Will I Eventually Be Able to Drink Normally? (if I address the underlying cause of my addiction)

I get asked all the time about whether or not people can go back to drinking or using normally after addiction treatment and maybe even after, like a long period of sobriety, kind of like a reset. This is a super, super normal and common question that not only people in early recovery have, but also their family members. In fact, I got an email consult just recently asking this very exact specific question, and it comes up in a lot of my sessions, so I thought we would address it here, and I'm going to tell you my thoughts on the question. Other people might think differently, but I figured we can have a little bit of a conversation about it to kind of explore the pros and cons of trying that and maybe some alternate ways of thinking about the question. For those of you who don't know me, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. My name is Amber Hollingsworth, and this channel is all about helping you overcome addiction before you hit bottom. So we try to show. We try to show you the science and psychology of addiction from the perspective of the person who is struggling with it and for the family member's perspective, because our goal, to get everybody on the same page so you get your life and your family back on track. All right, so let's get into our topic. The question that we're answering today is this. Is it possible for someone to be able to drink in moderation after they've had addiction treatment and after they've addressed the underlying causes, the addiction, maybe the things that were triggering the addiction in the first place, and they've had, like, a, you know, a significant period of sobriety, can that person go back to drinking in moderation? And I'm talking about, like, occasionally having a couple of drinks at a social event. This is. It's so normal to want to know this question because, you know, when you think about recovery or you think about abstinence, it's an immediate thought for anybody to have, is like, I don't want to give it up totally. I enjoy having a drink with dinner every now and then. Like, socially, I enjoy doing this or that. And why can't I do it in a. In a very small amount occasionally? And I can definitely see why people want to do that, because especially if it comes to drinking, after a while, you. You get to the point where you like the taste and things like that, and so you. You want to be able to do that. The answer is this. The answer is probably not. And I would say most probably not. I'm sure that maybe somewhere in the universe someone has been able to do That I have not really seen that be successful in my career. And I've been treating people and families struggling with addiction for more than 20 years now. So a good long time. I just don't see that happening. If the problem, if the initial problem was drinking. And then you're gonna try to go back to having a few drinks every now and then, I don't see that working for very long. It might can work for a very short period of time, but pretty soon, pretty quickly, the dam breaks and you start sliding back into your old patterns. I have seen people be able to do it moderately casually for a few weeks, even, maybe even a month or so, but eventually the gate gets open because what happens is your guard gets down. So the reason it happens is because let's say you, you went to treatment, you've addressed everything, let's say you're sober for three years, okay? And then you decide, you know what, my life is different. I'm so much better. Like my job is different, my relationships are different. I feel spiritually connected, like I'm in a good spot. I think it'll be fine if I have a couple of drinks at Jeff's wedding or whatever, you know, event coming up. And so at Jeff's wedding, you have a couple of drinks and that'll go fine. Because the first time or two that you do it, you're testing yourself. You're proving to yourself that you can do it. So you're going to be super mindful and vigilant about it the first couple of times you do it. But then a little ways into this, drinking moderately, you're gonna, your guard is gonna go down because you're gonna think, see, it's fine. I drank two, I didn't even want anymore. Nothing bad even happened. I didn't even have a craving. This is what you're going to tell yourself. And then the guard is going to get down. Now, I don't know how many times it's going to take for you to get there. Sometimes it happens to people after once, sometimes it happens to people after four or five times like that. But eventually you forget that you need to be so vigilant and guarded about it. And then you pass that limit. And then once that happens, the gate flings open and it's just on it's own like Donkey Kong. Okay, so that's pretty much what always happens. Now, I know that's kind of bad news for most of you listening, not just for people in recovery, but for your family members too. Because believe it or not, Most of the time your family members want you to be able to drink normally too, right? Like they, they don't want you to be left out because sometimes it makes them feel left out. That's just the honest truth about it. So they want you to be able to drink normally. And I have seen situations where families are the ones encouraging you to try. If you're watching this families, I suggest not because you're going to wish that you didn't when that down breaks. And maybe you're, maybe you're in a relationship with somebody who you didn't even know that person when they were addicted, right? And so they, maybe, you know, they're in recovery like they told you they've had a problem with whatever in the past, but, but you didn't know them then. So if they come with the idea of, well, I can probably drink as long as