouldn't be putting up with that. And everybody else is like pulling you away. But you have that deep love and connection that you just have such a hard time giving up on. And it's really hard on both sides because it's not all bad. It's inconsistent. And the inconsistency of it's really good and then it's really bad and it's really good and it's really bad. That's what makes something addictive, the inconsistency of that, like positive reinforcement. The more you have that, the more addictive something is like gamma gambling. It's inconsistent. You don't know you're going to win every time. You win sometimes and then you lose sometimes. And it's the inconsistency of it that makes it so addictive. And that is what's happening between you and your addicted loved one. You're stuck in this dynamic now. You can't do a lot about, well, you can't do anything about the biology part of what's going on with them. Right. What you can do is you can help a little bit with how they see you and how they feel when they're around you. You can, there's some, there's a lot of things that we talk about on this channel that you can do together and get them to put the guard down, to get them to see you as an ally and not an enemy. Now anytime I say that, I feel like I have to put like a little disclaimer in there. So let me just say it. I'm not saying that you should do that. I'm not saying that you ought to do that. It's not fair in any way possible. I'm just saying if what you want to do is get through to your addicted loved one, this is the way to do it. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Not saying you should, just saying if you want to this side, do it. You have to get yourself out of that bad guy role so that every time they see you, they don't feel anger, shame, guilt, resentment, all of those negative feelings. Because when you layer that on top of that urgency that's happening, that disconnect and their ability to really see things, because it's, it's not, you know, we talk about denial. It's not. Denial is more than just, I don't, I don't have an addiction. That's a piece of denial. But there's a bunch of other pieces of it too. Like it's not really hurting you. You're overreacting. They can't see those things either. So there's that denial. So when you layer in that bad guy roll over top of somebody's brain who's already over here on fire, you can see why it's just such an adversarial thing. It's almost like if you're trying to help, like a wounded dog or something in your neighborhood and you're trying to walk up and help it, it's going to see you as a threat. So you have to interact in a very calm, very slow, very gradual way so that dog doesn't bite you. Even though you're trying to help it. That's what it's like. Because it's this person, it feels under threat. In a lot of ways. They, they are under threat. They're in like a survival zone. Their anxiety's up, they're not sleeping good, they're irritable, they're thin skinned. I mean, just a whole lot of things. Things. So if you want to get out of it, you've got to get out of that bag of roll. Now if you want to get out of your own emotional roller coaster, you, you've got to sort of back up a bunch of steps. It doesn't mean you have to, like, when I say back up, I don't mean throw them out or kick them out. Although you could do that. I'm saying emotionally, like back it up a little bit. And whatever you need to do to get that distance, you do that, take a break, whatever, so you can think strategically because you're in an emergency state. The thing that most family members do wrong is that they try to fix it all at once, too fast. And not only that, not only is it like I'm trying to tell you, you got a problem, you need to go treatment today. And harping on your case, like, I'm trying to like take you from 0 to 100 today. In addition to that, I also want you to acknowledge what you've done to me and be remorseful and apologize and be humble. Dude, it's way too much. So you've got to think, where are we at in this stage of the game, what level of denial we're in? Where are we at? And where would be the very next step? And you got to get a game plan on how do we get from where we are to the next step, not to the end goal to the next step. Once you can get that step by step plan in place, you really can influence someone in the right direction. Depends on how far into addiction they are. You use different strategies based on that. I've got other videos on that, like types of interventions and stuff like that. You can check those out. But that's, that's what's going to allow you to get strategic. In order to do that again, I'm not saying you should, I'm not saying it's fair. Nothing. If that's what you want to do, then temporarily you have to let go of your resentments, anger and hurts because those are clogging up your judgment. And they're going to keep you so emotional. You cannot be rational, you know, you cannot be losing your cool. Every time they lie to you, they're going to lie to you. They've been lying to you, they're just gonna lie to you. You gotta decide which of these laws do I need to call out and which ones do I