You know it can be really hard to prove to your family your loved ones
and your friends that you are really serious about your recovery especially
if you've tried several times before which is why in this video I'm going to tell you the three
most important steps you need to take to prove that you really are serious about your recovery
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down I'm Amber Hollandsworth
and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction
so you can get your family and your life back
on track get back out there and live the life that you wanna live
I want you to know you are not powerless you do not have to hit rock bottom and there are many
things you can do to help an addicted loved one if you wanna be back in control of your life
subscribe to this channel and I'll make sure you are
always five steps ahead of addiction and don't forget hit the little bell
if you want access to the bonus episodes
now as always there are a ton of additional resources listed in the description
but let's get down to our topic don't you just hate the dreaded question
what's gonna be different this time I mean sometimes people even ask you
that with a ton of sarcasm in their voice can you hear it I think I can
now in the past it may have been hard to answer that question but not anymore because I'm about
to give you the answer now tip number one is all about some things that you
shouldn't say basically I'm about to go over some statements that are pretty common for people who
are in the early recovery process to say and I'm not saying there's no validity in these
statements but what I am saying is if you say these things I'm about to tell you it comes across
not great to the people around you so let's take a look at what they are
and if you do feel or think these things let's find a better way of saying them that
doesn't come across in a way that makes you look like you're not really trying
now I hear this statement a lot I just wanna put this whole ugly mess behind me and move forward
now on the surface there doesn't really seem to be a lot wrong with that statement but
how it comes across to your family and your loved ones is it sounds like
you just wanna forget about every bad thing that happened and just
move forward without changing anything and never even acknowledging all this
things that went wrong now of course I totally get why you would want to put the
whole ugly mess behind you but most of the time families think that you kind of have to like
deal with some of that stuff to make sure it doesn't happen
again so a better way to say that same thing might be you know what
this has been an awful awful journey and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make sure it never
happens again and that chapter is closed forever you see you're kind of saying the same thing
but you're saying in a way that lets the other person know that you're really
serious about it and you really do get it
now another statement that I sometimes hear people say or regularly hear people
say is they may say something and they usually say this sort of defensively
to their family members something like look my recovery is my business stay out of it and you may
have even had like coaches or counselors or true programs or sponsors tell you something like that
but here's the deal unless you like live completely by yourself and you are completely
self-supporting then your recovery whether or not you do good in your recovery
impacts a lot of the people around you now I'm not saying that they get to decide
what you do and what you don't do but let's not be dismissive of their feelings
cause to be honest they have a lot riding on it too so if a family member or a friend
suggest that you do something that you're really not comfortable with
just maybe sit down and have a discussion with them about it and about
why you don't feel like that particular solution is the best thing for you
but what you do feel like would be more helpful to you I know it takes longer to
do that and it's difficult to do cuz you may feel defensive or backed into a corner
but if you'll just take five extra minutes to have this discussion it'll save you hours of
discussion in the future and you'll be building a ton of trust in the process
now another statement that I hear people in early recovery say a lot is they'll say things like
man I'm not as bad as anybody in that group they did this they did that they're way worse than I am
and there may be some truth in that maybe you're going to
a recovery group where everybody was way worse than you likely not
everybody was way worse than you but maybe they were let's just go with maybe everybody
else is way worse than you the thing about it is though is if you say that
to your loved ones They interpret that as you saying oh I didn't have a problem like
look they're really bad like me see I told you I didn't even have a problem
and that makes them think that you're going to go back out there and make the same mistakes
so in the event that you really aren't as bad as everyone else in your
recovery program just say something like you know what seeing some of these other people
lets me know where this road goes and it makes me really glad I'm addressing it now
so you see you're saying the same thing but you're saying it in such a way that really communicates
to your loved one that you get it cuz that's what they want to know they want to know that you
get it and when you say things that makes 'em think that you don't get it
it makes them think you're going to go back out there and do it all over again
now I know most of the time when you say these things it's not that you don't get it
it's just that it's really uncomfortable and you feel embarrassed and shameful and
you don't want to talk about it I get that but the more you don't talk about it the
more they pry the more they're in your business the more they don't trust you
and it makes your life 20 times harder in the long run so just
take the time to have these conversations now the second thing that you need to do
to to prove to yourself and everyone else around you that you're really
serious about your recovery from addiction is to put accountability things in place for yourself
now when I say accountability what do I mean I mean you're going to have to like
change some things in your life and you're going to have to bring some other things
into your life to ensure that you make good decisions when maybe you're having a bad day
cuz if you're being honest with yourself about it you realize that there are
going to be moments where you're weak or you're having a bad day and you want to try
