Ever been stuck in a cycle of manipulation and guilt when dealing with a loved one's addiction? Let's blow the lid off of that with our latest episode of The Party Wreckers podcast. Co-hosts Matt Brown and Sam Davis dissect the well-worn concept of getting your loved ones to admit their addiction and change the narrative. It's not about admitting powerlessness but focusing on the difference your family can make. Intervention shouldn't be a courtroom drama where you bombard them with evidence of addiction, but be a supportive space where the family outlines what they can and cannot do to assist.
Now, let's tackle another elephant in the room - the guilt of setting boundaries with your addicted loved one. Sounds familiar? We'll tell you why it's a game of manipulation and how the elusive question of 'Why?' can become a powerful tool to break it down. It's not enough to want recovery; you have to be willing to take the steps, and we'll show you how this small shift in perspective can lead to massive changes like opting for sobriety. And as we tie up this insightful episode, we share the importance of not enabling addiction, the terrible fallout of doing so, and where you can find support resources for your loved ones. So, sit back, listen, learn, and let's shift the narrative on addiction and recovery together.
Join us Every Thursday Night at 8:00 EST/5:00PST for a FREE family support group. Register at the following Link to get the zoom information sent to you: Family Support Meeting
Or you can visit or tell someone about our sponsor(s):
Intervention on Call is on online platform that allows families and support systems to get immediate coaching and direction from a professional interventionist to do their own intervention. For families who either don't need or can't afford a professionally led intervention, we can help.
Therapy is a very important way to take care of your mental health. This can happen from the comfort of your own home or office. If you need therapy and want to get a discount on your first month of services please try Better Help.
Ever been stuck in a cycle of manipulation and guilt when dealing with a loved one's addiction? Let's blow the lid off of that with our latest episode of The Party Wreckers podcast. Co-hosts Matt Brown and Sam Davis dissect the well-worn concept of getting your loved ones to admit their addiction and change the narrative. It's not about admitting powerlessness but focusing on the difference your family can make. Intervention shouldn't be a courtroom drama where you bombard them with evidence of addiction, but be a supportive space where the family outlines what they can and cannot do to assist.
Now, let's tackle another elephant in the room - the guilt of setting boundaries with your addicted loved one. Sounds familiar? We'll tell you why it's a game of manipulation and how the elusive question of 'Why?' can become a powerful tool to break it down. It's not enough to want recovery; you have to be willing to take the steps, and we'll show you how this small shift in perspective can lead to massive changes like opting for sobriety. And as we tie up this insightful episode, we share the importance of not enabling addiction, the terrible fallout of doing so, and where you can find support resources for your loved ones. So, sit back, listen, learn, and let's shift the narrative on addiction and recovery together.
Join us Every Thursday Night at 8:00 EST/5:00PST for a FREE family support group. Register at the following Link to get the zoom information sent to you: Family Support Meeting
Or you can visit or tell someone about our sponsor(s):
Intervention on Call is on online platform that allows families and support systems to get immediate coaching and direction from a professional interventionist to do their own intervention. For families who either don't need or can't afford a professionally led intervention, we can help.
Therapy is a very important way to take care of your mental health. This can happen from the comfort of your own home or office. If you need therapy and want to get a discount on your first month of services please try Better Help.
Follow the hosts on TikTok Matt: @mattbrowninterventionist Sam: @the.interventionist.sd
If you have a question that we can answer on the show, please email us at questions@partywreckers.com
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Party Wreckers podcast, hosted by professional interventionists Matt Brown and Sam Davis. This is a podcast for families or individuals with loved ones who are struggling with addiction or alcoholism and are reluctant to get the help that they need. We hope to educate and entertain you while removing the fear from the conversation. Stay with us and we'll get you through it. Please welcome the Party Wreckers, Matt Brown and Sam Davis.
Speaker 2:
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Party Wreckers. We want to thank you for being here with us. I think we've got a great episode today. Sam and I are here Just the two of us today, no guests. But I think we've got a good episode. Sam, there was a question that I think you and I have had a lot of lately that I think we're just going to try to address here in a short episode, just to kind of dispel a myth.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, man, it's good to be here, matt. It's been a while and I'm always glad to get on the podcast, even when it's just the two of us. Man, a lot of good stuff to see. And I've been buried in social media putting out content on all platforms because I want to know what the public thinks. I want to know what is the belief systems that they're attaching to, about addiction, about recovery, about interventions, about treatment. I'm hitting two and a half million sets of eyeballs every other week. I feel like I can put my finger on the pulse of what the public actually thinks and I get a lot of great feedback. Some stuff I put out because I'm looking for feedback I'm asking a question without actually asking a question and I'm getting intelligence right Is what I'm getting? It's like, man, what do the people need to know? And one thing that comes up pretty consistently is that I need them to admit that my loved one's an alcoholic, like I need them to admit that to me.
