So people lose too much. It's really hard to bring them
back from. But when you can be a positive
influence to the person, you get this person to see you as a
trusted source. They trust you.
They feel like you understand them, that the problem with
addiction is that we lie to ourselves.
Boundaries are for you, they're not for them.
What if everything you've been told about helping someone with
addiction is completely backwards?
That waiting for rock bottom isn't just wrong, it's
dangerous. That tough Love Actually makes
things worse. And that the ideal you're
powerless is the biggest lie of all.
Today's guest, master addiction counselor Amber Hollingsworth,
has built a movement challenging these very ideas.
She's teaching families how to stop digging themselves into a
deeper hole and start using strategy to outsmart addiction.
So whether you're in recovery yourself or loving someone who
is, get ready to take your power back.
Thank you. Appreciate.
Amber. Thank you for being on the
podcast today. Thanks.
I know I need music or something.
We put the music on. We kind of do this cool intro
and all that stuff afterwards when they edit everything.
Yeah, it's cool that way. I want to kind of get into these
Mythbusters. I know on your YouTube channel,
and I encourage everybody to. What's your YouTube?
Channel it's called. Put the shovel down.
No need to keep digging, no need to lose everything.
You can be dumb as soon as you're done.
Oh that's good, someone said to me today.
They sent me a message said I always thought that meant put
the shovel down. I said quit hitting your loved
one over the head with the shovel.
Oh, that's wild. Yeah, that that's crazy.
I want to get into a little bit, if you don't mind.
They have to hit rock bottom. I kind of want to stay there
because that seems to be everybody I talked to has that
in the back of their head conversation.
And I know you say that it's not just wrong, but it's dangerous.
What's waiting for rock bottom? One of the worst pieces.
Advice you can give a family. The I think it goes back to just
the very nature of addiction. The definition is continues the
behavior despite the consequence.
That's the mere definition. So people live on the streets,
they lose their children, they lose their freedom, they lose
their dignity, they lose their jobs, they lose their spouses,
and they still keep doing it. So this let me just wait until
they suffer enough. It's not quite the answer, but
this whole bottom thing, in my experience, if people lose too
much, it's really hard to bring them back from.
For example, if they've already lived on the street for a while,
they get used to it and then they're fine.
And then what do you have? You don't have any leverage
anymore. Because if they haven't done it
for that, the idea of that might be scary, but once they've
crossed that line, they get comfortable with it.
Yeah, I know. One of the things that like,
like when you're dealing and working with families, what do
you do? So let's say I have a close
friend of mine, she, her daughter is a meth addict,
bounces in and out of different guys, houses and all that do
then is that if they're an adult, you know, OK, they're
2220325I should just let them. They'll come to me whenever I
need to set the standard. How do you start talking to the
moms and the dads out there? And when I say if they're
homeless, like that can be worse, but that's not me saying
that you should let them live in your house.
Of course. Like I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying it's a misnomer to think if I tell my husband
I'm going to leave, he's going to stop drinking.
If I tell my kid, it just doesn't work.
As far as that goes. In my mind, it's influencing
someone to change. There's two pieces to it.
One of those pieces is consequences that they do have
to get uncomfortable. They don't have to hit bottom.
Hopefully they don't lose everything.
It's got to 'cause them to be in distress to some degree.
So allowing consequences is the first thing.
And where families get that piece confused is they confuse
punishment with consequences. Does the opposite.
And the way I define that is anything that you dole out is
punishment, or at least that's the way it's going to be
perceived by the other person. When the universe dolls it out,
it's a consequence. Somebody gets intoxicated and
they do really embarrassing things.
The feeling embarrassed about it is the consequence.
That's the thing that's going to get their attention.
If somebody gets really intoxicated and they do
something really embarrassing and you wake them up the next
day and you start yelling at them and telling them everything
they did embarrassing, you're yelling at them.
Being mad at them is a punishment, right?
Then they're they get preoccupied with you being the
problem and to let the world let the uncomfortableness come in,
which is the opposite of what most families want to do.
Most families want to fix all the big bad things out in the
world that are the messes the person's causing, pay for the
lawyers and all the things. And then they're mad at the
person in the context of the relationship, which is the
opposite. And I try to get people to do
the opposite formula, let those natural consequences fall.
And then the other piece of the formula other than the
consequences is gaining influence with the person.
So when you can be a positive influence to the person, you get
this person to see you as a trusted source, that they trust
you, they feel like you understand them.
They'll go to you when they experience these consequences.
Now you have influence. See the pushing.
When you play your cards, you can do the influencing, which is
pulling. So it's like a push pull and now
you can lead them there much faster.
Even as like a parent, let's say a mom or a dad or whatever,
you're almost like looking at them.
Obviously you love your kid, but you're looking at him and I need
to pay the rent. I need to help him with they
don't have any transportation. You're saying let those
consequences happen. If you have to take the bus,
then so be it. You if you have to be, if you're
going to be now when it comes to being homeless and stuff like
that, because there's always that.
I'll talk to families all the time.
