Episode 16

[Music]
all right welcome back
to another episode of finding peaks
joint i the last time we were doing this
i did not
introduce you guys uh oh
no one knows who we are now yeah yeah so
if you don’t know by now i am i am
brandon burns the host don’t steal my
thunder yeah okay
chief operating officer clint nicholson
everybody
laclpc lpclac it’s the order either way
jason friesma lpclac chief clinical
officer
brandon burns full shot
officer all right ba philosophy
philosophy expert university in
washington yeah
basically i’m the most important so
okay
again just trying to bring a little
energy into the episode you know appease
the audience get everybody a little
excited um we’ve commonly heard in this
industry maybe we’ve been brought it up
that the opposite of addiction is
connection
we’re not going to go down that rabbit
hole today but
it is a phrase that i wanted to use to
go down another rabbit hole that is the
opposite of boundaries is enabling right
we’ve been talking a little bit about
boundaries and what it means to
show up and bring forward boundaries on
behalf of the individual get them
directed into care those sorts of things
but let’s talk a little bit about
enabling today and what that looks like
so when we’re not boundaried we’re
enabling
and maybe we can think about this in
three different phases what does
enabling look like before treatment what
does it look like during treatment what
does it look like after treatment
so the first question
what does enabling look like prior to
somebody admitting to care
i i mean i i love that you asked a
question and i i was waiting for
four more to come chief clinical hit us
with it i get it i get the question and
it was so succinct
um
enabling before treatment
frankly it
it extends i was we were talking a
little bit before the show that a lot of
times it involves either money or
resources or time of family
um
and really it’s
in the direction of allowing
somebody to continue in their behaviors
that are likely causing them a lot of
harm and would lead to media
and stay at peaks and
i can’t tell you how many parents i’ve
talked to who have
bought substances directly for their
loved one or
continue to provide their loved one
cash money
even though practically speaking they
might say it’s for rent or whatever but
literally that money is going
being diverted
or
i’ve also talked to a lot of families
too who set boundaries and then when it
comes time to
kind of enforce the boundary
they’ll just set a new boundary
uh
and so
that’s what i’ve seen enabling look like
a lot on the front end is just
um a constant
um
well allowing a behavior allowing an
addiction a lot of times
by itself just implies that that
the behavior given by a loved one um
allows the addiction to keep advancing
it’s keeping the addiction actually
moving forward rather than putting the
boundary or helping us stop it
i’ll kick it over to you there chief
yeah i think um
i guess i see it in just slightly
different terms but
relatively uh
with the with using jason’s description
i think before treatment um enabling is
just chaos
it’s just chaos there’s no
nobody knows where they stand you know
there’s no direction there’s no there’s
there’s no
ability to navigate situations whether
that’s physically emotionally
um there there is just a complete
absence of um clarity
and a really again a complete absence of
just direction yeah and i want to add
um because a lot of times
uh
enabling a watch be really progressive
um where there’s just a slight boundary
violation and a slight bounty violation
a slight boundary violation
and i’m at a heroin dealer’s office or
uh office house uh right picking up
heroin right but it was the series of a
thousand decisions before that to not
hold boundaries in this incremental
uh
warping of one’s values i think or
distortion of that to just
enable somebody just make it one more
night or whatever um
so that families suddenly look up
hey austin i don’t even know how we got
here absolutely yeah there’s a sort of
like exponential quality too it’s like
it just it starts to gain its own
momentum and before you know it it has
its own weather pattern i mean you just
you have it’s the gravitational force
around
that the enabling that has created this
this again this this world of chaos and
where all of a sudden you you kind of
look up and you’re like holy crap
what happened you know how did we even
get here and i think that at that point
is maybe when you get the first phone
call
it’s that first moment of like
where
am i and how do i
how do i figure out how to move forward
from here
yeah
one of the things that we
you know certainly see in
those first phone calls or when families
are bringing their enabling behavior
forward and uh in this regard
is um well i guess what i want to say
about it more so to the point is that
you wouldn’t if it wasn’t your loved one
if a friend called any of us in this
room if you said you know hey brandon
send me a hundred bucks i’m gonna go buy
some dope today
to me like the boundary is like that’s
not loving that’s not loving for me to
give you that cash knowing where it’s
going to go so regardless of it being a
loved one
if we wouldn’t do it for anybody else
why are we doing it in these instances
and so i just kind of want to
i guess in my own words like reinforce
what the boundary concept there is is
that it’s not a loving thing to do
if it’s not a loving thing to do in the
direction of a friend then why would we
consider it a loving thing to do for our
loved ones no matter how much they’re
clawing at the door pounding on it in
that regard
so i think that actually speaks to some
of the chaos that you experience because
one thing that i think happens is you
lose um perspective of your emotions and
all of the sudden what feels like love
is actually fear you know you think
you’re moving from the space of love but
really you’re you’re so discombobulated
that you’ve actually started to move
