Can an Addict Change?

Can an Addict Change?

Can an addict change?

It’s important for you to answer this question because likely, you need this person to change for you to feel like you can go on in this relationship. Part of you even wonders, “should you stay? Should you go? What the hell am I doing here? Why am I putting up with this? Why am I tolerating this? I keep trying everything, nothing is working.” and on, and on and on.

So now you’re here and wondering, “is it even possible? Can they change?” I’m going to answer that question.  This is designed for you to get insight into your situation.   I’m giving you my perspective and opinion based upon decades worth of experience, education, and direct involvement with addiction treatment.

I worked inside a drug and alcohol treatment center for eight years.

I ran and created the family program there. I facilitated the co-dependency programming. I have worked with thousands of addicts and hundreds of family members and so what I share with you is not just an opinion that I have. It’s based on what I have seen, what I have experienced, and what I have learned. So that’s the perspective that I’m coming from today. Now again, I also don’t know your loved one. So, if you really want that discernment and you want to know for absolute sure, then go over to LoveCoachHeidi.com and you can schedule a complimentary consultation. Where we can talk about working together so that I can really get into your dynamic personally.
When we work together, you can give me all the facts. I can dissect and discern and tell you with absolute clarity exactly what I think about your situation.

Having said all that, let’s go ahead and dive in and answer the question. Can an addict change? What do you want to change? Change what? That’s the first question that you must come to terms with because it’s such a broad question. What are you trying to change? I’m going to break down the different things you might be trying to change and answer, “Can they change or not? ”

The first thing you might want to change is their Using.

Can they stop? Can they quit? Can they stop using and change their addiction and put that all behind them? The answer to that question is hallelujah, yes, they absolutely can. And the ticket to that is recovery.

If somebody is working on a solid recovery plan, absolutely they can stop using. They can get sober. They can put that behind them. Put it in the past. Move on from the compulsion and the obsession. Really heal and decide not to use drugs or alcohol ever again. We have lots of videos on the readiness for that and what recovery should look like. I have an entire program dedicated to answering every single question there is about recovery relapse, your part, their part. When you come into our program called LYFE School, which is Love Yourself First Empowerment School, you get access to that and everything else.

You might be thinking, “well, that’s common sense. I know they can change if they get into recovery. I want to know, can they change?” I think what you’re asking is can they change their personality. Can they change their behavior? Can they change the lying, the manipulating, and the gaslighting? Or whatever it is, the laziness, the self-obsession, the meanness, the numbness, can they change that? The flat effect. Is this ringing a bell? Am I singing your song? Likely, that’s the kind of thing that you’re wondering. Here’s the sad truth about that. Maybe, they can change that. What you’re asking yourself is, “Is this a question of nature or nurture?”

People are how they are. They’re born into the world how they are, and they have life experiences that compound or shift the trajectory of their lives based upon the experiences that they’ve had.
A lot of the behavior of an addict or an alcoholic looks like a narcissist. There’s an element of self-obsession. There’s an element of lack of empathy. They are inflicting pain. There’s gaslighting. There are all these things, personality-wise that you are left wondering when they get sober, is that shit going to go away?

Maybe. That’s the hard truth. Because I don’t know if this person before they started using substances had that personality that was, blaming, victim mentality, argumentative, condescending, mean, selfish, rude. I don’t know how their demeanor was before they started using, because alcohol or drugs just kind of exacerbates the underlying personality, depending upon what drugs they use. Now certainly, some other drugs can create a whole other personality and whole other psychological challenges on top of that and even take somebody more likely down a road to excavate or un-earth their mental illness.
There are lots of factors there, but here’s what my experience is. People are who they are. If they were a good person before they started using drugs or alcohol, they’re going to get back to that good person. If they always had an attitude issue, if they always were condescending, if they always had undesirable qualities, you take away the drugs or alcohol they’re there. In fact, when you take away the drugs or alcohol, sometimes those personalities that are mean or selfish or dictating or controlling will exacerbate. They will become more obvious and more evident because they were trying to medicate that anger that was underneath of that or whatever. The second question is, are they working on themselves?

You can’t just get sober. Recovery is not about, well I’m just going to stop using, and magically I’m going to become this amazing human being and trustworthy person.  Just a straight shooter and just this warm, loving human. That’s not how this thing works. You get sober so that you can fix the things that led you to drink and use in the first place.

Nine times out of 10, after that pink cloud fades away and everybody’s so happy because we’re in recovery and thank God that’s over.

Recovery just begins. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you need to know what you’re in for in recovery. So many families would come into my family program when I did it at the treatment center where their loves ones were clients and they would say, “Heidi, thank you for fixing my loved one. I am just so grateful.”

And I would say, “We’re not fixing your loved one.  We’re giving your loved one, an opportunity to get sober so they can see and recognize their issues which led them to use in the first place.”

And that’s one of the myths is we think, if they get sober it’s going to fix everything. Nine times out of 10, it doesn’t. I had a father in the family program that said, “thank God my son’s going to stop smoking the weed because now he’s going to be responsible. He’s going to get to work. He has so much potential.”

The truth was that kid was just lazy. He got sober and still wanted daddy to pay for halfway. Didn’t want to get a job and all those things. So, the father he had to learn how to hold boundaries and set the bottom line, to inspire his grown-ass child to take some responsibility and start to work on his life.

Sobriety isn’t not using; sobriety is creating a life you want to be awake for.

People start using drugs and alcohol to medicate a life that’s not worth living to them, there’s something missing. So, when you take away the drugs or alcohol, there’s still a hole. You could take away drugs and alcohol. That’s easy, right? Somebody comes into detox, it’s simple. Getting off drugs and alcohol is the easy part. The hard part is detoxing from the behaviors. That can take up to one year of somebody in recovery to stop manipulating, stop lying and that’s if they’re actively working on a program of recovery.
Just because they’re not using anymore, those behaviors are not going to change overnight. It’s going to take consistent time, consistent effort. Getting ministered to or therapized by somebody outside of your family that can sponsor or come alongside that person and help them see the personality traits that they want to work on, and they want to fix in their relationship challenges. That’s the answer to the second question.

But the third question is the most important question about what you’re trying to change.

This is the reason that I get to do the work that I do and really help people Many times what we’re really asking is, can I change the past? I know that we know intellectually, we cannot change the past, but we expect somebody to get sober and then undo all the damages that they have done.

Like they are magically going to be this great person and make up for all the hurt they caused. All the pain they inflicted, all the anxiety, confusion, and rage that has built up in you. We think sobriety will fix all that and change it.

Here’s what I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been doing this. Alcoholic, addicted husband goes into treatment. Feels brand new, feels great. Comes out of treatment. Tail wagging, feeling proud of himself. Feeling good and believing all the hurt in the past is undone because now he’s sober. And you’re thinking, “It’s not all better. I don’t know what planet you’re on, but you did a lot of damage here.”
You’re thinking, “Do you see the tornado that has come through this house emotionally and ripped our souls from our bodies? Do you see the damage that this has caused?”

And he’s thinking, “but I’m sober now and I really don’t want to talk about that. When you talk about the past”, the addict or alcoholic will say, “when you talk about that past, it really makes me want to use and so that was in the past.  You got to be in the present moment. I’m sober now. Everything is better.”

And you’re going, but wait, there’s more. There’s more pain still there, there’s more hurt still there, there’s still more resentment and all those feelings. Now you want them to fix it and they’re the wrong person because you can’t go to the source of the pain to fix the pain.

Hear that?  You cannot go to the source of your pain to fix your pain.

That’s why you need outside support. So, if they go to treatment and start to get on the recovery train and they start to work on their behaviors in recovery, you’re still left with that world of hurt, the resentment, rebuilding trust again.  How do you know if somebody’s relapsing? You’re always on guard. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop or maybe you’re feeling hopeful that the whole thing’s going to change radically. And you’re reading this and you’re thinking, oh shit, that’s not the way this thing works. Well, that’s exactly why I’ve created the programs that I have. The support, the coaching that I have.

The program is there so that I can come alongside you and help you heal. So, if you want that support and are tired of struggling in anonymity and silence because you can’t tell your friends what’s going on. Or the friends you do tell would just give you the advice to go, and that’s not what you want to do. If you want the support and you want to be able to voice what’s really going on. If you want to resolve the relationship issues addiction has created and you want to make a permanent change in your own life of what you settle for, what you accept, or what you tolerate.  Then, schedule a time to connect with me and let’s get going.

It’s time to stop walking on eggshells, constantly worrying about everybody else while you’re last on the list. You just want a true partner. Somebody you can rely on and count on. I want you to consider letting me come alongside you. Go over to LoveCoachHeidi.com to schedule your consultation.

 

Understanding Codependency

Understanding Codependency

What are the Core Issues of codependency? 

I get asked that question so much and it’s because codependency is still one of the most misunderstood things in the world of relationships. And so, my goal is to help you make sense.  To teach things in such an easy way that you can understand your unique codependency patterns, your partner’s patterns, or other relationships that you have. Why? So that you can have the relationships that you deserve.  Relationships that aren’t full of drama, resentment, confusion, where you are scratching your head wondering how to strategize or get this thing to work. That’s all codependency. 

I know that codependency and the issues that you are having are really leaving you full of resentment, confusion, anxiety, pain. And ultimately our work is about breaking you free. Psychological freedom so that you have control over your own thoughts, and your mind isn’t hijacked. Constantly obsessing or worrying. Emotional freedom, where you don’t feel like you are on a love roller coaster. Constantly up and down and all over the place. 

Let’s dive in. These are the six basic core issues that we have when we are codependent.

The first issue is the overarching issue that encompasses all of codependency and that’s the issue of “Identity.” 

Codependency is I don’t know who I am because who I am is not good enough. 

It’s not working for me to be me. So, I need to figure out who I need to be to function in this dysfunctional relationship. 

What we do is we take on a way of behaving. A way of being.  A personality if you will, so that we can connect, cope, survive, or thrive in this dynamic. 

We take on a personality and eventually we literally don’t know who the hell we are.  We scratch our heads, and we are like, I don’t know who I am. I’m a chameleon. And that’s true of codependence. You are a chameleon. You can fit in anywhere. And in fact, a lot of my students and clients, what we end up doing is when we get into a situation, a relationship, we survey the land.  We look around and we do a lot of observing about who people are and we get the lock on everybody. We understand and then we say, how can I fit in to this dynamic? Who do I need to be to be okay, be liked, be respected, be whatever in this dynamic? 

With codependency there’s an awful lot of strategizing that goes on. It’s like you can’t give yourself permission to just walk into the room and be who the hell you are. Because you don’t know how that’s going to be received.  And again, when you grow up in a dysfunctional dynamic, and codependency is a lifestyle from an early age. It’s a pattern you took on a long time ago. It really was a survival skill. That you needed to survey the land to figure out who you needed to be so that you didn’t get hurt. Or you could cope or survive or whatever it was you were trying to do. So, these patterns, it’s not a bad thing all the way.  Because at first, these patterns really kept you safe. They helped you. It’s a problem now because you want to be your true self. You want to figure out who the hell you really are. 

A lot of us are at a certain point of our life where we are freaking tired of being who we need to be for everybody else.  

We really do just want to have full permission to let ourselves be unleashed and be all of who we are. 