They're like, I haven't seen so and so in two months or a month
or whatever. How do you handle that?
Like how do you go into the homeless part because you
mentioned that earlier. I have this whole like thing, I
call it a motivation matrix. It's easy to show visually, but
when the consequences are really high but the influence is really
low, one of the things you get is they person just gives into
it. They just give up.
They can just almost take it on as an identity and see it as
their destiny. That's just who they are.
I'm just a drug addict, I'm just an alcoholic and they just give
into it. It really is this meeting spot
influence that that gives you any kind of power to pull a
person in the right direction. And as far as paying rents and
stuff like that, I'm not nearly as hardcore on that as most
addiction counselors are. I personally feel like the most
enabling thing you can do is play the bad guy role.
Let me assume that if if I go and give my kid or cousin or
whoever $20, yeah, they might go out there and do whatever with
that. And they may use and whatever
they're going to do, you cannot get around that.
And they may use they, they may buy out a little bit and use one
time, they'll build a resentment against you.
And they'll access that memory for the next 20 years.
And they will use that as the emotional justification.
They keep doing what they're doing.
They will use that over and over again.
No, that makes sense. And this is the question I
really wanted to ask you. And what I was really excited to
have you on is we have this idea of you're either not using or
you're using, period. There's no in between.
There's no levels to this, you know, And I know there's high
functioning addicts, especially with alcohol, like you can talk
to people all the time. Oh yeah, those are the ones.
I'm trying to get them put that shovel down before they lose
everything. So how does that work as far as
if you're high functioning, if you're a successful person that
seems like they have it all together, but they're drinking
at night when they get home. I talked to somebody the other
day. She was like, I drink 2 bottles
of wine a night, 7 nights, seven days a week.
So that's still high functioning.
But how do you make a realization like, hey, this
isn't working out, you're screwing things up?
I mean, most people deep down inside, they dislike something
about it, usually a lot of things about it.
They feel uncomfortable inside about it.
They feel shameful, they feel guilty.
They make promise to themselves, they break it.
They know they're not being their best self, wife, mother,
employee, whatever. And they naturally feel terrible
about that. That feeling is the consequence.
It's really going to get someone to change that feeling of I
don't, I'm not proud of myself. And so when it seems like
there's not enough consequences outwardly, there's so many more
that people are very reluctant to talk about and admit.
And the last person they're going to admit it to is their
family member because they don't want the family member to jump
on top of it. And they don't want to be if
they're not ready to give it up, they don't want to be like
pressed into the corner faster than they want.
So I just remind families it's in there.
Most of the people I see are successful business people,
doctors, lawyers, they're smart people, but and if you get
enough trust with them, they'll let you see that part.
And inside there's a lot of things maybe they like something
about what they're doing, but there's a lot they don't like.
And when you can build your influence card and your
credibility, I call those the seeds of change.
You can pull those forward. You can nurture them and water
them. And then you're pulling their
motivation from them for them that wants to change and you're
nurturing it and you're playing on that card.
Like for somebody talked to a guy recently who is a very
successful person and he's clearly an alcoholic, though.
And he's like, I'm not going to stop.
I don't want to stop. And he finally at the end of our
session, said we'll probably need to cut back.
And he set these little rules for himself.
And I was like, why does your wife thinks from whatever?
And he said, I'm nasty when I'm drinking.
So I was with some people. Get that.
Yeah, I hear you. And I say, and you know what?
I have only known you not very long now, and I know that being
a nice, fun, enjoyable person is really important to you.
Look how you are at work. Look at how these people love
you and these. I could see it in his face.
See him be like, yeah, you're right.
I was like, that's really against your value system.
That's not who you are at all. And that's what I mean when you,
when you find that seed and you're like, that's it.
And then you water it. You don't say, yeah, you're
being a big ugly jerk. No, that doesn't worry.
You say, yeah, that's not who you are at all.
Yes. And then you're pulling that
forward and you can literally watch their face.
Yeah, it's so interesting because we have like business
meetings sometimes and we'll have highly successful different
types of people and they'll come together and we'll meet at a
restaurant or whatever, a patio, something nice.
And it's so interesting because it's not the drinking obviously
is the problem, but it's what's happening.
They drink too much now, even though they're married, they're
flirting with the waitress now. I get her number because of the
alcohol. They wouldn't have done that if
it wasn't for that. Or they order a bunch of food
and they're £100 overweight. It's like your ambition, like
everything starts to go away and then you're causing mass amounts
of trauma not just to yourself but to those around you.
That's right. And deep down that's the thing
that really bothers people and that feeling of just be mad at
yourself or that not liking who you are or how it's making your
day. That's really the thing I think
that ultimately it makes people change way more than like the
the DUI or things because in our minds it's just so easy to
rationalize or justify away some of those things.
You know, they're just out to get people or so and so just
turn me in because they have beef with me with this constant
naggy feeling inside of. That and that's what you go
after like. Oh yeah, I'll look for it.
And you have to do a lot of work to build enough trust with
someone to get to see those pieces right.
