Can I Still Have My “Addict” In My Life?

What's up, folks? Welcome to another episode of Mental Health Matters. I'm Evan, your resident mental health and addiction therapist. Hopefully we're going to have some people joining, but in this live stream, we always talk about matters around mental health and addiction. And because these things are important, they matter. See what I did there? Now, today I'm going to bring a topic. Every other week, I do an Ask me anything where I bring questions that come from you, the Cadre family, and as well as people from social media and questions and topics that my clients bring up when I'm doing therapy.

So let's put this on. Do not disturb so nobody calls me. Here we go. We got Katie. What's going. Oh, Katie. Oh, my God. Wow. What's up? Tell me everything. One of the oldest of the Cadre family. We go way back to the early days. Katie, what's going on? And oh, my God, Katie, I hope you're able to stick around. What up, Jules? Because the topic I'm doing today, as maybe you could see, is super pertinent to you. And actually, you probably inspired a lot of this. So as I go through and write some of these things down, I have Katie in the back of my mind, especially that interview that we did.

And for those of you who don't know Katie, she is a Cadre og. She is a specialist when it comes to families struggling with addiction. She's a writer, a blogger, and just a certified badass, if we're being frank about it. But today I brought my five rules for being able to keep family members in your life while they're still struggling with addiction. And I think Katie and I'd probably be about 90% on this one, maybe a full Honda. So. Yeah. So if anyone could chime in, I would love to hear your experience.

Pretty much, I'd say most people have addiction somewhere in their family or they've been through this with a friend. So this can apply to anybody. Now, some of the traditional wisdom may state that if someone has a severe addiction, this could apply to someone who maybe isn't as severe, but their use is still problematic. It still has a negative impact on you. It's having a negative impact on their life. It's having a negative impact on your relationship, and it may just be hard to have them in your life while watching them self destruct or just kind of go down a progressively worse path.

You love them, you care about them, and it's tough to see. So. So as far as. I mean, I guess I'll just make that the first Rule is you don't have to, right? You don't need to feel compelled to have someone in your life to have a super close relationship or have them in your life at all if, if it, you know, grows to be toxic or if you're in a place where you aren't ready. Right. So I'm going to give a list of these like, boundaries, if you want to call them rules, boundaries. But if you're not emotionally in a place where you're able to do this and having them in your life, maybe even whatsoever is sapping you of your serenity.

Even if you're doing the work to try to, you know, do therapy around this and everything, you know, it, you don't, you're not obligated to have to do that. Now there's certain situations where it's a little bit harder to avoid. Like if you have like a 14 year old kid, you can't just be like, well, they're out of my life, you know. So, you know, some of these rules still do apply. But you know, this is for a lot of folks who have know, a brother, a sister, an adult son or daughter. That's what gave me the idea.

I was working with a client doing therapy. And you know, a lot of our therapy has been around her son who struggles with a severe addiction. And he's kind of one of these folks that, you know, maybe the old school term would be like a chronic relapser. You know, it is a chronically relapsing disease, but some people take it, you know, to another level. They just relapse more than average. They struggle with maintaining abstinence for a variety of reasons. It could be their mental health. You know, some people just don't take well to some of the more traditional recovery methods like going to treatment, going to 12 step meetings.

Some people just, it just really doesn't vibe with them, which is understandable for some folks. It's unfortunate. I think a lot of the people who are pretty active in something like aa, na, whatever, you know, most people didn't come in like, ooh, this is awesome. And I'm, I'm going all in. So I think most people have had that struggle, so to say someone that just doesn't vibe with them. It's kind of like, well, yeah, but hopefully it will eventually, but there are other alternatives for community based support.

Anyway, I'm kind of going on some tangents here, but you. Yeah, so that's what kind of inspired me to think about this topic. And I'll probably make A more in depth video about it. But, yeah, so we were having that conversation because she used to be so attached to him as far as, like, the outcome of his sobriety, which made sense, but it was to the point where she was just not able to find any serenity because she was just hyper focused on him. And, you know, I'm not a parent, so I can't judge.

I can't necessarily empathize or I don't know what the word is. I mean, I can't relate with every client who comes in. I can't be like, oh, I've had that issue too. It's just not possible. But I do understand conceptually how difficult that can be. And so I try not to take, like, a super hard approach to it of, like, okay, you got to cut them loose. You have to, you know, xyz. You can't support them, you know, in any way. You have to cut them out. It's better for them, you know, they need to learn the hard way, whatever.

So it's tempting to want to, you know, take that approach, but not always the most productive and not always the most realistic. And so with this client, we've worked for years, and she's gotten to, like, an incredible place because, I mean, she's such a kind, empathetic person, such a loving mother, and had a ton of guilt, too, because she struggled with addiction, and her kids grew up with that. And now seeing her son deal with it, she feels an immense amount of guilt and shame and responsibility for his addiction.

