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Speaker 3Hey, guys. Welcome back to Recovering Out Loud. I'm your host, Anthony. Today, I'm going to talk about addiction in the family. Addiction is a family disease, but I want you to know today that it is also a family recovery. Everybody plays a role in both processes. I know this impacted me this time around after my relapse significantly deeper than before because I lived with somebody, my wife, who was privy to my addiction, front row, front and center. I know now what I put her through and the amends that I've had to make and the process. It was a lot. I know how hard it is. I've never experienced it personally with somebody else, friends here and there, but living with someone with an addiction is a whole other ballgame, a whole other level. Today, I want to commend you, first of all, if you are struggling with somebody that's in your life that is going through addiction, it is a helpless job. It is a thankless job. It is a lonely feeling. This feeling of isolation and lack of control can really spiral us out of control. And I've worked with a lot. I work with a lot of families that are trying to get their loved ones into treatment. And it is heartbreaking to hear some of the stories of, you know, he's such a smart guy. And I don't understand when he drinks and uses, he's a different person. Yes, that's true. When we use and drink, it is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That is not your son in there. That is not your husband, your wife. That is addiction. That is their addict self. And to get to the point where you're like, recovery process, a lot needs to happen beforehand, but you can control what you can control, which is essentially your own mental health. A lot of this isn't going to be good news, but there are steps you can take. And I'm going to go through that today. So when I was going through my relapse, my wife was calling the morgue every night. She was calling hospitals. She was calling police stations because she didn't know where I was. I would disappear for days at a time. And we often hear this in addiction. I'm only hurting myself. I'm only hurting myself. Nobody else. It's just me. Stop worrying about me. I'm fine. I've got this heartbreaking stuff because we know that that's not true. We are like tornadoes roaring through the home. It impacts everybody on so many levels. And I always like to think of it this way. If you think of one addict in your life, one person struggling with substances, you add maybe at minimum three people that probably care about that person that are now suffering. And then now three people per every one of those three people that are suffering because they're worried about their loved one. It's horrible. It's a horrible situation. Hopefully some of this information will help you today and gain some clarity on what your role is and what you can do to help your loved one. One of the hardest things to do in life is to love somebody that is struggling with an addiction, especially if you've seen them before the addiction, which is the case with my wife. She saw me at seven and a half years of sobriety on my recovery game, spiritually tapped in every day, helping others involved in, in recovery programming, and then she saw me fall to my bottom and it was a lower bottom than I had ever hit. And this is what happens. It gets. It gets worse before it gets better for a lot of us, unless we get help. So when addiction is in a family environment, it often, it often causes, creates confusion, pain, fear, anger, right? A lot of people are angry at, why can't you just stop? Don't you love me? If you would just stop, you're killing me. Can't you see what you're doing to this family, to your kids? Why can't you just stop? Well, because it's not a choice. And a lot of us know that by this point, but that's the unfortunate truth of addiction. So in today's episode, I'm going to go over what addiction in a family member feels like, why families react the way they do the difference between helping and enabling. You're going to want to listen to that part. That is important, practical skills and tools. How do I help? How do I support and what does enabling look like? How do I stop enabling? Enabling is bad. Supporting is where we want to hang out and what healthy support actually looks like and how to take care of yourself through all of this. If before I go any further, if you are struggling with a loved one in addiction or substance abuse or drinking, and you don't have a therapist of your own, stop what you're doing right now, go on psychology today and find one, please do that for yourself. Find a therapist that can help you through this. It is so important that you take care of your own mental health. If you're not in a spiritually fit, mentally fit, emotionally fit place to help somebody, you're just going to make it worse. And then when that person comes in asking for help, you're not going to be ready because you're not fit yourself to be of service, to help that person. And if you're at a point now. Where you're like, I need to leave. I can't be a part of this anymore. I understand that too. Don't be guilty about it. You got to protect your kids, your mental health, your family. Nobody would fault you. It's not easy loving an addict or an alcoholic. Trust me. I know you need to do what you need to do, but hopefully this episode will help you just hang on a little bit longer because great things can happen when people come into recovery. I've seen the worst scenarios righted. I've seen amends made. I've seen families get brought back together. It's a beautiful thing. Like I said, family disease, family recovery, it is possible and the family can thrive and thorough and flourish through this recovery process. So as we all know, addiction, isn't just a single issue. It's not a individual issue. It impacts the entire family system. It impacts trust. He's walking through the house looking for drugs. How can I trust him? He's hiding drugs everywhere. He's going to the bathroom by himself at