Yeah, it's interesting because I've asked friends of mine or
people that I've talked to, it's like, what are the things that
you don't like about yourself when you're in your addiction?
But it's so interesting, the conversations that they begin to
have. It's like you said, there's
guilt and shame. That happens almost 100% of the
time. People have reasons why they
want to stop. Even I call them like the cowboy
taps are like braggy about it. Especially if you have someone
like that. If you just ask the question, if
you say is there anything you don't like about it, they will
immediately. I don't know whether they'll
tell it to you. They'll probably tell it to you.
But even if they don't tell it to you, they'll think of the
answer. Still done your job as far as
moving them and they're thinking along because your brain can't
help but answer the question. Yeah, I want to unpack that
because it's interesting and I know you have a thing called the
invisible intervention. So let's get into that.
This is totally different than traditional confrontational type
of intervention. Can you talk to the spouse or a
parent who's terrified about causing a huge fight and how the
small steps, invisible intervention, what they can do
today? All these things I'm talking
about right now with the balancing of letting them get
uncomfortable and the getting out of the bag of roll and
filling influence in the invisible intervention.
I'll just teach you that step by step.
Like literally, I teach you the skills that I've been using for
20 years to get people to get honest with themselves and to
find someone's motivators. And what do you do when you find
it? And exactly what do you say?
A lot of it's like reflective listening skills and empathy
statements. And how do I get someone's
defensiveness down? It's the actual counseling
skills that I use, which you don't have to have any how big
degree. They're very basic.
Anyone can do them. And so I teach people and say,
listen, this what I'd do if they were sitting in front of me.
Here's what I would say. Here's how to say it.
And then they start to build their influence with their loved
1. And it works so good, Jason,
because here's how I know it works.
When the families haven't been doing this and someone calls me
because they have an addiction, their attitude will be I'm
calling because my wife is making me and I agreed.
Or she says we're going to let me see my kids or whatever and
that's fine. I can deal with that because
I've been dealing with that for 20 years.
So I can win that version over. But once people have been using
the intervention, I know immediately because when their
person calls and talks to me, they say I just got to quit.
I keep on this pattern. I am like ruining myself.
My poor wife, she has been an Angel.
I can't believe I'm doing this. Like their readiness is on a
whole another level. So when they come in, I hit the
ground running. They're already coming in asking
for advice on how to change. So we just get the business, we
figure it out. The other people, they come in
and we spend 6 months of them complaining to me about their
loved one. And the bad thing is the loved
ones usually I'm paying and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I feel bad.
This person's paying. They come complain to me about
them. So it's I feel guilty about it.
But yeah. Do you think?
Because I know you have a video that's titled It's not
Codispendency, It's Betrayal trauma.
And, and to me, and I encourage everybody to go to your YouTube
channel and watch that video, but it's a, that's a profound
shift. Can you break down the
difference and explain why letting go of the codependent
label it's critical, especially for like a spouse or a family
member? Exactly right.
I feel like evidence is just one of those labels.
Like narcissism lately just gets thrown out and it's just, and
it's weird because I feel like everyone kind of has a different
idea in their mind about some people.
They use that word to mean people pleasing.
I think codependent, there is a level of codependency and that
when you're so scared and you're walking on egg shells and
you're, you're thinking, I can't say or do this thing or that
might set them off, that's a little bit of codependency.
But when you're having these huge like emotional reactions
that you feel like you can't even control, that's probably a
trauma symptom. And especially if you're a
spouse or even if you're a parent, you, you live in fear
and anxiety for so long and the lies and distrust and loss of
dream about what you thought was going to happen that you end up
with PTSD. And so, you know, like your
loved ones 5 minutes late coming home because it was traffic, but
you don't know that. And they walk in the door and
you just lose your cool on them and you're just melting down,
just like a soldier who hears a loud noise, something reminded
you of it. And then you get in that fight
or flight response, it's very difficult.
Yeah, no, that makes 100%. So do you work like as far as
because there's always the when the emotions are running high,
when there's almost that PTSD type feeling, there's a way that
you want to protect yourself. And so the conversation starts
off all wrong, like you said. Next thing you know, the attic
walks in the door from work. I hadn't drank yet.
And then Jim or Susan or whoever's just go freaking out,
yelling, and you did this to me and it makes it all about them
and what how I'm feeling and what you're doing.
And then it's 'cause I know there's a lot of manipulation.
I know there's a lot of gaslighting.
And did you talk about that being like an addict's best
friend? But for the person on the
receiving end, it can make you feel like you're going crazy.
How do you keep your saying? You do go crazy.
It's making you crazy. So just there's that part of the
reason why you do get so crazy is because of the gaslighting
and because you're constantly being told that you're not
seeing what you're seeing. And then you have this wrestling
thing with yourself where you're like, I know I'm right.
And then maybe I'm not, Maybe I'm overreacting back and forth.
And So what happens is then you get into this, I call it
investigator mode, where your whole mission in life is to get
the evidence and the truth and shove it in their face because
you think then they'll have to admit it.
