You know we're constantly saying to people who are trying to overcome an addiction
we're constantly saying to them you can't do it by yourself you need help you need support what kind
of help do you really need what is helpful what is not and how can other people support you I mean
isn't this something that you just kind of have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get done
what is it like other people can do this video is going to answer
all those questions for you we're going to take a look at what kind of recovery
supports are available and what you need to be looking for and identify who's going to be part
of your recovery support network now if you're watching this because you're trying to support
someone else even better because we're going to be talking about what you can do
that is actually helpful
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down,
I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand
the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your family
back on track and get out there and live the life that you want to live
now in this video we're going to talk about how individual people
can support your recovery in an actually helpful sort of way now naturally there are
other recovery supports out there like treatment programs and treatment centers and detox centers
we're talking about on an individual basis what do you need from the people around you
I think there are five sorts of categories of things that you need and I support network
now you're probably not going to find anyone person that can do all of these which is why
you're going to need a few different people in your life that serve a few different functions
now one of the things that you need is you need a really good sounding board
you need somebody you can bounce your thoughts off of right somebody can help you sort through
stressors and think through problems and that you can talk to freely without feeling judged
now the person who does this for you is going to have to have a couple of unique
characteristics first and foremost you're going to have to see this person as wise
like you need to be able to trust this person's judgment you need to sort of
respect their thoughts and ideas on things so that when they give you feedback or advice or
they're helping you solve problems you actually trust their opinion but you also need to feel
safe with this person which means you need to feel like this person understands you
and isn't judging you because if you don't feel safe and you're worried about being
judged then you're probably not going to share everything with them so they're not gonna be a
very good sounding board if you're not giving them all the information now another thing
that you need in your recovery support system is you need a system of accountability
this is a really really really big important factor and early recovery
who is it that's going to hold you accountable who is it that's going to check in with you
who is it that's going to call you out if you're not doing the things that you said
you were going to do in your recovery program or your relapse prevention plan or whatever
now this person has to have a unique balance of toughness and softness right they have to be
brave enough to call you out they have to be brave enough to push you just a little bit
but they also have to have a way of pushing you that's not going to make
crazy defensive or send you over the edge and you may even need to
train your accountability person how to most effectively hold you accountable
like what's going to work with you and what's not you're going to have to be
able to tell this person what you should and shouldn't be doing and how to call you out
if they see you getting off track another thing you're going to need in your support
system is you're going to need somebody or somebody to be cheerleaders for you
you need someone that can effectively cheer you on and make you feel good
about the choices that you're making now what makes an effective cheerleader
anybody can be like oh good job I'm so proud of you right those are nice
things to say but the most effective cheerleaders are actually able to really
see clearly what you're doing right like specifically they're able to point out like
that was a really wise choice that you made the other day or I can't believe you successfully
navigated that really difficult situation the reason why that makes someone a more effective
cheerleader is because it's more objective and it's more believable and it's more specific
so who do you have in your support structure that's a generally a positive person and
who can see the good parts of people and the good things that you're doing
is really helpful to have that person that can point out the good choices that you're making
and the progress that they're seeing another role to think about as far as having in your
recovery support system is you need like a person that can run interference for you
like if you have to go to a social event that's going to be a particularly high risk
you need someone that you can kind of give the secret look to or the secret code to
and they know how to get you out of a situation or they know how
to certain person away from you that you don't want to have to deal with
this is like your recovery wingman now the recovery wingman they have to know enough
about what's going on and it's usually kind of helpful in a recovery wingman that they
sort of are in your social circle so there a person that could show up with you at
the family function or the work function or the
other kind of thing that you need to go to and then you have pretty good social skills right
so you need to be able to bring this person places and for them to be able to sort of
successfully navigate that for you, especially because early on these kinds of social functions
may make you feel anxious so this person is there to help kind of keep you at ease get you out of
a situation you don't need to get out of keep people away from you that you don't want around
this is your wingman so pick them carefully even better have a few of them now there's another
all that you need which is very important in this role I'm going to call the truth-teller
this is the call you out person this is the person that's going to be able to help you see
