Transcript for:
How to Rebuild Trust After the Betrayal of Addiction

the topic is how to rebuild trust after the betrayal of addiction so we're going to come at this topic in two pieces i'm going to be speaking both i'm going to give some advice to the person maybe in early recovery who struggled with addiction and i'm going to be given some advice to the family or the loved one of the addicted person i'm going to give you some suggestions on both sides about things you can do to help improve trust help make it go faster and basically just speed up the healing process so the first thing i want you to understand is that i used the word betrayal on purpose in the title of this video because when you've been in a relationship that's been damaged by addiction it's the same kind of damage emotional damage that infidelity causes and i really wouldn't even say especially if it's between um partners or spouses that there's that there's a whole lot of difference in the two because infidelity it really is the keeping of secrets from your partner and if it's the case of a parent child it's the secret keeping that is the most problematic of all the bad things that happen it's the lies the secret keeping the um all the times that the addictive person tells the loved one that they're crazy that they're wrong that they're imagining things these are the things that have caused the damage it is not the substance use it's the byproducts of the substance use those it's it's all of those other symptoms that are causing all the hurt feelings all the trust issues and basically the majority of the damage so we're going to like i said we're going to take a look at that and we're going to break it into categories but before we do that i do want to tell you that i want you to think about that trust betrayal not just in like whether or not a person is using or not because it's way more than that it's you know a lot of times it involves financial betrayal you know it's financial trust it's it's emotional betrayal not just you lied to me but you made me feel like i was crazy you told me horrible things you manipulated me it's that emotional betrayal it's it's all these different levels of brokenness that happen and i will also say this hey glennis you made it that's awesome goodness is watching us from australia i think which is kind of cool right so um i'm not just talking about everything that the person with the addiction has to do and they have to do all the work and the family doesn't have to because just as mistrusting as the family uh is of the person with the addiction the person with the addiction is also just as mistrusting of the family because let's face it everybody's been lying everybody's been manipulating everybody's been doing some sneaking now it's like the addict of the alcoholic is doing all that stuff to try to like chase the substance but the family's doing all that stuff to try to chase the addict or the alcoholic so if we're honest with ourselves it's not a completely one-sided thing it's a complicated mess of a situation that can be healed but both sides of this situation are going to have to be open and real open and willing and show some humility if in fact you want to heal those relationships so now we're going to get into some pieces of advice about what you can do to heal your side of the issue as far as building trust back with your loved one first i'm going to address the person that has the addiction i've got myself some little notes if you see me looking down that's that's what i'm looking at i got my little notes here so i was thinking about this statement just today i hear people all the time saying this people in early recovery it's my recovery you stay out of it it's my business and for the most part i've been fairly supportive of that because families will try to come in and micromanage the situation but as i was thinking about this video for tonight i was thinking you know what it really isn't just your recovery what you do everyone around you is impacted so if you relapse the whole family goes down and so when you when you're saying to your loved one like stay out of it it's my business it's my recovery that's not really true and i know your sponsors told you that i know your counselors told you that i know you've heard that from everyone else but let's think about it that's not true because when you make those decisions you hurt everyone around you so be careful about making that statement now if you're watching this as a family member that's not i'm not giving you license to come in and for you to say that to them you don't say that i'm saying that because it's not helpful if you say that anyways and it's not helpful for you to micromanage their recovery um in fact when we get over there and giving you something by someone to talk to you about not doing that so i'm not advising you to do that i'm just talking to the person in early recovery to help you understand where your loved one is coming from it's everybody's recovery is all tied up in here together so uh be careful about your wording and your phrasing even if everyone else has told you that i'm telling you different um give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down y'all agree that you don't you don't agree with that i know that's a little different but y'all know me i like to i like to just be oppositional that way sometimes okay the second thing the second little piece of advice i'm going to give to you if you're in early recovery is you are gonna want that trust to come back not maybe not immediately but like way quicker than it is and you're gonna be frustrated about how much time that's going to take to come back and i tell the clients i see i talk to them and say you know trust is the absolute most valuable thing that you have and it's not just a matter of like i betrayed someone's trust a lot