just need to let go. And you make that decision based on where we're at in those little stages and steps. But you gotta let that ego thing go. It's not fair, it should not be that way, but it is that way. That, that's the way, because that's the only way for you to get that person to let you even get close enough emotionally to be able to help. Because otherwise it's like, you know, you're trying to help the. The wounded dog and they're barking at you and that you. You can't even get to the gate until they trust you. So you've got to win that trust. I call it building credibility. To get closer and closer, you. You gotta get out of the push pull thing. Now, it doesn't mean you have to put up with every single thing, but you gotta decide what are the absolute. No, cannot tolerate. I will call it out no matter what. I'm gonna deal with that and everything else. You're just gonna have to, like, let sit over here. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter. But we can't do everything at once. So if you're at the building trust, you got to build the trust. You're not going to build the trust and then want your apology today too. It just doesn't work that way. All right, Bri, I see we got a lot of people in here hanging out with us. Has anybody got any good questions or comments? M' lady says my bpd is that borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder? Probably borderline. I'm not sure. 18 year old is coming out of denial and thanks. The thanks to the invisible intervention method, yes. But I am having trouble setting a boundary for her to come home early, stop car raising and risky behavior. So I got almost all of that, milady, except the very last little piece there. So you're saying I'm setting a boundary about her coming back home, and it's something about the. The car and the risky behavior is that. I think, if I'm reading that right, you're saying in order for you to come back here, something about the car and the risky behavior. This gets really complicated. Oh, I think it's car racing. Thank you, Bri. Yes. Okay. Gotcha, gotcha. So the, the boundary here, you can't tell somebody to stop car racing. That's their side of the street. I know that seems crazy. Even if it's your daughter, you're like, oh, that's my kid. I can tell them. I feel you. I'm like that too. I get that way with my kid too. And then I have to back it up, get all the emotion out and think. But what you can say is, hey, you know, I'm not gonna have a car in my name that works, or I'm not gonna have insurance in my Name that works, right? If you're. If you're gonna do the car racing or whatever it is, then I'm not gonna be responsible for the car like you. Like, I'm not gonna accept the L. And that's where we get into my side of the street. Your side of the street. Like, where the healthy boundary is. And that is probably of all the things that you have to deal with in this situation. It's. It's understanding the boundaries. It's hard for me because I have to think it through each time, too. Where's my side and where's her side? What else we got? Bri? Bri, are you frozen? Let's see. Here's one. I see one. I'll throw one up here. How can I talk to my husband about his addiction when he blames his drinking on chronic back pain? For the last three years, he had many medical tests done, but the doctors cannot find anything wrong. That's a really great question. The first thing you have to do is you have to empathize with their situation. He's trying to say this, and you're trying to force this, and you're on two different pages. He's trying to say, well, it's. The only thing maybe, is. I'm guessing what you're saying is he says, the only thing that helps my pain. These doctors are not helping me, or something like that. I don't know what the truth and all that is, but instead of trying to force them to see their drinking problem, this is a great example of where you have to do the step by step thing. You're probably skipping some steps. Do you have the credibility? Have you built the trust? Like, have you got them to let you in close enough to be able to even hear or care what you have to say or trust what you have to say? So probably what's going to have to happen is you have to sort of back up and rebuild the relationship part before you can start trying to get them to see something that's very difficult to see. Like, I would never. Like when I get a client, meet them right at the gate, and say, I know you're a drug addict. Your mama done called me and told me, and I don't even have a relationship. This person would not go, like, depends on how fast I can build that. Some faster than others. But you got to put. You got to do all the little steps first, like prerequisites. Bri, are you. Are you back? I don't know if you got frozen or what, so I threw one up There. Oh, here we go. You're back. My functioning alcoholic husband almost died six years ago from alcohol pancreatitis. Ooh, that's painful. He has definitely slows down, but says he isn't gonna stop if he drinks one drink. His mind is different. I can tell when he talks. He says stupid things. When I tell him this, he says, who cares? What