I don't go overboard. And, and by the way, I'm talking about drinking, but you can also like insert smoking like marijuana in here. That's the other one. Drinking and smoking moderately. That's what people normally want to do. So it could be either or. Same conversation here. So you may be thinking to yourself, yeah, that'll probably be fine because you don't remember what they were like. And so you're going to find out and you're going to be dealing with a person that you've never met before. You're going to regret it. So just be careful when you're making that decision. Now, I know that's kind of bad news, but I do have a different way of thinking about it that might make you feel a lot better about it, especially if you're the person that's in the early stages of recovery or thinking about getting in recovery. Here's the deal. Here's what I say to people because I always get asked this question and I say, well, probably not. I don't say never because then it becomes like the mission to prove me wrong, right? And so I don't say never, but I'm thinking, I'm probably thinking probably never, right? So if your substance was something completely different, then I would say maybe, but it's risky, right? If your substance was something kind of like alcohol, like, like maybe a benzo or a sleeping pill that's really still kind of in that same neuro pathway as alcohol. So super risky. If your substance was something like pain pills, then I would say maybe, but it's risky. If your substance was something like cocaine, I would say probably not. Because when you drink alcohol, people that use cocaine. It's usually kind of a system. It's usually alcohol, cocaine, and weed. It's kind of a little trio thing. So if you drink, if your main drug was cocaine, but then you start trying to casually drink alcohol, alcohol turns off the part of your brain that's helping you remember that you don't do cocaine anymore. So, like, literally 95% of relapses on cocaine are started from alcohol or marijuana. It. So the person doesn't intend to go back to cocaine. It's the other door that opens first. So even if you. Even if you could do that, here's what I'm gonna say to you. It's gonna take so much energy and effort and vigilance, and it's gonna make you want. Want it again, and it's gonna make you crave it. And I say, is it really even worth it? Because here's what I say. People are always like, what? I want to be able to just have a glass of wine. Like, yeah. I mean, I just, you know, you know, I enjoy it with like, a good meal. And it's not that I don't believe that that's true. I'm just saying, is it really worth it? Because I'm like, okay, this is what I say to my cons. I'm like, you. And we both know that a glass or two ain't gonna do nothing for you. And then they're like, yeah. They kind of laugh and they're like, yeah, okay, you're right. I'm like, it ain't gonna do nothing for you but make you want more. It's like one potato chip. I mean, and so I'm not saying that you can't control it. If you put all those other things in place. You might can control it for a little bit, but you're going to have to be so vigilant about it. You're not going to enjoy it. You're going to be constantly, like, analyzing. Everybody else is going to be watching you like a hawk and thinking, I don't. This slippery slope. They're going to be worried and it's going to be like that. It's going to sort of reopen that part of your brain. It's going to activate that addictive center. So it's going to be turning that back on when after a period of complete sobriety, that part, it never goes away, but it goes to sleep. It hibernates, is what I say. Like. Like, I might say it's in remission. Okay, it's still there. But it's not active. If you don't feed that demon, it'll stay in hibernation. And it, and it becomes super easy. And honestly, it becomes super easy quicker than you think. If you, if you go completely none, as long as you're trying to do a little, you, you keeping the demon at bay. Like, think about it like you got this tiny little baby leash around this giant rock waller or something that's like trying to break free, barking all the time. That's what you're going to feel like when you're trying to just manage it. And I say this to people who are thinking about it, like, maybe I can drink socially after a long period of sobriety. Or even people who feel like they have a problem but want to back it down because they'll usually say just occasionally, socially, and I just want to have a drink or two. And I'm like, I don't think you're really going to enjoy it that much because I don't think it's going to do anything for you other than re trigger you. And it's going to take a lot of energy and effort. When actually the truth of it is drinking none is about a million times easier than drinking a little. It really is. It's so much easier. But you can ask anybody who's been sober a while and they will tell you, after a period of time, you just don't really even think about it anymore. You have new habits and routines. It's not like you feel like you're missing out all the time. It's not like you feel like you're holding back or resisting. I mean, like occasionally in long term sobriety you might have a thought like you might be in a certain place that reminds you of it and you might have a thought of, oh, it'd be nice to have a drink, but that's about it. It's just like a random thought that comes through your mind. You might have a memory or something like that, but it doesn't hang around, it doesn't bother you, it doesn't know. You don't. Your monster mouths, as I like to call them, aren't talking to you, keeping you awake and stuff like that. It just becomes your new normal. And you, you feel great, you feel fine, your life is great. And if you get it in your head like, well, maybe it'll