all hours of the night. He's disappearing. How can I trust that person? I get it. You can't. Yeah. Yet it impacts communication. How do I talk to him? Every time he's high, he's telling me he's not going to do it anymore. He's he's done. He's going to give it up. He's promises. He promises it impacts emotional safety. I don't feel safe around my husband, wife, son, father, mother, and it definitely impacts financial stability. Where's all this money going? Bars, hotels, partying, drugs, alcohol, and then it impacts family roles. So what role do I play in the family dynamic? And everybody plays a role, like I said, off the top, what a lot of people don't realize is that families can actually start adapting to the addiction. So we, we start to change our behaviors in reaction to the addiction in response to the addictive patterns, behaviors, even gambling. Some examples of this are covering up for somebody's behavior. So he's missing work or he's missing family functions and I'm covering them, making excuses for them. Oh, you know, he's making up lies, making up stories so that I, you know, people don't know what's going on. It's, it's a shameful place to be. I don't want to tell people my husband's struggling with alcohol. It's embarrassing. Unfortunately, it's embarrassing, but we need to reduce the stigma. There are so many people out there that are struggling with this and have gotten through it. Trust me when I say this, whatever your loved one is doing in their life right now, you're not alone. There are people that can help you that have been through it. Al-Anon is a great resource for people to use. I strongly advise you use it. Al-Anon recovery groups, it's free. There's meetings all over the place, online, in person. It helps you deal with the addiction in the family. And with your loved one. So we start taking on responsibilities that they should handle and we avoid difficult conversations. I don't want to fight with them. So I'm not even going to bring it up this time. I get that. Over time, the whole family begins to revolve around the addiction. It's, we're stepping on eggshells. As we say, we're walking around. We're constantly unsure if a bomb's going to go off, if we're going to get good dad today or angry dad, Jekyll and Hyde, like I said. So these are some of the common rules that emerge in the family dynamic. First is the caretaker. The person that's trying to fix everything, avoiding confrontation, making excuses for the loved one, protecting the addiction, addicted person from consequences. That my friends is the definition of enabling, preventing the natural consequences of that person's addiction or alcoholism. Second, we have the hero. So the person that wears the cape, it's often a child who overachieves somebody that wants to make up for the lack in the family. It might, you know, my dad's not performing, so I need to take the cape and, you know, and be the hero of the family, tries to make the family look normal. So I'm, hey guys, look at me. Just don't look at all the drinking and drug use over there. Our family's fine. Everything is fine. Then we have the scapegoat. So this is the person that acts out and takes over the role of becoming the problem, whether it's acting out at school or acting out at work or with friends, the person that is taking over and, you know, taking the responsibility of being the problem, if you will. Then we have the lost child. This is the, the child or person, this is anybody that withdraws emotionally. I can't handle this. This is, I contend to be this person. I fight, flight, or freeze. This is the person that sort of just runs. They're, they're not, they don't want to be part of it. I'm out. I'm out, guys. Can't deal with this too much for me. Bringing up too much trauma, too much emotion. Can't handle it. So although addiction does fundamentally change a person, it doesn't change them at their core. It changes the behavior of everyone around them. So we're not, the people aren't changing. You're adapting. to the behaviors. Now I'm acting differently than I would if my husband or friend or partner or lover wasn't using drugs and drinking. Families going through addiction, dealing with addiction, go through intense emotional cycles. Common feelings, fear. I'm scared my husband's going to overdose. I'm scared he's going to accidentally take fentanyl. I'm scared he's going to drink and drive and flip his car. I'm scared he's going to relapse. Fear of relapse. Fear of what will happen next. I just don't know what will happen next because I didn't think we'd be this low. We're at a point right now I didn't think it'd get any worse and it's just gotten worse. I hear that all the time. Anger. So broken promises, lies, manipulation, stealing. We do all sorts of crazy things in addiction and it's not who we are at the core fundamentally. Addiction basically gathers all these layers of armor on us and we start to defend ourselves and act on those layers and behaviors. I am changing my behavior. I am changing my behavior. I am changing my behavior. I am changing my behaviors because I need to adapt to keeping getting high to keeping my substance. It's not easy to keep addiction going. There's a lot that has to change and a lot that has to be done to acquire and use my drugs and alcohol safely and the way I want to essentially. Guilt. Many family members think that I caused this. Could I have prevented it? Common thing in Al-Anon you hear all the time are the three C's. You didn't cause it. You can't cure it and you definitely can't cure it and you can't control it. Addiction is more complex than that. It's influenced by a lot of things. Genetics, trauma, mental health, environment, brain chemistry, all these things loop together. It's multi-layered. Lead to addiction. Some of us are predisposed to it, in my opinion. Others just need it to cope with life. We use it as a crutch to get by. It enhances our personality or we're escaping the moment because we can't live in this current moment. It's so uncomfortable for us. So we need drugs and alcohol to