from a place of fear and i think that
that is one of the
it’s a huge trap that families fall into
and they’re unable to take that step
backwards and sort of have that moment
of like wait if i wouldn’t do this for
anybody else why why am i doing this now
because they’ve sort of
uh these they’ve just flipped those two
emotions and so that uh between love and
fear i mean that would kind of love it
and that’s why i continue to bring you
guys on because you’re the talent
and i’m the host yeah yeah and clinton’s
i do i’ve talked about like three of
them today
so
i feel like i’m good for the next we got
all kinds of dealers going on yeah
but i do think i think it’s just a
really great point too that um
because i do think no family member
wants to watch their loved one be in
pain
and so a lot of times it is those little
decisions that get somebody out of the
immediate pain
that are likely enabling behaviors but
it gets them out of the
instant or immediate pain and so that
just seems like the right thing to do in
the moment and we’ll worry about
recovery down the road or we’ll we’ll
set the new boundary tomorrow whatever
but tonight they just need to get out of
whatever discomfort they’re in so i’m
willing to do anything at that moment
for them
but it’s that
aggregated over time that just leads to
these really chaotic environments
absolutely we start and we continue to
experience that and to kind of go into
that second question we continue to
experience that once clients are
actually in treatment it’s sort of uh
the echo of that behavior once a client
comes in and then all of a sudden
they’re calling and saying hey the bed’s
too hard the foods the food is uh i
don’t know too soggy the the people are
mean to me and all of a sudden the
parents are the families back in trying
to rescue again they slip back into that
sort of fear space and they even though
they know and they’ve worked so hard to
get family into treatment all of a
sudden there’s still this this sort of
uh automatic response to rest to
continue to rescue when once they hear
that distress so you still see them
moving from a place of fear particularly
early on in the treatment episode well
does doesn’t it make sense too that like
we tell families all the time that just
because the substance used to stop
doesn’t mean that things are better like
that a lot of the behavior of the person
struggling with addiction has suddenly
begun to change or shift like they’ll be
ongoing line they’ll be ongoing
deception or whatever and then on this
meta level if you will the family
is used to hearing hey i’m uncomfortable
mom dad i’m uncomfortable
oh we’ll help you stop being
uncomfortable what their tempurpedic
beds aren’t like soft enough well
i’ll have somebody yeah we’ll we better
get you out of there
um
and so
you know for families oftentimes like
teaching them in treatment like hey your
loved one is
safe i promise you that and they are uh
cared for and
we don’t need you to rush and meet all
of their needs right
in fact actually it’s counter productive
to the whole process yeah so i think
that that would be
to summarize that the the answer of what
is enabling look like in treatment it
looks like rescuing i think that that
would be the easiest way for me to put
it so well i’m starting to feel a little
invisible now because you stole my
thunder
on the second question so i’m no longer
going to prompt you guys about what
we’re going to talk about we’re just
going to
question like we laid out a little bit i
laid it all out so you just went through
it making me invisible and feeling
less of a person so we can rescue you i
guess yeah or enable yeah trying to
build the concept maybe we insert at
this point just so i can get some of my
thunder back term like codependency
how does that resonating now because it
feels like what i what i want to capture
maybe with that language it’s just that
from what you said from pre-treatment
into treatment you can start to
experience the bleed over of those
emotional states and that codependent
feature that is common within our
industry and that codependent feature is
a is a family system sickness right in a
big way and you can start to see it sort
of cross over in its variations as it’s
taking place but
really just want to acknowledge that
with family members the the reason
there’s this tone of sickness is because
you’re engaged with the addiction you
are attached to it suffering in the
process so worked up on the front end
here that as it moves into treatment you
continue forward
in just a what feels like a new in a
different way but it’s the same sort of
behaviors just compounding in different
settings with a little bit tone of
positivity because now it’s in treatment
rather than prior to treatment right so
any
thing we can add to that sort of
codependent sort of sickness that’s now
traversing through
as the individual moves forward what
came to my mind as you were talking is
you know a couple weeks ago i think we
talked about
like the neural pathways and and the
reward centers and and how um people who
are using drugs uh this
pattern of behavior just becomes this
trench and that this is what they
automatically do
and the family have the same thing their
rewards look different it isn’t drugs
it’s like oh my son is safe
that that rewards me or like i did
enough to keep him alive or keep
keep him going this time or i’m you know
maybe he’ll be okay this time
and so there is this same groove and so
when when we have
clients come in
the loved ones are can still have that
same like i wonder if they’re okay or
one like i have to constantly
be in this and like we’ve talked to
to
couples that are like their relationship
their loved one’s addiction and like
their their marriage is almost in
tatters we’re like what do we talk about
right now because like
you know our sun is starting to get
better and
what do we have to do yeah what do what
do we actually do right we better just