An identity crisis is the first thing we suffer from in a codependent relationship. Who am I? Now for you to figure out who you are, you need to figure out first, who you’ve been and who you are not. 

That’s by the process of elimination, right? Because you are not lost. You don’t need to find this version of you. You need to excavate her or him. You need to uncover by removing the masks. The masks that you’ve put on, are what I have named Attachment Personality Patterns. 

Of course, my signature group coaching program called LYFE School is all about unraveling that patterning so that you can really be your authentic true self. Because here is the deal, you can’t have true love if you are not your true self. 

You can’t feel fully seen, respected, loved, or adored if you are not yourself. Because they are not really loving you. And you feel that disconnect, don’t you? You know that you are not being loved for who you really are because you are not really being your authentic self. 

You are being who you need to be. So “Identity” is the first issue.  

The second issue, core codependency issue that we have and how it shows up is “Control Issues.” 

Now, codependency tends to be all or nothing, black or white. And we can vacillate on opposite ends of the spectrum. However, it’s the same issue. 

I’ve heard a lot of people say, “well I’m not codependent but my husband is.” “I’m not codependent but she definitely is codependent.” Well, what is “co?” What’s codependent? Are two people, right? Two people. So, we might not think we are codependent.  They are codependent not us, but the way the reality is, it takes two.

Control issues manifest one or two ways. You are in charge. It’s your way or the highway.  You want to tell people how to think, how to feel, how to behave. Now, here’s the thing, controllers aren’t malicious unless they’re pathological and then they turn into narcissistic personality disorder.  

But I don’t deal in disorders or pathology.  I deal in patterns. As a coach, that’s a very different perspective. 

I’m not telling you that you are broken, or you are sick, or you have a diagnosis. I’m telling you this a pattern. So, I’m going to take the approach that this type of controller isn’t pathological. They are doing it because it’s more benevolent. 

You are controlling because you think bad things are going to happen if you don’t. Now this can be problematic, obviously. When people can feel like you are always trying to control them and tell them what to do and how to think and how to behave and you are anxious a lot.  Walking around like hypervigilant, making sure everything’s okay. This with a controller, feelings of complete and total overwhelm is probably the biggest issue that controllers feel in addition to resentment when people don’t take the advice that we are giving them or follow through.  

But a controller will also manipulate, they’ll strategize.  They figure out here’s how I need people to behave. How do I get them to behave the way I want them to behave? Controllers play a lot of games in relationships. 

Now on the other side of that spectrum of control, is people who allow others to control them. And they end up in a People Pleaser Pattern versus a Controller Pattern, though they both have control issues.

They let other people tell them what they think and how to feel and they look to other people. 

A people pleasing codependent feels as though they have no control. They go with the flow. They are complicit, compliant, doing whatever needs to be done, unwilling to rock the boat or break any eggs.  

As far as control issues go, like attracts like but on the opposite end of the spectrum. A Controller Pattern and a Pleaser Patterns hook up. 

And this is a match made in hell because these two are feeding off each other in this dynamic and they are both tired of it. Controllers often will say, “I just want you to tell me what you want, and I just want you to step up. I don’t want to be in control all the time. I don’t want to have to be the one all the time.”  And a pleaser says, “Just tell me what you want me to do. And I’ll do it.” They are afraid to be in control and make a mistake.

One is afraid of being in control and the other is afraid of being out of control. 

What does healthy control look like? The middle Way.

The middle way is a very Daoist, it’s a very Buddhist philosophy. It’s not all or nothing. And codependents need to learn that it’s not black and white. There is a middle way. So, what would the middle way look like between a controller and a pleaser? It would look like we meet in the middle.   I control what I can and I back down when I need to, and I let other people do their thing.   I encourage other people to have their own thoughts and own opinions and I take no shit, but I’m still kind. 

In LYFE School we work on these core issues. 

The next issue is, “Self-Esteem Issues.”

At the root of all co-dependency issues is this core issue of self-esteem regulation. And for many people, the Attachment Personality Patterns are a way to regulate our self-esteem. Every single pattern is about regulating self-esteem. And I’ll talk about two patterns and how we regulate that self-esteem first. One is perfectionism. Many of us learned early on that to have love or approval, we need to be perfect. 

We are not allowed to make mistakes and so we put an extreme amount of pressure on ourselves and other people to live up to this crazy standard that we’ve set for ourselves and everybody else. We fall short, they fall short, but I’ll tell you a perfectionist pattern has a real hard time owning their own shit.

They are very adept at looking at other people much like the fixer pattern. The perfectionist, also like the fixer has a problem seeing themselves, because it’s all projected onto other people. But a perfectionist does judge themselves very harshly. 

That’s the difference, right? Where a fixer feels like they have it all together, most of the time a perfectionist behind closed doors really does feel terrible. But to regulate that self-esteem, they just aim higher. They just keep on setting that goal and that standard and they never quite reach it, of course. A lot of perfectionists procrastinate. 

They never really get the thing done that they want to do because they can’t do it the right way. Nobody else is doing things the right way. 

When I have a perfectionist in my program, and they’ll say things like “Did I do the right thing?” They want to do thing right because if they do it right then they are going to be good and that’s the goal underneath. Perfectionists don’t feel good unless they are perfect. And you can imagine when they do make a mistake, their whole world crumbles and falls apart.

There’s very little room for other people to have their own opinions or thoughts about how to do things because the perfectionist is like, “I know exactly what you need to do or how we should do this.”

Another self-esteem regulator shows up, is in the Pretender Pattern. Sometimes I call the Performer. Which is, I put on a show.  I suck it up. Now this is a person who is very concerned about appearances, not necessarily integrity. They will lie just to look good. They will do whatever they need to do to make sure that they are perceived a certain way. They want to curate their image. 

Through a Pretender may be struggling significantly, they feel “The show must go on”.

The next core issue we are going to talk about is “Trust Issues.” 

Back to our personality patterns to take a deeper look at this issue. Two patterns, same issue, opposite sides of the spectrum

A Withholding Personality learned very early on that vulnerability is for the weak. It’s kind of like a pretender and a performer, except Withholders are extremely sensitive people. They feel things very deeply, but their biggest fear is that you are going to hurt them. Because they don’t want you to use their vulnerability or weakness as they see it, against them, they withhold their feelings. They withhold their thoughts.

They withhold their feelings from you because they don’t want you to have access to them. A withholder wants intimacy so deeply, but they are so afraid of being rejected at the end of the day, that they kind of keep people at an arms distance. 

Now on the other side of that spectrum of trust issues is the Clinger. They over trust. 

The Withholder under trusts and the Clinger over trusts. 

A clinger is a ride or die. They are loyal to a fault. And these two patterns hook up. 

Withholders love a clinger because at first, they don’t have to share anything because a clinger overshares. They are oversharing and dominating.

A withholder really likes that at first, right? Because it feels good. Because again, remember their biggest fear is being rejected. So, clingers make them feel good. 

But after a while, a withholder will start to feel very smothered by a clinger and they will start to pull back and a clinger’s biggest fear is abandonment. That’s why they ride or die. They will stay with anybody because that’s better than being with nobody. 

Clingers also don’t recognize the emotional unavailability of the people they are attracted to. Withholders are not emotionally available, but a clinger doesn’t see that, they just fantasize.  They project “this is the one. I’ve never felt this way before.”

A clinger is so wrapped up in the ideology and the fantasy of the relationship that they fail to see the reality of the person that they’re with. 

And so now, when the withholder starts to pull away, they trigger up the clinger’s abandonment issues. And the clinger clings harder and then the Withholder feels totally smothered.  They pull away even more. 

Then eventually a clinger says, “okay, you know what? I’ve had enough of this. I’m out of here.” And the clinger pulls away and the Withholder goes, “where are you going? Don’t leave me”.  Because now their rejection is triggered up. They chase after the Clinger and they can do this dance for decades, clingers and withholders. 

I’m sure at this point you can see how rich this content is. There are three levels when you are working with me. The first is beginner, where you identify what pattern, you are and you see how you are operating and that’s level one.

And that is crucial. You can’t miss this. You’ve got to have insight into yourself and your partner. You’ve got to nail your pattern. 

And by that in LYFE School we take that pattern and do a whole process to understand how that pattern shows up for you. What behaviors you exhibit. What are your trigger feelings? Where did it come from? And it’s a lot of work. 

Level two is apprentice.  And this is where you start to practice Detaching rom the Patterns in your daily life. You start to see so much more. You can point out other people’s patterns quicker. You can bypass the patterns. You see the flags come in. You know who to be with, who not to be with. You take that knowledge that you get in beginner and you put it into motion and action in your everyday life and you become an apprentice. 

And then level three of understanding is mastery and this is for many people who want to go the whole way and become a coach with me. They have a mastery of this information. They’re living it and they master it so that they can teach other people and help other people. 

The next core issue with co-dependency is “Emotions”. 

Now, how you can identify if you’re co-dependent isn’t just through the behaviors or identifying your patterning, which is crucial. That’s the first step. But your emotions are another barometer that you are codependent. 

What emotions are you experiencing on a regular basis? Resentment, confusion, pain, anxiety, abandonment, rejection?

When you’re trapped in your pattern, you feel these feelings on a regular basis. 

Emotion as a core issue for codependency manifests one of two ways: Repression or Dysregulated Expression.

A Withholder suppresses emotions and has trouble identifying feelings. 

A pleaser has repressed their feeling for so long that they don’t have access to what they need or want anymore. 

A controller attempts to tell others how to feel.

A perfectionist condemns and judges feelings.

A clinger’s emotions are a whirlwind that sucks others in.

A victim lives in unresolved, unprocessed, unrecognized pain.

A pretender sucks up other feelings

A fixer worries about and feels responsible for everyone else’s feelings.

And the ne thing they all have in common is that eventually, emotions take us over and we reach a breaking point,

Our Codependency recovery program is geared toward learning how to identify your emotions, be in your emotions, feel your emotions and learn how to effectively express and communicate them

So many of us are so focused on other people that we do not know how we feel. We are so used to turning off our feelings, or we’ve been gas lit. Many of us who grew up in dysfunctional, toxic, abusive households, addicted households, got the message early on that your feelings don’t matter. It doesn’t matter how you feel. Or it wasn’t safe for you to feel. So, you learned how to disassociate or shut off your feelings.  

Codependency recovery is a walk back home to your own sensitivity. It’s learning how to feel those feelings again and express those emotions properly and appropriately for you. And learn how to communicate those emotions to people 

The last core issue is Responsibility. 

As I have stated earlier, codependency is black and white. You are over responsible or under responsible. And here are the two patterns we enact. If you’re overly responsible, you’re a Fixer Personality. You think their problem is your problem. You have caseloads instead of friends. You take on more. Put on your cape and run to the rescue.

On another side, you’re totally irresponsible and you are a Victim Personality. 

The Victim takes no responsibility at all whatsoever. 

What do they do? They blame everything and everybody else for their problems. They have an excuse for everything. They minimize their problems. They justify their problems.  Excuse, rationalize, project their issues on other people. 

A victim takes no responsibility, and a hero takes all the responsibility.

Fixers and victims are peas in a pod, partners. They attract one another.  

So how do you resolve these core issues?