be different this time, maybe I can kind of ease back into that with these certain rules around it. You're gonna dysregulate your happy and serenity, your happiness, your contentment, Your serenity and all that stuff that you've worked really hard for because you're gonna have to start holding that Rottweiler back again. And you don't really want to do that because it was so. It's so easy to not do it. That's probably the number one benefit people tell me is about recovery, is life is so much easier, unbelievably easy. Because if you've never had an addiction, it's hard to understand. But I want you. The way I like to envision it is, it's be kind of like if you had to 24 7, juggle Big Giant Butcher knives, but at the same time you did that, you had to do everything else in your life. You had to go to work, you had to take care of your kids, you had to go to school, you had to deal with family events and holidays. And you can't ever stop juggling those knives. And that's why the family stuff, the work stuff, the school stuff, everything else starts to eventually starts to slip through the cracks because you got to juggle these knives constantly. And it's like you kind of have to juggle them faster and faster and faster. So if you get to the point you don't have to juggle those knives anymore, think how easy regular life's gonna feel. Oh my gosh, it's gonna feel like so easy. You're not constantly waiting for the shoe to drop. You're not dealing with people getting mad at you all the time. You're not waking up feeling like crap every day, having to like run on this treadmill to stay ahead of withdrawal. You're not having to chase something else, Juggle these knives and live life. And it's just so much easier. So most people, when they think about it that way, they feel completely different about it. They're like, you know what? You're kind of right. Number one, it's pretty risky to mess with it because most people don't do well with it. And then think about how hard it is to get to that good place. It's freaking hard to get the lid back on the situation. Most time, by the time you get in long term recovery, you. You had to put the lid on it multiple times. You've kind of gotten yourself sober multiple times, and you know how difficult it is. And it gets harder every single time you do it. So it's kind of like, you know, you're probably going to end up making a mess of things, experiencing some major discomfort, messing up some relationships, having everybody watching you, treating you Like a kid again, all that stuff. And then you're gonna have to do the whole get sober thing again, and it just sucks. And so it's just kind of like, is it worth it? Sometimes you'll hear people, hear people in recovery say things like, yeah, I probably got another drunk in me, but I don't have another recovery in there, right? So it's just, just when you weigh the pros and cons of it, I'm telling you, number one, is probably not going to work. Maybe, maybe it would work for you, but I don't even think it's worth it if it would work, because once you go completely sober and abstinent, your brain chemicals level out. This is just a brain chemical thing. It's not a personal character defect thing, right? It's not a what, you know, your intention is thing. It's literally about the brain chemicals. Because once you've developed those pathways, it's like muscle memory. You activate it and immediately you're back in those same patterns because your brain is made for efficiency and, and that just, it just does that automatically to you, even when you don't intend for it to do that. And the, the tricky part is the part where you feel like, well, what about if I treat the underlying causes? Maybe you had, like, PTSD symptoms and, and you feel like that was a lot of why you were drinking. Maybe you feel like you were drinking or smoking or whatever because you were in a bad relationship or in a bad job or something, or you had depression or anxiety, and you're like, well, I've solved that problem now. Well, that doesn't mean that you'll then be able to drink or use normally. Once you have sort of gotten yourself over to the category of like, into, like, addiction, alcoholism, that kind of thing, you. You don't really go backwards, right? Even if the underlying problem is solved, because no matter why it started and no matter what was triggering it, as that addiction progressed, you built those neuropathways and you reinforced them and reinforced them like thousands and thousands of times. And if you wake them up, they're going to be back in full force. It. It's not like if I deal with the underlying issue now, I'm not an alcoholic. It just doesn't work that way. And I know there's some of you watching, they're going to get mad because I'm using the word addict and alcoholic, and you feel like that's stigma. But I have a whole video about why I use those words. So if you're, if you're having that watch that video. There is a reason why I use those words and it's not to be mean or ugly or nasty. I don't, I don't think anything mean or ugly or nasty about anybody who has addiction. In fact, I think we all kind of have an addiction of some sort. So I really don't. In my mind, there's not a bad thought around it, but I get people think, oh, why are you calling the person that? First of all, it's just easier to say than person with substance use disorder. There's kind of a practicality to it. It's definitely easier to Write on a YouTube thumbnail, for sure. All right, so when you put it in the context of, do you really even want to try to do it? Is it worth it? How much effort is it going to take you? When actually, if you ask anybody who's had like a good amount of sobriety, they'll tell you their life is a million times better. They'll tell you they feel better, they have more