You could shove evidence in their face all day long.
It's just so counterproductive. It's like now you're invested in
trying to make them admit that what you know is happening.
And So what I tell people is I say, listen, if you think it's
happening, it's probably happening.
But some like, you know, the line in the back of your hand
and their energy's off. Like same way is like if you
have a kid and they're sick, you just know, like when you live
with someone sometime you just like you don't have to prove it.
You don't have to get them to admit it.
So some of these things, we validate their feelings, of
course. And I think that brings down the
emotional because they feel seeing them.
I'm like, no, you're not crazy. I mean, I'm sure you're right.
And that DE escalates it right then and then teaching them some
of these other things. But it's still hard to control,
even when you know what to do and what not to do and all the
right answers. Yeah, and it's hard not to be
the bad guy like you talked about that earlier.
And Speaking of that, like that role, how do you step out of the
role without becoming a doormat? Like how do you stop being
because the addict's going to think you're the bad guy if
you're trying to hold them responsible or you're
investigating like you said, then automatically they're
feeling like I'm on the defense and I'm doing something wrong.
Yeah, and that addiction wants you to stay in that bag and
roll. So once you're in it, even when
you start getting out of it, it'll try to pull you back in
it. It'll pick a fight with you.
It'll pitch out your old lettons.
It wants you to stay in the villain role.
You decide you're not going to be the dollar out of the
consequences. Now you have to there's some
boundaries you have to set for your own safety or the safety of
other people in the house or your own emotional health.
So you decide what the boundaries are as far as what
you can do and not there for you, not for another person.
They're they're about they're not like rules.
Boundaries and rules are two different things.
And it's like consequences inventions like you, if you're
setting boundaries because you think it's going to control
their behavior, you're wrong. It's not right.
If I find drugs in this house, someone's an addict, there's
drugs in here. I don't care what you say, it's
just not. It's just happening.
Finding where you absolutely have to draw the line in the
sand. And there are some, right?
Like you should draw those lines in the sand.
But other than that, stop trying to control the use.
Instead of doing this whole thing, like you said, you were
only going to drink 3 and I'll count it and you drink 4 already
wonders you won't let that roll. I'm going to get out.
He's going to drink three. I know he's going to drink 10.
I'm going, I'm going to sit back and let him because that's the
only way that person is going to learn.
It is not working for them to try to drink just three.
So we're not trying to slow it down.
We're trying to fast track this mess.
Don't help them keep it under control.
Don't do that. And once you shift your mind, it
just feels totally different. Yeah, exactly.
And. Then the consequences hit,
getting up in the morning to try to make it to work, all those
different things I want to get into 'cause this one was really
good. The sorry cycle.
And I know families get caught in this cycle of empty apologies
and we don't know what to do because it's constantly I'm
sorry, I'll change. I have a good friend.
Her daughter was a teenager and used drugs till she passed away
but here it's 151617 years old. But it was constantly I'm sorry
mom, I'm sorry mom. I'll change but nothing ever
really happens. How do you spot the difference
between a real apology or just excuses over and over again?
There's a few ways. One is if someone's apologizing,
or especially someone's promising to change because
you've caught them doing something and you back them into
a corner, then it's probably just a defensive stance, right?
And I'm not saying they don't mean it all.
Maybe it's somewhere in the Gray area, I don't know.
But when someone brings it up themselves or comes to you with
it, the likelihood that it's genuine is really high.
I know I can't keep doing this. I know it's putting you in a bad
position. I know that this is not good for
me. That's probably genuine.
Now, that doesn't mean that they're going to be 100%
successful at fixing at that point, but it does mean that in
their mind, they're probably sincere and they're working and
they're getting closer and closer to figuring it out.
Yeah, we all know eating bad food is bad for us but yet we
all a lot of us will still do it.
I know I do sometimes here I'm drinking even though it's sugar
free. I'm drinking a 0 sugar mound Dew
which is probably all chemicals. But we expect the addicts in our
life to just stop it no matter the consequences.
Like I know if I drawing I'm trying to drink the 0 sugar one
but who knows what it's going to do to me but I still drink it.
That's the same thing as addiction, same exact thing.
Why do we have such high expectations for addicts?
Well, I think they come from a place.
Ultimately we know if someone's addicted, they probably aren't
going to bring it into a manageable level.
He is not. But what's important for
families to understand is that before people are going to
completely give anything up, go sober, abstinent, whatever,
they're going to have to go through this long phase of
bargaining. It's a grief process.
They don't want to give it up completely.
They want to try all these bargains.
Let me just do it on the weekends.
Let me do it every now and then. Let me set a financial limit on
it. Let me drink beer and not
liquor. Let me only drink after 6:00 at
night, no more than three glasses of wine.
All the things. And it makes you as the family
member, so angry because you think they don't get it.
They don't mean it. They're never going to stop.
They always say that. But if you understand that
actually when they do, that's a step towards change and they're
just figuring it out and right, you can speed up the process.
You can't get someone to skip it.