of them once most of the time this has gone on for years it has been multiple multiple multiple like betrayals lies all of that stuff y'all know what goes down and so it's not going to come back immediately it's going to take a long time for your loved one to heal from that and you are going to have to have the patience and humility to let that process happen and that leads me to the third one you're going to have to understand that your family your loved one has triggers just like you have triggers so just like you feel like your family needs to realize that sometimes relapse happens and you know it doesn't mean that you're going to keep doing it and you know you get triggered and you want them to have that empathy for you you need to understand your loved one has triggers too so like when you say you're you're going to be home at 5 30 but it's 5 50 and you're not home and your loved one is going crazy and you're really not doing anything bad you just got caught in traffic and your phone was dead or whatever and you couldn't call and you walk in the house and they're going crazy you need to understand that that's completely realistic reaction because in the past when you've not been home you're supposed to and you would answer your phone it only ever meant one thing and so you can't have all this history of telling your family all these lies and expect them to believe you when you're lying but then really being mad and upset when they don't believe you when you're telling the truth i have several videos out about lying and on facebook there's some comments and somebody said on there like i was talking about like how to tell someone's lying or something like that and someone said well you know what's really bad is when they're when you're telling the truth and they won't believe you but you know what that's just a consequence of it like that's just the loss of trust and i don't mean that in a mean way but come on be practical you can't lie to someone forever and ever and then expect them to not be distrustful that's just not natural so understanding that your loved one has triggers it is not going to happen quickly it is going to take a long time and it's not even going to be a smooth process it can be like you're doing really good for like two months and then your loved one finds something in your pocket that's just like i don't know a wrapper from something you bought at a gas station not even something sketchy and they just lose their mind over it because it reminded them of something they used to see when you were using and you're gonna have to have the patience and understanding to know that they're triggered just like you're triggered just like you drive down a certain street you see a certain person you pass a certain store and you really get keyed up the same thing happens to them so all of this is going to be about having patience and humility with each other and if you can do that you can get on the other side of all this hey meg thanks for joining us meg says hey man i'm gonna put that up there i like it um let's see next on my list still talking to the person in early recovery is expect to have to be what i call like vigilantly hyper vigilantly transparent you are going to have to be way more transparent than you would in a normal circumstance so normally if you're running five minutes late it's not really that big a deal you don't even have to call and tell someone your family's late because you're gonna get there and no one's worried but when you've had all of this loss of trust if you say you're going to the grocery store and then you think man i'm hungry i'm going to stop it like taco bell and get a taco or something first and you veer off the path and you go somewhere else and you come home and you have like your taco bell cup and your family sees that i know in the other situations that wouldn't mean anything it's like subway stop taco bell but for your loved one it's like you weren't where you said you were going to be it's going to be a trigger and so even though it may be silly it may feel silly to you at the time you're going to have to make that text you're going to make that call hey i'm going to start with taco bell do you want me to bring some that's even extra bonus so you you need to be aware that you're going to have to let go of some of your privacy that you're going to have to communicate extra extra extra that you're going to have to sort of let some of your own walls and your defense defenses down because the more defensive you get about that the more it looks like you're hiding something so if we go back like the taco bell conversation if you get defensive and you say does it even matter it's not my business it's not your business and you get all like crazy and defensive it's gonna make you look sketchy so you're just gonna have to let those walls down communicate what's going on with you communicate when you're late communicate when you're off path or somewhere where you shouldn't be and i know you feel like well maybe you feel like i'm an adult and i shouldn't have to do that but if you want to rebuild trust these are the things that are necessary um let's see okay this is my last one for the person in early recovery unless i think of more along the way this last one on the list so when you have done all this damage to your family let me just say most the clients that see me have done a lot of damage to their family and they've already apologized like a bazillion times and so this like basic i'm sorry business it not only does it not work it almost just like makes your family mad because they've heard it so many times before and it almost feels like an insult so i would not even try just the generic i'm sorry because you done said that many times and it's just gonna make your family angry it's gonna upset them and then and then they're going to come