June 2025 Q & A: Answers to Listener Submitted Questions

The guilt of setting boundaries. The manipulation tactics. The late-night jail calls begging for bail money. When you love someone struggling with addiction, these painful scenarios become all too familiar – and navigating them without a roadmap feels impossible.

Matt Brown, seasoned interventionist and recovering addict, pulls back the curtain on the sophisticated manipulation techniques used by those resistant to treatment. "This is a way for your son or daughter to introduce fear and doubt," Matt explains when addressing the common claim that treatment is exposing them to "more drug dealers." Instead of second-guessing your decisions, Matt provides powerful language to hold your loved one accountable while maintaining compassion.

For families wrestling with guilt over establishing boundaries, Matt offers a profound insight: that uncomfortable feeling is actually part of your healing process. Just as those in active addiction use substances to avoid difficult emotions, codependent family members enable to avoid their own feelings. When we change these patterns, suppressed emotions emerge – creating the opportunity for genuine healing and growth.  If you want more substantial help for codependency, please consider one of the following workshops:

1. Terra Vista (Boise, Idaho)

2. The Bridge to Recovery (Bowling Green, KY)

3. Onsite Workshops (Nashville, TN)

Perhaps most valuable is Matt's guidance on supporting without controlling. By shifting from "you need to" statements to conversations centered on mutual goals, families can break the adversarial dynamic that fuels resistance. "When my boundaries are strong, I don't have to control anybody," Matt shares, distinguishing between unconditional love and unconditional support – which aren't mutually inclusive.

Whether you're struggling with a loved one manipulating their way out of treatment, feeling guilty about setting necessary boundaries, or facing that dreaded late-night call from jail, this episode delivers practical strategies to navigate these challenging scenarios with

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Party Wreckers podcast, hosted by seasoned addiction interventionist, matt Brown. This is a podcast for families or individuals with loved ones who are struggling with addiction or alcoholism. Perhaps they are reluctant to get the help that they need. We are here to educate and entertain you while removing the fear from the conversation. Stick with us and we will get you through it. Welcome the original party wrecker, matt Brown. Original Party Wrecker.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Matt Brown. Thank you and welcome back to another episode of the Party Wreckers podcast. I am your host, matt Brown. I am a drug and alcohol interventionist. I've been working with families who have loved ones that are resistant to getting the help that they need for over 20 years now. I do this podcast as a way to give families some additional tools to help them learn how to have conversations in a different way with their addicted loved ones and learn how to make those conversations as productive and hopeful as possible. I didn't say comfortable, but I do want to move families towards having really helpful, hopeful conversations.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Now, every once in a while, I'll get a list of questions together that have been emailed to me or asked to me, as I've been on in different phone calls with families through my private practice, and I'll bring those here and I'll answer them with you guys here on an episode. And I've got four questions here this month that I felt like were these are common questions and some of them very thought provoking for me in particular, and so I thought, well, I'll share them with you guys and maybe you guys will find some common ground here and find that these are some things that you've wrestled with as well. I was talking with a mom and she said what do I say if my loved one tells me that while they're in treatment, they're just meeting more drug dealers and learning about doing harder drugs? Now I want you to, first and foremost, hear that this is a very sophisticated way to manipulate a parent, because what it does is it introduces fear and it introduces doubt, and it's done in a way that creates that fear and doubt in the choices that you've made, because chances are, your loved one didn't go and find their own treatment center. You guys were out there, you found the treatment center, even if they were willing to go to treatment initially. Now that they're there, they're starting to plant these seeds of this probably isn't the right place for me, or I probably need to. You know to think about coming home, and you should let me do that, and one of the ways that they'll do that is by saying I'm meeting so many different people here who just not in recovery. There there's drug dealers, here there's people that are talking about using harder drugs and I'm learning more about fentanyl and methamphetamines than I ever wanted to know. And and frankly, mom and dad, I feel like I, like I'm coming out of here worse off than I went in, and if you guys have spent any time listening to this podcast, or even if this is your first time in your first episode listening in, I want you to know that you're talking with a drug dealer right now.

Speaker 2: 3:17

I was a guy who used to sell drugs. I was a guy who used to do drugs. I would wager that none of you right now are overcome with a strong desire to go out and get high right now. If you are, give me a call, we can talk about that.