maybe where your blind spots are right
it can be slightly different than the accountability person this is
the person that's going to help you see if your thinking is wrong right if maybe you're making
a bad decision this is a really important role because when it comes to addiction
you can't always trust your own thought processes and the addiction will lie to you
and it will for sure lead you astray you need this truth-telling person to kind of be your
eyes and ears and look out for you right but this is a really hard role to be in because
it's kind of like the bad cop role right and so you got to have the right person to do this
the important factor here is this has to be a person that you have a solid enough
relationship with and that you trust enough to be able to hear difficult feedback from right
and to be able to sort of like listen to them and trust them even when it
doesn't sound right to you or even when they're asking you to do something that
goes against your instincts who is it you have in your life that you
trust on that level that you would trust their judgment more than your own judgment
and who has an ability to say these things to you like directly
but with kindness and you know that they're like really looking out for your best interest
and you know that they know what they're talking about basically now those are the
Five big sort of functions that you need from other people now who can be those other people
anybody can be those other people it can be counselors can serve those functions
sponsors coaches mentors religious gurus friends family member,s not every person
can serve every role or function but think through who you have in your life and who
can do what thing for you and then literally ask that person to serve that role for you
they'll love it they'll feel honored that you asked them to be that role for you and it's just
so much better for that person that gets asked because they want to support you and they want to
help you but they probably feel a little awkward about it and they don't want to do the wrong thing
and they don't want you to feel like they're being intrusive and they don't know what to do
that's helpful so if you can go up to someone and say Hey can you be my sounding board hey can you
be my recovery wingman I'm telling you they will feel great about it but you might need to give
them a little training on what all's involved in that particular function or how to say things to
you in the right way or what to watch out for you because you know where you can be sneaky
so you got to give them a little training I'm not talking about some kind of six weeks
orientation you just got to talk to them a little bit even if you have a counselor this
person is trained on how to help you you still have to guide that counselor on what specific
things are helpful for you and what's not one of the questions I asked new clients
within the first 10 minutes usually is like what they've done in the past
what's been helpful and what's not because I'll say go ahead and tell me right now it's
not helpful and we'll skip it right because even as a counselor yes I'm trained on how
to help people but you know you the best you know how you're gonna interact with things
you know where you might get sneaky or where you might be
or where those vulnerable spots are you got to help these people to help you
I promise you they will appreciate it you see those are the big
five roles that everybody in recovery needs don't care what kind of recovery program
you're working these are flexible roles you can get them met by different people in your life
everybody needs that now you may also need a more specialized type of help now when I say
specialized side for help what I'm generally referring to is if you know that part of your
recovery needs to involve digging through past childhood trauma or dealing with ongoing
difficult mental health issues this is where you may need like a specially trained person
that's going to be able to sort of getting into those deeper
more difficult areas that maybe your friend can't or maybe even your sponsor can't if
you've got some of that kind of stuff that needs to be dealt with and you're probably going to
need a professionally trained person like a psychologist or a counselor like a therapist
and if you know that you need this kind of support and you don't already
have a counselor then I'm going to suggest looking into better help better help is an
online counseling program yes these are real counselors real licensed clinical professionals
and better help has licensed clinicians all over the world
one of the best things about them is they're so
easily accepted because they do it through an online platform which means it's a lot easier
to get connected to the help that you need quickly because as you may have run into in the
past if you're trying to find a new mental health provider the whole process can be daunting right
like you got to make all these phone calls and then they tell you they're
not accepting patients or they don't call you back or they get you an appointment
but it's gonna be you know like seven weeks out from now right there's a lot
of difficulties that you can run into trying to find a qualified mental health professional
this is and you need somebody to help you I'm telling you to look into
better health they're going to match you up quickly you can go onto their website
anytime day or night and begin the process they can match you up with a counselor not only
is that going to happen quickly for you but once you get assigned a person
which is a pretty quick process you can actually start to
message even back and forth with your counselor you're going to have access to virtual sessions
chat messaging email messaging better help how does a great job of removing all the obstacles
and gives you quick access to the help that you need only that was also pretty affordable
I'm going to put a link in the description for you to check out better help and by using this
link you'll actually get a little bonus discount now up next I want you to watch this video about
what makes a good counselor versus a not so good counselor like what do you
need to be looking for when you're trying to find the right counselor