Speaker 2:
Why do you think people get stuck in that belief?
Speaker 3:
You know, I don't know why, like if, to be honest with you, I don't know, do you have an opinion on that? Because I've been racking my brain about what does that do? I know that in a lot of times, families they want, they're just honed in on. I've got to know what substances my loved one is using and they'll get distracted from the solution by that, because and it doesn't change anything, no, no, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:
Here's my take on it, and I think that it kind of goes back to just a misinterpretation from step one. You know, came to believe that we were. You know that, that, that that's step two.
Speaker 3:
That's step two. Man, when's the last time you've been to a meeting man?
Speaker 2:
Actually, the last time I went to a meeting is when I was in Virginia with you. It's been it's been a couple of weeks. Um, no, sorry, I'll have to edit that out.
Speaker 3:
I don't want to step up no hell, no Hell no.
Speaker 2:
When you control the edit, you can do whatever you want. Sam Um, you know it. Just just this whole idea that we have to admit that we're powerless and our life is unmanageable, like I think that that so many people look at that and say, okay, that's where recovery starts, and the reality is that that's not true. That's when we start with our step work. But people walking into a meeting don't don't walk in ready to work step one. People walking into treatment don't walk in because they've admitted that they've had a problem. There's so many different reasons why people decide okay, maybe it's time that I take a look at this.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean man. I admitted to myself the last couple of years that I was using, that I'm a crack addict, I'm an alcoholic, I'm a pill addict. I admitted that to myself. I wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but I admitted I knew it to myself. What I couldn't wrap my head around is that my life was unmanageable with or without drugs, alcohol. That was the step one for me. So families are so focused on that alcohol is the problem or drugs are the problem, because obviously when they look at them and all of their behaviors are due to drugs and alcohol, they think that if they just admit that, then they'll go get something done about it. It's about down deep in my soul, as my life is blowing up in front of my face and I can't, no matter how hard I try, not smoke crack.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think this is something you and I both get a lot of in that so often families have tried to have a conversation with their addicted loved one about their drug use or about their alcohol use, and it's been. They've been dishonest, they've hidden it, you know, they've lied about it, and so many families come to us by the time they realize, okay, maybe something more professionally structured is needed here. They want to present evidence. Hey, I've got pictures of all the paraphernalia, I've got pictures of the pills. I've gone online and I've verified that these pills are oxycodone or I've verified that they are fentanyl or whatever it is. And should we have these pictures or should we have this evidence at the intervention with us? What do you tell families when they come to you with stuff like that?
Speaker 3:
About pictures and videos.
Speaker 2:
I said we're not here for that Evidence in general, yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, piling up a pile of evidence and going to present a case. I said we're playing chess here against addiction. We're not playing checkers and just produce photos, and we're not here to shame them, we're not here to prove that. We know, you know that there's a problem. We're here to address what we as a family are going to do about the problem and what we're not going to do about the problem. That's what this is about for you. You're not the attorney, you're not a prosecutor. We're not here to put him on trial for whether he is or doesn't admit that he's an addict or alcoholic.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's not about the presumption of guilt or innocence, it's not about right or wrong. This is about helping this person understand that, hey, in spite of the fact that we all know that there's a problem, and the fact that there's a problem that exists, the existence of the problem is not here what we're here to debate. We're here to propose a solution, to come at this from the standpoint of all right. So we have this evidence and with this evidence, we're going to convict you and at the end of this experience, you're going to get sentenced, and your sentence is that you're going to have to go to treatment.
Speaker 2:
What a horrible way for somebody who's on the receiving end of that message to really begin the process. Instead of saying we see that you're struggling, we see that you're unhappy and we also see that you're trying really hard to keep your head above water here, let us help you. Let us, let us. We've got a plan today that we think is going to help give you some tools to be able to accomplish what you're really trying to do in the first place. The tools that you're using just aren't the ones that work anymore. So let us, let us propose a plan and when people really understand. Hey, we're here to fight for you to be happy again, instead of fight for you to quit using and drinking. The message changes.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you know Matt Brown. I think that and I don't know why I just called you your last name. I know you're Matt and you know you're Matt and everybody else knows you're Matt I have been called Matt Brown my entire life by people.