That’s the purpose of LYFE School. Love Yourself First Empowerment. We work together to resolve these core issues. 

You resolve the issues of control. Meet in the middle.  Learn what’s yours and what’s other people’s. 

Same with responsibility. Trust, learn how to develop that divine intuition. Trust yourself, your judgment.  Open up, receive from other people. Stop being the giver and other people the taker.  You learn how to receive for once. 

Self-esteem issues. You feel good about yourself at your core. 

You know who you are. You are not confused about your identity anymore. How awesome is that? That’s recovery and that’s what we are working towards. And for the committed people who say, “This is my time. I want to take my life and own it. I want to plug up the power leaks that I have in my life with the people sucking my power. The places I don’t want to be sucking my power. The things in my life that are sucking my power.” 

Imagine what you would do if you plugged up that leak and took all that power back.  You would be able to manifest your life on your terms, exactly the way you want it, and you know, what’s so true? You deserve that! You’re a good person. Now’s your time. So, let’s get to work. What core issues are you working on? What are the core issues that resonated with you the most? What core issues do you want to tackle first? 

Go to

Learn to Identify and Eradicate Toxic Codependency Patterns, Visit LoveCoachHeidi.com and request a complimentary consultation.

What is a Functioning Addict or Alcoholic?

What is a Functioning Addict or Alcoholic?

We’re going to talk about functioning addicts or alcoholics. What is it? What is the impact and what are you going to do about it now? If you’re new here, I want to take a minute and say welcome home. I’m really glad you’re here. We’re dedicated to co-dependence. Understanding it. Making sense of it. It’s just a way to function in dysfunction. We talk about all things, toxic relationship recovery and dysfunction. Welcome. I’m so glad that you found me. This is a tough topic. This is such a difficult thing to understand, this functioning addiction. What the heck is that and is there even such a thing as a functioning addict?

 

My first experience with a functioning addict was my own relationship with my father, who was an alcoholic.  To me, what functioning meant was he went to work every day. He got up at the same time. He was a coal miner and then he worked his way up in the coal mine. You saw him progressing through work. He got up every morning at the crack of dawn, five o’clock in the morning and he worked his butt off. Hardworking man. He’d come home, soon as he got home, he’d have dinner. He cracked a beer and drink, drink, drink, and just not stop drinking until he went to bed and he drank a lot. He’d be at that point where he’s getting drunk.

 

You can see the writing on the wall, but he wasn’t belligerent and he wasn’t mean.  He wasn’t horrible or any of those things.  He just drank himself until he was ready to go to bed. He’d go to bed and he’d wake up the next morning at five o’clock in the morning. Seems pretty functioning and go back to work and start all over again. On the weekends, he would drink more. So that looked pretty functioning and for a while, it stayed that way. In fact, as I got older, he would still go to work every day. He was still functioning, but the drinking got worse. To the point where it was causing issues when friends would come over. It would be embarrassing or I would be mortified and not want him to be around when my friends are over, out of left field.  Not knowing what the heck he was going to say or what he was going to do.

 

He would fall down and hurt himself more often. He would be belligerent sometimes. He would be inappropriate other times or make inappropriate jokes and things like that. But he still got up at five o’clock in the morning and he still went to work every day. Then we’d have Christmas, he would fall into the Christmas tree or find a way to ruin Thanksgiving or embarrass me at the Mexican restaurant or embarrass the family in other ways. But he still got up at five o’clock in the morning and went to work every day.  For his whole entire life, we called him a functioning addict, a functioning alcoholic.

 

My second interaction with a functioning alcoholic was me.  I was the type of drinker where I was a binge drinker. I would march into the corporate office and make millions of dollars for that company. I would go home at the end of the night and whatever city I’d flown into and drink or take some Adovin to relax and drink so much that I would just checkout and forget everything. But I woke up on time and put my heels on and my suit and marched into that company and made millions of dollars and did that over and over and over again. Now mind you, it was impacting other areas of my life. I was lonely, I didn’t have any relationships, but when we think about functioning addicts or alcoholics, the last place we look for pain is in money.

 

We judge functioning by money. As long as somebody is working and providing for themselves or their family. We think they’re a functioning addict or alcoholic. It’s not like they’re the guy on the corner, homeless, drinking all day from sun up to sun down with nothing to his name. This is a person who’s successful. They’re functioning. That is probably the biggest crack of shit ever known to man because while it’s not showing up in our pocketbooks and that keeps us functioning.  The dysfunction shows up in areas of relationships. I know from my dad as a young kid, I would look at my father and I would think, it’s harder for a kid to make sense of a functioning addicted parent than it is for a totally checked out drunk parent that has nothing.

 

The degenerate parent, a total absent parent. It’s harder for a kid to make sense of a functioning alcoholic or functioning addict because they look and they say, how can my dad get it together for work but he can’t get it together for me? How can my dad make work function and put on the face around his boss and act like he’s fine, but he’s falling down and embarrassing me in front of my friends? Does he just value work more than me? Does he just save his drinking for me? That’s what you start to wonder. If you’re in a family with a functioning addict and dad’s going to work every day and he’s paying your bills and he’s taking care of your family, I’m going to tell you, your kids are still up in their room, crying, wondering why dad saves his drinking for them. That’s what they’re wondering.

 

Kids are affected and impacted whether the bills are paid or not. The marriage is impacted whether the rings come and the hair can get done or not. Money, shouldn’t be the last place we look to check around and see, is this an issue? Lots of addicts and alcoholics have lots and lots of money. It’s such a lie that we tell ourselves that if you’re an addict or an alcoholic, you have to be homeless and not have any teeth and you have to be able not to provide for yourself. Do you know how many addicts and alcoholics, are rich, loaded, highly successful? There’s those quotes again, highly successful. Why is it that in our country and in everywhere else and a lot of places too, we measure success on our financial ability to provide and not on the relationships and the wake of damage and destruction that we’re causing to our children, our spouses and generations to come?

 

In my own relationship, I was making a lot of money. Traveling around the country and being a business consultant and acting like I had it all together and behind closed doors, I was falling apart. I was drinking. I was doing things full of shame.  Not even remembering what I was doing.  In the meantime, I was creating havoc in my relationships. Making the people that loved me, worried about me, concerned about me.  My argument was, well, I’m fine. Look, I just bought a house. I just bought a car. I’m fine. Relationships that I was in, intimate relationships. Boyfriends that I was with, making them Google search is my girlfriend an alcoholic. She just binge drinks, like what’s that?

 

We make binge drinking okay. We think, well, as long as you don’t drink every day, you’re a functioning addict. If you can go days in between, you’re fine. I was an overachieving binge drinker. I would drink to the point of not knowing where the heck I was and I’d wake up the next day and drink a green smoothie, go to the gym and feel like I’m good now. Then a couple of days would go in between I’d binge drink, fall down, forget my own name, wake up, drink a green smoothie and go to the gym. I’m not an alcoholic, see. Can we just get rid of addict, alcoholic, functioning, not functioning, substance use disorder. Get rid of all the titles and ask yourself. Hey, can we look around and ask ourselves, what’s the fallout? Who am I impacting? Whether I want to put a label on myself or not a label. I’m not for that anyway, because I think at the end of the day, that’s what gets us in trouble.

 

I could argue I’m not an alcoholic because I don’t need it. I can go without it. I can take it or leave it. Meanwhile, my relationships are falling apart. That should be your barometer for whether you’re functioning or not. That’s the discussion I want to have today. What makes you a functioning person? Are you surrounded by dysfunction? If there is dysfunction in your relationships with people in any way, shape or form. Dysfunction, you are not a functioning addict or an alcoholic and I don’t care how much money you make. That’s a good barometer from now on. As a relationship person and knowing the impact of addiction on our own lives, the own self abuse we inflect, but just the abuse we inflict on other people too, with our drinking. That’s the barometer to whether you’re functioning or not.

 

My dad brought home a paycheck, but I’m going tell you what.  The lasting impact that he left with his drinking, from growing up in that environment, whether he brought home that money or not has taken a lifetime to undo. You got to become aware of the impact. It doesn’t matter how often or how much your relationships are impacted. People are wondering why you’re picking alcohol over them? Why you can stop, but you start again? Why you binge and black out, but then you’re going to the gym? It’s very confusing for the people that love you to understand and you’re still arguing with them, you’re not an alcoholic. Why are they fucking unhappy? Are you hurting people? I know that’s harsh.

 

I know my language can be really to the point, but I want you to understand, we’ve got to stop this delusion that we’re fucking functioning. Where there is dysfunction, there is no functioning. Let that be the barometer and ask yourself.  If it’s you and you say, okay, I see, all right, yep. If we’re talking relationships, then no, I am not functioning. Some people are still delusional thinking I don’t drink that much and so they’re not really that impacted that much. You don’t need to fall down fifteen times. You can fall down one and have somebody to be scared shitless once and have it be enough. You can make a jerk out of yourself at a party one time and not ten times and have that one time, leave a mark.

 

We don’t need to be repeatedly hurting people. Hurting people once is enough. If your drinking is causing an impact or the drinking of somebody else is causing an impact, we all need to get well. We all need to take a look around and say, okay, what can we do? So this is a plea to you to help you understand that functioning alcoholism isn’t real. Functioning addiction isn’t real. The proof is in the dysfunctional family. The proof is in the dysfunctional relationship. Show this to somebody you love. I’ll take the heat, throw me under the bus, or if it’s you and I’m making you hot, then good. That’s a good first step. Awareness is the first step. I just want to encourage you to keep taking the next step.

 

Over at lovecoachheidi.com we have a ton of resources for you. If you want help in your family and you need answers specifically, and you want one-on-one type of support, or you want a group setting type of support, go over to lovecoachheidi.com and check out some of our courses and programs that we have to offer. If you’re new here, welcome, this is the start of something wonderful between us. I’m really glad you’re here. If you’ve been here for a while, let’s deepen our relationship. Why don’t you all think about allowing me to come alongside of you and hear what you have to say and work with you in a deeper way? All right. I love you. Take excellent care of yourself.

 

 

SHOULD YOU STAY FOR THE KIDS WITH AN ADDICTED SPOUSE?

SHOULD YOU STAY FOR THE KIDS WITH AN ADDICTED SPOUSE?

Should you stay in this relationship for the kids? If you’re new here, you should know that what I do is I help people that are in highly dysfunctional situations. Not your run of the mill type of relationship stuff. I deal in the deeper issues of shit shows. What I mean by that is you’re in a relationship with an addict or an alcoholic or a narcissist or somebody equally toxic or dysfunctional. That relationship is a constant provider of confusion. Should I stay or should I go. Resentment, he should be doing, or she should be doing something other than they’re doing.

 

Confusion, resentment, anxiety, waiting if things are gonna get better or waiting for the other shoe to drop constantly. Never knowing if things are gonna get better or not. You’re waiting, holding your breath. Or pain, you’re sad, you’re frustrated. I know that dealing with a person like this runs the gamut of emotions much more than the ones I’ve just described. Some of you are numb. You get to that point where you are so checked out. You’re like, ugh, you know. That point of numbness is like, okay, I know that I don’t want to be in this, but I also know that I don’t want to mess up my kids.

