Rebuilding Trust In Recovery

Hello and welcome.

I am your host, Joseph Devlin and today we're going to continue reading from chapter seven, in my book, a step out of darkness which is actually part four of the reading. So let's get at it. During this time in outpatient treatment, there are also things that you could be doing to help your loved one stay accountable. I make the strong suggestion for random drug testing. Again, if someone is not using then there's no problem for him or her to take a drug test. Suspicion will come if they refuse to have a drug test. I worked with an individual for nine month period. And after the first three months, we stopped administering urine drug screens, the family, the client, and I agreed to stop the drug screens as they were costly, and a family was trying to save money. At nine months, we were ready to discharge and the client took a UDS. At this point, the client came clean and advised that he had been using drug tests are one of the many tools that help us gauge the person's progress. They are not the end all be all. But in this instance, if I had been giving random drug screens, then we may have been able to address the active using sooner. Again, worth repeating. Drug Testing is just a tool. A generally reliable objective tool and a situation rife with deceit, impulsivity, and overall good intention. It also immediately diffuses those circular conversations that start with you don't believe me. Another action you can take during this time is a spot check of rooms, computers, cars, and any places where the addict alcoholic may be hiding something, they might not appreciate the intrusion, however, they need to come to their own realization that their past actions brought them to this point. Something they did also brought us to this point of having to check, and you're not a fan of having to do this, but you're willing to go through this to help your loved one through whatever they need to go through. If you can do this, it becomes a no brainer for accountability, and eliminates the temptations for your loved one to hold on to something for a rainy day. Now more than ever, don't stop setting and keeping boundaries. Yes, they are difficult to keep, yes, your loved one may be sober for a month or two. But it probably took a long time for you to get them into treatment. Your loved one needs to understand that it's going to take some time to build up certain levels of trust. It's a simple formula, it took a long time to break the trust. Now it takes a long time to build that trust back up. Part of trust building needs to be the addicts willingness, willingness to trust you by letting you look in their car rooms, etc. You may hear the arguments, how can I ever change if you don't believe me, or nobody trusts me anyway. So I may as well do something to be accused of. Remember, you're not accusing them of anything, you're just helping them stay accountable. And keeping a healthy boundary, remind them that it has taken in some cases many years for the addiction to rear its head, maybe it will take that many years to build back up that trust. This may be a conversation that is best had with the help of a third party such as a counselor. It is not them you miss trust, it is the disease. And you don't need to apologize to anyone for that.

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And I'm gonna stop reading right there for today.

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So this section of the book, as I'm reading it, you know, we're talking about we have the opportunity while people are in outpatient treatment, to help set some of those goals and set some of those action steps. You know, I'm embarrassed to admit that they're, you know, this client that I was working with, we thought that, hey, listen, let me save the parents some money was going to stop administering this expensive urine drug screen. And in the long run, pay, if we had been administering it, we would have found out a little bit sooner that hey, listen, there were times periodic times when the client was picking up and using and we could have addressed some things a little bit quicker than when we did. But again, I want you to think about this that like a urine drug screen is a tool. So it really shouldn't be anything like if you put this into somebody's treatment plan to say hey, listen, here's the expectation. You're going to do this at least Just, you know, once a week, once every two weeks or randomly is what I highly encourage, then we're good, it will take the emotion out of the decision when you're when you're saying, Hey, listen, it's time to take a drug screen. And we do them in times of good times. And it's bad times and in between times is just random. We all agree to that we take the emotion out of it, so folks aren't going to you know, the, the one who's going to be having to give the UDS, they're not going to feel like okay, nobody trusts me anymore. Just like now, this is part of our agreement, this is what we did. And same person from the parent or the loved one who's saying, Hey, listen, it's time to give one. It's like, Hey, listen, you're not gonna want to do that, you know, my son, my daughter, my loved one is doing great. I don't want to shake the tree. And I don't want to have us looking back on bad times. No, it's just something that you're going to be firm about that you're going to be able to say, Hey, listen, it's just time, we haven't done it in a while, let's do it. My experience is when somebody is not using, they don't mind giving the drug test. And, you know, I look at my own experiences. I mean, when I was in treatment, and like I knew what I knew, when the drug test where it was really easy to be, I'm going to the treatment center on Tuesday. All right, I got to do everything I need to do, whether it was I was drinking certain things or not using between certain days, that were easy to beat. But when they became random, that's when the challenge came. And that's when I didn't want to give the drug screen because I knew that, you know, it was going to come out positive. And that was going to cause even more problems for me. So this is, again, one way that we can begin putting accountability and build that trust with one another. And again, there's going to be a trust that you're going to request the drug test, and the individual and then there's going to be trust that the individual is going to give the drug test. And I completely understand that, hey, there are certain things that we don't want to do. And you know, we're happy that our loved one is making progress. And for many of us, it's it's even many people I've worked with us like they're just happy, they're in treatment, and somebody's even listening to him. And they're like, they just feel like a little bit, just that little bit of that pressure valve release. And they're just so grateful. And they're like, Ah, they're exhausted. And they feel sometimes that like, Hey, listen, we've got them here. And we're gonna let the treatment center do the rest. And the most successful clients are the ones are going to have that community around them. So if they know that, hey, listen, every once in a while, there's going to be a spot check of, hey, maybe their room or their car, or whatever it may be, it, might be their desk draw.

