EP48: How To Love With Boundaries with Candace Plattor

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Hello, everyone. Welcome back to winning with wellness thrilled you're here to inspire the wellness warrior in you. I am so excited to dig into this episode and have this amazing conversation. You guys. We've got Candace here with us. And she is exceptional in her field. Candace, welcome. Thank you so much for being here

Hey, Jenny, hi, everyone.

This is going to be a great. I just, you know, there's no doubt in my mind, we're going to come across some interesting things that are going to resonate with a lot of people in different ways because of the field that you're in. And what I want to do is share with everybody cannabis, a little bit about your background, and then we can dig into it. If that sounds okay with you.

Sure. That's fine. Great. Yeah, well, just to kind of nutshell it. When I was in when I was about 23, which was quite a long time ago, I suddenly became very ill. And I had no idea what was happening to me. I had gone for lunch. And shortly after lunch, I started having symptoms that were like food poisoning. And that's what I thought I had, except it never went away. And it turned out after many years of being misdiagnosed, because what I had was Crohn's disease, which is an inflammatory bowel disease for people who don't know. But it was the new disease on the block. And no, none of the doctors knew what it was they didn't know what to do. For me, they thought it was all in my head, it was awful for net for a number of years and had to have a number of surgeries and things like that I'm a lot better now, because I've learned how to take care of myself, but it's one of those incurable diseases. So I still have it. But what the doctors did, because they didn't know what else to do is they threw a lot of addictive medications at me, including opioids, like codeine, and Oxycontin, and just a whole bunch of those kinds of morphine, those kinds of drugs, as well as Valium, the benzodiazepines. You know, I was a good girl at the time. And I'm not so much anymore, but I was them. And I, I took the medications I just did, and they helped me feel better. I smoked a lot of pot, because that helped me feel better. And I didn't understand that I had become addicted to these medications, because addiction wasn't on the radar at that point, didn't even occur to me now. But all of those substances are depressant in the system in the human system. So if you fast forward about 15 years, I was so depressed, that I became suicidal and needed some help around that instead of taking my life which I thought about a lot. I reached out for help. That's why I'm here today, and I'm very grateful. But so in 1987, I finally heard about addiction. I started going to some 12 Step programs. And I, I started my recovery. So today, well let's say in in July of this year, I will have 35 years clean and sober. That's incredible. So thank you. And when when I was about three years clean, I made the decision that I wanted to work in the addiction field. I wanted to give back because I had gotten so much help. So I started working in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. And for people who don't know where that is, Vancouver, Canada, where I live, the Downtown Eastside It is the lowest income area of our country of our huge country. So most many, many of the people who have addiction, drug alcohol, mental health issues, homelessness, people are there in the Downtown Eastside. That's, that's kind of who live there. So I was I got a job as an addiction counselor, and 1991 and was there for 16 years, which is a long time to work there. But, yeah, but I loved it. I loved the work. And, and what happened while I was, while I was working there, and seeing the people who were addicted, I started getting phone calls from their loved ones. And I don't know how that happened, because I didn't go out try to find them, they found me. And they, they basically said, we're at the end of our rope, we don't know what to do. You know, and, and so I had them come in for sessions, heard their stories, there were so many similarities, and most of what I would call them mistakes, loving mistakes, but mistakes that they were making, had to do with enabling, they were giving money to an addict, they were letting them stay in their homes, rent free, and be abusive and obnoxious and things like that were happening.

And so, I mean, I didn't really know what to do with them. But I started working with them, and found that I loved working with them. And as we, as we got past, the point of enabling, the adults started to change means they kind of take notice, when the loved one starts doing something different. The addicts take notice, and they kind of go, Oh, this isn't working for me anymore. You know, I better make some different decisions. With almost every family I work with, that's what happens. That's powerful. So I've been working as an addiction therapist, specializing in working with, with the families, of people who are struggling with addiction, because there's no, there's so little help out there. There's a little bit, but you know, it's, most of it is 12 step based. And that doesn't work for everybody. And that's not what I do. So there was a huge gap in service so that I could see and just decided this is what I'm going to do. So then I wrote a book that won some awards, called it's called Loving an addict loving yourself. The top 10 survival tips for loving someone with an addiction. And yeah, when USA and International Book Awards of Houston rehab centers in North America, and, you know, it's apparently a really good book and helpful to people. And it still surprises me, even after all these years. Because when I was in my addiction, I never thought I'd ever do anything that helps the world, you know, and here I am. So people can actually change and I'm living proof of that. So that's, that's kind of how it all got started.

Now bring up a really profound point is, you didn't start out with the intention of becoming an addict, right? Like, most people don't wake up and go, Well, this is my goal Life School. I can't wait to become an addict to mess up my life.