There's some things you can do to like, let's move it, let's
try it, let's do it. Don't we mad if they say it and
they don't do it and then you have empathy forum when it
doesn't work, we're going to move through that faster.
They're going to have to try it a few times because they're like
and do it right at a time. We try that again and then
they're going to say, I just that just doesn't work for me.
It always eventually it goes bad.
They'll learn that. And if you just let it, they'll
learn it faster. I've seen that over and over
again where that realization hits us.
I've tried about 20 different things and none of this works.
You got someone mark all, check all the boxes at lake and think
of Yep. And hopefully quick.
Let's try it. Let's do it, Yeah.
So you're letting them do pretty much, let's speed this up.
Let's let you do figure you're going to figure this shit out on
your own because you mentioned boundaries.
So the boundaries are for let's say the boundaries are for me
and I'm dealing with this attic. How do I hold the boundary
without them feeling the blame or the guilt or me even having a
victim mindset, which is harder not to not to be sitting there
and thinking I'm a victim. I'm a victim.
Look at him. He said he was going to drink 3.
Now he's in his 10th beer and then he's feeling sorry for
yourself. Do you have a script, a
compassionate script or something when your boundary is
being attacked or you feel like it's being attacked?
Sometimes, no matter what you do and how you say it, they're just
not going to like it. Part of it is just understanding
that they're not going to like the women.
That's OK. Now I think it's important the
way you say it, you convey it and the way you conduct yourself
just for your own integrity and for your own sense of self.
I want you to do it the right way.
So for example, like a boundary, a reasonable boundary that a lot
of people have is if you come home and you're drunk and you're
being nasty, then I'm just going to take down what's up.
I'm just going to go in room and read or I'll just watch Netflix
and I even tell people not even to announce it, just extend it
back. Just let them in my face.
But a lot of times that person that's drinking or whatever,
they'll notice that and they'll be like, oh, you never want to
be with me when and they'll start a fight.
No one likes a lemon and they may not like, but I still want
you to conduct yourself with empathy and integrity and
honestly have as few as you can get away with because you have
to back up whatever you say. So if you can't back it up, then
you can't have it as a boundary. You can't only have boundaries
for you. Then it's not a boundary.
Like it can be a request, it can be a rule, but it's not a
boundary if you aren't willing or ready to really back it up.
Like the whole I'm going to throw you out thing.
I'm like, do not say that unless you're ready to do it.
And do not say that because you think it's going to make them
stop, because they're not going to stop.
They're going to do more. And if you say you're going to
do it and then you don't do it, then you're really going to be
mad at yourself because you're going to be like, now I look
like an idiot. Now you're mad at yourself
because you don't hold to it. Yeah, and I feel like the having
that compassion part, like you said, because even if you put
yourself in their shoes, let's say it was an addiction.
Let's say you just had a really bad boss and you go to work all
the time and it's really good pace.
You deal with this bad boss, but he belittles you, He makes you
feel like shit. He's constantly telling you
you're doing these things wrong. That's the same thing you're
doing to the addict. So instead of waiting for the
fight cause some people can get addicted to the drama.
I talked to and they were like they were like I can stay in my
ground and I'm ready when he comes home and he's been
drinking to let him have it. And I'm like how often this
happen 3 or 4 times a week. It's like insanity.
Just a constant circle over and over again.
Right is. That a boundary.
Yes, as far as what works for the other person, you can
alternate between being positive, which is using
positive reinforcement, and neutral.
Positive and neutral is the better formula.
When you get negative, it works against you.
Whenever possible, go into that. Most they're doing a behavior
you don't like, Just go neutral about it.
Don't have anything, just ease away.
Don't have anything about it. If they're doing something you
do, call that out, reinforce it and say, oh, yesterday you were
so great. I enjoyed our time together.
Do you feel like, let's use that one?
He comes home and he's arguing all the time, only when he
drinks. He's nice when he doesn't drink.
But if he argues, would you have a conversation when he's sober
to say, hey, here's the boundary that I have because I don't want
us arguing. It's not good for you.
It's not good for me, it's not good for our relationship.
I love you. Would you have that type of a
conversation with them when they're sober?
I don't think it's always necessary to announce your
boundaries, and sometimes announcing your boundaries is
just picking a fight, honestly. Somehow if I announce it,
they're going to listen. They're really going to.
Oh, come on. A lot of times it's just even
better if you don't announce it because then when you do go into
the room, then they have to announce if it's a safety issue,
like if I think you're drinking, I'm not going to let you drive
the kids. But no, I don't think you need
to announce every one of them. Boundaries are for you.
They're not for them. So it's.
Just K, I'm tired, have a good night, love you.
And then go lay down in bed and watch Netflix this kid off and
let them be there alone and do their thing.
I want to get into relapse. This is one of the things that
Dwayne and I talked a lot about on our podcast because everybody
relapse, but it's no one wants to talk about it.
Right. You can't be perfect.
No one can be perfect. It's part of the learning
process. And family members reps too.
Like you're doing the whole Amber method and then you lose
your coal. It's all right, you relapse.