energy, they have more motivation, their relationships are better, they're there. I'm not saying everything's perfect, but they will tell you everything is so much better. It's like you don't wanna, you don't wanna mess with that. You don't wanna reactivate it and try to put in all that work and energy and effort that it would take to keep the drinking back to normal. Like I said, it is risky to even try to do it if your substance was something completely different. I really don't recommend you try even that. But, but if you're somebody that's just hell bent on it, I'm like, okay, I have, I have seen people be able to do that, but it's, but I've seen a lot of people that, that didn't work for either. So that's what I'm saying. Just, you got to be careful with it. Okay? Like, but if it was your original substance, I can tell you it's pretty much not gonna work. If you're on here right now, if you're watching this video and you've tried that before, I would love it, love it, love it. If you put it in the chat, in the comments. Because maybe if you don't believe it from me, maybe you can believe it from somebody else, right? I've, I've seen it thousands and thousands of times and, and I know it's hard because we want it to be that way, but it, it never makes you feel happier to bring that back in you. You got to realize you're not missing out on anything. Everything you've now gotten back, Everything. So why you would want to pull this back in is kind of. Kind of crazy. I like to tell my clients that it's like. It's like when you have a really bad, toxic relationship, and then you go through this super horrible breakup, and when you finally get out of it, you're so glad you have to block them on everything, because it literally took you forever to get out of that. There was probably 15 breakups before the real breakup, and it was making your life crazy, unmanageability, toxic, all the things. And then you finally get out of that relationship, and then six months passes, a year passes, and you run into that person or that person messages you on Facebook or whatever they do. And then you. You start remembering the relationship. You start remembering how hot they were or whatever. You. You're not reminding yourself of how toxic and crazy it was. And then you open the gate and you start talking to that person again. And then you start letting yourself get close to that person again. And before you know it, usually pretty quickly, it goes south again. And then you're like, this is why I got out of that relationship. That's what's going to happen when you go back to alcohol. This is what I want you to think about. Like, it is an abusive relationship. It's an abusive, toxic relationship. So you don't want to try to just be friends. Okay? It's not going to work. And that's what you're trying to do when you're trying to bring it back in. Maybe we can just be friends. Don't. Don't try that. We all know that if it was a toxic relationship before the being just friends thing, it's not gonna work. So don't try to do that. Don't try to ease it back into your life in some kind of smaller way, thinking that it'll be more manageable or different. That chaos and unmanageability is just going to come back and get back all over your life again. All right, in just a second, I am going to. For those of you who are watching live, I'm going to take some comments and questions and get some feedback from you guys about what you think about this topic. Like I said, I know other people have different opinions. Bri is backstage moderating for us. It helps her if you put, like, some question marks or something in front of your question. That. That helps her know that you're. You're trying to ask me a question, and you're not just talking to someone else in chat, which talking to someone else chat is totally fine. That's great. We want you to do that. It's just we're trying to like, quickly go through those and find the ones that need answers. So if you'll do that and then I will remind you, as always, there are additional resources in the description. If you want recovery coaching, if you have a family member in denial and you want to know how to get through to them, all of that is in the description. And also I'm going to put. Because we're talking about alcohol, I'm going to put the link down there to sober link. Y' all know I'm a big fan of Soberly y'. All, you guys that watch this show, you know, I love soberlink. Literally soberling. It is an alcohol monitoring system and it truly is the number one most effective thing that I have seen work to get people off of alcohol without sometimes without even having to go to treatment. I feel like this, I've had more success with this thing than I have a treatment. So I'll put the link down there for you to check it out. In fact, I recently just made a video for them or a video not for them but for you, demonstrating the whole thing like so you can actually see it and how it works behind the scenes and get like an idea of how the whole system works. I made that video. If you follow the link, you can find it. I will put that in the description for you immediately following this video. All right, Bri, what do we got? I'm the gamer says why does quitting an addiction feel like a physical effort when it seems to be just mental, but it feels very physical? This is a super great question, gamer, and it's because it is physical. It is both physical and mental. The physical part is bare is is hardest up front that first week or two, but then it becomes more mental than physical. But up front is super physical. And that's because of what it does to your brain. Your, your brain chemicals are trying to re regulate and because of that, they're. They're all out of whack. And so when you stop a substance, you go into withdrawal and you get