 

When you’re asking that question, should I stay in this relationship for the kids? What you’re really asking is, is it going to cause more damage to leave the relationship for your kids than it causes them to stay in?  Do they deserve this? Suck it up, see it through this stable environment. Can you pretend your way through this relationship long enough so that the kids are going to come out all right and then when they reach a certain age, you can just make better decisions for yourself? You’re in the right place if that’s a question you’ve been asking yourself for a while. I definitely intend to give you some very concrete answers. Not around yes definitively, you should get out for the kids or no, you should stay in it for the kids.

 

But to tell you the impact that you’re having on the kids so that you can make an informed decision. I have to tell you when I worked inside of a drug and alcohol treatment center, before I really took my business primarily online. I used to do it inside of a building every day. I’d see thousands of addicts and alcoholics in that environment and worked with hundreds of their families. There’d always be one guy sitting in the auditorium where I teach hundreds of people at one time. He would say, well, you know, my drinking doesn’t really affect my kids too much. They don’t even know, you know, I do that when they go to bed and I’m thinking to myself, you gotta be crazy. Of course, I’m not going to say that, but I’m thinking your kids can tell. They know, they’re like a walking radar. They know way more than you think they do.

 

I’m going to start there and let you know that if there’s any delusion around your kids, knowing what’s going on, I’m going to let you know right now, your children know what is going on. The problem is they don’t know exactly what’s going on. When they’re raised in an environment where there’s secrets or drinking around or hush, hush. You just think that you’re dealing with your issues with your husband or wife, and they’re not really privy to it. They don’t know exactly what’s going on. It’s not like they’re going to go, oh yeah, mom and dad are fighting because dad’s a narcissist and he blames her for everything and gaslights her. That’s why she stays in this relationship.

 

They fight because he always has to be right all the time. Or, oh, I, know they’re really upset and they’re going upstairs to talk because mom thinks dad’s using again and he’s using because he’s addicted and it’s not really a choice and has nothing to do with us. They don’t have the rationale. They know what’s going on. They know either dad’s drinking or mom and dad are fighting. What they don’t know is, it has nothing to do with them. The impact that you’re having on your kids in an environment that is toxic or dysfunctional is a guarantee that they’re going to exit this dynamic, thinking something was wrong with them, period. It manifests in a lot of different ways.

 

When you have dysfunction or toxicity in the house, all kids are kind of self-obsessed. They think the world revolves around them. They think that everything that’s going on in the household is a reflection of them. So they adjust. They’re born into a world, free to believe that all their needs are going to be met. Their family is going to get along great. But when they look around and go, ohoh, this isn’t what I thought it was going to be. They hurry and scurry to take on a personality in order to survive the toxicity and dysfunction. One child in that dynamic will become the hero. So my guy in the audience, he was like, my kids don’t even know. I said, okay, well, how many kids do you have?

 

He said I have four kids and all of them are fine, except for one. I said, well, tell me about your kids. And he said, all right, well, Johnny is the football star. He is absolutely amazing. He makes straight A’s and in fact, he takes care of the stuff around the house. He’s mowing the lawn. I don’t even have to ask him. He takes care of everything and he’s great with his little brothers and sister. He just, you know, he takes care of the whole family. I mean, he is a real stand-up kid and I’m so super proud of him. He is absolutely amazing. And I said, wow, he sounds like a really great kid. Yeah. He’d never been in trouble, not once. Now, if my drinking was so bad, don’t you think that he would be mad at me or something?

 

I said, well, he’s not mad at you. And he said, well, no. I mean, I don’t think so. I mean, he doesn’t really want me to come to his games or anything. Cause I think I distract him a little bit and I’ll make him nervous. I said, oh, well, why do you think you make him nervous at your football games. Whoa. I mean, at one time I embarrassed him or whatever, but he just, it didn’t affect his game. He still won. And I’m thinking, okay. Please know that this is not an attempt to make fun of the addict or alcoholic or think it’s a laughing matter. What I’m trying to help you understand is this is a very common run of the mill every day thought process for an addict and alcoholic.

 

I could be saying it this way. I could be saying, well, no, it doesn’t affect my kids at all. Julia is in law school and Julia has never had an issue at all. I’ve never had to ask her to do a thing. She takes complete and total care of the house. In fact, she’s a big help around everything. She has lots of friends. She’s very popular and it doesn’t affect her at all. If anything she’s more successful than one would think. I could be an addict or an alcoholic and talking both ways, either I’m a high high-class alcoholic or the other. High functioning or low functioning. Either way, I’m still making up excuses for my drinking because one kid in the household, no matter what is going to take up all of the dysfunction and say, not on my watch. I’m going to be perfect. I’m going to achieve. I’m going to excel. I’m going to make up for all the crap in my family by being a high achiever and being a success story.

 

And what happens is the addict or alcoholic puts all of their worth and their proof that they’re not that bad on that one kid in the family that’s achieving to go look, I’m not that bad. Julia is in law school. Okay. Chad’s the football star. Can’t be that bad. Well, they’re achieving not just in spite of you, but also because of you a little bit. They’re picking up the slack for the lack of achievement, the lack of success in the family. All the success gets puts on to them and that’s an immense amount of pressure. That kid grows up to be a kid who measures all their results in life on their achievements. As long as they’re performing and succeeding, they become great but if they’re not, they don’t know who they are without their success.

 

In my attachment personality patterns, my latest book on codependence and how it develops, that would be called the performer or the pretender. Where they put on a mask and they act like they’re fine all the time and they power through and they climb the ladder of success, but they’re empty inside and they can’t figure out why they’re not happy. That’s that kid as an adult. That is the lasting impact of that kid when they become an adult. They don’t know how to be intimate. They don’t know how to let their hair down. They don’t know how to not be perfect. They don’t know how to share themselves fully. There’s a pretending everything’s fine. I’m successful and they don’t let you see what’s going on behind the scenes with them, ever.

 

They attempt to fix other people. They become fixers and helpers, but they never focus on their own stuff. They never are afraid to get vulnerable. That’s the impact. If you stay in this dynamic that you’re having on a kid like that, even if it looks like they have all their stuff together, eventually that’s the road they’re gonna take. I said, tell me about your other kids. Well my other kid is not really affected because she doesn’t even see it because she stays in her room all day long. She’s up in her room. She likes her book. She likes to play video games. She doesn’t even come downstairs really. So she can’t be that affected because she don’t even see anything. She don’t want to interact with anybody. She’s quiet. She’s shy.

 

I wonder how much of that is nature versus nurture? There’s one kid in the household called the lost kid that just wants to get the hell away. They don’t want to come down. They don’t want to be involved. They don’t want to have anything to do with it because they figured it’s a lost cause. Why even focus on it? They don’t want to talk about the addiction or dysfunction. They don’t want anything to do with it. They just want to disappear. The addict or alcoholic might say, well that person’s not at all. Again, I could be the other woman. I could say, just like that other high functioning addict or alcoholic. I said, well, Julia is not really affected because she’s just studying class.She’s just up in her room and she likes to read her books and she’s just very to herself. She likes to do her little art. She just has a little world up in the room that she’s created for herself. It’s really quite endearing.

 

No, that kids trying to escape the hell. It’s just a prettier cage. You’re living in a nicer house. That’s all that is but it’s still the same prison. That kid is not alone or that kid wants to escape and get the hell out of Dodge. That’s the kid that grows up, but doesn’t know how to open up. Doesn’t know how to relate. Doesn’t know how to be intimate. Has social anxiety and all other kinds of things or an addiction of their own because they’re escaping all the time into other realms or worlds in an attempt to disappear from it. I said, okay, well, tell me about your other kid.

 

Well my other kid is hilarious. I mean, he’s definitely not affected because all he does all the time constantly is crack jokes. I mean, he’s so funny. He just sits around and makes us all crack up all the time. He’s so funny. He’s not affected at all. He thinks it’s funny. He thinks my drinking is funny. He just, he’s entertaining as hell. I mean, I just sit around and drink and watch him all day with his jokes. He’s just entertaining, or oh, well I have one child that I definitely know is not impacted because they’re just, you know, they’re in their own little world. They make up these little plays. They’re, constantly entertaining everybody. and it’s really nice because it’s a little distraction from the family problems if you will. They’re over here, just really making everybody laugh and taking their minds off everything all the time.

 

What a blessing that child is. Well, that child is called the clown in the family and they provide the comic relief. They laugh, if they’re not laughing, they’re crying. They’ll make fun of it, often at the addict or alcoholic’s expense. They’ll create humor. It can be really cunning or sharp. If that kid grows up, they don’t know how to not make a joke of everything. They don’t know how to be serious all the time because they had to make everybody else in their family laugh. The siblings laugh to lighten the load because it was so toxic and dysfunctional. They provided that comedy relief to rescue people. A lot of people in this position become comedians, depressed comedians.

 

They’re making light of stuff until they walk off the stage, they’re like, damn. They only feel alive when they’re making fun of it. Otherwise they don’t know how to just be present in the moment with all their thoughts and feelings. They don’t know how to let other people have their thoughts without trying to laugh them out of it and change their state or whatever. So I said well okay, tell me about your other kid. Well, this one is the one that’s a problem. I actually probably wouldn’t drink so much if it weren’t for this kid, because all he does is get out and get in trouble all the time. He smokes weed. He’s disruptive. He gets kicked out of school all the time. He’s a handful. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with him.

 

We give him everything and he just, you know, doesn’t know how to behave. He’s just out fighting all the time. Oh, he makes me want to drink. Well, I have one child who is difficult. Doesn’t really know how to get along in school. I think there might even be something, you know. I haven’t had him formally diagnosed, but definitely just hyper and just rebellious and doesn’t know how to follow the rules and doesn’t know how to listen. And really, it’s exhausting you know. If it really weren’t for that child, I probably wouldn’t need to take so much Adavin. Let’s be real. That kids called a scapegoat. That’s the kid that gets all of the blame placed on them.

 

The alcoholic will blame the scapegoat and oftentimes the enabler will blame the scapegoat too and say, well, they drink because we have this child who is causing so much trouble all the time and I get it that he needs to escape and smoke weed because this child’s a problem child. It’s not a problem child. It’s the kid that’s most sensitive in the household and they’re acting out all the trauma while the one kid is hiding in their bedroom, playing video games. This other kid’s getting kicked out of school because they’re so full of angst. They’re so full of anxiety. They’re so full of resentment and rage and anger that they don’t know how to process it. That’s how they do it. They act out, Hey, I’m over here.

 

That’s a kid that grows up and doesn’t know how to get positive attention. The only time that parents pay attention to him is when he’s getting expelled or getting in trouble or getting whatever. They don’t know how to get positive attention. That’s often the kid that’s going to become the addict or alcoholic and repeat the pattern over and over again. They started as a scapegoat and they learned the only way to identify with the addict or alcoholic is to be getting in trouble so they get some kind of attention paid to them. They don’t know how to have positive attention. Here’s what you need to know. One of the core issues of every single child who grew up or you continue to have in this environment is trust issues.

 

They don’t know how to trust other people, trust authority, trust themselves, trust the process. Intimacy issues. They don’t know how to be vulnerable or relate.  They overshare or they’re over clinging. They’re, pretending how they really feel, or emotional regulation. They don’t know how to share their feelings. They don’t know how to talk about or, communication problems as well. They don’t know how to speak their truth. They hide things. Are secretive or they overshare. It’s like over or under. It’s very black and white when you grow up in a family like this. They have issues with self-esteem and that’s the number one way it shows up is that a kid thinks what’s wrong with them.