We're going to call it back. What is the, how do you handle,
like, evidence of a relapse? So let's say he hasn't drank for
two or three weeks and then you look in the trash and there's an
empty bottle then. Or there was a text message you
weren't supposed to see about him and his buddies going out
drinking. What's the thing to do?
Is it to like just ignore it? Because I know you talk about
like the first 30 minutes after the discovery.
It depends on where a person's at in their stages of change and
where you're trying to get them to.
For example, if someone is still in some level of denial or
they're still doing the bargaining thing and you're just
going to let that play out because we're not going to get
past that until they learn that. If someone's been sober and
they've been in recovery, like really doing well and they had a
slip, bringing that to the surface and making it known
sometimes can stop the slip. Because if they feel like the
sneaky thoughts just get in or she doesn't know, then sometimes
it will continue. And sometimes just having that
little bit of accountability can help.
I feel like you have to look at where someone's at in their
stages and match your behavior to where they're at and what
bring it up. Number one, I would say don't
ask the question because they're going to allow you.
They can't help, but it's a reflex, OK, It's just an
immediate I didn't do it. We're going to be really how
they like. So if you know it, say it it
nicely and say it as I'm on your side.
You're out in trouble. If you found the empties in the
bottle of the whatever, whatever you can say, hey, I just want
you to know I saw these. I know you're really trying and
you've been doing really good lately.
I know you're going to figure this out room for them to
comment because their initial reaction is going to be
defensiveness. You cannot help it.
Or if you call me out, even if I know I'm wrong, I'm going to
plant the seed and walk off and let it settle in.
Their initial thoughts going to be, why are you going to the
chat? That's their first stop.
And then if you don't, if you're not sitting there arguing back
and forth with it, the rest will rise to the surface and their
own stuff will kick in. So you sometimes don't trick
them, don't trap them, don't do that.
Yeah, this sounds like a mother mothering over someone.
What is the like as far as the relapse goes that that's a
perfect way to handle it. But most people when they have a
relapse, it's usually just a trigger of something, whether
it's like a breakup they're going through or they lose their
job and then that kind of triggers it.
How do you, if it's something like horrific that happened in
the life without condoning, but obviously if it's your husband
comes home because I had a really bad day at work, blah,
blah, blah, and then you see the empty bottle the next morning,
then you know there was a trigger.
How do you handle that? Do you handle the same way or
don't even bother with the trigger?
Don't even think about it? But in the example you gave, if
the husband comes on, he's had a really bad day.
And then the next day you see the evidence that I probably
would gently bring that to the surface.
And I'll say, hey, I want you to know I saw this because the we,
I encourage people have addictions to be above forward
things. But families need to be above
board too because they're lying and sneaking just as not just
this whole Tom and Jerry game. I'm like, you need to you can't
be sneaking anything. So you can just say hi.
Just want, you know, I saw it. I also know you you had a really
rough day yesterday. And if you just say it that way,
if you say it with empathy, their thought will be in their
head that saw it's a reaction. Like they'll have a better
response to themselves than anything you could say.
Yeah. What does that mean?
And what is one kind of a habit or something that they can
practice stop their old thinking from derailing their new life?
I feel, and I think I was listening to one of your podcast
recently, Jason, I can't remember the guest, but you guys
were talking about this. We can have these old narrative
scripts, these assumptions that we decide about ourselves and
sometimes our subconscious and would like, for example, if I
think I never make it past six weeks, I hit this wall every
time I get to six weeks. You don't even realize it, but
you're subconsciously sabotaging yourself to set that up.
And so when you can recognize maybe that you're a lot of times
you don't know that you're doing it to yourself, but you've
convinced yourself that you always relapse, that you're
never going to get it. I'm like, that's not hope.
They'll say, oh, I could never win that.
And I was like, you definitely can't with that thought.
These scripts, it's important how to yourself.
We decide things about ourselves sometimes when we're really
young, sometimes we don't even reassess.
You stayed sober six weeks, That's what, 6, That's 35 days
in a row. You knew how to do it.
Clearly you do know how to do it.
Clearly you can't do it. There's nothing magical about
this day. And so helping people to
confront those like irrational beliefs, negative assumptions,
whatever you want to call it, can bring them to the surface
and then people can sometimes override them.
Yeah, One of the things I think a lot of people will do,
especially when it comes to setting a day or whatever, even
in recovery systems that are out there, they have gifts they'll
give you for the amount of days or whatever.
Interesting that. I don't know if it's because we
have birthdays or anniversaries. It's like the date becomes like
this all important thing. I've been recovered for this
many years or whatever it may be.
Do you feel like that is part of it or do you think it's good for
someone to count days like if it helps them?
It's good for some and not good for others.
Some people really, they have the counter on their phone and
they just get excited when they go up that for that same person
who it's very helpful for, it can backfire on them if they
have a slip because they'll immediately start thinking, I've
screwed it all up at day one. Oh my gosh.
And then they just feel defeated and hopeless.
And immediately the way I responded, and I'm like, no, if
you had 153 days and you messed up today, I'm not going to give
you 154, but tomorrow we're going to be on 154, OK?