at you you've said it so many times and they're going to attack you and that's going to make you defensive so don't even do it that doesn't mean that you don't want to express your regret but if you're going to do it i'm going to give you my secret formula for doing this effectively especially when you've done apologize like a million times so my second formula is this it's not just saying like i'm sorry i lied to you or i'm sorry i had that relapse or you know i'm sorry i spent that money and didn't tell you about it what you're gonna have to do is a couple things and you can do this face to face sometimes these conversations are really hard and it's okay to write it in a letter i think sometimes that allows you to really think through what you want to say and not feel on the spot and so it allows you to get your wording just right so if you want to write a letter to your logon i think that's great too but here's what you need to go into an effective apology one thing that's helpful is if you tell more than the person already knows so if you if you'll validate you need to validate that when you were telling them that they were crazy that they weren't crazy and that you're not just sorry that you stole you're not just sorry that you use the drugs in your life but you're sorry that you made them feel like they were the problem and when you apologize for these things you're gonna say and when you thought i was you know over at steve's house and i told you i wasn't i was over at steve's house so that's that transparency even looking back if you'll tell them things that you didn't even have to tell them it really indicates to your loved one and your family member that you mean it and that you're not just i got busted for this one thing and i'm apologizing for it because whatever that one thing you got busted for you know that is the tip of the iceberg unless you're just really bad at being at it like you know you don't know a lot more so go ahead and throw those things in there and don't just say you know i did this i'm sorry for it but also if you'll say and i know it affected you in this way and i know it made you feel this way and i know it scared you and i know it puts you in this bad position or backed you into a corner and so you're saying here's what you're saying you're saying not just i'm sorry you're saying i know what i did wrong i accept what i did wrong how i covered it up how i turned it on you and i have some level of understanding about what that must be like from your position you see that's a that's like that's like an advanced level apology right there and to do that you're gonna it's gonna be genuine and from the heart and your loved one's gonna know that you mean it and that you're not just trying to say like i'm sorry get off my back speaking to the family side because i said this is not just a beat up session for the person that's got themselves dug into a hole we're going to look on the family side and we're going to look at both sides equally and talk about what each side can do to help the process all right on the family side more than anything i'm guessing you really do want to trust them you don't want to be a crazy maniac anymore you desperately want to trust them and in order to trust them you want them to tell you the truth well if you want people to tell you the truth then you've got to be really really mindful to set the stage in the right way to encourage truth-telling and in order to do that you have to do the best that you can not to freak out not to go into a crazy lecture mode not to constantly bring it up and throw it in their face because no one this is like whether it's like an athletic family member or your kid or your cousin anybody no one is going to want to be vulnerable and be honest with you if they feel like it's going to turn back on them i'm not saying that you're not warranted to do that i'm not saying that you're not even valid to do that i'm just saying it's ineffective so you're going to have to be approachable you're going to have to be non-freak outable and they're going to have to know that they can tell you it it can be a calm conversation boston terrier that's why it's like my dog my dog is um half boston terrier and half french bulldog called princeton so looks just like your dog man so you're gonna have to set that stage if you want your loved one to be able to come to you and tell you things now here's a piece of advice that i tell um all of my clients when i first get them although they like hardly ever never ever like take this advice when i get my clients remember i'm always the one that sees the person with joker i'll come from i say listen you sit in my office so i know you're in deep doo-doo like i know you are in big trouble because you don't end up in my office unless you dug a big hole for yourself and i say it's my job to be your lawyer and get you out of this mess that's what i tell them because that's kind of the way i see it and i say i know you got busted for something probably or you hit some kind of bottom and your big troubling family's mad at you but i also know that whatever it is you're in trouble for there's a whole lot more to it that they don't know and i encourage them to sort of take that moment when they're already in the biggest trouble ever to throw everything else out on the table too so i say listen if you owe some more money to a drug dealer and they don't know that if you pond something and they don't know about it if you lied to grandma and she's gonna tell it whatever it is like those other things that could come back around and your loved one find it out go ahead and say it and then i say this and i want you to be able to do this you're already in trouble i don't really know how you get much more trouble and and if you do it then what i usually tell my client is i'm gonna go across the hall