 

They adjust and try to make sense of it all. They take on this personality and they just try to cope and survive in that dynamic. Oftentimes they don’t want to make any waves and they don’t want to call it out. The hero will. The hero will often be the kid that tells you things like, why don’t you leave him? Why don’t you get out? Why don’t you exit? I don’t know why you put up with that. That’s the kid that’ll just be like, what’s the matter with you? Why are you staying? They’ll make it mean there’s something wrong with you. That you’re the problem. Not you’ll become the problem, not the alcoholic or addict or not the dysfunctional person. It’d be like, what’s wrong with you that you stay?

 

That kid in the family that’s pursuing his own success, can’t understand why you’re not pursuing your own success and eventually that finger’s going to turn on you and they are going to go you’re the problem. Everybody in the family is going to adjust and figure out who they need to be in order to cope and survive and then later on in life, they’re going to try to figure it out. These are the main issues. Self-esteem issues, trust issues, intimacy issues, emotional regulation issues. Codependence is the number one thing that encompasses all of those things. That’s how codependency starts. It happens in dysfunction.

 

These kids are born into families that are not firing on all cylinders, are not healthy. Please do not tell me that all families are unhealthy and sick and codependent. That’s what we say to justify and rationalize being unhealthy and codependent. It’s not. Be a cycle breaker. That’s not how all families operate. I promise you. I used to think the same thing when I see a normal family, like that’s not real. Something weird is going on behind the scenes there. No, they were just healthy, but I couldn’t fathom it at the time. All these kids are going to have these codependency issues. They’re born to a family that’s dysfunctional and they learn how to function in the dysfunction.

 

Ask yourself this question, two questions. A, if I see the impact that I’m having on these kids, and I know that staying is actually, this is what happens. I don’t know what’s going to happen when they leave. I don’t know what kind of stable environment you’re gonna provide for them if you choose to get out of this relationship. But I know if you stay in it with an unhealthy person that never gets well, this is the impact long-term that you’re having on your kids, whatever path they line up with. If you want to download that free book on personality patterns that I created the apps, go ahead over and download that free book. It will tell you which personality pattern the kids might be developing as a result of being in this dynamic.

 

You can get that book for totally free over at lovecoachheidi.com, just download it. That’s what I want you to consider. I want you to consider well, if this is the issue and this is how they’re going to be affected. Am I willing to subject them to this, knowing that that’s possibly going to be the outcome. The other thing that I want you to consider is asking yourself this question, if kids weren’t involved, would you stay in it? If you didn’t have kids, would you choose this person? If the answer is, no, I wouldn’t choose this person if I didn’t have kids, I’m only staying in it for the kids. Then the question I have for you is this, why would you be unwilling to subject yourself to it as a single person, but you’re willing to subject your children to it.

 

That’s a skewed way to look at things. Isn’t it? Why I wouldn’t take it if I was alone, but I’ll put my kids through it. That doesn’t make any sense. If you say, well, yes, I would subject myself to it if I was alone. I am considering getting out for the kids. Then I think that that’s a healthier perspective to have. Just because you can function in dysfunction and you’re a pro at it, and you can make sense of their behavior and you can know their addiction is not all about them does not mean that your children are able to have that same ability until they go through therapy or coaching and get a handle on what happened. That’s what I do all day long as I deal with people who grew up in that environment.  Who are finally seeing how it affected them, cause at the time in their childhood, they just think we’ll just survive.

 

They’re in survival mode. Oh, thank God. We’re surviving day to day. They can’t make sense of it until they get out and they get into relationships and they go, oh my God, I don’t know how to be intimate. I have trust issues. I have communication problems. I have self-esteem issues with my career and pulling the trigger where I’m successful here, but I can’t be successful here. Or I keep sabotaging myself and I don’t know why.  Why do I self-sabotage all the time? Or why do I blow things up? They don’t understand the impact that the growing up in that shit has until they get out. They’re like, why am I doing this? Suddenly they go, man, what’s wrong with me? What happened? Then I go back in and I go, here’s what happened.

 

I make sense of it for them. So you can interrupt that process by either, if you’re going to stay in it getting them therapy and support. Get them an Alateen or some kind of program where they can make sense of that behavior while they are in it, or you get them out and they can heal from it. But either way to think that you’re staying in it so the kids will be okay, is a ridiculous notion. I’ve actually had people comment and tell me, well, thank God, the addict or alcoholic. Oh, for the kids. I’m glad she stayed. Well, I’m glad you got sober and recovered, but if she would have stayed in it for the kids, when you were an alcoholic, that wouldn’t have been a benefit to them. That would have been a hindrance to that.

 

They would have to figure their lives out afterwards. A lot of that resentment is going to be aimed at you as well for continuing to stay in it while you see their suffering.  Their story is going to be; you pick him over them. That’s what they’re thinking. Why is my mom…? Why is my dad pick…? Especially the hero, they’re like, man, I guess she just loves him more than me. That’s what your kids are thinking. They don’t know. They are making stuff up all day long. Your behavior and their behavior means something all day long and nine times out of ten, they’re making it mean something about themselves.  Their deficiency, their inadequacy is why we’re still here.

 

You need to know this. I know sometimes when I speak the truth, and this is the truth, because this is research-based truth. This isn’t just my truth. This is not just what I’ve read in books and been educated in my schooling. This is my firsthand experience with the children that I’ve helped in the family program. We actually have a family program that’s online with a support group component that the whole family can go through together. Once one person goes purchases the program, the whole family can have access to it. You can come into the support group that we have for it. Go over to revolutionaryfamilyprogram.com and get that program. It is nominally priced so everybody can have it.

 

I’ll get an email that you signed up and then I’ll send you an email about how to join the support group. Let’s get everybody healing in the right direction. I’ve had kids as young as seven years old inside of my family program. I’ll never forget it. This little kid, we were inside of a group processing on Sunday. I used to do this live weekend instead of online. They were debating if they want him to come to the family program. I said, well, he’s affected somehow. He knows. So let’s have a minute and then we’ll decipher what’s appropriate and inappropriate when he’s in there. During the group, it had been shown to me that he knew a lot more than the parents thought he did.  He said, you know, when I found my dad passed out, it really scared me. I thought he was dead and he had overdosed.

 

This is what the seven-year-old said. This is the language he used. My dad had overdosed and I was so scared, but I didn’t understand why my mom kept letting him stay there. That’s what the seven-year-old is thinking. They’re not thinking, oh he’s got a problem. Yeah. She’s attached to him. She doesn’t want to leave cause she’s scared she can’t take care of us. His thing is, why is she allowing me to be waking up to this? That was his perspective. Some of you I know are reading this and tears are coming down and I feel your tears right now. Whoever’s doing that. I feel it.  I understand and I’ll tell you what that is. That is a loving correction. That is a loving, you’re being convicted because you know that you’re being called to look deeper at what’s happening here and it’s okay.

 

Those tears, I know sometimes some of us have had correction that was not loving. We’ve heard things about ourselves that were hard to hear and you’re here. If you made it this far. Here’s what I know for sure. You’re ready to hear this. If you were not ready to hear this, you would not still be here. So let’s say what’s next. Now being convicted. Now I feel it. I feel what Heidi is saying. I know my children have asked me that question before. Why are you staying? What are you doing? We see, what is this? What the fuck is this? Now, what are we going to do? I want you to go to revolutionaryfamilyprogram.com and I want you to get your hands on that program that explains addiction.  Explains enabling.  Explains all these family roles.  Explains how to help them. What’s helping? What’s hurting? What to do with their relapse? If they don’t relapse, how to get them into programs?

 

Everything you ever need to know is in this program. It’s broken down into modules.  Bite-sized pieces of information. So get it. It’s going to benefit you and the whole family. Even if it’s a high class alcoholic, which there is no such thing. A high class addict, there is just cocaine. You guys have plenty of money and everybody’s buying all sort of… To think that your children do not see mom passed out with Xanax or think dad is not like hyperactive and acting weird and speeding around even though there’s money and there’s food on the table and everybody has stuff. That’s a kid that still feels like, well, they gave me the financial stuff and they supported me.

 

But emotionally and psychologically, they abandoned me and weren’t there because they were high. That’s going to be their story. You gave him the stuff, but you weren’t home. The parent gave the stuff, but they weren’t home. They were checked out. They were focused on other things. They were always fighting and we didn’t matter. The other kids going to say we weren’t provided for emotionally, financially, physically. All ways. What’s better? It’s all trauma drama waiting to be unfolded in the office of a therapist or a coach down the road. Let’s break that cycle. Let’s find a way to do the work that’s needed to do. Even if you’re going to stay, that you could sit with your children and at least in a nighttime conversation go, I know I’ve heard.

 

You might be thinking this. Is this true? Are you wondering why I stay? Can I communicate with you what I’ve learned? Can I tell you that you don’t always have to be achieving and succeeding to be loved? Can I tell you, you don’t have to take care of your siblings, that’s my job? Can I tell you, I see you up in your room hiding?  Can I sit with you while you play your video games? I love you. Let’s give a good first step. Go ahead and get that program over at revolutionaryfamilyprogram.com. It’s a standalone program. If you want to upgrade to come into that group, that’s also affordable monthly membership. We can be within a support system month after month asking your questions. Every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM Eastern time. I have a group that runs that you come in and we hash it out. I love you. Take excellent care of yourself. And I will see you inside my group.

 

How to Set Boundaries With a Toxic Mother

How to Set Boundaries With a Toxic Mother

If you have a relationship with a toxic mom, you know exactly how painful that is. Especially when we have society telling us how we are supposed to deal with our mom. Oh, well, that’s your mom. Oh my God. You’re not talking to your mom. Well, you’re thinking about not talking to your mother. You only have one mother. Oh my gosh, that must be so hurtful to her. You get the opinions of other people around you and how we are portrayed as mothers. Mothers are portrayed in this society that; how dare you actually think about taking a stand. What’s wrong with you? Maybe you’re the problem? Maybe you’re the toxic one. Maybe you’re the narcissist.

 

In fact, your mom might have even said that to you in a moment where she was feeling like you were taking control of your life and it was all about you and not about her anymore, that she projected that image onto you. I can’t tell you how many students and clients I have, walk into my programs and tell me and wonder, am I the fucked up one? Am I toxic? Am I a narcissist? Very rarely does a narcissist come into a coaching program and wonder if they’re the narcissist. They’re not coming into coaching programs, number one and they’re certainly not asking that question, number two.

 

It can be really confusing. Is my mom toxic? Is this normal? Is this even dysfunctional? Do I have a right not to wanna talk to her anymore? How do I say this so everybody’s okay? How do I deal with my siblings’ opinions around this? Do I have a relationship still with my father if he’s still alive? How do I navigate the dynamics? If you’re here, I’m gonna guess that it’s gotten bad enough where you wanna know how to put down some boundaries around this situation so that you can have your peace back. It’s excruciating. I don’t think there’s a relationship that’s more painful when you don’t have the approval or love or feel like you have a close connection with your mom. The kind that you envision that you should have, especially if you have your own children.