physically sick from pretty much. I mean, different substances have different withdrawal symptoms, but you can pretty much count on no matter what the substance is, that you're going to have difficulty sleeping, appetite issues, irritable, your anxiety is going to go up, you're just not going to feel well. And if you're coming off of something like pain pills, you are seriously physically not going to feel, well, like mega physical symptoms. So the reason it feels like it's a physical effort is because it is. It's the same kind of reason. Gamer is like, you know when you go through a heartbreak, how it feels like your heart physically hurts because that's what heartbreak is. It's a withdrawal and it feels physically hurts. That's why they call it heartbreak. Like you can feel it in your chest and your stomach and your muscles, everything. It's like that. Hey Anthony, thank you for the super chat. Hey, glad to see you back on here. I appreciate that we put all the super chat money towards helping to produce these videos. So thank you so much. Dale says I'm progressing into the good guy role. Nice. Nice work. Dale. My wife is now sneak drinking in moderation daily and falling into a comfortable pattern for her. She's forgotten that I can't continue in the marriage with her drinking. Is there a way I can remind her and not end up as the bad guy again? No, I don't suggest you, you do that, Dale. Because if in her mind, I'm guessing she thinks you don't even know she's drinking at all. I'm thinking that's what you're saying. But you know that she is still drinking. She's just sneaking it. Maybe it's less, but you know that it's still happening. What's going to have to happen is if in her mind it is better and she's managing it better, you're not going to get any further movement until she proves to herself that it's bad again. So I would probably wait and let her let that gate bust back open on her because that's the only thing that's going to prove that to her. Because if you try to confront somebody in any kind of period where they think the problem is better, you really lose credibility. They're going to look at you like you're crazy. So you're just going to have to wait and let, let her show herself. And if you stand back, it will show itself. I promise you. If it's, if it's addiction, it will get manageable. No doubt. Jessica says question, is your strength based coaching program intended before, after, in conjunction with going to rehab, trying to figure out the best course of action? I have seen it in all this is actually a really good question, Jessica. I've seen it in all of those situations after rehab it works really well because someone is already stable and we can sort of jump right into like those higher level recovery skills like Just understanding yourself as a person, getting spiritually and mentally in a good place, repairing relationships. If you're jumping into it in conjunction with getting sober or before like going to treatment or something like that, then we'll probably spend a good portion of that time figuring out how to actually stop. And so it can be useful in all scenarios. Any which way. I just try to gauge where you're at and help meet the needs of where you're at in that change process. Probably the least best way to use the strengths based coaching is if you've got. If you're somebody who's in denial about the problem. I can. I can work with people that are in denial. I've spent my whole career doing that. But it's gonna take weeks and months of sessions for me to get you out of denial. What I prefer is for the family to do that part at home. That's what I teach on this channel. That's what we teach. Invisible intervention. For you to get them out of denial and then for you to sen. Send them to me. It's just a better. It's just a better, more cost effective way to do it because you can do it more effectively than I can do it. Maybe don't know how. And I'll teach you how to do it and then send them to me and then I can sort of. It's kind of like volleyball. You can sort of set it up. I can help you spike it over or I can set it up for you and you can spike it over or whatever. So. Great question. Thanks for asking that. Fancy plants. Oh, I like your username. Says question. What are your thoughts on choosing sobriety? Not based on firsthand problems, but based on a family history of alcohol issues. I think that's just smart. I think that's genius. It's kind of like, look, I done seen what happens to everybody else in my family when they go down this road. I think I'm not gonna try. That's the case with myself. That's the case with my sister. When you grow up in. Doesn't look near as appealing. It didn't look near as appealing to me. Like it really wasn't ever much of a temptation. And I just knew, literally I come from a family where every single person is addicted. And I knew that if I got started on the train, it would get out of control because pretty much everything I do gets out of control. So yeah, I think that's a smart decision. Phil, can you successfully raise the topic of an alcoholic spouse while staying in the good role I want to show this video to my spouse, but know that you don't recommend it. Good job, Phil. That, that's a, that is a thing people say, hey, can I send this video to my loved one? I'm like, yeah, you can. But if they're in denial, you don't ever want to send my videos as a, as a wakeup call. What you want to do, Phil, is you want to wait till they bring it up. You want to wait till you get some form of change talk and then find a video, minor or otherwise, or book or podcast or anything that follows their state of mind at the time. Don't ever send something that's like, something you think they need to hear, but maybe something that they could relate to or want to hear or that they would be