Speaker 2:
It's. It's funny, Like I don't get it, but people will just call me by my first and last name all the time. You're not the only one that does that.
Speaker 3:
Well, it flows so effortlessly together, matt Brown.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean from the time that I've been in high school, it's been Matt Brown. It's not just been Matt, it's Matt Brown. Yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 3:
You know, man, like people's belief system, I find myself it's just as much of a struggle changing people's belief system around what an intervention is around, what addiction is around, what the solution is. It's been just as much of a battle to shift that. Much more difficult than performing an intervention. Much more difficult than approaching an addicted individual that's in delusion, that's afraid. It is much more difficult combating these mistaken belief systems that families are operating out of and the general public as a whole are operating out of, around what the real problem is, what a proposed solution to that problem is. There's a lot of misinformation going on. There's a lot of belief systems based on words that they hear Tough love, cut off, ultimatums yeah, things like that. Ultimatums, ultimatums right, like, for God's sakes, open up a dictionary. There is a big difference between ultimatum and boundary, two totally different words. It's like sun and moon two totally different things. Both things are in the sky, but they're two totally different things. Just because both of them are in the sky, you don't call, you, just don't interchange them.
Speaker 2:
But these two beliefs really do kind of tie in together. I think now that you're talking about it, because if I can get them to admit that they've got a problem before we even put a solution on the table, then I don't have to create boundaries, I don't have to even give them an ultimatum. I can get them to admit that there's a problem and by that admission they're automatically going to agree to take some action and solve the problem. That rarely is a recipe for success down the road, just because, like you were saying, you and I both had experiences leading up to the well before we ever got sober, that I mean I would wake up and say you know what I'm not going to use today, I'm not going to drink today and within 30 minutes sometimes I was getting loaded, sometimes I'd be able to white knuckle it for a couple of hours, but rarely and honestly I can't remember a single day where I said I'm not going to do this where I actually was successful.
Speaker 3:
Man, you bring up a good point. Like every day, I would say that I'm not smoking crack today. I'm not going to do it and I'd have these plans about what I was going to do that day instead of smoke crack. Never pulled it off.
Speaker 2:
Never. And when families look at the idea of well, you know, I've got to create boundaries, they do get the two ideas conflated. You know boundaries versus ultimatums and you know I had a guy put a comment on one of my videos this week where he was talking about just one of the videos from the training where we were talking about this. And you know just this idea that boundaries and ultimatums get confused so easily and you know the way that I try to explain it to families is like when you're living in a castle. Imagine that you're in this medieval castle and you've got this motor round, you've got the drawbridge, you've got these gigantic stone walls, and those exist to protect what's on the inside and not to control what's on the outside. What goes on on the outside of that castle has nothing to do with anything. You know. Nobody on the inside of that castle is trying to control that. But once people start trying to get into the castle, you've got to lower the drawbridge to get past the stone walls and the moat, and the reality is that's what boundaries are.
Speaker 2:
If you're going to come into my castle, there are certain requirements that I have for letting people into that inner sanctum, so to speak, and if you're not able to live within those boundaries, if you're not able to meet those requests or expectations, you can't come in the castle. Now, if you're outside of the castle, do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. That has no effect on me, because I'm in here and I'm protected by these boundaries that I've constructed. And so if people can look at that and say I'm going to build a boundary to keep me safe and protected and to keep my behaviors where they need to be on the inside of these walls, and whatever you do out there, you go and do it. But if you want to be in a relationship with me, if you want to come into this castle, here's the deal. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's why people put locks on their doors.
Speaker 3:
Postage signs. I'm a landowner, just a hero. Where my home is is five acres. Now there's houses around me. Now my neighbor over there. I don't give a damn what they do Like I don't care, that's on their play, that's outside of my boundary, that's outside, that's out of my control. I can only control what's going on within my property. They could paint their house hot pink and put flamingos all over the roof and light it up like the 4th of July every night, and that's their thing. Like I have no control over that. They're not doing it on my land. It's a boundary. We operate off of boundaries every day.
Speaker 3:
Families, individuals, every person operates off of boundaries and doesn't think twice about it. And all of a sudden, when they're talking about addiction and their loved one, it's like they lose all sense of understanding around what a boundary is and they start it's not, I'm not, I don't have an ultimatum around my property. There's some consequences if someone comes on my property without being invited or unwelcome. There's some consequences of crossing that boundary. That's not an ultimatum, there's consequences. But shit, I forgot where I was going, dude.