 

You have a barometer of how that bond is supposed to be. It could be really painful when you’re looking at your relationship with your mom and thinking that’s far from what I have. You could have been in and out trying multiple times throughout the years to try to navigate this relationship and you just find over and over, you continually get hurt or rejected or any number of the ways that the flavor, the toxic flavor that your mom is doing with you in this dynamic. I want to clarify first, because if you are in a relationship with a toxic mom, you might be thinking to yourself, is this even really that bad? You’ve heard other stories where people have been abused by their mom or their moms have been really violent and maybe your mom’s not kind of like that.

 

You’re like, well, is it really toxic? I’m going to go through with you. You might be wondering, is this toxic?It’s not overly abusive. If it is overly abusive by all means you definitely need to be here too, to set a boundary. But some of the other things that are less, like she’s hitting you or swear, verbally annihilating you. Some of these other ways that you still know it’s toxic, I’m going to walk through. I think it’s good to have that confirmation. I know it makes you crazy wondering. It’s really good to have that level of validation. Does somebody come alongside of you and go no, that’s not okay?

 

Especially if you have a toxic mom where you verbalize to her, Hey, what you’re doing or how you’re behaving is not okay and she straight out gaslight you and said you’re crazy. This is how all families are. All mothers behave this way. Nobody treats me like you treat me. Why I bet you their daughters don’t act like you do. You’re the one with all the problems and you’re the reason she’s acting that way. Let me clarify a couple things. One of the first ways you know that your relationship with your mom is toxic is that you feel like you’re always walking on eggshells. You feel like you’re on a trip wire and you never know what’s going to set her off. A lot of toxic moms have a zero to sixty, just like this.

 

They have a rage thing they go into and you never know. One minute you’re having fun and then the next minute you said the wrong thing, or you did the wrong thing and you set her off. Now look, do we all have the potential to have a bad temper? Can we all get really angered? There’s a big difference between somebody who every now and again is having a bad day and erupts and then comes back immediately and says, I’m so sorry. But this type of person, when they’re toxic and they’re blowing up at you and they’re going from zero to sixty. They’ll look straight at you and say, it’s all your fault I’m behaving this way. If you didn’t do what you did, I wouldn’t have acted this way towards you and again, that’s gas lighting.

 

That’s taking their abusive behavior and blaming you for them acting the way that they’re acting and they’re trying to justify, rationalize their own behavior through you as the scapegoat. If you’re constantly walking on eggshells and you feel like you can’t be yourself, that’s an indicator that this is a toxic situation. That is a toxic mom. Mothers have an idea of how they want their daughters to be. When any child is born, they have an idea, oh, I have such hopes for her. I want her to be this way or wouldn’t it be great. There’s a big, big difference between that, a normal, healthy, prayer request that your kid’s gonna turn out okay and feeling like she’s a constant disappointment to you and vocalizing that to you. Oh, you’re constantly disappointing me.

 

You feel like you can never do anything right. That comes in with the kind of toxic mom that has a lot of judgment. It’s one thing to have discernment. Well, honey, this doesn’t sound as right for you as this. Cuz I’m listening to what you’re saying to me and this path doesn’t seem to align with what you really want. I’m making a judgment there, but I’m making a wise judgment based upon the discernment of all the moving pieces. Versus I can’t believe you did that. I would never do something like that. Why would you think that? Why would you behave that way? What’s the matter with you that you think that that’s okay? That’s the kind of judgment that I’m talking about that has this tone of condemnation, constant criticism over you.

 

You might be afraid to share things with your toxic mom.  You’re afraid to say anything to her because you know, it’s gonna be criticized. Well, you shouldn’t have done it that way. If you have a letdown with her and you’re afraid to… Now there’s a difference some moms would just say, Hey, I’ve been hurt. I have these women I’m dealing with. They’re judging me and they’re acting terrible and healthy mom might say, well, honey I could have told you those women weren’t, you know. Come on, come over here. What do you need to feel better? Versus, well you fall for it every time because you just don’t think. You just don’t use your brain. What’s the matter with you? I told you a long time ago. What did you do to make them not like you? You see the difference here.

 

I’m spending a lot of time going over this with you because it’s very helpful to hear from another living, breathing, human being. Oh yeah. That’s kind of fucked up. We don’t know. We lose our sense of what’s normal and what’s okay. Especially if you’ve been subjected to this kind of stuff your whole entire life. To any degree. You’re going to ask yourself, well, yeah, that doesn’t seem normal. That’s why I’m making that delineation. That distinction. This seems like this is kind of normal and this is above and beyond. Toxic land, dysfunction train ‘toot toot’. Another thing is control. Can people be controlling? Yeah. There are lots. I can be controlling. All right. Well, I, don’t want you to do this cuz you might hurt yourself and let me try to orchestrate this so it works out perfectly.

 

There’s a big difference between that and I’m not going to let you do anything. I’m going to control every single aspect of your life. Who you talk to. Where you go. We’ve all had situations if you grew up with a toxic mom. Likely you had a toxic man at some point in your life too, that was very controlling as well and it originated there. Just constantly trying to control every single situation. Want to know everything about your life. Want be involved in every single aspect of your life and not trusting your own judgment. Not allowing you to make your own decisions and then when you do make your own decisions, judging those decisions, very harshly.

 

Criticizing you and saying that was the wrong decision. You shouldn’t have made that decision. Even if there’s fallout from your decision and it wasn’t the best decision for you. A non-toxic person, a healthy person doesn’t say told you so dipshit. They don’t say, yeah, you shouldn’t have done that. No, a healthy person says, I’m so sorry it didn’t work out for you. They’re not gonna pour salt in the wound. That’s already there. Any kind of victim playing is extremely toxic. That’s the gaslighting where you can be hurt about something and they’ll say, well, you shouldn’t be hurt about that and I only said that or did that because you did that thing.

 

If you confront your mom and you say, you know, mom, I don’t like the way that you’re talking to me. I don’t like always walking on eggshells. I don’t like having to be constantly filtering everything I say, because I’m afraid it’s going to be judged or criticized. I just wanna be able to share with you. Now a healthy person’s going to be hurt by that probably. Nobody wants to hear anything about themselves. She might say, well, that’s hurtful, but I’m gonna take it in. I’m gonna take a look at it. People can do these things and still be healthy people. People can overreact and criticize and be judgmental, because we’re human beings. We can do that thing.

 

Here’s the difference. When I say that to a toxic person, I say, “hey, you’ve got this behavior. This is bothering me. This is hurtful to me. A toxic person, a toxic mom will then say something like, oh, that’s right. Oh I guess it must be so nice to have a perfect mother out there. I guess, you know, everybody’s dysfunctional in some way. I guess I can’t do anything right. You’re right. I’m a terrible mother. I’m the worst mother in the world. Oh, woe is me. There’s no responsibility there. That’s total victim mentality.  Blaming you for bringing something up. Well, oh, I’m so terrible. I know.

 

A grownup, a mature, healthy person is going to say, you know, I don’t like to hear that. I certainly don’t like to hear that. That’s hurtful. I don’t want to be that way. I don’t like that. I don’t even see that. I don’t even see that about me. But if you see it, I’m going to respect that and I’m going to work at it and I’m going to be aware of it. That’s a healthy response, not, oh, I can’t do anything right. And then you’re afraid to take your criticism or your opinions. You’re afraid to voice them because the reaction that’s going to come out of that is going to be this big blow up. Or if you criticize those anger, how dare you say something to me about the way that I am. Do you know what I went through for you? Do you know who the only person ever is there for you? I took care of you. You only remember the bad stuff. You never remember the good. How dare you have an opinion of me after everything I’ve been through for you.

 

People can have done a lot for you and you can still have an opinion that the way they treat you is not okay. They could be paying your bills. They could be buying. Hallelujah, I know somebody just said, amen. I said it to too. Amen. Somebody can actually be taking care of you and still be a dick. Somebody can actually be helping you and still be an asshole. They don’t have to be so bad that it’s like everything’s falling apart. This is where your guilt comes in. Where you feel guilty for even bringing anything up. In a healthy relationship, you don’t feel guilty for saying, yeah, you’re an amazing human and this doesn’t work for me. This is not okay with me.

 

A healthy person’s going to say, okay, I don’t like that, but I’ll work on it. A toxic person is gonna say, how dare you? How dare you have an opinion of me, that something’s fucked up. You see the difference there. There’s a big, big difference there. There’s so much more, another thing that toxic people do is when you’re not giving them what they want, they withhold or they reject or abandon. We can all be guilty in this. Especially women, in our relationships, when our needs aren’t met. We naturally do not want to be in one way. Intimacy is a way this shows up.

 

We all have that potential to pull back a little intimately when we’re not getting our needs met emotionally. We feel like, okay, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about when you make a mistake or do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and they totally say you’re dead to me. I reject you. I abandon you. You’re outta here. I don’t want anything to do with you. You’re no daughter of mine. You’re no son of mine. No son of mine would behave that way. How dare you behave that way? I wish I had a different son. That’s toxic and not okay. But if you’re guilty about that, because they did take care of you or they did do some good in your life. You’ll be thinking, man, am I a dick for acting this way? Should I be a better son? What is a good son? Being good sons and good daughters is what signs us up for perpetual abuse in these toxic mother, daughter, mother, son dynamics.

 

There comes a point where you get to say I’m not okay. The first thing, the first step in setting a boundary with a toxic mom is deciding what it is that you want. What kind of life do you want moving forward? Many of my students and clients, when their mother calls and they pick up the phone before they even pick it up, their anxiety starts. They start to like, oh, they get a pit in their stomach. Oh God, it’s her again. Fuck, what are we gonna talk about? What are we gonna say? She’s gonna judge. What can I tell her? What can I not tell her? The anxiety already starts for them.

 

A healthy relationship, when your mom calls, you might be annoyed. You might be in the middle of something. You might be like, God, I just talked to you like five minutes ago, but you love your mom. You’re like, hi mom.  Hey, I’m busy right now. Can I call you back? Anxiety and trauma response doesn’t come up in a healthy dynamic. That level of anxiety is like, oh shit, you shouldn’t feel that way when your mom calls. If you do feel that way, then that’s a big red flag to you. Decide what is it that you want? What kind of a relationship do you want? Many of you are going to say that is my mom. I want some kind of a relationship with her, but I don’t want the other stuff with it.

 

That’s like kind of saying, I want McDonald’s without the calories. It is what it is. I don’t know how much you’re going to be able to suss it out. I know with my alcoholic father, I wanted him around, but not when he was drunk. So obviously that was kind of hard to do.  He was drunk a lot because he was an alcoholic. But I would get sober moments and then when he would start to drink, I would leave. So that was how I set the boundary with him. The boundary went like, hey dad, I love you. I wanna spend time with you. I wanna be around you. But when you drink, it makes me really anxious and uncomfortable and it makes me upset. So when you start to drink. Not, so if you drink, I’m not. No. So when you drink, I am going to leave. I love you. I just wanna have a sober connection with you and then guess what? When he would start to drink, I would leave and then I wouldn’t get upset that he chose drinking over me because alcoholics don’t choose drinking over you. They choose to drink cause that’s the drink. They need to drink.