I mean, and even, you know, when people are in their worst states, they may say some things that they know, push your buttons, you know, like blaming you for it and really hitting you deeper to your core. But, you know, now she's in a place where she can still have him in her life, but with a healthy distance. I mean, it's only taken about, like, 30 relapses to get there. But the important thing is she's gotten there, and she's still in this amazing place where she's able to be happy despite her son being in severe addiction, regardless of his recovery status.

And so some of these rules and boundaries I put together are some of the things I noticed that she and others have implemented to be able to have a loved one who's actively using, but also be happy themselves. So basically, the first rule is, you know, you don't have to do it unless you're ready, do therapy, you know, targeted around it, and, you know, really take care of yourself, you know, so the. The main Rule here is taking care of yourself first. To be in a strong enough place that you can have them in your life, that you still can get joy out of the relationship, that you still can be there to be supportive and maybe help when they're ready.

So rule number two is you don't have to make every conversation about their addiction, no matter how severe it is. You know, whether it's they. Whether it's even them wanting to talk about it all the time, which they usually don't. You know, usually kind of want to sweep that under the rug. And maybe they're afraid to talk about it because of how you've typically reacted to it, of feeling like you're going to try to control or change them or whatever. You know, there's a lot of defensiveness, understandably, but you don't.

Regardless, you don't have to make every conversation about their addiction. It's, you know, not everything has to be about their ultimate struggle. That doesn't have to be the defining feature of their life. Now let's say you're like, severely addicted to heroin, you're living on the streets, whatever, okay? Well, that is pretty much a central focus of your life because so much of your life revolves around using, getting the drug. You know, it just. It's just all encompassing and unable to, you know, function in other life areas.

So it's easy to be tempted to do so, but it's not the most productive or really enjoyable for anybody involved. You know, it's okay to talk about their addiction, support or help they want to get. But, you know, not every conversation needs to be about that. So what can you do instead? Talk about what's. Talk about the things you enjoy together, whether it's your favorite football team, whether it's arts and crafts, knitting, you know, whatever it is. I mean, that you both connect on. Like, if it's a friend, you know, typically there's something that is like a foundational in your friendship that, you know, brings you together with mutual values, interests, etc.

Talk about those things, current events, you know, whatever. Just could be anything except their addiction. Talk about your life. So that's a big one, too. It doesn't have to be all about them. You know, you can, if you feel it's appropriate, if you feel safe, you can talk about some of your struggles. Maybe it's a little different if you're a parent, you know, it could be a little trickier there. But if you know, it's a friend, talk about some of the things you're struggling with. Your boss, your work, you know, whatever, and let them support you.

Just because someone's going through active addiction doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have good insight or they can't help you. So much of us, it's like, you know, we could give other people great advice and stuff when it comes to ourselves. There's that blind spot. So maybe they can actually, you know, be helpful and insightful to you. So I don't know. I think that often is a really good way to keep them in your life and maintain that reciprocity. There. Number three is you can in some circumstances continue to invite them to things.

Now, a lot of times you've stopped doing that because of, you know, instances where maybe they showed up to Thanksgiving wasted and cussed everybody out and, you know, not good. But if it is appropriate under certain circumstances, maybe you can invite them to special events and if you give them a chance, they may appreciate it. However, you know, making it clear that, like, look, we want you to come and be here and we don't have to talk about your addiction or whatever. Just come be here with us, with the family, my birthday, whatever.

But just know, moving forward, you cannot be high. You want to use, you know, if you want to just come for an hour. If that's all you can maintain, come sober for an hour, go do your thing, whatever, be good to see you. But just, you know, at the event, just be sober or just like, not so high that it's obvious and just be respectful. And if you do that, we want to have you here. So I think it makes them feel special, makes them feel appreciated, makes them feel still loved. So I think there could be a benefit in doing that, however, right, that there is that caveat there because it's not fair for them to ruin an event or occasion just because of their use.

So if that does continue to happen, you know, then you don't have to do that. Maybe it takes a couple tries, you know, it's like they ruin Thanksgiving. Well, maybe just, you know, and they really want to be invited to other things, you know, and they say, I'm going to change, I'm going to look, I'm really going to work at it. Okay, we'll invite them for like a Thursday night dinner and see how they do. But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Number four is continuing to offer support, to continue to be there for them, but not doing so in a way that is inadvertently, maybe feeding or fueling their addiction.

Some used to call that enabling people do not like that term anymore, that it could be stigmatizing. I think Katie may agree on that one from what I remember. So I understand that, you know, because it is, you know, we could call it, like, you know, attempts to help that again, that inadvertently may be counterproductive. So help from love, that may be ultimately unhelpful. So, you know, things like just giving money without, you know, with them spending it on substances or allowing them a place to stay while they're still using.