really hard to ensure you don't fall through the cracks when those days come
now let's talk about some things that you can do you can be honest with the people around
you about the fact that you do have an addiction like if you haven't previously told your coworkers
or other friends and family members I think doing so
telling people sort of I call it coming out of the recovery calls
it goes a long way to hold you accountable cause you're a lot less likely to show up to a function
intoxicated or using something or engaging in your addictive favor when you know everyone
around you know you're not supposed to be doing that that's a huge accountability step
you can do things like delete contacts from your phone that you know don't need to be there
in fact you can even change your phone number that's a big step I know it's a headache but
it's not nearly as big a headache as having to pull yourself up out of a
relapse another thing you can do get rid of those things that you've been keeping around
that you know you shouldn't have maybe it's substances maybe it's paraphernalia
maybe it's old photos of yourself when you are engaging in your addictive behavior
just go ahead and get rid of it don't make excuses for why you need to keep it there
really is no good excuse if it's something that is seriously of sentimental value then at
box it up cover that box up with duct tape put it up in the attic
so it's not at least right in front of your face
doing these things really does show your seriousness and your commitment to the issue
now another really great step that you can take to hold yourself accountable to be really sure
that you don't go backwards is to get yourself set up with some sort of recovery monitoring program
now this is the ultimate in accountability if the thing that you've struggled with in
the past is alcohol then I am going to strongly recommend Soberlink now Soberlink is the sponsor
of today's video but that's not the only reason I'm recommending them I have been recommending
Soberlink for years and years and years long before I ever even had a YouTube channel
let me tell you why I love Soberlink so much well first you probably want to know what it
is right it's a breathalyzing device but not just any breathalyzing device it's a pretty
high tech sophisticated breathalyzing device in fact it has facial recognition software in it
so there's no like cheating it and having your buddy do it or something like that
now the way it works is you'll create a schedule of when you are going to be breathalyzed
usually that's somewhere in the neighborhood of two or three times a day in the beginning
you'll get a text message 15 minutes before that time letting you know that
you have a test due you actually get an hour from your set time
so actually since you get the text 15 minutes early you really got like an hour and 15 minutes
so somewhere in that hour and 15 minutes you can step out excuse yourself to the restroom
take your test no one will ever know you had it it's literally about the size of your phone
and they give you a nice little case to carry it in looks like a fancy sunglasses case
so if it's sitting in your glove box no one's gonna think a thing about it
now here's where the really cool part comes in your test results are then recorded and it keeps a
record of all your tests and your picture that it took to prove that yes it was you that took that
and here's the best part this is the really good accountability part
if you ask me your test results can then be sent automatically to a person or people
of your choosing like for example we have a ton of clients in our office
who use Soberlink and their results go to me but doesn't have to go to me
and go to your recovery coach it can go to your family member it can go to your
sponsor it can go to your counselor whoever's helping you along the way that you feel like
it's a good accountability partner those results can go real time to those people as well lastly if
you do take the test and you show positive it'll have you retest again in 15 minutes
if you're back down to zero that tells the system that it was probably like a false positive
so it has that nice false positive check in there so you don't have to worry about
that either now that is accountability now let's move on to tip number three
about how to show that you're really serious about your recovery that you really do
want to stay sober this one is kind of nice because this one sort of ties it all together
the third tip I have for you is to be able to listen non defensively
to the questions concerns and feedback of your friends your family your boss your coworkers
or whoever else knows about all this mess is involved I know this is extraordinarily difficult
I totally get it even just thinking about this and talking about this feels embarrassing
the last thing you wanna do is talk about it but the more you run from it the more it makes
everybody else think that you're sketchy even when you're not trying to be it can come across that
way now when we're in recovery and we know we're serious about it and we're trying to move past it
we get over it a lot faster than everyone else in our lives because we know we're serious this time
and maybe the 10 times before we knew we were kind of like not serious or half serious but
our families they don't know that right they believed it all those 10 times and so
you're going to have to give them a grace period and allow them to catch up to where you
are you're going to have to have a little empathy and understanding for their point of view too
I'm not saying you have to put up with them sort of beating you down or
any kind of craziness or anything like that but I am saying
that you should allow them to talk and listen empathetically to their side of things
again when you can do that it's going to show them that you really really do get it
now I'm gonna put the link to sober link in the description below in case
you wanna learn more about that and up next I want you to watch this video
on how to be a good listener in fact this video is called how to improve
any relationship in your life instantly these are the skills that you can use
when your family when they wanna have these difficult awkward conversations
you'll feel like you know exactly what to say and how to handle those situations if
you watch this video next I'd like to send a big heartfelt thanks to all of you who help support
this channel your likes shares and donations are helping us spread the message of recovery
and without you this wouldn't be possible now this next video has been hand selected to go
right along with this one and don't forget to check the description for additional resources