Like I said, you can't undo someone's recovery.
You can't unlearn what you've learned.
I sort of damage control it because the last thing you want
someone to do is get in that hopeless, and it's that
hopeless. So I move in and try to hit that
head on. Do you have you ever seen it
like worth? You've been sober 8 months out
of 12 months, so that's awesome. For the whole year that means
you've been sober. He's been 240 days.
Is it just like a reframing thing?
It's a, it's a reframing thing. It's a how do I make meaning of
what those days mean? And we make it mean something in
the positive. We can make it mean something in
the negative. Then there's just a sort of
other category of people that having a big number of days is a
trigger for them to use because they're like, it's kind of like
when you're on diet and you're like, I've been good all week,
now have a cheat day. Is it once you open that gate
with addiction, you can't close it back.
So the thought is the same or the thought sometimes is this is
crazy, but people will stay sober for lengths at a time to
prove to themselves that they're not an addict.
So it's just a test the whole time and said, oh, alcoholic,
they couldn't go 30 days without drinking.
So I can still drink. So it's the meaning they're
attaching to the day. No, that makes sense.
And what do you think is up with like why is there such?
Is it just old school like this abstinence thing, like where you
either are on the wagon or you're off the wagon?
No, but recovery's not that way. It's messy.
It's not. You're not going to have, like
you said, they're going to be drinking wine, not Whitsky.
They're going to be maybe trying weed instead of meth.
There's there's all these different, like you said, messy
ways. So why is there such a thing
with like abstinence? And I think that there's some
validity to that because I think those of us have been around the
block enough times. We know that it really only gets
better when you completely in my heart in most situations.
I'm an abstinence fan. I also understand the human
element of allowing people their process and the trial and error
and realizing that they're on their way of figuring it out
when they're trying that. So do I think they need to get
all the way sober? Yeah, probably.
Occasionally. They're figuring it out.
Give people believe in people that they're they are smart and
they will figure this out. Have you done any?
I'm going to ask this because I think it's something that it's
I've been finding with addicts, the more I've been talking with
them and I found this in my own life.
I have a food addiction. So that was my I handle alcohol.
It's weird. I can handle alcohol, not a big
deal. I don't like drinking because it
makes me not feel good. But when it comes to any
trigger, I'm out like I'm 110% I'm going to get the 12 Taco
packs. I'm going to go through three or
four different cruise and on top of it, I'm going to make myself
sick because I'm going to eat so much.
The whole thing, ice cream. So I understand.
Obviously mine's kind of mild. The worst thing it does is make
you throw up. At the same time, there's this
whole idea of not feeling good enough.
Why did I F this up again, you know, and then go to the diction
like that. That's that's how I see it when
I talk to addicts. Do you feel like it's a
reprogramming of finding where do you feel like it's trauma
based? Is it a childhood thing that
they go through 'cause I have a story where I figured out that
it was my childhood that caused the food addiction.
Do you do that with people? Do you try to figure out like
what's caused the addiction? I I spend a lot of time with
people trying to figure out what their triggers are.
I don't believe that everyone who has an addiction has trauma.
It's like this, if someone's addicted to nicotine, we don't
think in our mind, oh, they must have childhood trauma.
Wait, you smoke serious long enough, you want to have an
addiction. And that's just the truth of
addictive things like drink long enough.
If you put an addictive substance in your body long
enough, you're going to develop a dependency on just the way it
works. Like this is where our bodies
are supposed to work. And so I don't think that
everyone does have trauma. However, if you do have trauma,
your level of uncomfortableness is much greater than other
people's, and so the idea that you might be seeking some sort
of self soothing increases the fact that you might grab on to
something faster. But I don't care if you've had
it or not, if you put it in long enough, you're going to get a
problem. Yeah, that's so cool because I
was addicted to nicotine for a long time, the pouches and all
that stuff, but I never thought, oh, this is the food.
I found that it was because my family argued a lot and we would
go to fast foods because we're extremely poor, but so that any
type of trauma was always like my family would make up for it
with food. Trained you like behaviorally
almost. Yeah, yeah, it was like a
behavior. Thing anything bad food will
make it better. And then our house was full of
everything. We erased super poor so our
house was full of box everything.
Yeah, I relate to that. I lived off the sugar like when
I see people and I talk to people, but that's so
interesting. I never even thought about that.
It's hey, these nicotine pouches there's you didn't mean you
weren't beat when you were little kids.
You just happened to take them. That makes so much sense.
Like for example, if you in the story that you just told, even
if you took out the part about when bad things would happen,
we'd go to McDonald's to feel better.
Even if you took that out and just let the other pieces in
which I grew up in a house like that too, you developed that
sugar addiction. So you might not have been
behaviorally think you still would have come out with
dependency. Yeah, I just noticed if I had
went through a relationship and I broke up with a girlfriend or
something, I would just binge eat.
So I knew that there was like some connection.
If I got really scared or nervous, I would just eat a
bunch. So over and over again I could
see that. That it's a pattern.