Speaker 2: 3:31

But this is a way for your son or your daughter to introduce this idea that maybe mom and dad have picked the wrong program, maybe they didn't do as much research in the program as they needed to, and it's a way for them to get you to second guess the choices you've made, because now they're talking about the environment that they're in and how detrimental it is to their recovery. Here's what I suggest that you say you know son, you know daughter. I want you to know that I love you, and it sounds to me like the conversations that you're having right now are really not helpful for your sobriety. Now I want you to know that I see that you have some responsibility in those conversations. You know, in my life I get to choose who I talk to and who I don't, and what I talk about and what I won't talk about. And it sounds to me like you're at a crossroads right now in your life where you have to start making some of those choices.

Speaker 2: 4:19

Now, if you are in recovery and you want to stay in recovery, I suggest you change the people that you're having conversations with. You know, there are people in that center that you're at right now who want to be sober, whether they were former drug dealers or not. There's people there that want to be sober. Find the winners and go hang out with them. If you find yourself gravitating towards the losers and I say that with all the love that I can, but if you have someone that's in a treatment center that doesn't want to be sober, they're wasting their time. And if they're dragging your loved one into that conversation, they're wasting their time too. And what I would say is son, stop wasting your time. If you want to be sober, be sober and be around the people there that want to be sober. If you don't want to be sober, leave today. You should go ahead and check yourself out of there and figure out what you want to do.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Now. Coming home is not an option. Addiction doesn't live in our home anymore, and so if you don't complete treatment, there's really nothing more for us to talk about until you do. But it's up to you whether or not you want to complete treatment. I love you and I really hope you'll choose to stay there and I hope you'll choose to change the kinds of conversations that you're having there. But I want you to know that I hold you responsible for how you spend your time. I hold you responsible for the types of conversations that you're getting engaged in, and just because you don't like the kind of people that are there, or you want me to not like the kind of people that are there, doesn't mean that you don't have an opportunity to get sober and stay sober, and I want you to know that. I strongly encourage you to find a way to do that and really allow them the opportunity to be responsible for how they're spending their time, who they're spending their time with, what they're talking about, in the way that they spend their time. Don't take responsibility for something that you have absolutely no control over. I have no doubt whether I was involved in helping you or not.

Speaker 2: 6:00

If you chose a treatment program, there's a really good chance that you did some research on that. There's a really good chance that you looked into this. You called a few places and you found the one that you thought your loved one was going to do best in. Trust that decision. If, for whatever reason, you find that separate from conversations that you're having with your loved one, that there's some concerns, okay, that's different. But if your loved one is the one that's planting those seeds of doubt, take that with a grain of salt. Talk to the treatment center, find out what's really going on there and don't just look at it through the lens that your loved one is holding up to your eyes, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Because as we start to get uncomfortable and as we start to be required to look at things about ourselves that we don't want to look at, we will run from that experience if we can, and we'll run in a number of different ways. We're professional runners. That's what addiction is, and so if we don't have the chemicals to run away from and relieve us of those feelings, we'll find other ways to distract ourselves, and sometimes it's getting other people to co-sign behaviors and beliefs that we don't really want to let go of yet, and instead of challenging us to change and become better. And so that's what I would encourage you guys, as parents, to really do. And if I'm talking to a spouse who has a loved one in treatment, if your husband or your wife is in treatment right now and they're saying the same thing, I would issue the same challenge to you. Confront them on how they're spending their time. And when I say confront, I don't mean in a combative way, I really mean don't take it at face value. Confront that and say hey, you have some responsibility in how this is going. What are you going to change? And really allow them the opportunity to see that you're not going to get manipulated and you're not going to let fear take over how you make decisions.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Now it may be that you need to get somebody else involved in helping you choose a treatment program. There are a number of professionals, of course. I'm going to plug IOC right now Intervention on Call. There's a number of professionals on our platform that can certainly help you find the right treatment program. Whether or not we need to help you do an intervention or not, part of what we do is we help families find the right treatment centers for them. But there's outside of that network, there's a ton of people in this industry that help families find the right treatment placements, whether it's an educational consultant, whether it's a treatment placement consultant. Excuse me, I've got something in my throat today. You can get the help that you need finding the right treatment placement.