receptive to. You want to start there just like, just like this. Like, if I got a new client, I would not start by calling them out. I would never start by calling them out. I might eventually call you out, but I would build a relationship first. And that's what you want to do, either with your loved one or through the videos or however if you play your cards right and you're in that you're out of the bad guy roll, eventually something will happen and they will indicate to you. They may not say, I'm an addict and I need to quit forever, but they'll say, I need to cut it back or I need this. Once you get some, like, change talk, then you ask them, hey, I saw this great video on, you know, how to quit drinking on your own. If they want to quit drinking on their own, I'll send it to you if you want, ask their permission and then send it because otherwise they're going to see it as a jab. It'd be like this if you had a loved one who was overweight, he would not send them a video about going on a diet unless they asked you for that or unless that's a conversation you've been having. Can you see it's kind of parallel like that? Thank you for asking that, because that comes up a lot. Chris says my husband is currently over 90 days sober after 30 day inpatient and 30 days of partial hospitalization treatment. He's currently following up with personal therapy. He's drinking non alcoholic beer and saying he's committed to staying sober for at least a year. Should I be supportive for the year and then see where he lands? I do not think he is someone that should be drinking, considering alcohol and alcohol withdrawal almost killed him and he was in the ICU for 12 days. But if this is a negotiation he has, how do I deal? Okay, so this question is about non alcoholic beer, basically. So what you're saying is your husband's drinking non alcoholic beer. Non alcoholic beer has, I don't know, some kind of ridiculously tiny percentage of alcohol in it, but no one is ever going to get intoxicated from it. So if you're worried that it's considered still drinking, like if in your mind, if you're thinking it means he's doing like what I'm saying, like trying to drink socially or manageably, I wouldn't consider non alcoholic beer in that category of what we're talking about today. I don't, I don't consider someone drinking a non alcoholic drink as a relapse or as continued drinking. Now I will say that it can be triggering. So when, when people ask me about whether or not it's okay, I say, well, I've seen some people who actually that really worked well for. Because if they're a social event, everyone else is ordering drinks, it just makes them feel better, right? Or it just makes them feel like, well, at least they got the taste or whatever and they have all these other cool non alcoholic like cool, like beverages, like really cool fun ones now or whatever. But. And then I have other people that it's, it just is a trigger to drink because it tastes like, it looks like it smells like it feels like it in your hand, sounds like it when you open it, you know all those things. And so it's impacting your senses. So what I tell people about nine o' clock beers, I say, listen, if you try it and you find that it just makes you want the real thing, then probably don't do it. If you do it and you find that it actually helps, then do it. You can, you can try that. So, but should you stay with them drinking alcohol? You sure you should? Like that's not he, that's not considered drinking. It's just, it's like a kid drinking a Shirley Dimple or something. Beatrice says, is it correct to say that if a person has a drug history, they should give up alcohol as well? Often they think it's a different thing, but they end up replacing and switching the drug. Great question, Beatrice and super on topic for today. Yeah, they probably need to give up alcohol. That is not the. Well, it's, it's probably the most common answer, but it's, it's not the answer people want to hear. But alcohol is a drug. A drug is a Drug is a drug, whether it's a solid, a liquid or a gas. It's not, it's not like drugs over here and then alcohol. It's all drugs really. And the, the particular thing about alcohol specifically that makes it hard is because alcohol specifically, as opposed to other drugs, shuts down your, your say no switch. So the part of your brain that lets you make sure you don't use the other drugs when you're using alcohol, it shuts that part down. So you run the risk of relapsing on the other substances when you're intoxicated. And then you also run the risk exactly like Beatrice is saying, of then developing into an alcohol problem. Now, like I said before, I have seen some people give up some substances and like years later be able to drink occasionally. But if you're trying to give up a drug today and you're gonna just continue drinking, that's definitely not gonna work. Because the whole thing about giving up the drugs is you gotta learn like coping skills, you gotta learn stress management, you gotta learn to live life sober. And if you're not even giving yourself a chance to learn that, then there is absolutely zero that's not going in. Well, you are, you're just gonna switch for sure. So. Good question. Thank you for asking. Elaine says, I have an alcoholic roughly 30 year old sibling. He went to detox about five months ago, but relapsed within two months. She's currently in denial and avoiding that she has a problem. We're trying to use your advice this time around. And now that we found your channel, she's wanting us to come visit her one night at a bar that she's now working at. We of course don't support her choice to work at a bar due to it clearly conflicting with the potential of sobriety. Should we approach it with her by basically saying, we would absolutely love to see you and