do I say to him? I have a couple of thoughts about that. One is if he truly gets that different from one drink. I guess it makes me think, is he really drinking more than one drink? And he's like, sneak drinking some. But you see him drink one drink, so you think he's only drinking one and that's why it's so different. Or if that's in reality what's really happening, then it makes me think that probably it's way later stage addiction where there's some like, big liver trouble. Because in late stage addiction, like, your tolerance can go way, way down. And one or two. One or two drinks can put you totally over the edge. It's kind of like that tolerance builds and builds and builds and builds until you kill your liver, and then you don't have any tolerance. It goes the opposite way with alcoholism. So I don't know which of those things is happening, but what's happening is you're trying to get him to see something negative about himself. And in his mind it says, and I think you said too, like, he cut it way back last week. I think it was some. Campbell was on here last week. We're talking about when to push and when not to. And if in. If they're actually doing better, if they're in a period where they're drinking less and things are more manageable and things are better and you try to push them at that point, it's just not going to work because they think you're crazy. You have to pick the time and on when to get them to see it, because you have to look at through their lens. You know, through his lens is like, okay, I probably shouldn't be drinking. It's probably not good for my health. Like, I get it. But like, yeah, so it's like eating cake and so it's like drinking soda or whatever. That's. I'm not saying that's accurate. I'm saying that's probably what he's thinking. Probably what I would be thinking. I guess so. And he's. And he's gonna be thinking, I don't know what your problem is. Like, I'm like drinking anything. Like what I used to be drinking. So you. This is what I mean when I say you have to look at how are they probably seeing this problem? And you can't go from where they're at to where you're at without building all that base in there. RH says, my hubby is going to give up drinking for two months. He's going to do this on his. So I'm so nervous because he's not going to treatment and just white knuckling it. How do I support? Great question. You be excited. You say, I'm so proud of you. You say, like, that's a big sacrifice. Like, really hard. Like, what can I do? What can I do to support, like, you know, can I get alcohol? House, can I distract you? Whatever. You be the cheerleader and the teammate. But I also want to tell you, if this is one of those first few tries of giving it up, he's probably going to go back to it. If. If this is like one of those bargains, as I call it, and that's okay. What you want is if that person can get sober as many days as possible. Like, definitely has to be past two weeks, so they start to feel better and their relationships better and their life gets better when they go back and they think to themselves, like, all right, I've done reset myself. Like, I can drink just a little bit. I'm not gonna let get out of control because that' that's probably what they'll think because that's what they all do and their life goes downhill really quickly and all the same crap is happening to them. What you want is for them to be able to say, like, oh, grass was greener over there. So they can make that clear connection between when I wasn't drinking, actually, I felt better. I had more energy. I was getting on my wife, like, I was doing good at work, you know, all the things. But now here I am back in the same situation. So if you can go into it and just be really supportive, even if he's not going to agree to say, I'm never going to drink again, or I'm not going to go to treatment, say, hey, I just appreciate you addressing this issue, and that's how you get in alignment. Now. Understand that it won't. It may not work 100%, but when you do it that way, you set yourself up to be able to continue to help and be a trusted advisor when it doesn't work. Kristen Byrne, do you say something when you suspect your addicted loved one has relapsed? And if so, what are the do's and don'ts of what you say or how you approach them? It is hard for me to give a. A super concrete piece of advice here. I would do this based on personality. Probably. One of the ways that I would say is that instead of saying, I know you did this or that, because usually you might be right, that they've relapsed, probably are, but you may not know every single thing about it. So if you say, like, I know you did X, Y or z specific thing, then they're going to get caught up on whatever little detail that you didn't say, right? And they're gonna argue about it. So don't do that. So you just want to say, hey, having this gut feeling that this happened. So what's up? Do I need to do something? And. And you're not really even asking a question. If you ask a question, the answer is no. Nope, did not relapse. It's like automatic. But if you say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. Is