Speaker 2: 8:20

You know, be careful about just looking at a website and saying, oh, this looks good and they take our insurance. You know, you probably want to dig a little bit deeper than that and I the last question and answer episode that I did. There was a question that somebody had submitted about choosing the right treatment center. If you haven't listened to that one yet and want more information on how to choose the right treatment center, go back and listen to that episode. But that's what I would say about that question. Don't let your loved one introduce fear and doubt into the equation because they're getting uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 8:47

All right, next question on the list why do I feel guilty setting boundaries? You know this is a tough question because it hits so close to the core of the problem. Codependency and addiction really have the same core issue and that is. I don't want to feel what I'm going to feel if I don't use drugs. I don't want to feel what I'm going to feel if I don't enable this person. I'm going to feel guilty, I'm going to feel ashamed. I'm going to feel like I'm a bad dad or a bad partner. I don't want to feel like I'm not showing up for them the way that I know that I can, and we convince ourselves that we're doing this out of love and I think for the most part we are but when we really get right down to it, the guilt that this person was asking about is really stemming from that place of I have the ability to do this thing for this person. If I set this boundary, what I'm telling them is that I'm no longer going to do something for them that I've been doing. I'm no longer going to tolerate a behavior that I've been tolerating and I'm going to feel guilty that I'm changing my behavior and making them uncomfortable because of the changes that I'm making. And I really want you to hear that that guilt that you're feeling is part of the healing process.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Just like those of us that struggle in active addiction, we're going to feel a lot as we begin to change our behavior and stop putting substances in our body that prevent us from feeling all of these things that we've been trying not to feel. And so when we change that behavior, a lot of those feelings come up. And the way that we've been dealing with these feelings is drugs or alcohol. And for those of us that are codependent, we engage in enabling behavior and that helps quiet those feelings, it helps distract us from those feelings. It's not, it doesn't mean that it's healthy, but it's a way to change how we feel. And so as we challenge those beliefs and as we challenge those behaviors and start to make those changes, those feelings that we've been suppressing are going to come up. And that's where we really can begin the healing process. And that's why in early recovery we're often told hey, this person needs to go to treatment, not to learn how to not use drugs or alcohol anymore. It's to learn how to deal with those feelings that they've been avoiding for so long. As we begin to set boundaries. Sometimes we need help doing that. Sometimes we need help and encouragement and support as we begin to change behaviors. Does it mean that the person who's struggling with enabling needs to go to treatment? Maybe there's some really good treatment centers out there that specifically deal with.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Codependency has nothing to do with substance abuse. They're not substance abuse treatment centers. They're not licensed to substance abuse treatment centers. They are primary mental health facilities that deal with. Frankly, the ones that do a good job deserve the recognition, and so the first one that I'll throw out there is called the Bridge to Recovery and it's in Bowling Green, kentucky. They do a fantastic job. You go there for two-week increments. You can stay for up to six weeks concurrently, but there's modules that happen every two weeks and this program is phenomenal at helping somebody deal with that. The underlying reasons for why the codependency is there and why it takes control of the decision making process, the way that it does.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Another really good one that's out there is called Onsite Workshops. They are in Cumberland, furnace, tennessee, just outside of Nashville. They do one week workshops, and the one that I recommend for most people is called Living Centered, and it's a way for us to really kind of take a look at how our decision making has adapted the way that it does, how our self view, how the way we look at ourselves and our identity that we give ourselves looks the way that it does why our relationships look the way that they do and it has. The purpose of it is to really help us come back to that centered place and live from that centered place in our lives, so that exterior circumstances or external circumstances don't have the same sway over us that they have up to this point, in the same way that the exterior circumstances or the external circumstances of addiction or codependency have had sway over our decision making. The last one that I'll plug and I love this woman so much. I've worked with her personally but Tara Holbrook in Boise, idaho, has a place called Terra Vista and she also does one week workshops and they do a fantastic job. So those are the three that I would say. If you're struggling with codependency and actually want to unplug for a week or two and actually go do some personal work, please look into those three. I will put website addresses in the show notes so that you can reference these afterwards. But that's why we feel the guilt that we do when we're struggling with things like this.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Next question how do I support my addicted loved one without them feeling like I'm trying to control them? Now, again, I'm going to read into this a little bit. This is not. I don't have all the information that I would normally have as I'm trying to answer this question, so I'm going to put my own spin on this and hopefully this answers the question of the person that submitted this in a way that they were hoping for.