talk about watching and i hope the bed
is comfortable yeah so like
but if that makes sense like it has that
same neural pathways that almost have to
be rewired too and it doesn’t happen
automatically it takes some time and
there’s this recognition i think at some
point where you know it the work again
goes on both sides as far as the change
in the transformation that you’re
looking for and when your loved one who
is in treatment begins to change and
transform
that automatically
requires the family the loved ones to
start changing as well you know it’s the
way that the sort of relationships
maintain what’s called homeostasis right
they’re always trying to seek a balance
and as one person in a family system
changes it necessarily require
requires that everybody else in that
family system change to adapt and i a
lot of times families and loved ones
aren’t aren’t prepared for that they
real they think that they’re sending
their loved one off to go make the
change that they need to make and then
every and then they come back to us
whole and complete not realizing that
their transformation is happening as
well like their their time to heal and
to and to sort of um
grow into this new p into this sort of
like new stage and their relationship
has already started as well i think it
kind of can come up as a pretty big
surprise sometimes and it shows up it
actually edits extreme and i haven’t
seen this a ton in my years but i have
seen it where family members who are
supportive of the recovery process
have actually enabled
a relapse on the back end to get back
into the homeostasis that they were used
to absolutely
like they they were they
almost relapsed in their enabling prior
to a discharging client relapsing in
their addiction if that makes sense like
if you did it back in chaos yeah right
like we did better when we were
when we were doing that absolutely i
know you better as a as an active
alcoholic than i do as somebody who’s
trying to to live in a life of recovery
so and it’s it’s it’s an interesting
thing to witness from the outside
and like jason said which is so
interesting that he i’m talking about
feelings he’s talking about the brain i
know i don’t know but uh i know we’re
all over the place
so yeah
i’m invisible
[Laughter]
but again you know we’re like looking uh
we’re we
we recognize or we start to see this
sort of entrenchment of behaviors yeah
yeah it
i want to go on a tangent here but for
the sake of time i’m gonna i’m gonna put
it to bed maybe introduce it at the end
here but so now we’re transitioning out
of
you know treatment in that regard and i
hear strongly and it’s certainly true
and certainly in our experiences at
peaks recovery right that the family
system has to be included in this we
have to build them up in a way that’s
building up at the same time of the
patient um so that everybody’s informed
about how this um goes about but i
constantly hear
and i want to use the word constant like
when we go to refer families to like hey
you know look now and make these
connections you know reach out to
families
it’s the sort of same behavior and
feedback that we get from the the client
who’s relapsed in after pride treatment
episodes of no no i’ve done that it
doesn’t work for me you know there is
this experience that families have too
of like the information i’ve been given
the resources you’ve given aren’t
working for me but it seems like in a
very strong way as well too that we are
trying to
um
remove that and compel you to actually
engage with it it’s not about working
for you in the sense that we’re turning
some knobs and this sort of feature and
all of a sudden you know we get it as a
family system you have to embrace
the language the education the
information we’re giving you as families
in this regard to really know how to
strongly
hold those boundaries and not enable the
loved one post treatment um in this
regard but now we get this
you know again this bleed over into
post-treatment and kind of from your
guys’s perspective now what does that
post treatment enabling start to look
like you know i heard the homeostasis
and how it kind of just clicks back into
place but
being more clear
from my host position and asking these
questions
what are we
let’s talk a little bit more about it
right
okay so obviously kind of a family
enabling a literal relapses it would be
another that’d be a pretty extreme
um
[Music]
but if you go back to what i mentioned
at the beginning of this would be this
slow
incremental
uh relapses much more common whether
it’s
um
it
you know what what somebody coming home
may say is like listen i don’t i don’t
want to go to my therapist anymore
they’re
right i’m not getting a lot out of my
iop or i’m not you know
my support meetings are starting to go
downhill and yeah i don’t like the guys
in my silver living yeah yeah
and
and an enabling behavior would kind of
be to align with that rather than saying
so then what are you gonna so therefore
what are you gonna do to build your
support right uh like
enabling kind of
would get in alignment with kind of a
reduction in a return to the old
behavior
holding good boundaries doesn’t have to
be forceful or anything but you know
boundaries i did want to make sure i
mentioned too boundaries
are for
uh the person setting them to create a
protection they aren’t to change anybody
else’s behavior right so like when when
a loved one is coming out of treatment
the boundaries that
the somebody a family member puts in
place is to protect them
not
like i gotta set boundaries in order
uh to make sure my loved one stays sober
that’s not a boundary
um
a boundary says listen if if you kind of
follow your aftercare plan then you’re
welcome to do these things or we’ll
support you financially in these
specific ways
um
but if you begin to violate those then
our then our support ends that’s
boundary because it’s saying that’s
where i end and that’s where you get to
begin
because i do think that is a
families can fall into that pattern too