it. Is this what's going on? Then they, they might say, no, I'm just tired. Like, why are you always think something? You're like, all right, but I'm just saying, like, sell my radar. So. So you're. You're not going to ask a question. You're going to make a statement. You're going to say it kind of casually. Then you're going to let them say what they're going to say. And that doesn't mean you have to agree with them. You can say, well, looks pretty sketchy to me, dude. And then just step back and see what happens. So what you're saying is, I know you're not saying you have to stop or any of those things. Far Forest sounds says, my husband gets so upset and angry when I won't hang out with him when he's drinking. He says, you're doing the opposite of helping me. If you would just talk to me, etc. How do I respond? I would probably just say, hey, look, when you're drinking, it triggers me and then I'm not so nice to be around and it. And I don't think it's fair for you to be with me if I'm being grumpy and irritable and thinking bad thoughts about you. So I'm actually distancing so that I don't say or think or whatever all these negative things because I'm trying not to be super critical of you. However, when you're not drinking, I would love to hang out with you. I would love to talk to you. And so you want to positively reinforce when they're not drinking. And then you just want to say, and if that doesn't work and he's just got you in that bag of Maral, no matter what you say, you can say, I'm sorry you feel that way. But when you're drinking this and this and this happens, as far as when I say this and like this, what happens on your end, and that's not good for me, so I'm going to back it up. Glamisaurus Rex says, if they meet you while in active addiction, do they still love you? Sure. I mean, yeah, you can definitely. I mean, a person in active addiction can for sure love you. But what I can say to you is when you're in active addiction, you cannot put that other person first in your life. So if you're in a relationship with someone who's in active addiction, whether you met them that way or not, you can never be any better than second. And that's, you know, that's the top. Like, you might not even be second. So because that addiction, it's like they have to get that knee met before they can move forward. Like before, when you get up in the morning, before you can get anything else done, you got to go pee, right? Like nothing can happen first. No coffee, no nothing. Like this has to happen. So for them, it's this constant, this has to happen thing first before I can get that biology to calm down enough to even think about you, honestly. So, yes, they love you. Can they put you first? No, probably can't. All right, Brie, we have one. Is there any more? Do we have one more? If so, I'll take it. If not, then we'll call it for the day. If you're watching while I wait for the question, I will let you know that there are additional resources for you in the description. If you want the step by step process for getting someone out of denial, check out our invisible intervention. If you want help with things like boundaries and self care, then you need to think about our membership. It comes with weekly group coaching. You get to meet with Campbell and Kim each week every Wednesday and talk through what's going on and have that sort of like hand holding, you know. Now what I do, now what do I say? Which is super helpful to navigate this, this mess because things can change quickly. All right, Katie Graham says, My 20 year old daughter has literally trashed my house with her drug use and paraphernalia all over the house. She smokes using tinfoil and straws. This leaves black soot all over my house. Okay, so what can I say she might react to? Because I ask and ask and nothing happens. So to me, this is, you know, trash in your house is a. Your side of the street thing. The thing of it is, is if you say, hey, you're trying to say, hey, stop doing that. Will you stop doing that? Will you not do it in the house? Will you do it? Whatever. Like, but that's not working. When you're asking someone to do or not do something, it doesn't work. It's not a matter of continue to ask them. It's a matter of saying, okay, then we can't do this. This arrangement isn't working for me. Right? It's like if you. If you have a boss that always schedules you on Saturdays and you pass, you've told this boss, like, I can't work on Saturdays. Like, my kid has soccer. Like, I just can't do it. Like, over and over and over again, they just keep scheduling you on Saturdays. Are you going to continue to argue with that boss and have this. Are you just going to say, hey, this. This arrangement isn't working for me? And unfortunately, it's probably going to come down to you taking an action, not having a conversation. All right, everybody, that is it for today. We are live every Thursday. So if you're watching on the playback, but you want to interact and come on here and ask a question or get some advice, join us on Thursdays at 1. And also, we release new videos on every Tuesday morning. I'll see you guys soon. Bye.