Now, there are exceptions to this, right? But I think, you know, often it is okay to do some of these things or help, but with kind of like time limits to say, like, okay, yeah, you can stay with me. However, you know, I'd like to see you take these steps towards getting a job, towards getting sober, towards this, you know, and if you're able to do that, you can stay here. You get a chance or two, whatever. But if it comes to that point where they're not doing anything to help themselves, where, you know, it's offering them more time, energy and resources to use, and it's a drain upon you emotionally, you don't have to do that.

So, you know, just being careful of riding that line between helpful and inadvertently harmful, you know, or providing fuel for their addiction. Well, I guess that would be the kind of. The last one, but kind of interwoven. Oh, I did miss this one. I knew there was one more. Like, why did this? So the last one is don't try to change or fix them without them coming to you first. So what does that look like, right? Like, when we're talking about not making their addiction the focal point of your relationship, you don't have to be the one to always bring it up.

You know, it's usually counterproductive. But just to let them know that if they are ready to take steps to get help and support, that you're willing to do that. And that's really the time to give the most support, right? If they really are taking steps, like, let's say they go to treatment, need a little bit of help after for their security deposit on their apartment, or even helping cover some of the treatment costs. Unless it's like, you know, attempt nine and you're bankrupt or whatever. But it's like things like that that are more supportive of recovery are times than it is, you know, more important or even beneficial.

So that's one of the guidelines I'll set for parents or whatever of, like, adult, young adult children, you know, and not necessarily doing things for them that they can do. On their own, but offering that help and support until they get to a stronger place where they're able to do it all on their own. Kind of like the training wheels concept. But do not, you know, try to change them, fix them, insert yourself, give advice. You know, it's going to be counterproductive. It's going to push them away versus I always say it's like offer and then step back, do your thing.

And then when they're ready, they're more likely to come to you because they're not going to feel judged or that you're trying to manipulate, control. You know, it's their life at the end of the day, and you choose your choices and they choose theirs. Oh, Katie, you're still here. I was curious to what you think. So great suggestions. Okay, thank you for that, Kati. That means everything, because I do view you as one of the biggest experts on this, and I really like your approach. I would say your approach is really balanced and actually, you know, in our conversation.

So if you want, it's on here. It's kind of like a podcast format, conversations with Khadra. You could find our conversation on here where we go, like, way in depth on this. And so Katie gave some really good insights and I think really challenged some of my views on, you know, and some of my surprise about your story with your daughter, who's also really similar to the son of my client who struggles with that really chronically relapsing addiction. You know, I've been to treatment, we're talking about like nine times or more.

He's, you know, they're both very young, actually. I mean, we should get them together. They can date. That's probably not a good idea. But there's a lot of. A lot of similarities there. And so maybe surprised in the approach of, you know, having letting her stay with you. But it was really interesting that you had, you know, that you were able to have these open conversations that you may not have, like, required full absence, knowing that she may be using at your place. And however, it's like, it can be really hard on, like, the.

I call, like on the pull holes. So, like, if someone has such a severe addiction, it was kind of dark. But, you know, when someone has such a severe addiction, just, like, they're not going to get sober anytime soon, they're going to have to figure it out. But, hey, you know, they're, you know, understanding. You work, you don't use, you don't bring drugs into the house. I know what you're going to do outside of here. But, you know, in some cases it's like that or they're living on the streets and that tough love, knowing that when they go live on the streets, it's not gonna make a difference.

You know, it's not gonna. It's not gonna dissuade them from using now. It does for a lot of people now sometimes, you know, sometimes that, like, tougher love, whatever, really just setting firmer boundaries, let's call it does work. I mean. Cause you go to AA meetings and stuff. And, you know, a lot of people say that it was my wife leaving, it was, you know, losing my job. It was, you know, some of these consequences is what gave them the motivation to stop. However, everybody is there. Someone could have like the smallest consequence, and they're like, I'm done.

This isn't worth it. But some people can go so far down and lose everything, and still they're not ready. Whether that's health, consequences, living on the street, whatever. And the scariest thing and. And one of the saddest things is when somebody grows accustomed to or no longer afraid of some of those ultimate consequences. Like, they're not afraid to live on the street anymore because, you know, they know how to do it. They've grown accustomed to it. And that is really sad. But at the most severe cases, that's what I'm saying.

It may not be helpful for that tough line. It may be more helpful to, you know, have them with you. However, like what Katie said in our conversation is that there are very, you know, strict boundaries there. And let's see what you guys say. I wish I could stay longer, but it was so good to see you. By the way. She support. F***. Really? 14 months? I mean, that's s***. That's awesome. That's so cool because, I mean, I. When was the last time she had that much time? That's so awesome. And I'm gonna be hopping off too.

So thanks for getting to stay. Let's reconnect. I don't know if you may have sent a message. You know my adhd, I'm all over the place. So, Katie, reach out to me. It'd be awesome to catch up, chat on the phone. You're awesome and all. You are awesome too. If you have any questions, put it on the community feed, tag me, reach out however you want to do, comment on one of my videos, and we'll answer any questions for next week. It's been awesome, folks. Take care. We'll see you next time.