and talk to the person that's in your family and i'm gonna ask for you to get a get out of jail free card the rest that stuff so if you're watching this as a family member here's what i want you to say they're already in big trouble if you can say listen we already know we got this problem it is on the table and i know that there is a lot of other stuff that goes along with this problem i just need to know the truth so that i can heal and begin to trust you and so if you've got other stuff out there put it on the table now because here's what happens my clients like i always tell them this but they're usually new so i don't really trust me that much yet and they never do it but i try six months down the road after they've done really good and they've earned all this trust and things are moving in the right direction that thing that was still hanging out there comes by and bites them on the butt the drug dealer knocks on the door you know grandma shows up and tells that one thing whatever it is and then the whole thing any amount of trust that's been built immediately disintegrates this doesn't just go to zero it goes to negative 10 million so i'm always like if you're the family member you know and you're at this crossroads with your loved one you've been at these a million times then just say okay what else is out there and then my client when i say this they always look at me like i'm crazy don't come out and then i go through a list i'm like like how about this how about that how about you know lies you've told how about people you've told one thing to and someone else something else or money you owe or money you've taken or money that's missing from the account what else is out there that could possibly come back and bite you in the butt and destroy your trust uh worker okay you can turn your badge in i want you as a family member to stop spying stop digging through the bank accounts stop looking in their wallet stop going through their room stop getting in their pockets stop take the tracker off the phone take the tracker off the car like stop stop doing this cancel the instagram that you got in the fake name because you're watching a loved one okay like get off of the facebook i know you got like the secret accounts and you're watching or whatever you're doing like stop because you're feeding your own anxiety you're feeding your own distrust and doing that is never gonna make you feel like you can trust them more i know it's kind of like this urge but just like they act the alcoholic they they have this feeling inside like an itch that they just want to scratch and it's like oh if i could just itch it it would like satisfy it like i want a dream if i just have a couple drinks i'll feel better and it never works that way it never makes me feel better i'm saying the same thing to you as a family member like if you're doing this fine you may feel like oh at least i'll have like the certainty and i'll know it will not make you feel better it'll make the itch stronger you'll keep digging you'll keep looking and when you do that that makes your loved one who's trying to be in recovery not trust you not feel like they can tell you things and so it's how you as the family member can keep the whole problem going if you're not careful but i just can't say it enough because people keep doing all the time don't do the home contracts don't do the bound don't do the ultimatum boundaries don't do these hardcore if then statements if this then this keep it more loose than that i know that they you you want to put that boundary out there and i'm not telling you not to have a boundary i'm telling you as the family member don't back yourself into a corner and a lot of you probably heard me talk about that before but i just see it so so often um you know it's like if you relapse one more time taking the kids from you or whatever it is and it's like well maybe that's what they came and told you if you've got those hard black and white rules that's another one of those things there's like no tolerance rules that's going to make it really hard for your loved one to come tell you if they're struggling and then speaking of that reminds me something i was doing a coaching call today and this guy he is concerned about his wife who has a drinking problem anyways he said this a bunch of times but he kept saying like i told her if she really really wants to drink to call me and i said i'm not real sad and i will yell at you like it's gonna be fine and he's like but she never called me and i said dude she's never gonna call you and she wants to drink so family members sometimes you think like well they'll come to you if they have the urge i've seen it happen a couple of times but not very often and i don't want you to feel bad about it as a family member because even if i say that to them like hey if you feel like you're going to relapse call me first how many of those calls you think i've gotten none how many calls you think i've gotten immediately right after they've done made every bad decision a lot even in like when they got a 12 step and they well when we used to like go real life 12 steps they just pass around this list people put their number and they say you know call us if you're having a hard day you want to use it hardly ever happens because once you have that urge in that craving you've already like decided you're going to use and if they were going to tell something the immediate loved one is probably the last one because they know you're going to freak out on the inside and they don't want to upset you so i think it's okay to say that to them but i wouldn't really expect that they're gonna do it like i'll tell my clients that but if they do i'm like oh my gosh totally shocked like what's happening here so because it just doesn't happen the next piece of advice i have for family members is this