escape, to quiet the noise in our head. Everyone uses this for different reasons. Families often carry guilt that does not belong to them. Then we have the hope and disappointment cycle. This one's tough. I already alluded to this a little bit off the top, but the person promises to change. How many times do you hear that? I'm going to stop. I'm going to do it. And you believe them because they are sincere. You hear all the time. If you hooked me up to a lie detector test in the beginning, when I said I wasn't going to use drugs and drink today, I would have passed every single time. And there I was at the bar. I truly fundamentally believe that I am not going to do it. And then I end up drunk again or high again. What is that about? It's more than just choice deciding willpower. Willpower is not going to keep you sober, get you sober. I need community. I need a program. I need purpose. I need to be useful to other people. So the person promises to change things, start to improve. We start to get our hope back and then all but the alcoholic and I just rips it down like a house of cards with one violent bender or spree. It's painful. And I understand. That is why it is so important when somebody reaches out for help and says they're willing to get help. You jump all over that opportunity and move mountains to get that person into rehab or treatment or counseling or 12 step program or smart recovery, whatever it is. We change our minds 35 times. I tell this to parents all the time. I talk to and loved ones. I talk to on the phone. If your loved one is agreeing to get help, don't wait another second, please jump on the opportunity. They will change their mind. I guarantee you. Oh, you know, that was kind of overreacting there. I don't really think I need rehab. Rehab, that's a little much. Don't you think? I didn't drink yesterday for a whole four hours. Jump on the opportunity, please, for the love of God. So all of this creates the family living in a state of hypervigilance. I'm constantly scanning, walking on eggshells. Like I said, I'm constantly aware of what my husband or loved one is doing at all times. And I'm scared. I'm scared. Okay. Enabling versus support. Important stuff parts of addiction. How do I enable? How do I support? I don't enable him. I tell him he needs to go get rehab all the time. You are probably enabling in more areas than you think. So take a listen to this. As I said, enabling means protecting someone from the consequences of their addiction, the natural consequences of their addiction. So you're giving them money for a haircut or for bills they have to pay. That'll likely end up going to substances. Or if you pay for their groceries, now they have more money to buy drugs with. It's horrible. It's sounds terrible. How do I not give my partner son money? It's enabling. Another way is paying their bills repeatedly, lying to their employers or other people, covering for them, bailing them out of legal trouble again and again, and ignoring destructive behavior. So rationalizing it in your head when he goes out drinking and is hungover for three days. Oh, it'll get better. It'll get better. Trust me. If somebody has crossed the line into compulsive use and addiction, it won't get better. It might seem that it's getting better on their own, but nobody can do it on their own. No active willpower. Once somebody crosses that line into addiction. And how do I know someone's crossed that line into addiction? Well, if they're getting into consequences and they're still using despite consequences, if they tell you they want to stop and they can't, these are indications. If they are constantly doing things, they're saying that they're never going to do. These are all signs. Enabling usually comes from love and fear. People often think if I don't help them, something terrible is going to happen. But in the inverse, this is the great paradox of it. Unfortunately, helping them can actually unintentionally keep the addiction alive and drive them closer to their death. Realistically, supporting looks very different. This is what supporting looks like. Healthy support means encouraging treatment. I'm here when you're ready, but I'm not going to partake in you killing yourself slowly. I can't continue to watch you do this. I'm scared for your kids' lives. I don't know what is going to happen next. I need you. I prefer if we get help. We can do it together. I'll drive you there. I'll look up places. I'll help you. Delaying the treatment is enabling. So another healthy support is encouraging boundaries, setting boundaries. And a boundary, you know, I can go into a whole podcast about boundaries, but essentially it's I am scared when you drink. I can't have you drinking in the house anymore. When you drink, I'm not going to be around you. I am not going to partake in your behavior. I don't want you around the kids when you're drunk. And so you take the kids. This is a, I've heard this before, but boundaries are sort of our responsibility. We can't expect somebody to leave the house, especially if it's their house. And this is a tough one to wrap your head around, but I am removing myself from the situation. That is a boundary. And then the hardest part is when you say you're going to do it, actually following through. Don't do it alone. I tell parents all the time, get help. Family members, loved ones, get people on your side to help you through this. Don't do it alone. An example of a boundary is I love you. I want you to get help, but I can't give you money anymore. It's not abandonment. It's healthy support. So I guess I will dive into boundaries a little bit. And it's one of the hardest things for families to do because it feels like we're ostracizing the person. We're kicking them out. We're letting them die, but it's actually the opposite. Boundaries actually strengthen relationships. They don't drive them apart done properly. Many people believe that it's being cold, cutting someone off, punishing them. Not the case. Boundaries are actually self-protection. So an example of healthy boundary, not