If you’re trying to help a loved one to overcome a substance use problem, then there’s one extremely important question you should ask yourself: What are you selling to them? Let me explain.
I recently bought a gym membership. I should let you know I’ve always abhorred gyms; I saw them as a waste of time. But now, in my early thirties I haven’t been so active, I’ve been stuck at a computer editing videos and writing. I live in the city where it’s not so easy to do all the activities I engaged in when I was younger. So I checked out a few gyms, even though I found it odd to literally run in place on a treadmill – I was active as a child because it was fun, and this gym stuff just seemed like pointless work. The people at the gym, however, did not sell me on running on a treadmill, lifting weights, or using any other contraption. They convinced me to purchase an expensive membership by appealing to my true needs and desires.
Why should I join the gym? Because it will help me to become more energetic, I’ll be sexier when I lose those extra pounds I’ve put on in recent years, I’ll be healthier, I’ll meet new friends in the classes, It’s a good way to start the day. Also, normal activities like carrying groceries have led to major aches and pains lately because I’m out of shape – and I’ll be less prone to that as I ramp up my level of activity at the gym. When I was sold a gym membership, these were the issues that were focused on, because these are the things I want. I never wanted to run in place on a freaking treadmill. Never. But now I do that a few times a week, and I enjoy it, and I have begun to reap the benefits of doing it. If the salesperson at the gym had told me “you need to run on a treadmill a few times a week, get worn out, and deal with it because you’re an adult now”, then I wouldn’t have bought the gym membership, nor would I have taken on this beneficial new habit.
With this in mind, what are you selling to your loved one? If you were literally selling a sober lifestyle, how much commission would you make? Are you tapping into what makes your customer tick, or are you just telling them they need to change? Are you providing a vision of the better future they’ll gain by buying your product? It can be easy to get into the habit of chastising our loved ones, and indeed they may deserve it. Ultimatums and threats can become the normal topic of conversation when dealing with them. Demands and commands may fly out of our mouths as we reach higher levels of frustration with them. And although there may be appropriate times to cut ties with someone or throw them out of the house, these are extreme measures that are not guaranteed to work, and we don’t ultimately want to resort to them. We want our loved ones to get better, to have a good, happy, fulfilling, and successful life. They want that too. So get to work and sell it to them.
Ahh, this subject is tough for me to think about sometimes. It makes me think back at times that I’ve been criticized or I’ve criticized someone else for their behavior, and I realize that we were all severely lacking positive messages. And why is that? Because many don’t actually believe that their recommendations are GOOD. When people told me “just go to college,” they saw it as a necessary evil or a way to keep me out of trouble, not something that I could really gain from. And, many times, when I’ve told people to study or work harder or party less, I’ve actually been somewhat jealous of them or have wanted them to suffer and have less fun with me.
I can definitely tell the difference between when I’ve given people positive advice or the more resentful kind- it feels totally different. And I intend to only give the positive kind of advice in the future.
Awesome article….Thanks for this! “And although there may be appropriate times to cut ties with someone or throw them out of the house, these are extreme measures that are not guaranteed to work, and we don’t ultimately want to resort to them. We want our loved ones to get better, to have a good, happy, fulfilling, and successful life”. That is such an important point.
I get a frustrated with parents, other advocates, even some clinicians for peddling ‘detachment’ when they no little to nothing about someone else’s personal details/circumstances or personal resources for coping. ‘Disconnect’, for the most part (though appropriate in ‘some’ circumstances) is mostly not going to serve on any level….and may well increase risk of harm.
So often it’s the case that CSO’s use the ‘detaching with love’ recommendation in levying their own veiled, and often unconscious, brand of passive aggression in order to scapegoat their resentments and frustrations onto their one loved one with the substance use disorder. Existing in a state of unawareness regarding how their resentments- left unaddressed/unresolved- impact the choices and behavior of addicted family member, adds to their lacking sufficient coping skills to effectively interact/strategize collaboratively with their addiction-challenged loved one toward problem-solving and strengthened relational dynamic. Important to stress that this result is certainly not for lack of love and concern for their addicted family member (in the vastest vast majority of cases, anyway)…No. It’s for lack of coping tools to better deal with the challenges that come with substance use disorder in a empowered, hope-filled way.
As communicated in article…We can learn new ways of perceiving our challenge….We can learn and practice new measures for dealing with our circumstances in a way that strengthens us and increases our capacity for problem-solving as well as gratitude for our life/loved ones in ways we probably couldn’t imagine possible at our ‘darkest’ hour. “Post Traumatic Growth”…It’s a bitch. But something worth every ounce of dedicated effort we invest toward improving our circumstances/our relationships/our life!