and this is what helps me the most this is what helps me not worry and not freak out and i know that that's totally different a thousand times get that i am the counselor and not a family member and so this person does whatever it does not directly fit me which i get but you know as counselors we have insecurities too you know we're like well if they're like using i don't know it then i look bad so we kind of get we get pulled into codependency too counselors are naturally kind of codependent like how do you think we got to be counselors so it's in there in us too so i need you to trust the fact that addiction will show itself it is the nature of addiction you can count on it every time a hundred percent you do not need to look for it you don't need to investigate okay they may get by with something once or twice but they're not going to get by with it very long maybe they did in the beginning before you ever knew there was a problem but that was before it was on the radar after it's on the radar you're hypersensitive and you feel every little change and you're like watching and you're aware and nature of addiction is that it's unmanageable in their life which means they can't keep control of it which means it's going to cause all these problems which means they're not going to be able to limit it to just a little bit and that's what i say if you just trust the nature of addiction it's going to let you take your hands off of it because that's what i do in my office i don't chase it that hard i do drug test but mostly for them mostly just for some accountability because i know that it's going to show up i don't have to chase it and so if you'll just believe me when i say don't you don't have to look it will get itself right in front of your face and if you miss it the first time it'll keep getting in front of your face until you see it it's gonna show itself and then um which kind of goes to my next point which is learn to trust your own instincts you know your loved one better than anyone else you know when they drink because they talk different they sound different they answer on three rings and not two rings you know when they're using because their pupils are different or because they're avoiding you more or because they're really nice to you you know those tiny little changes in behavior attitude movement on such a deep level sometimes you don't even know consciously exactly what it is to even tell me but i know that you know so you can trust that addiction will show itself and you can trust that your instincts will tell you the truth you may not know exactly what but your instincts are going to be tuned up to know something's not right it's going to be really easy to excuse it away well it's because they're stressed it's going to be really easy to kind of brush it off but dude your instincts are almost like there's like always right they're programmed deeper than your consciousness um i've got two more things for family members and then i'm gonna jump in here and take some questions and if you guys want to go ahead and be putting the questions there's a little lag so go ahead and put them through there and then once i um get through with these two things we'll put questions up okay the next thing is which is number six i don't know if i've been telling you the numbers number six on the list here is have a relapse game plan so we tell people in recovery you know what we make them like develop all these like relapse plans you know like what are your triggers what are you gonna do blah blah i don't really do a whole lot of that they do like a lot of that in treatment centers but it mostly just becomes an activity of like going through the motions and checking the list i do have conversations with people about it i don't usually have them do like a whole bunch of worksheets they don't like it anyways but as a family member you need to have a game plan on what you're going to do if a relapse curse not a contract and not ultimatum this isn't something between you and that person this is a something between you and yourself and the first line of defense on that needs to be if there's a relapse your job your most immediate job is not to get on the roller coaster with them because it means they're getting back on the roller coaster if you do not get on that seat beside them they will get off that roller coaster a thousand times faster their addiction needs you to get back on the roller coaster if they start using they're going to want to suck you back into all the old behaviors that you did because it's then that they can be angry at you that they can be mad that they can make it all your fault and then not have to deal with the fact that they're in relapse so your job is just not to get on the roller coaster with them and most of the time when families don't do that it's pretty short-lived and then this last one here is going to help you with not getting on a roller coaster duster if especially if this is your spouse is build yourself um kind of like a safety net of independence fan like if your finances are all tied up together separate your finances if you know you need to have a like fire drill just in case this goes bad and it does not work what is my plan b and i feel like if and i don't mean this because i want you to feel like whatever i might be leaving but if you have that security it almost allows you to be calmer because you know like i'm gonna be okay like if the worst comes the worst i know i'm gonna do just like you know with your kid you talk about fire drills if there's a fire in the house here's what i want you to do here's how i want you to do it if you have that plan in your head not to tell them just for yourself then you're going to feel more secure it's going to make you be able to relax just a little bit more alright now i'm going to go back through here and look at