Speaker 2: 14:00

But when we try to have conversations with somebody, oftentimes we're saying you need to do this or you should do this, and when we frame things that way, it does feel controlling at times, especially to somebody like me who wants to fight for control left and right, because that's the only thing that I feel like I can try to fight for. My internal condition feels so out of control that I've got to try to control everything around me, which is what led me to do drugs and alcohol in the first place. And so as you try to approach your loved one and say, hey, I think you need some help, I need you to go to treatment, or you need to go to treatment, or you should go to treatment, the minute we frame things that way, we are trying to impose what we want on them, instead of talking about it from a place of. I see that you have some needs that aren't being met right now and there's a way to go about doing this that's very different, and so, as we're coaching families on doing their own interventions, instead of saying you need to go to treatment and make it like a very generic statement, what I'm always encouraging families to do is find the solution first. Find what your loved one needs, not what they're willing to do. Hey, they're only going to be willing to go to therapy, they're only going to be willing to do an outpatient program, they're not going to go to inpatient. I don't even want to talk to them about that, because they're going to reject that outright. Don't worry about that part of the conversation. Look at this through the lens of what do they need? What do they need to get the help that is really going to solve this problem? And if the answer to that question is they need to go to inpatient for 30 days, they need to go to inpatient for 90 days and then into sober living and then do outpatient. Look at it through that lens, because what they are willing to do is the most flexible part of the equation. It's always the most flexible part of the equation.

Speaker 2: 15:36

How I feel, especially when I'm in active addiction, changes minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day. My feelings are so completely out of control that in the morning I might feel like I'm on top of the world and I've got the world by the tail, and by mid-afternoon I'm desperate. I have no idea how I got to where I am and I'm miserable and I'm scared. And if somebody said, hey, I'd love to offer you some help, I am gonna jump at that. And then later that night I'll be loaded again and be back on top of the world and that feeling of desperation that I had in the middle of the afternoon is gone. And I'm sure that some of the family members that I'm talking to right now understand that rollercoaster of just uncontrollable ups and downs and emotion.

Speaker 2: 16:18

Then you add a mental health condition on top of that motion. Then you add a mental health condition on top of that. Whether that's anxiety or depression or bipolar disorder or whatever it is, the roller coaster gets a little bit more bumpy. Even so, stop worrying about what they're willing to do and look at what they need. Now, once you've addressed that, and say, okay, well, they need outpatient. All right, let's find a good outpatient program. They need inpatient, let's find a good inpatient program.

Speaker 2: 16:38

I would say, 99% of the time, if somebody's not coming to you and asking for help, saying, hey, I really feel like I need to get some help here. I can't do this on my own anymore. Outpatient is generally not the best first step Now. Sometimes it's the only first step. Sometimes you've got somebody who's the primary breadwinner of the family. They can't afford to take a month off of work and go and check themselves into a treatment center, and so sometimes you have to look at this from a more pragmatic standpoint.

Speaker 2: 17:06

But when we're looking at this purely from the standpoint of what's going to give us the best results, I would say 99% of the time, going to an inpatient program is really what you want to start with. If somebody's coming to you and saying, hey, I really feel like things are out of control here and I really feel like I'm in a place where I need something that I'm not getting right now, that's different. There's already some sense of internal motivation there, and that's when an outpatient program might be a little bit more effective. Because they're coming to this with some humility, they're coming to this with some willingness already, and that attitude lends itself to higher success rates in outpatient than when they're coming from having that motivation happening from an external place, whether it's an intervention, whether it's a job saying, hey, you either need to go and get some help or you're fired, or a relationship saying, hey, unless you go into treatment, we're going to have to get divorced. You know, there's always these external circumstances.

Speaker 2: 17:56

What I say to families all the time is everyone gets an intervention. Whether it's a guy wearing a badge and a gun, whether it's somebody in a hospital that comes up in an emergency room wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope around their neck, whether it's a family putting together an intervention in a more formal, organized way, everybody gets an intervention. How they respond to that intervention can largely be uncontrollable. In some cases, when it becomes a legal issue, the outcome of that is beyond most people's control. There are oftentimes legal consequences that people no longer can control. If it's a medical intervention, sometimes there's medical issues that are no longer going to be controllable. But when a family decides, hey, it's time for us to do something, you guys are having some control over the outcome that otherwise you might not have.