 

You can do that with a toxic parent. You just have to expect it. It’s gonna rain and McDonald’s is McDonald’s. What I’m saying is you could say, I’ll be around my toxic mom but as soon as she’s toxic, I’m gonna go. You’re gonna be going a lot. I wanna talk to my mom until she is toxic and then when she’s toxic, I’m gonna hang up the phone. You’re gonna be hanging up a lot. All right. Hey mom, I’m loving to talk to you, but you know what? Right now I feel like I’m criticized and I feel like I don’t wanna. I’m feeling criticized and feeling judgment may or may not be your intention. However, that’s the way I’m feeling. She doesn’t need to agree with you. Well, I’m not doing that. You think that I’m judging you and criticizing you. I’m not doing that. Mom, I get that’s not your intention. I’m feeling that way. So when I feel that way, that’s my cue to go on and take care of myself. So if I continue to feel this way, I’m gonna go ahead and hang up the phone and we can talk again another day.

 

You’re totally owning it. She’s gonna continue on. How many times are you gonna have to do that? Hey mom. Right now I’m feeling like the way you’re speaking to me is not okay with me because it’s triggering me up. I’m feeling anxious. I’m feeling hurt. And I don’t wanna feel that way. I wanna feel peace. And so if you continue to speak to me that way I’m gonna hang up. She continues to do it. What are you talking about? This is so, oh God, what are you like a psychoanalyst? What did you listen to Oprah? You’re watching Dr. Phil. You’re gonna start to do her thing and you’re gonna go, exactly, I’m gonna go ahead and hang up now. I love you. Goodbye. How many times are you gonna have to do that? 500,000,222. A lot of times.

 

If you decide to have her in your life, you have to understand. You’re signing up. You’re going in now as a willing participant. This looks scary. Eyes wide open. You’re going in eyes wide open. You don’t get to go in and complain when she does her toxic thing. You don’t get to say, how is she so toxic? Oh my God. Why does a dog bark? Fuck. Why does a hotdog taste like a hotdog? It’s a toxic person cause it’s a toxic person. So now you have going eyes wide open. You go, ah, a toxic person to be expected. She’s acting toxic. What do I need to do now? Ding, ding, ding leave. And you leave. Guess what happens, as soon as you start to say stuff like this, hey mom you’re acting, you know, the way you’re talking to me is not okay with me. It’s hurtful. I feel judged. I’m going to remove myself from this conversation.

 

What do you think’s gonna happen? Oh my God. Wow. How smart of you? You’re really healthy. You’ve really grown a lot. Teach me your ways Yoda. You’re gonna get, who the fuck do you think you are? What is this? What is that? They’re not gonna agree. You cannot set a boundary with a toxic mom and expect her to go. I like that. That is good for you, honey. You’re in your power. She doesn’t want you in your power. She wants to snuff it out. She doesn’t wanna ignite your self-esteem. She wants to kill it. Maybe she doesn’t want to kill it, but she does. I don’t care if there’s intent or not. I know there’s a difference between manslaughter and murder intent. Doesn’t matter. We still dead. We still dead.

 

Toxic moms are death by a thousand cuts. It’s like, Ooh, ouch, fuck here. Oh, should do it again. Oh God. How many cuts do you wanna get? I don’t know. It’s up to you. The first thing you have to do is really decide what it is you want. Then you gotta get the language around it to be able to articulate to her as kind of role playing that out a little bit with you. And then by God, you gotta pull that trigger 552,000 trillion billion times and keep doing it until the dance is done. Until we part ways. If you decide, I’ve set the boundary. And you know what, a little toxic is too much. It’s just like a little cyanide. I don’t have a taste for it anymore. It’s just not in my wheelhouse. The flavors. Okay. I’ve outgrown the tastes for cyanide. I do not want contact. You better talk to your mom. You don’t know how long she has left. And that’s when you have to detach from other people’s opinions about what you’re supposed to do.

 

Moms do this with their kids all day long too. Children that are killing themselves with addiction and don’t know how to help them anymore and their kids are really dangerous and they have to put them out of the house, help the other children be okay. There are tough decisions that we make all the time in our families to have to go no contact for whatever reason. Because it’s not safe. In your case, if you’re not feeling safe from your mom, from this toxic dynamic and you make the decision to go away and stay away, then it’s about maintenance. It’s about maintaining no contact when it’s tough. You can miss somebody and love somebody and still not wanna be with them at the same time.

 

We call that complex grief in the therapy world. Complex grief is whenever you have these multifaceted feelings around this. You love her and you’re angry at her at the same time. You wish you had a mom. You’re resentful you didn’t have it and you’re working through that kind of resentment and hurt and you feel longing and a missing at the same time. You feel a gratitude for the love that she gave you at certain times. You remember this time when she hugged you and man, you felt that and she told you she loved you or she did whatever and you’re feeling so good about it. You feel so nostalgic and then you remember when she banged your head into the wall. You’re like, ah, you’re like a game of ping pong in your head and that’s why you need support.

 

This is a complex situation, but I’m gonna tell you something. This is where I say support. This is where I say to you, you are picking up when I’m laying down. You are smelling when I’m stepping in. We are sisters on a path. Let me come alongside you and support you as somebody who’s walked through it all the ways. All the ways that I just talked about, all the ways. Let me try to do this. Let me set the boundary. Lemme go into a contact. All the ways and healing, continually healing. I’m teaching from the scars and not open wounds. Two years ago, flesh wound, gaping flesh wound, blood spurting out. Would never talk about this. To this degree, with this amount of certainty. Now here we are, scars it would have helped. It would be a Sherpa, guiding you through the valley.

 

I wanna come alongside you. That’s what my programs do. That’s what life school is. Life school is the place where you come learn everything you need to know, but nobody ever taught you about dealing in shit shows. Dealing in people. Dealing in codependence. Dealing in people’s stuff and how to set your boundaries. How to root down in your power and find your truth. Be you and do all the things that you set out to do but didn’t feel allowed to. Didn’t have the permission to. Didn’t have the fanning of your flame. Let me come fan your flames for a while and figure out who you really are and root down in yourself.

 

Life school is where we do that. If you want to learn more about it, go to lovecoachheidi.com and learn more there. Send me a private message. But this is what we do. We make a decision, how we want to be in this dynamic and then we find the way to do it. I’ll give you the steps. We practice the role play. You learn real time. What she says, here’s what to say back. You send me the text. I know exactly how to… We process it in group with other women going through the same thing and then once you make this move, here’s the magic that happens. You know how you’re confident in most things, but you don’t have self-esteem in other areas. Your relationship suck, but your work is good or your relationship’s good, but you’re not making enough money.

 

You have this self-sabotage button and you can’t figure out. Do you know this is where this comes from? Is this early relationship. I have to tell you something. Once you rectify this wounding and you really come to terms with this. I have processes to do it. I’ve invented processes to help you. It’s not just like, let it go, let it go. I am whole and healthy. I am love. I am. No, no, no, no. That’s not how that works. You’ve gotta do the work. Gotta get in there. Get some processes rolling so that you can be fully healed. I’m gonna tell you what happens when you do. Wow, you become unleashed. You become all of you and guess what? Nobody can tell you nothing unless it’s helpful. And we wanna be humble. We wanna take in feedback where it applies to us. Nobody can knock you off your axis again. Nobody can make you fall to pieces like she could where you’re feeling good and then the phone rings. Fuck.

 

I love you. I wanna help you walk through this. Go over to lovecoachheidi.com and send me a private message. Schedule a complimentary consultation and let’s get to work.

 

How Their Addiction Creates Trauma for You

How Their Addiction Creates Trauma for You

Today we’re going to talk about a topic that I think is so important. Probably one of the most important things that we can talk about.  Because it’s one of the things that nobody really understands or is even aware of and that is what is the impact of somebody else’s addiction on you? What’s the trauma left behind?  Make no mistake being in a relationship with somebody who is addicted is like being in a war without weapons.  What ends up happening even when the war ends and it’s over, they get treatment, they get better or something changes, you are still left with wounds.  Shrapnel that has gone into your body.  If we don’t understand the shrapnel, if we do not identify the impact of that addiction on our lives or the lives of our children, we are doomed to keep repeating those patterns for generations to come.

It’s our goal here to end those toxic dysfunctional cycles for good and help you get your power back so that you can live a life on your terms.  We want to heal the psychological impact, where you’re constantly ruminating and strategizing and overthinking everything. We want to heal the emotional impact, where you have trouble emoting period, or expressing yourself or communicating how you’re feeling.  We want to heal that so that again, you can live the life that you’re meant to live.  That we’re all here to live which is to be happy, whole, fulfilled human beings. So start the wheels turning in your mind. What do you think the impact has been on you? There’s so much help for addicts and alcoholics. 

I used to be one of those that just dedicated my life primarily to helping addicts and alcoholics and I loved it. I loved being able to make a difference in their lives and seeing them heal and it’s such important work to be able to do that. What I started to notice in the decade that I was just working with addicts and alcoholics was that their families were getting lost in the mix and here’s why it’s really important to heal. If somebody still left with all that anger or sadness or resentment or misunderstanding, and the addict or alcoholic gets better, and goes back into that family dynamic. It’s like putting a clean dish back in a dirty dishwasher. It has an impact. The family is like an immune system for a recovering alcoholic or addict.  Everybody needs to be well and healthy in order for that organism to function at its best. 

If you have children, this is especially important today, so that you can understand the impact.  There are many great books, Adult Children of Alcoholics.  The series by Janet Woititz and her work that was started in the ACOA. There is a website ACOA. NACoA is the founding establishment that talks about the impact of addiction. There are lots of great resources and I’m literally just scratching the surface of how addiction impacts us. It is much wider, broader, deeper. It’s my attempt to not oversimplify the impact, but present it to you in a way that makes it digestible for you so that you can start to build the awareness. Without awareness there’s no healing. We’re going to start with an easy acronym. A way to understand the common character traits that we all have. If you go to other websites like NACoA, or if you search on ACOA, what you’re going to find is a laundry list, it’s called of different ways we’re impacted. 

I’m not saying this to you so that you can be like, “Oh my God, I have all this stuff wrong with me. Great, great. Now I’m like permanently scarred and wounded.” I’m not telling you this so that you can feel disempowered. I’m telling you that so you can feel empowered because many of us are impacted and on an autopilot. This is showing up in our relationships with other people, in our work and our ability to make things happen and we don’t really always connect the dots. Oh my God. This is the shrapnel. This is the fallout of that experience. It’s not me. It’s something that I have to heal. It’s not just how I’m wired. It’s actually a part of my conditioning, being subjected to that behavior of somebody else over and over and over again.

I have a great little acronym that I use that you can follow along with me and make your own notes about how this may have impacted you in a specific way underneath of the blanket area that I’m going to write about. The acronym is CISTER and I called these the deep six. The CISTER, it’s a CISTER with a C because we have brother, cousins that are on this journey with us too. The CISTER acronym, the deep six are the six ways that we continually self-sabotage as a direct result of prolonged exposure to somebody else’s addiction. It’s a form of codependence and codependence is just a way to function in dysfunction. We pick on this way of being, these traits and then we move into how to function. Let’s dive into them. 