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If they know that's a possibility, they're going to be less likely to pick something up and try and store it. For, as I said before, in the book like a rainy day, they're gonna be more apt just to throw it out if they even come across it. So this is definitely something that is most helpful to be done with a counselor, because of the fact that, hey, there's going to be a lot of emotions both ways. And one of the number one things that I've heard from from the people that I work with who have an addiction is they're like, listen nobody trusts me anymore. Man, I'm

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30 days sober, and I, you know, people still looking at me weird. And I'm like, I understand. And I understand. I'm glad you're saying that. And I like how do you think your mom, your dad, your wife, your husband? When they're doing that? How can you think they might be looking at you that way. And it opens up a broader conversation. And it's, Hey, look, I've been doing this for a long time. Of course, pain I've caused hurt, there's reason for, for people to say my pattern, my past pattern, my past history, shows that they should be concerned. And they're concerned for you, and they love you. And they still value. That's why they're concerned, the thing that they're, they're really putting the mistrust in is the disease in itself. Because the disease itself can take over. And as we're just talking about how come we're going to be building these trusts up between the two of, you know, between you and your loved one. It helps everybody get on the same page, and helps us understand why Hey, listen, maybe they're frustrated that they're having to take a drug test. But you can also share that you're frustrated, you have to give a drug test and that you're frustrated. Hey, listen, I didn't want to look in your golf bag again. You know, I just want you to go play golf. And so we begin to kind of say, okay, what are some of those other things that we can do to build trust because we both know that we want to change the relationship, we want to be closer together. And we want the individual to be successful with long term sobriety. And that person wants to be successful with long term sobriety. Because they're going to see things immediately change in their lives within the first 30 to 45 days, you know, around that 45 day mark are their heads going to be a little bit clearer, they're going to start seeing colors that are a little bit brighter, and the courage to be like, wow, like, I don't feel the weight of that addiction, it still may be there, they're still maybe thinking about it, they still, but it's not going to be as heavy, it's going to be just a little bit lighter. And they couldn't want to continue with that change, and they're going to need the support. So I want to challenge you with something to think about is that, hey, think about something you can do with your loved one to help build trust with one another. For many people, it's it's been this simplicity of hey, you take out the garbage, you know, on garbage nights, so every Thursday night, we're expecting you. You do that. And it's like that consistency of somebody being able to do something like that. For other people, you know, it could be cutting the lawn for others. It's a calling once or twice a day. So I want you to just think about what are those small things that you could do that will make sense to your family system that will help build trust with your loved one. So I want to thank you for being with me here today. And until our next episode. Remember, sobriety is a family affair.