Speaker 2:
But you're making a good point, You're making a great point, and that is a boundary isn't a boundary unless there's consequences. Right Now, whether we decide to enforce those consequences is up to us, but a boundary has to have consequences if it's going to be respected. If you have a no trespassing sign on your property or no hunting sign on your property and you got people coming in with 12 gauges shooting your birds and you don't do anything about it, well, guess what? They're going to keep doing it. And the same thing goes like if I have a boundary that I'm not going to be spoken to in a disrespectful way by anybody, or I'm not going to be cheated on, or I'm not going to be lied to, and I allow those things to happen in my life, what we allow will continue. And so I think that families so often get manipulated into feeling guilty for even having boundaries in the first place, but even more so for enforcing those boundaries.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, it's all manipulation. They were being worked over long before they knew their loved one was addicted. Oh yeah, They've been groomed the entire time, the entire time long. When they were in the dark about their loved one's addiction. They didn't know what they were being groomed, they were being conditioned to conform to the addiction's needs.
Speaker 2:
You know, and there's one word that gets used consistently to get boundaries to be either be removed or be changed anytime, especially with young adults. Or even you know, I experienced this, I'm sure you experienced this with your kids. Hey, I don't want you to do that why.
Speaker 1:
That one word why.
Speaker 2:
And it's not. Hey, I'm really trying to understand, dad, why you would say this, and I really want to understand you better, and you know what's the importance of not doing this. No, no, no, that's a challenge. Why don't you want me to do this? Why I don't like this answer? So I'm going to ask you these questions and I'm going to grind you until you change the boundary. Why, why are you saying that? Why won't you let me do this? Why isn't this okay? And the next thing you know, it's like oh my gosh, I'm so tired of answering these questions. Fine, go ahead and there you go, the boundary's gone, and so I. You know, sometimes the answer is just no, you can't do it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, yeah, just no, period. No, I mean, man, my teenage son does this to me on the well, not on the daily, but he does it and it's just. You know it's. It's what young people do is push the boundary. They're looking for the wall, they're looking for it and it comes down to and you know your words come right to my head when it happens to me is you know, when you said that about why? Why they're not? They're not trying to really understand, they just want to know. Why aren't you doing what I want you to do? There you go, you know, and it's made it much easier for me to just say nope, nope, end of discussion. It's not happening that way.
Speaker 2:
Right, yeah, it's not working, and it goes back to the very beginning of what we started talking about, where it's like I want to convince you that you have a problem and we're going to debate this back and forth until you and I agree and that's not the point of this at all. I don't if I'm here to intervene on you, I don't need you to agree with me. I don't need you to want to do what I'm asking you to do. I need you to be willing to do it, and we talked a lot about this in the intervention training that we had just, you know, a couple weeks ago, where, as interventionists, our job isn't to come in and get somebody to that point where they're having that first step experience, where they're admitting that they're powerless, where they're admitting that their life is unmanageable, but no, we want them to be willing to explore that option and be willing to go and look at a solution. This isn't about what they want to do at all.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's just like you know, on Sunday I have to go to work. I have a case I'm working on Sunday. I don't want to go to work on Sunday. I don't want to. There's a bunch of other things I'd rather be doing and that I could be doing, but I'm willing to go to work. There's a big difference between want and willingness. I mean not that I don't love my job. I love my job and it's important. My job is very important, but I don't want to go to work on Sunday. That's just human nature. But I'm willing to go to work on Sunday and the job's going to get done.
Speaker 2:
And I think that's for so many of us. What we're looking for is we want to be motivated, we want to feel inspired, we want somebody to hear what we say and buy into it, and that's not a recipe for success. There's a guy you've probably heard of, jocko Willing, right, yeah? So he wrote this book called Extreme Ownership, and it's a great book, but in there he talks a lot about the difference between motivation and willingness or, excuse me, the difference between motivation and discipline, in that, you know, if I'm just doing what I'm motivated to do, I'm rarely going to meet the goals that I'm setting for myself. But if I can have the discipline to do those things that I don't want to do but I know need to be done, that's going to give me a more successful life. That's going to give me results that I'm currently not getting.
Speaker 2:
And so the same thing is true as we're looking to make a monumental change, like getting into recovery and getting sober. Is that I mean you and I aren't here because one day we woke up and we said, wow, I really want to be sober. I mean, I woke up and said I really hate this life that I have, I don't want this anymore and I'm willing to at least entertain the idea that something else might work. And I'm going to go to a meeting and I'm going to see what they have to say. And that was it. Like I didn't want to be there, I just didn't want what I had anymore. And that's where it started. And because I took certain actions, the results were there and the willingness came. The want came along with taking right actions.