allowing substance use in the home, like I said, not providing money, not lying to cover up behavior, not tolerating verbal or physical abuse. This is an important one. I cannot take your verbal or physical abuse anymore. Boundaries protect your mental health, your safety, the family's mental health and safety, and your emotional stability. Sometimes boundaries are the wake-up call that somebody needs. Maybe that boundary will push that person to a lower bottom, forcing them to get help or pushing them into a place where they're willing to accept help. Addiction thrives in chaos and boundaries bring clarity back to the situation. Families need recovery too. One of the biggest truths in addiction recovery is that the family also needs healing. It's a family recovery. Like I said, there's often a lot of codependency that happens. Anxiety, trauma responses, burnout from trauma. It's a family recovery. It's a family trying to deal with addiction in our lives and loved ones dealing with addiction. So codependency for me is I need you to love me so that I can love myself. This is the kind of behavior that develops over time. As long as my loved one is healthy, I'll be healthy. I'll be okay. It's not necessarily productive. It's not a healthy place to be codependency. So I mentioned this a little bit, but I'll go into it again. Support options for families. They are out there. Naranon for drugs, family therapy, support groups, education about addiction. If your loved one goes to a rehab, a lot of the rehabs, the one that I work at has it. They have a family program that is included. Go to that family program. The hardest, biggest challenge I have as a coach and counselor is getting the loved ones to get their own help by far. Why do I need to get help? He's the one with the problem because you can only control yourself. You can't control them. That addiction, whether you like it or not, has impacted you more than you probably know. Go and get help. Recovery for families means education. So learning how addiction works. I'll never forget this. My dad, the first rehab I went to, my dad would always say to me, Anthony, you're just being stupid. All you care about is the next party. He didn't understand addiction the way he does now. And it was by going to the family program, going and getting help, being open-minded, being willing to learn that he understood, no, this is not Anthony choosing to ruin his life. Relapsing after seven and a half years was a perfect example, For example, I am not cured of this thing. If any other person got seven and a half years without using any substances and then started using them again, they would probably not have gone off the deep end like I did. They would have been able to control it. And that was not the case for me. I am stuck with this thing and it is not a curse. It is actually my superpower today. You cannot control someone else's recovery. That is the, if you get anything out of this episode, take care of yourself. You can control how you respond to the addiction. So there's a lot of negatives in this episode, but I want to close with some hope. Loving someone with addiction is incredibly hard. And I commend you for doing it because you are a fighter. Whether you know it or not, you are a fighter. My wife is a fighter. My parents are fighters. My sister is a fighter. My brother-in-law is a fighter. I put them through a lot. I dragged them through the mud. And now I realized being in recovery, what the impact I had, tornado roaring through the home. I have since made amends. I'm also making a living amends by working a recovery program and not drinking and not repeating the behavior. It takes time to get here. Be patient with your loved one. Or if you've decided not to do it, be patient with your loved one. You can't take part in it anymore. Take care of yourself and your kids, at least for the time being. There is no script for this. There's no perfect way to handle it. These are just some tips that hopefully help you gain a better understanding of what role you play in the family dynamic and in the addiction dynamic. Whether you like it or not, you do play a role. I'm not saying it's your fault. You didn't cause it, like I said, but there is a role that you are playing in the dynamic. Take care of your own role. Take responsibility, accountability for your own part in it. If you are choosing to stay around, bail that person out, that's your part. You have contributed, unfortunately, to that addiction. The good thing is you can stop right now. So once again, the three truths. You didn't cause the addiction. You cannot control it and you cannot cure it. Don't ever forget that. What you can do is support recovery, protect yourself, and learn healthier ways to respond. Remember, that is not your loved one inside that person right now. The addiction has taken over. You are dealing with something that is not your own. You are dealing with something that is not your own. You are dealing with something bigger than both of you. Try to separate the person from the addiction. That is one of the most helpful tidbits of advice I could give you. Separate the person from the disease. I'll end with this. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do in this situation is to stop trying to rescue them from the consequences of their addiction. You might let them hit a newer bottom that they need to hit where they can get help. Rock bottom is when you stop digging. Rock bottom always has a trap door. But rock bottom is somewhere where someone has to be to get change, to want to change, to be willing to get help. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this helped one person. Please like, comment, and subscribe to the podcast. I appreciate all of you. I am going to be back in the studio with more guests coming up. I've just been busy and money is an issue right now, renting the studio. So I enjoy doing these ones. If you have any ideas, please send them to me. If no one has told you this today, I love you.
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