The first piece of shrapnel that’s left by an addict or an alcoholic is Control Issues.  This can show up many, many ways for us. It’s usually in black or white because we are black or white people. That’s one of the traits, we operate in extremes. It’s either all or nothing. As you can imagine, Control Issues run the gamut. They can run the spectrum all the way. You’re extremely rigid. You’re inflexible. You do not seek the input of other people. You are the only person that you know you can rely on. It’s your way or the highway. You allow for no other people to come in and offer their perspective or opinion because you know things could go wrong if you’re not in control. Or you are out of control, you’re addicted to chaos. You have no sense of stability in your life at all whatsoever. 

Do you see how wide of a spectrum this control issue can be?  The middle is the healthy person where we know what we can control.  We control that and we let go of everything else. But the person that’s over here on this spectrum addicted to chaos believes that they have no control over anything and this comes from a victim mentality. It can, but the person who’s addicted to chaos finds themselves seeking relationships with other addicts or alcoholics, even though they grew up with it, or they just got out of one.  They keep finding the same kind of relationships over and over again. The person over here that’s very controlling and rigid has a hard time even letting anybody in at all whatsoever. They don’t want to be vulnerable. They need to appear like they have it together at all times. Ask yourself, where could you be on that spectrum and how are control issues showing up for you?

The second way that this impacts us is in our identity. We think we just are who we are. Well, that’s just how I am. I’m just born that way. That’s just is what it is. In fact, I remember I was in a woman’s group one time, and this one girl said to me “You know I’d like to be more vulnerable. You know, I’d like to be able to like, let my guard down. I’d like, you know, but this is just the way I am. This is like, take it or leave it. I mean, I’m just, you cannot penetrate me. You cannot, you know,” and she was just like Sue. She was very sweet on the inside. You could tell, but she had this really super tough exterior. Like this is just the way I am and I’ll never forget it. I made a birth canal out of the chairs that were inside the women’s group and I literally got down on my hands and knees and pretended to climb through that birth canal and struggled my way through and acted like I was inside of there and then I came out, I was birthed. I looked around and I was like, “waah, mother fucking waah.” 

Is that how you came into the world? You think you were born with this tough exterior.  Everybody was laughing, of course, but the point is we’re born just open and trusting and free and really with no kind of personality. Just endless possibility.  We survey the land and look around at the people in our lives and figure out how to function. Even if you had a perfect relationship in your childhood, nobody did by the way. When you have prolonged exposure to an addict or an alcoholic, you adapt a personality in order to function in that environment. Whether it’s your hard core and nothing gets to you and nothing bothers you and you’re Alcatraz. Or you’re the pleaser running around, making sure that everybody is okay all the time and trying to protect everybody, or you’re the fixer.

I actually have eight different personalities that I’ve identified as a result of being with an addict or an alcoholic or another wise toxic person. You can download that free e-book over at lovecoachheidi.com and you’ll find the eight different personalities. That’s a great place to start. Not only can you identify your personality, you can identify the personalities of your children and see how this has maybe impacted them. How are they behaving? Awareness is the first step. The kid that you just think that’s how they are. They’re up in their room all the time and isolative.  They watch their video games and they don’t want anything to do with a family. That’s not a kid who necessarily was born that way. That’s a kid who learned my needs don’t matter. I’m going to be a withholder and I need to keep to myself and mind my business and not get involved.  Then that way I don’t get hurt because what I think doesn’t matter anyway. 

If you think that this kid is just naturally helpful and wants to help everybody all the time and save things and make sure everybody’s okay. Likely that’s a kid who was trained into that behavior and learned very early on when I’m the fixer and I’m the achiever or the performer. I’m the one who, as long as I’m doing well and I’m successful, then I can take some of the heat off of the addict or alcoholic, turn into who they need to turn into. Awareness is really important. You need to know who you’ve become in order to function in the dysfunction. So that you can learn who you’re not any more. Who you’re unwilling to be.  Excavate the real you that’s underneath of this coping mechanism behavior, the adaptive personality that you took on in order to function in the dysfunction.

Yes, hopefully this is making some sense. Let’s go to the S in our acronym of CISTER. This is Self-Esteem Issues. This is huge because we can think being I’m so confident. I know I’ve overcome a lot.  Likely you are a survivor. You are tough person, but what you find yourself asking is how can I be so smart yet so stupid in other areas? How can I have success over here, but be failing over here? How can I see right through people, except when it comes to my own life and I keep getting taken advantage of, or blindsided by other people that I care about? How do I allow myself to keep getting hurt? How can I have such bright ideas and start things, but not finish them and see them through? How come I don’t care about what most people think, except that one opinion that totally crushes my soul and knocks me off my axis?

It’s because when you’re in a relationship with an addict or alcoholic, or you grew up in that dynamic, it creates self-esteem issues. All of your focus and attention is on that person and believe it or not, whether you want to think this is true or not, there is a piece of you that equates you to the reason that they’re using or drinking. Whether you’re a child or a wife, you think on the inside, deep down, if you could just be a little better, or they just saw your value, that they would quit. That directly impacts you and lasts a lifetime as far as your belief that you are enough. Those self-esteem issues are apparent, and maybe how much money you allow yourself to make, or the jobs that you hold, or the amount of work that you take on when you feel like it’s never enough. Not enough shows up in many ways.

It’s not enough. I have to do more, more, more. There’s not enough. You have a lack mentality, somewhere, a scarcity mindset. You’re not enough. You are always scrutinizing everybody else and have perfectionistic kind of standard. Or I’m not enough and this is the worst thing where you find that no matter what you always feel at the end of the day, like you’re just waiting to be found out like imposter syndrome. There’s a fraud going on underneath. That’s impact. That’s shrapnel. That’s not just you. That’s the shrapnel and you have to sit with somebody who’s an expert at understanding how to excavate shrapnel. That’s what I do. Once you identify the shrapnel you have, it’s not enough. Awareness isn’t enough. You need to now actually extricate the shrapnel and sit with somebody who’s qualified like myself to help you do that.

To help you undo that programming, that subconscious programming that got put in there. The T in CISTER is trust issues. All by the way, self-esteem could go either spectrum. I’m the best in the world and nobody else is measuring up that perfectionism, that kind of standard, or I’m not enough. All these things run the gamut. Trust issues run that gambit too of all or nothing thinking. You over trust and you trust the wrong people. You trust everybody and you get blindsided. You overshare, you tell too much stuff or you trust no one and you lock her down. You don’t trust anybody, or you don’t trust yourself, your own intuition.  You’re blinded by emotion and you get sucked into these kinds of relationships that mirror your old baggage and you keep trying to heal it by tracking the same kind of relationship over and over again. 

Even when you see the results flags, you’re like, I should have known that. I should have known better. But you don’t have the self-esteem to follow that intuition. You’re always kind of second guessing yourself. That’s a symptom of the shrapnel. The E is emotions. Again, either totally buttoned up. You do not communicate your emotions. You keep them bottled into yourself and you are taking time off. You put them down and then you explode or you have dysregulation problems with emotions and you’re all over the place.  You’re always sharing your emotions. You’re always very emotional and you don’t know the middle way of how to regulate your emotions in a way that is healthy. A healthy way to express your emotions, to share your emotions. We can be that type of person that says I don’t have any emotions, nothing bothers me and affects me.

That’s just a coping mechanism.  Likely you are a very sensitive person, just like “my way, mother fucking way girl.” But you learn very early on that your sensitivity was used against you. You found that by the addict or alcoholic, when you showed your emotion, it was taken as a sign of weakness. It was used against you in some way and you were hurt. When you pleaded with them to stop, how much you love them, how much it was hurting the family, and they continue to use and drink. Now you need to learn how to regulate those emotions.  Express them appropriately and communicate them in a way where you’re rooted in your power and you are doing the dance of power and vulnerability together. That’s the middle way that we’re always trying to reach from this very black or white, or all or nothing mentality that being impacted by addiction creates.

We know why that is don’t we? Because it is very all or nothing. You’re either sober or high as hell. There is no in between. You’re either using or in recovery. That makes sense. We live our lives by that barometer. It’s either great, or it’s a shit show. It’s awesome, or it’s hell. The middle way is how life really runs, but not in a relationship with an addict or alcoholic. It’s very all or nothing. That behavior, that mentality is definitely etched and ingrained in your mind. The last way that affects us and probably the most poignant way, the biggest way that it affects us is actually in the area of our relationships. It manifests many, many ways. Our intimacy, the ability to reveal and share ourselves.  The oversharing and to be able to communicate with people and being able to trust and open up and allow friendships and allow relationships without that fear of being used or manipulated in relationships.

We don’t see red flags with people. We get into bad choices with people in business or people in our work environment. We have conflict and we don’t know how to resolve that conflict. These are things that we should have learned, but you don’t learn when you’re in a relationship with an addict or an alcoholic, because the thinking part of the brain that knows what to do is overridden by the reptilian part of the brain, which is just in survival mode. You have been in survival mode when you grew up with that addict or alcoholic. You were in survival mode when you were in a relationship with that addict or alcoholic. To your defense, you haven’t had a lot of time to think and be proactive. A lot of your life is reactive or proactive to try to avoid the problems. That’s being strategic and not in alignment with your true feelings.

You’re trying to play chess where the world’s playing checkers.  You always need to be five steps of everybody. That’s part of the thing, is overthinking and over analyzing and trying to prevent problems before they happen. That’s the control issue that we talked about. Do you see yourself? Where are you? How is this showing up for you in particular, in your life? I want you to leave a comment. Comments are the divine gift that you can give me, because it helps me help more people. That’s the goal with my addiction impact initiative. I want to raise awareness on this for the world to see, oh my gosh, I’ve been impacted by this and here’s exactly how so that we can heal. If we can heal one ache at a time, we break the cycle.  Heal the ache, break the cycle.

That’s what we want to do. I want you to leave a comment and tell me how it’s impacted you. Here’s where I can help. It’d be my pleasure to come alongside of you and if you’re not going to let me help you, let somebody help you. We want to break the cycle. It starts with you. If you’re aware of the trauma and the shrapnel, even though you didn’t create the trauma, even though you didn’t ask for the shrapnel, it’s still therethough you didn’t create it. It is your responsibility to heal it. I want you to be with me because I believe I’m qualified and equipped to do it. I’ve been doing it for the last decade, but if it’s not me, let it be somewhere. You owe it to yourself, into the generations to come to take some kind of action so that we can heal the planet.

That’s what we really want to do. One wounded adult at a time. Heal the children, the next generation. That’s the whole reason I wake up in the morning and how I am able to help you is I have a program called Life School.  Life School is a series of four semesters focusing on these different aspects.  It just so happens that coming up in October our fall session is addiction in the family where you learn how addiction has impacted your family. All the ins and outs of addiction. How it impacted you personally. What is the science behind addiction? So you can really understand it. What are the myths of addiction? What is the boundary? Can you prevent a relapse? What to do when somebody relapses. The exact verbiage to use when somebody is using. How to communicate with them. Everything you need to know that I taught for a decade inside this family program to hundreds and hundreds of families.

I’m encouraging you to come over to lovecoachheidi.com and check that out and enroll for the fall semester. Hopefully I’ve made an impact in your life today by increasing that awareness. I encourage you to take the next step with me and let’s get to work so we can heal generations to come and be cycle breakers.