Speaker 3:
Yeah with me. I woke up and it wasn't even. It was just I hate me, I hate me. When I woke up that morning, I had no plans of getting sober. I had no plans of going to treatment. I had no plans of wanting to go to treatment. I had none of that. They created some desperation in me to at least be willing to not go to prison or go to jail that day.
Speaker 2:
Can we talk about that for a second, because there was such an amazing moment back in Virginia just a few weeks ago when we were there for the training. We went out the day before to see the treatment center where we were going to be doing the training and lo and behold, who was there.
Speaker 3:
My probation officer. That was that held my intervention. She had the interventionist, my family was in her back office. She was there waiting for me to come give a fake drug screen and, and you know, revoke my probation, even if I had given a clean drug screen. She was going to violate my probation and I was there to try, and you know, manipulate my way through another day of life outside from on the other side of the bars of a jailhouse. And she let my family and utilized her leverage that she had over me, was willing to do that and be a part of it.
Speaker 3:
She was very kind but she was very direct in her approach during the intervention with the interventionist there and she had two deputies, one whom I went to high school with. He just reminded me the other day that he was actually there. He said he'll never forget that day and they were ready to take me to jail, ready right then. And there had a patrol car right behind the John Southwurst Cadillac or link. I was the Lincoln right behind his. Lincoln was there, but it was in front of their. Lincoln was a patrol car and like she changed, she was instrumental in changing my life. And we show up. She's there looking to see if this program will be good for her clients, and I'm there to see the same.
Speaker 2:
And as a guy who's known you for as long as I have and known about this story for as long as I have, to see that moment where I don't know how long it had been since you had seen her up to this point, but to see the gratitude in your expression towards her and to see the pride that she had in the life that you've been able to make because of that day. You know, I can't imagine that as part of her job she enjoys sending people to prison, you know, but but to know that that day she didn't have to, you could see that interface and to see the pride of the man that you've made yourself into. I mean, it was just really cool to be there.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, she was really hesitant. She was questioning that decision While she was making the decision. She wasn't completely sold on it. She was willing to do it. She didn't want to do it. You know what I mean. She didn't want to do it, but she was willing to do it and this is what's happened.
Speaker 3:
And you know, she let me come back. When I moved back to Virginia, she let me. Well, she asked me if I would come talk to the probationers every week. And I kind of cringe when I, when I remember this because, like, I went to burning tree, that was like high accountability, very direct, very just, straightforward. And these probationers, they didn't want to hear any of that and that was the only thing that I knew at that time was that Style and that what was given to me and I'm up in the you know, front of the glass there Just throwing burning tree all around, and they didn't want any parts of it, man because they remember, two years prior I was coming across the tracks with 20 bucks in my pocket riding on my rim, you know, and, and you know, looking like a mess wanting to $20 worth of crack cocaine. You know they're like who's this? Son of a bitch.
Speaker 2:
Well, you're a good man, Sam Davis, and and I really enjoyed being back in Virginia with you and doing that training and it was great to see that, that reunion between you and your probation officer and, yeah, I know we didn't want this to be a real long episode today, but I do think that it was important that we address this myth that that's out there of you know, want versus willingness, desire versus willingness yeah, yeah, man, I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker 3:
Man, it was so nice to have you out here and do that training with you again and I can't wait for the next one in December, down and Down in Austin, down at the Arbor. That's gonna be great.
Speaker 2:
First, weekend of December. We're gonna be in Austin, texas. If you have any interest in in Working as an interventionist, we had some people in this last training that have zero interest in being interventionist. They just they work in treatment, they work with families, and they wanted to just add to their skill set to be able to work with families on the front end To help, guide and direct them. So, yeah, anybody who's interested in working with families in crisis, by all means you, you're welcome to attend this next training. We've got some other Locations and dates that are starting to materialize for 2024, but if you'd like to, we'd love to see you in Texas in December.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely a good time was had by all here in Virginia during that training.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it was yes, it was Matt. This has been a pleasure, but yes, sir, I will see you on the next one.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:
Thanks again for listening to the party records. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a rating and a review. This helps us get the word out to more people, to learn more or to ask us a question we can answer in a future episode. Please visit us at party records. Calm and remember Don't enable addiction ever. On behalf of the party records Matt Brown and Sam Davis. Let's talk again soon.