Right. Yeah, I want to kind of get into
it. I want to.
We're closing up on the hour here.
So I know you have an article that says you can overcome
addiction on your own. Now that's empowering to me.
And we have, we've seen a lot of people that's happened.
But you also run a coaching business for families.
How do you reconcile those two things?
And when is it right for a person to go it alone?
And when is it critical for the family to get expert help?
OK, I think it all depends on what you mean by alone, people
that are reluctant to get help. But a big part of it is I can
handle this. I can figure this out on my own.
And what I say is you're in luck because no one can help you do
this in reality. Like when you have a medical
condition, you go and a surgeon can fix it or you come out
fixed. There is really no such thing
like that. There is no other way an
addiction. So it is going to you doing it
alone no matter what. Now you can expedite the process
by getting some people, some advisors on board.
Like for example, I could figure out how to build a house or
something eventually and I could figure that out.
Or I could just at least hire a consultant to tell me what the
fastest way and then maybe help me avoid some pitfalls.
It's not me saying don't get help.
It's me saying, yeah, you're going to do as long because I
can't do it for you. If I could, I would.
We can't do it for someone else. It is you.
And so a lot of it's just about confronting that thought.
If I can do it myself, the other reason why it's helpful to have
and I don't, it doesn't matter. I mean, how you get these other
people or they don't have to be sponsors.
They can be counselors, coaches, friends, church leader, whatever
you want them to be. But the problem with addiction
is that we lie to ourselves. It's just, it's a defense
mechanism of rationalization and justification.
And so I think it's important to tell someone that you're doing
it because if you try to just like recover in secrecy, it's
just really hard to hold your own self accountable because we
trick ourselves. So I do think that it is
important and helpful to have some other people on board.
I just don't know that you have to go to treatment.
I mean, you don't necessarily, sometimes you do, but you might
not necessarily have to go to 90 days of treatment.
You may not necessarily have to go to 12 step.
There's some sort of things I think you need to do to help,
but I don't know that you have to do that whole full course
thing. No, that makes sense.
Yeah, that like having a coach. I never understood why it wasn't
more prevalent. Having it, it would be so much
easier. Let's say you're dealing with
somebody like a high functioning alcoholic.
It'd be so much easier to do Zoom calls when have a
conversation. And then you could do it in the
privacy of your own home. Because next thing you know, you
don't want to be like going to some meeting, which we
encourage. Do whatever you need to do get
covered. If meetings are great, that's
awesome. If being a part of your program,
that's awesome, whatever it may be.
But I think at the end of the day, that realization had to
come in my mind. I've talked to Dwayne.
After years and years of him using drugs and alcohol, he had
to have the epiphany that moment.
I'm not doing this anymore. Yeah, so it's getting a
consultant and I deal a lot with real high functioning people who
a lot of times don't want to go to treat any kind of group
setting for a lot of some valid reasons, but they might be
willing to talk to a coach privately, you know, and
especially a coach first because you don't get a diagnosis.
No one's going to merit like you.
There's just some ways that if you're a family member and you
have a loved 1, like this might be a much more digestible
option. You got to know your loved one
and be like, are they going to worry about their reputation?
Just like are they going to, they're going to knowing what
options to to throw out there based on the person and when to
throw them. I think it's so adorned too
because I was in Somalia, Bosnia and hitting the Marine Corps.
Saw a lot of shit so I got labeled BTSD.
The a living hell for me would be and I use the VA and they
have like great and we do zoom calls and stuff like that.
A living hell for me would be me sitting around a group with
other veterans and them talking about their 20 years.
I did this and I was involved in this and hope that I'm
introverted too. So it's I don't want to meet new
people. I don't want to sit around in a
circle. I don't want to talk about this
shit. So I get it like 100% if some
that way. And just because someone's that
way doesn't mean that they don't want to change or they are not
really. There's a legitimate just
personality things, likes and dislikes, preferences, introvert
extra. You got to take all that into
consideration with people. Yeah, that's so good.
Thank you for putting that out there.
I want to ask one last question. After 20 years in this field to
help thousands of families, if you could permanently erase one
single word or phrase from the entire vocabulary of addiction
recovery, what would it be and why?
Probably it would be the whole year powerless thing.
Whether the addiction or the family member.
There's so much you can do. I understand why they say it.
While it's in the lingo, what they're really trying to say is
you're not going to manage it well.
You're not going to find a valence.
That's why they say it. But it gives the wrong
impression sometimes. Amber, thank you for sharing so
much wisdom and hope with us today.
Thanks for having me, yeah. Yeah, and, and if anything
talked about today resonated with you, I want you guys to
find Amber on YouTube. I want all of my listeners to
subscribe to her channel. And then also check out your
Family Recovery Academy. Is that what it's called?
Do you have a website for that? That is our website.
It's called Family Recovery Academy dot online.
Oh, OK. YouTube is the best place to
find me. Yeah.
Whatever angry you're coming at it from, just put the show it's
on. Yeah.
Awesome. Perfect.