Speaker 2: 18:42

If you wait for one of these other interventions to happen Now, you might be in a situation where somebody's already had a legal intervention or trying to support and they're feeling like you're controlling them. Sometimes that's manipulative. Sometimes it's just a way to gaslight you into backing off and saying, hey, all you try to do is get me into treatment. This feels really controlling. I don't want to have this conversation. Don't necessarily accept that at face value.

Speaker 2: 19:18

What you do want to go into this conversation with is saying, hey, I'm worried about you and I love you, and I can see that you're not happy. Would you agree with me on that? Or do you feel happy right now? Well, no, I don't. As a matter of fact, I'm miserable. I lost my job, I lost my girlfriend. My life sucks, you know, I have no more friends, I'm broke. I had to come back and live with mom and dad. You know, whatever the circumstances are like, there's this consistent decline, you know, and so, most of the time, people who are willing to be honest will say something to the effect of no, of course I'm not happy. Effective no, of course I'm not happy. Now. If somebody says to you well, yeah, I'm happy, life is great right now, I wish you had the life that I had Sometimes, I'll challenge that with another question.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Tell me what you're grateful for, because happiness and gratitude are inseparable. So when you have somebody that's trying to convince you that they're happy and then you ask them to give you some insight into what they have to be grateful for in their lives, if that list is very superficial, then they're probably. That's probably the depth of their happiness. But if they can really say you know what, I'm really grateful for my health, I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for my job, I'm grateful for all the close friends that I have Okay, maybe there is some gratitude there. Now, if they're saying that they're grateful for family, but treating family like garbage, that's different. That's very, very different.

Speaker 2: 20:31

So don't be afraid to challenge that notion, but to really approach the conversation from the standpoint of I really want to see you happy again and I want to see you healthy and I want to see you stop struggling. I can only imagine that you feel the same way. Well, yeah, mom and dad, of course I do. Okay, well, we've got an idea and we want to talk to you about it, and you may not like this idea, but I need you to understand that we feel really strongly about not staying silent about this anymore. We feel like it's time for some professional help to be added into the equation here.

Speaker 2: 21:01

We have been doing our best as a family to try to solve this problem in a very amateur type way, you know. We've been trying to love you back into health and wellness again. We've been trying to love you back into being happy again, and it just doesn't seem to be working. It seems like there's something deeper here that we just don't have the ability to help you with as much as we love you and as much as we want to help you, we just don't have the ability. And so we want to put you in touch with a team of people that are professionally trained to really help give you the tools that you need to get your life back on track, and we want you to do this today and to really help that person understand that number one, there's help, and number two, going back to the way things have been isn't an option anymore, and to really understand we are now beginning a path forward. You don't have to do what we're asking you to do, but we don't have to continue to engage in our relationship with you the way that we have either. In fact, we're choosing not to, and so should you choose not to get help.

Speaker 2: 21:55

Today, we may have to look at how our relationship with you is going to change so that we're not enabling this anymore, so that we're not being harmed by this anymore. This has caused some financial harm to us. This has caused some emotional harm to us. We're losing sleep over this. I'm not able to perform at work the way that I do because of the stress that I feel all the time worrying about you. A lot of responsibilities that I have are getting neglected because of my worry for you, and I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty.

