now i truly believe that positive reinforcement
combined with positive healthy boundaries is the key to motivating
someone to get clean and sober but lately i've been
getting a lot of questions about what do you do if positive reinforcement
isn't working and that's what we're going to
cover in today's video
for those of you who are new here i'm amber hollingsworth master addiction
counselor and you're watching put the shovel down
the youtube channel designed to help you understand
the science and psychology of addiction so that you can
get your life and your family back on track and get back to living the life
that you want to live i always try to put things
in the description of the video that are additional resources that you may find
helpful okay so back to our question what do you do if positive reinforcement
isn't working i think the best way to cover that is i
want to cover three reasons why it may not be working for you as
effectively as you want it to and some workarounds how to remedy that
problem the first reason is because you're very
overtly connecting the positive reinforcement to
the substance use behavior like for example if you're saying
something like wow i like you so much better when your clean and sober
or wow you're really doing great staying clean and sober
if you're always sort of taking this positive piece
but shining a light on the negative piece it can come across
as kind of offensive it's kind of like when someone gives you one of those like
i call it like a backwards compliment like wow you look so much better you've
lost so much weight it's kind of a compliment but then you kind of feel
like well i guess i looked terrible before or something you know so
if you think that's what's going on in your situation and what you want to do
is just give the positive reinforcement part
you don't even have to bring the comparison
piece in there you don't even have to directly relate it
to being sober to comparing to when they were addicted or anything like that just
put the positive reinforcement in there and secondly they can draw that
conclusion for themselves you don't have to point that out and like i said it's
like you're you're trying to hit this positive
button but when you're doing it that way you're hitting the positive button and
the negative button at the same time it kind of cancels out
so it's not always the best way to go about it issue number two that you could
be having if this whole positive reinforcement
thing doesn't seem to be working because you guys have asked me before
you know what if they get angry when you positively reinforce what if it
just doesn't work so problem area number two for positive
reinforcement is you could be coming on a little too
strong it means you could be being like overly positive like overly cheerleadery
you know that weird feeling when someone's giving you a compliment or
they give you like a lot of compliments and it just feels like
kind of embarrassing or overdone or just cringy
you can definitely overdo positive feedback
you have to balance it in with being real and genuine because if you
don't do that it doesn't even feel sincere
so while i give a lot of positive feedback to my clients and my sessions
and groups and that helps the person know that i'm
being truthful with them when i give those other pieces of
feedback i don't do it in this super negative awful like direct confrontation
kind of way i'll just be real with them now the
third reason that your loved one might not be responding so well to positive
feedback is that you just haven't built enough
trust in your relationship you've got to build that foundational
relationship before the things you do are going to be effective
and yes positive reinforcement is a part of building that foundation
but there are a few more pieces than that if i've previously had like a not
so great relationship with someone and i've been angry with them recently
or judgmental or critical or something like that
and then i come in with the positive reinforcement it's gonna get like
hit the wall the shield and bounce back off that's the best case scenario
worst case scenario it could start a fight
what you may have to do here in this situation is you may have to go back
and address the negative because if not it's like you got this big
crap pile right here that's really stinky and you're just trying to like
put some rose petals on the top not gonna work right
so in order to do that you may have to go back
and acknowledge that you haven't always responded the way you wished you would
have that does not mean that you have to go
back and take responsibility for their decisions or that you have to blame
yourself or that you have to say you're the only
one at fault but what you may have to do is you may have to say something like
you know what in the past i know i've been
kind of reactive about this or i've been negative and critical
but i want you know i'm really trying to do better and i think
just by acknowledging those past things it's going to help that person's
wall come down because they're going to know that you
get it and that's going to make you seem like a safer person to them
your loved one would also like it if you acknowledged
your relapse too i know that seems kind of strange
but we all mess it up sometimes it's okay it's okay to go back and mend
fences because when you do that you're showing that
you're paying attention that you are self-aware that you understand what you
bring to the situation and bonus you're modeling humility
and willingness and openness and when you do that
chances that they'll do that go way up positive reinforcement plus good
healthy boundaries that's the key to motivating someone to
getting clean sober and into recovery so up next i've got my playlist here for
you specifically on how i have healthy boundaries with an
addicted loved one