How You Can Support Someone Who Wants Change

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Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Joseph Devlin, and today on the show, we're going to discuss the topic of alcohol. Specifically, what if your loved one came up to you and said, Hey, I need to take a break from drinking. What would you do?

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Let's get at it.

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All right. So for so many of you, if your loved one walked up to you and said, Hey, I need to take a break from drinking right now, you'd be so ecstatic. You'd be like hitting a roof. You would be throwing a parade. You'd be so excited that this is finally happening. And I want to say is keep that excitement that's so important. And as you're talking with your loved one, hey, match their excitement, because this is going to be a huge part of support for them. And I know, again, for many of you, it's a lifelong dream. So let's, you know, let's be ready. Like, what do you do next? What's the next thing you can do to really help support them on this, this period of time where they're saying, Hey, I just need to take a break. Well, I know for many people I work with, when something like this happens, they're willing to do anything for their loved one because they've been waiting for it for so long. However, sometimes that doesn't always work out right, because there were just some pieces of that were missing that could have been easily supported to help somebody on that, you know, that journey of pausing, that drinking. So I want to take a look at a couple things here today. So one of the first things that you're going to realize is that you're going to know what it is the change that the person wants to make because they want to put a pause on their drinking. Then the next thing I would want to, I encourage you, to do, is find out from somebody like, how come they want to make that change, this change now? Now many of you would know. Oh, well, you know, this is, you know, this is something that the relationship between the two of us has deteriorated, that relationship with the children has gone away. Relationships at work, have, you know, really been frayed? Maybe there's some financial impact. And, you know, the list could go on and on, and you would know probably many of the reasons why it would be a good idea for them to take this pause for now. However, it's really important to ask them their why, knowing why it's important for them to be making this change now, and as you're listening to them, you know, I'm sure you're going to hear some of the things that you know you were hoping to hear. How come they want to make the change, you know, to, you know, have that better community and their health and all of those and but you also might hear something that you weren't really necessarily anticipating. So it could be something like, Hey, I want to spend more time with my mom. I know she's getting a little bit older. Maybe it's, you know, I'm noticing we're kind of not spending enough time with the kids. So I'd really like to be able to, you know, engage with them again and really make that intentional time. And this is a great place where you can come in and really help them, help support them. And you know, for instance, you know, if they wanted to spend more time with their mom, you might be able to say, hey, you know, why don't you and I and the kids, we go over to your mom Sunday after church. This will give you some alone time with your mom and but, you know, we'd love to be there too. Maybe, if it's with the kids, you can say, Hey, listen, let's maybe we bring back movie night that kind of went away for a little bit. And, or, Hey, you know, maybe we could go do like a hiking day again. We used to really love that as a family. We haven't done in a long time. So this gives you that that platform to say, Hey, I understand some of the things that you want to change and some of the things that are important for you to while you're taking this break from drinking, and let me see if I can come around and help support you in in this effort. And the next thing I'll say is, really, like, write down the goal. And you know, if you can include in that goal, like somebody says, I want to take a break from drinking, I'm encouraged to find out with them. You know, hey, like, how long is it 30 days? Is it 60 days, 90 days? What are we looking at here? And you know, soon like when you can get that time frame down, you know, write it down and circle it on the calendar, or circle it in your own personal calendar, so that you know that. Date that they're saying, Hey, listen, I'm going to stop drinking for the next 60 days. Fantastic. Kind of know, what are some of those, you know, parameters to be able to hit that goal? Like, okay, great. We're looking for 60 days. That's what we're that's what we're going for. Hey, day one. Want to be able to back you up in this. And the importance of being able to write that down is, listen, we're about 80% more successful at achieving a goal when we write it down. And while we're writing down, the goal can also be writing down, like some of the whys behind it, like spending more time with mom, the kids, having better health, losing the acid reflux. You know, all of those can be put together. And I encourage you to encourage your loved one to write these downs and but if they're not, hey, one thing at a time, huge step that they're stopping drinking right now, right they're putting that pause on it so that they can make some other adjustments in their life. So once you kind of get some of that clarity on the goal time, the length of time, you can also begin to break down that goal into some smaller goals. So you know, if you know, hey, we're trying to do this for about 60 days. You know their goal is to do this for 60 days. I definitely want to support them in this issue. I'm also noticing, hey, we have a holiday coming up, or we have a birthday party coming up. So you can kind of see those things on the calendar. And you can just think about, hey, how do we navigate this

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to, like, to pause

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his goal of, hey, whatever is: 6090

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You're gonna know what your next steps are,

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I also challenge you to utilize this same process we discussed today to make a change in your life. This could be reading a book. Could be connecting more with friends, exercising regularly. Maybe it's learning more jokes, whatever sparks your interest. And I promise you this, I've seen it happen over and over and over again. We make these little changes, it's going to have a really big impact. Like, when we think about this, like, we know that, like the seeds of like certain fruits, like melons and tomatoes and strawberries, they're so small. They're so tiny. Could barely hold them, you know, between two fingers. And if, when I plant those right, the the you get, like a bountiful yield, like the harvest is amazing, you know, like, we see, you know, whole strawberry patches. You see these giant melons, you know, four or five of them growing off of this one vine, you know. And tomato plants just grow. It's so crazy. They're everywhere. And, like, you know, gotta use, you know, certain things to try and, like, make the branches of the tomato tree kind of wrap around it because it's growing so big and it's producing so many tomatoes, and it all started with just that one seed, and those like changes that we're making in the vines of the tomatoes, that is often what happens when we make any small change, whether it's this book or learning more jokes, it really starts to spread into the rest of our lives. So what may seem like a very small change now that thing that you just thought of, I said I did want to do that. I wanted to know more jokes. I wanted to read that book, right? It's going to Bloss into something really, really big in your life, and I look forward to hearing about your changes that you made. Now, if you have any questions or want to kind of tease out some anything that we discussed in the podcast today, please reach out, contact me. I would love to discuss that further with you, and until our next show, remember sobriety is a family affair.