Speaker 2: 22:18

I'm saying this because I need you to understand how important you are to me, and it's because you're important that I have to concede that I don't have what you need right now, but I want to get it for you and to really have that kind of conversation. It's not about you need to do this. You have to do this, you should do this. Those kinds of phrases are going to put you on opposite sides of the rope, pulling against each other, but when you can find a way to pull in the same direction, I can really see that you're struggling and I can only imagine how hard that is for you right now. Would you like some help? Can I help you find some happiness and some hope in your life, and I think I've got a plan that I want you to listen to today. That's very different. That's a much less controlling kind of conversation, but you're also setting some firm boundaries in terms of what you are willing to do and what you're not willing to do anymore, and that's not controlling.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Boundaries have zero to do with trying to control another person. In fact, when my boundaries are strong, I don't have to control anybody. When I find that I'm trying to control people and that I'm engaging in more controlling behavior, what I'm really learning is that my boundaries suck and that I really need to work on my boundaries, because, instead of having healthy boundaries, now I'm trying to control people, and that means that I have zero boundaries. So when you set a boundary with someone, what you're telling them is this is what I'm willing to do and this is what I'm not willing to do. Can you agree to that? And once the agreement's made and the expectations are set, I don't have to do anything more than let you live in the way that you and I have agreed to live together. And so having healthy boundaries means that I'm not going to try to control you and that I'm not going to let you try to control me either, or try to let your addiction control me, and so it's a very healthy way to set expectations in a relationship. So if you find that you're constantly trying to control somebody, whether it's hey, we've got to get this person to this appointment, or we've got to get this person here or I've got to make this phone call, I've got to make sure that you know I get this taken care of and that taken care of, because they're not going to be able to do it for themselves. All of those are actually very controlling behaviors. It's really hard to see it sometimes because our motives for doing it is to minimize the pain and the frustration and the hit to the self-esteem that happens when people fail. But what I want to tell you is that when we try to control someone in that way, when we try to rob them of the experience that they have, even if they're going to fail at it, when we rob them of that experience, we're robbing them of growth. And so approach these conversations with love and with kindness, but at the same time, be very clear about what it is you're willing to do and what it is you're not willing to do in terms of how you're going to support this person going forward, because you can love somebody unconditionally, but it does not mean that you have to support them unconditionally. Love and support are not mutually inclusive. And with that we'll move on to the last question here.

Speaker 2: 25:07

My son was arrested last night and has been calling nonstop for me to bail him out. What do I do? So this comes up with a fair amount of regularity. You know, those of us that engage in drug use in particular, we end up in jail sometimes. You know, if you end up drinking and driving, we end up in jail sometimes and there's consequences. And as soon as those consequences hit, we go to that support system to try to find a way to not have to experience those consequences.

Speaker 2: 25:34

And sometimes, when families step in too soon just like I was talking about with this previous question if we step in too soon, it's not about teaching somebody a lesson, it's not about you. You well, I'm going to teach you a lesson. I'm going to leave you sitting in jail. It's about letting them know I'm not the janitor anymore. My job isn't to clean up your mess. I'm your mom, I'm your dad, I'm your husband, I'm your wife. Whatever the relationship is, I'm not the janitor.

Speaker 2: 25:58

In every intervention that I do, there's two people that we have to fire, and that's the banker and the janitor. The banker is usually the one that's either actually financially or emotionally funding the messes that are getting made, and then the janitor is the person coming behind and cleaning it up while the banker's busy funding or financing the next mess. Now, sometimes it's the same person filling both roles, but if you find yourself in either of those roles whether you're a financial banker or an emotional banker, or whether you're the janitor really ask yourself okay, is this working? Is this producing the results that I want it to produce? And if it's not, if your loved one ends up in jail, you have a perfect opportunity to be able to say to them and this is what I told this mom jail has a way of softening us up to some things that we ordinarily wouldn't be open to.

Speaker 2: 26:43

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a jail to pick somebody up and take them directly from jail to treatment, or showed up at a jail and had the intervention through that, that to the glass, the plexiglass that's there in the jail. You know, over that, that handheld phone, the you know the old, you know payphone type type hand receiver that they have at the jails where you're talking to each other, it happens from time to time where that's where the intervention takes, takes place, and the message is hey, we don't want to see you sit here longer than you need to. So what we're willing to do is post bail under the condition that you go straight from here to a treatment center and that you're going to complete that treatment center. If you leave treatment early, we're going to revoke your bail and have you sent back to jail Because at least in here you're safe. You're safe from yourself, you're safe from another overdose, you're safe from other things that happen in active addiction. That can't happen when you're in a 10 by 10 sale. So to really be able to use that as some leverage to be able to say I'd love to see you go to treatment and I'm willing to post your bond if you're agreeable to go straight from here to jail or to treatment rather, and complete treatment successfully. No-transcript jail free card, we are delaying prosecution or we're working with the prosecutor to either reduce charges or delay prosecution pending your successful treatment, completion of treatment If you complete treatment successfully, looks like the prosecutor might be willing to drop charges or reduce charges or at least entertain the idea as you show back up in court after 90 days in treatment or 30 days in treatment and say hey, your honor, I want to take responsibility for what I did. I had a drug and alcohol problem. I'm continuing to get treatment for that. This is what I've done so far. This is what I plan to continue to do and this is my plan to stay sober going forward.