get together, but we'd rather it not be in that setting? She has a problem with alcohol for roughly 10 years and has pretty much worked in the restaurant industry the whole time. Okay, this, this question is a, is a very good question because it puts the family in a, in a situation, in a lane where you feel like if I go do that, then I'm just enabling and I'm sending the wrong messages. But here, here's the way I want you to think about it. And I have a video on this, a whole video on this topic. But it's like if, if you're dealing with somebody who's in active addiction and you're trying to think, well, should I not drink in front of them or should I not drink or use around them or whatever. This is kind of the same question. If they know you would normally do that and now you're not doing that because you think it's not good for them or because you're being a role model, they're going to take it almost like as an insult. So I think refusing to meet her there, she's just gonna take it as a, a criticism. And all you're really going to do is damage your relationship with her. It's not like that. You making the decision to not go to the bar and meet her there is going to make her change her mind about whether or not that's a good idea for her. It's more likely to make her dig into it. Now, if you're saying, I don't want to meet her at a bar because she's going to get totally wasted and be obnoxious and I don't want to be around her like that, that's kind of a different story. That's just a boundary for you to have. But if you're worried that you're sending the wrong mess message by going when they're already sort of actively doing it, I, I wouldn't fight that battle because I don't, I don't see that it's going to do much good. But it does have the potential to do harm, which is damage in the relationship. And as you know from the videos, your relationship is the power source that you have. The better the relationship, the more influence you have. Anthony says, do you have a video on advocating on your own behalf to get into treatment? I'm having some serious issues asking for help. Anthony is what they're saying is like, you don't meet criteria or something, because that happens a lot. I can send. I'm trying to think where it is. I know I have this. But when you're talking to a treatment center, mostly what they're looking for is do you meet criteria to be in here? And if you're trying to use insurance, then they're looking for do you meet the insurance criteria to be in here? And so what you have to do is you have to understand what it is that they're looking for. And I'm not encouraging you to lie or make anything up, but if you understand why it is that they're saying you don't need to be here or something like that, then you can better explain your situation. And so there's something called the ASAM level of placement criteria, and it stands for American Society of Addiction Medicine. That's what ASAM stands for. It basically lists like all the levels of care and it talks about the criteria a person needs to meet to be in like intensive outpatient, to be in inpatient, to be in 30 day rehab, whatever. It kind of tells you what it is that they're looking for. They call it six dimensions. They're looking at your physical wellness. That means whether or not you're going to go into major life threatening withdrawal symptoms or if you have another medical condition that withdrawal would overly complicate, like maybe you have a seizure disorder already and, and going into cold turkey withdrawal on your own would make you at a much higher risk of having a seizure or something like that. So they're looking at those medical safety complications. They're also looking at your environment. Does your environment support recovery? They're also looking at just a lot of things like your relapse history, some of these other things. You may not even be realizing that, that they need to know those pieces of information. So I encourage you to check out the ASM criteria to understand what it is that they're looking for so you can advocate for yourself. Hopefully that helps. Oh, Anthony says, I don't have drugs in my system and it has created more problems. My mental health is causing problems. Maybe, Anthony, maybe, maybe you need to look at trying to get admitted into mental health treatment as opposed to just the addiction treatment. If the, if you've not been using lately. Because that's, that's kind of a thing now when you're trying to get into something like detox, acute care, they're trying to detox you from drugs. So if you don't have drugs in your system, they're thinking you don't need detox. But actually like 30, 60, 90 day treatment, like more like residential treatment. It's not an acute detox issue. It's more of a, a relapse, sustainable recovery issue. So maybe looking at trying to get into a different level of care or looking more in the mental health vein, or you can pick a program that does dual diagnosis and then when you explain the mental health symptoms, then that will qualify. You get in there. I know that was a complicated answer, but I hope it was at least a little helpful. Not too confusing. All right, guys, we are about out of time. I want to say thank you so much for those of you who showed up live. If you're watching on the replay, hey, we're glad you're here too. If you want to join us live and, and talk with us. We are live every Thursday at 1pm Eastern. And of course, there are more resources in the description. If you want to check out soberling, I'm going to come back and put it in there. If you're trying to get sober and you're trying to win trust back with your family, I'm telling you that is the resource that you want. So I'll put all that in the, in the description below this video and I'll see you guys next week. Bye, everybody.