where i’m setting a boundary but it’s
really about i’m setting a boundary to
control or manipulate you absolutely um
do what i want you to do the boundaries
say regardless of what you do this is
what i’m willing to do
on my side right you start to you slip
from um
you start to slip in this moment where
you are enabling rather than empowering
right i think that that’s what you start
to see because healthy
good support after
a treatment episode or while somebody is
inactive in recovery is all about
empowering them to continue on that
journey as opposed to enabling
starts to take them further off that
path rather than challenging them or
empowering them to figure out like ways
like jason was saying to maintain what
they’re doing to figure out a way
forward to get themselves out of the
discomfort
on their own or to find a way to get out
of discomfort that doesn’t allow them to
fall back into those entrenched
behaviors um yeah so i think that that’s
it it shows up like that i think a lot
of ways where you start to see rather
than empowering the patient or the
client or the loved one you you slip
back into the enabling behaviors yeah
and so i where i know we’re at the tail
end of this episode but i do want to get
this saying because i just think it’s
important to address or maybe some
information or guidance that we can give
to families in regards to
there’s something about this industry
you know when we think about concepts
like the the pm melody model and the
language that she uses for example to
describe what trauma is she says that
trauma is anything less than nurturing
and that could be a lot of things in
this industry
you know when we talk about grief and
loss or relationships and these aspects
of our curriculum you know trauma and so
forth once the family knows or aware of
sort of root causes of what you know is
driving the intensity of the addiction
or maybe the intensity of the use that
led to the addiction um in this regard
it’s for me it sort of leaves them
vulnerable
or in a position to feel like they’re
walking on pins and needles like if i
push too hard they’ll relapse or
anything less than nurturing gosh i
should probably not do these things and
i want to alleviate families a little
bit from this concept that we’re
constantly walking on pins and needles
and allow them to separate themselves a
little bit from you know potential
relapse episodes and that sort of thing
and just curious if you guys
have any language or guidance we can
give in that regard because i think it’s
important because i was talking to the
mom last week and it seems like she’s
doing everything she can to sort of like
you know nurture fix resolve you know
move the boundaries all over the place
to nurture the situation because she’s
anticipating he’s going to yell at me
he’s going to slam his door he’s going
to do these sort of things along the way
and
but i don’t think that the goal here is
to be
that delicate or to walk in that sort of
way
yeah and i think
i think you hit the nail on the head and
actually um
this came up with a family member that i
was talking to just last week
um
who was talking about not wanting to
parent uh their partner
um
and they were talking about their fear
of like you know if i if i suspect you
know a relapse or drinking i don’t want
to parent them or police them or follow
them around
but i don’t know what to do and what i
actually suggest was like well then why
don’t you ask your partner which what
they would like for you to do and to
have that conversation i get i see that
because
i think a lot of times boundaries
uh that are put in place when the
emotions are high so i’m going to talk
about having low emotions again but like
boundaries should be in place when
emotions are low and anger isn’t high
old ways oftentimes i’m you’re you’re
throwing boundaries out when you’re
angry or afraid or frustrated
or whatever
and really when somebody’s kind of in in
a residential setting or whatever that’s
a great time to have that conversation
and partner with your loved one like
what what would reach you uh if you are
um having this concern and how can i say
it in a way that
will will least likely lead to uh
defensiveness and most likely lead to um
conversation
so i think having a conversation
beforehand not during
would be what i would say to them
i would i would say
we have really getting families to see
that nurturing has nothing to do with
comforting you know like those two
things are very different yeah to
nurture somebody can feel really awkward
it can feel it can be um hard it can be
rough it can be very very very
uncomfortable and i think that we often
associate that in order to nurture the
result that means that you feel good
afterwards and that is not nurturing
nurturing is much more dynamic than that
nurturing is about
love and keeping somebody alive you know
not love and making somebody feel
comfortable
brilliant
well i’m glad we could
top the day off with that because i i
felt like it was important to convey so
um in exiting this thank you so much
everybody for joining us today for
allowing us to go a little bit over our
natural timelines to convey just a bit
more information about this boundaries
enabling that topics are
going to be an ongoing feature of our
show in a variety of different ways
we’re looking forward to really coming
up with a strong schedule in the month
of august so that we can convey a new
guest
onto the show and bring forward some
additional information to support
families and and family systems um check
us out on all the things the kids are
doing these days instagram facebook
youtube
uh podcast and
uh finding peaks at peaksrecovery.com if
you’ve got questions thoughts ideas you
want to throw our way uh certainly happy
to engage with those questions
thoughtfully and bring those topics up
in future episodes to your all benefits
so thanks again for being with us today
and we’ll see you again next time
[Music]