Speaker 2: 28:56

And when you have somebody that can show up in front of a judge with that kind of a message, judges aren't used to that. Judges are used to people showing up trying to get out of consequences. Judges are used to showing up saying, oh well, there's been a mistake. I didn't do what they said that I do, or the cop messed up, or I didn't do what they said that I do, or the cop messed up, or it's somebody else's fault. But when somebody can say you know what, I probably deserve to be here. And this is why, and this is what I've done to try to correct the problem, and this is what I'm going to do, to continue to correct the problem, and I would love some leniency. And if you need to send me to jail, I will accept the consequences of my actions. I can't tell you how many times a judge has heard that and said you know what? You've changed. Something's different here. There's been a positive change here that I certainly want to respect, and there's power in that accountability.

Speaker 2: 29:46

And so if you have a loved one, whether you know, like this mom, her son was arrested the night before she sent me that email or if you have a history of worrying about whether or not your loved one is going to end up in jail, consider this as the option. Should they end up in jail, don't be so quick to get them out. There's nothing catastrophic that's going to happen in jail. They're actually safer in jail than they would be elsewhere out doing what they were doing before they got arrested. At least you know where they are and, with a relative amount of safety, you know like nothing bad is going to happen. They're in jail. They're not in there with some really great people. They're in there with some really unsavory characters, but they're, at the very least, they're safe from themselves and their own poor decisions. So consider that and really use that as an opportunity to say, hey, I'd love to help you out. But here's what I need you to agree to.

Speaker 2: 30:38

And if you feel like there's some pushback, or if you feel like, hey, they're going to get a little slippery and on the way to treatment they're going to try to scoot sideways and not actually go, you may say, hey, I'm going to talk to the prosecutor or I'm going to have your court appointed attorney talk to the prosecutor and see if we can't work out a deal here where the judge orders you to complete treatment at this particular treatment program and if they're willing to do that, then I can post your bond. But until then, I want you to know that I'm sorry that you've ended up where you're at. I hope you'll take some time to reflect on what got you there and what you can do to change this, and I want you to know that I want to see you happy and safe again. But in the meantime I'm not going to be bailing you out and if you're willing to get some help and you're willing to go door to door, I'm not bringing you home to pack a bag. I'm not bringing you home to say goodbye to your dog.

Speaker 2: 31:20

You are going straight from jail to the treatment center and it may be a day or two before the treatment center has a spot for you. I need you to understand that I'm going to leave you sitting in jail until that spot opens up. Let them know that you are not afraid of them being where they're at Because again, just like that first question that got asked. You know I'm here in treatment and I'm learning. You know I'm meeting more drug dealers and I'm talking to people that are using harder drugs that will come up while they're in jail. I'm in here with a bunch of criminals. I don't know what I'm going to learn while I'm in here. I don't know what I'm going to. You know what's going to happen to me. They're going to plant those seeds of fear while they're there. Don't react to that. Allow them to be uncomfortable, because that discomfort is a really good catalyst for change. And if they know that you're willing to let them be uncomfortable and if they know that you're willing to let yourself be uncomfortable, change can happen. Change can happen, guys. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 32:13

I appreciate you listening to this episode. I want to remind you that now, four times a week, intervention On Call has free family Zoom meetings Every Sunday night at 8 pm Pacific. We have now a dedicated West Coast meeting at 8 pm Pacific every Sunday. Every Monday, wednesday and Thursday at 8 pm Eastern time. We have family support meetings. Wednesday nights we have a special speaker meeting. For the last month we've had Jason Shane talking about trauma. I believe he's going to continue that dialogue for another few weeks and then we'll bring in another speaker, but every Monday and Thursday and Sunday now we have Q&A with families where we're giving them direct solutions and suggestions and strategies on how to help their addicted loved ones. So please join us for that. Until then, I hope your loved one will get sober and stay sober. Love you guys.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Thanks again for listening to the Party Wreckers. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a rating and a review. This helps us get the word out to more people, to learn more or to ask us a question we can answer in a future episode. Please visit us at PartyWreckerscom and remember don't enable addiction ever.