Let's sign up for addiction one on one. All right. So I I don't believe that anybody does that. Yeah. Yeah. And there's

there's probably people listening right now, that a might be questioning their own situation, because again, yours was brought on through through, you're under somebody's care, you were in care, and it wasn't being monitored appropriately. Or maybe they're seeing some signs like how can you? How do you what would you recommend to people that are listening that questioning that they may have somebody that they love or that they care for, or they're friends with that are showing signs of addiction? How how can they help them? What's the the best practices in that?

Well, I mean, that's such a great question. I want to go back to what you said a minute ago, because even though people don't choose to become addicts, I do believe that staying in addiction is a choice. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a disease. Are you think it's this or that underneath all of that, you make a choice, you either stay in addiction or you get into some kind of recovery. And any of us who are in recovery know that, right? So it's absolutely a choice. And I think when loved ones understand that, because there are programs out there 12 Step programs talk about, you know how this is a disease, you're powerless over the disease. relapse is a normal and natural part of it. Once an addict, always an addict, I don't see that, you know, I have a disease, I have Crohn's disease, I can't just say, Oh, I'm not going to have Crohn's anymore. I wish I could, it doesn't work that way. And anybody with a medical and actual medical disease understands that. But with addiction, you can say, I'm not going to do this anymore. So loved ones need to understand that. They're addicts, the addicts they love so much, their loved ones, they, you know, people they remember from before they became addicted. They're making choices here. They're not powerless, and they're going to try to tell you, they're powerless, so that they can stay doing this because they're scared to stop. Right. But they're not powerless. And they're not, you know, they don't have a disease. This isn't an actual disease. You know, people like to say it's a brain disease. And, and, obviously, there's brain involvement in addiction. But there's brain involvement in everything that we do. I know you can't see me, but I'm just moving my finger up and down. And whispering involvement, me moving my finger up and down. So there's just brain involvement never seen that doesn't make it a disease that we're powerless over. So your addict is or alcoholic or whatever, gambler, gamer, sex addict, whatever your your addict is, is making the choice to stay there. And one of the reasons that they're making the choice to stay there often is because they're pretty comfortable, though, especially if you as the loved one, are enabling the addict. So I would like to give a definition of enabling if I can, that would be great. Okay. So enabling is when we do for somebody else, what they can, actually should, should is not a word I use very often, but what they can and should be doing for themselves. When we do for them what they can and should be doing for themselves. We're enabling them. And helping, instead of enabling is allowing them to figure things out by themselves, feeling the consequences of the choices that they're making, preparing them for the world that actually exists out there, instead of, you know, pampering them, and thinking that they are they have no resilience of their own. And they do, they can make different choices. I did they can. So this is what loved ones really need to know. And I so believe so deeply, that when we stopped the enabling, if we could just stop the enabling in the world, including society and how society enables addicts, addiction would stop dead in its tracks. But that's not what's happening. So my message is, we need to stop enabling addicts. And the work that I do with families shows you how to do that. I'll say one more thing. You know, often when clients come to me, I've been doing this work for 30 years, and many times, the addicts comes the loved ones come to me. And it's like, the first thing out of their mouth is we know we're enabling, but we know we're enabling, but and the end of that sentence is we don't know what else to do. And that's fair, you don't know what else to do. Let us show you what else to do. So we can change all of this.

If we you know, it's so fascinating. Because enabling comes from a place of love and not intention of harm, obviously. So when we think about if we've got somebody who's listening right now, who who's questioning if they are enabling a situation, we're not sure. Like what would be the key signs that you're enabling somebody?

Well, I mentioned a couple of them. And then um, so I'll, I'll name a couple of those. Then Then I'm going to explain why people do this.

Yeah, that'd be wonderful. Okay, so,

so giving an addict money, somebody who's an active addiction of some kind, even if it's overspending, or doesn't have to be drugs, and alcohol can be anything that's just really kind of ruining their lives. If you give that person money, or support that person in that kind of way, especially with money, and especially with substances, you know, where that money's going, right? Are you going to shoot that money into their arm, or put it up their nose, and you're so you're enabling the addiction was when when somebody says to you, I just need 20 bucks mom, you know, please give me 20 bucks. And, and you give them 20 bucks. You're basically helping them assisting them what use that word, you're assisting them to stay in active addiction. And most loved ones don't realize that. Another thing that that happens often, is when addicts are allowed to live in the family home, they've spent all their money, they can't pay rent, they, they you know, they have nothing. And they come back home and they live there. This could be a husband or wife and adult child, a brother or a sister, right. And they live there. And they're allowed to sleep all day and be up all night, using drinking, gaming, doing whatever they're doing, not contribute financially at all to the household, eat all the food that's in the fridge, but not have to pay for any other not have to pay for hydro when they have their warm, cushy shower, where they're lying in their cushy bed, you know, and and so why should they change anything? That's the question. Why should they change anything? Never go too comfortable? Yeah, yeah. And if you love somebody with addiction, what you want is for them to stop doing the addiction. So if you're going to assist them to stay in the addiction, that's not going to work too well for you. So Alex need to face the consequences of the choices that they're making so that they can make different choices. It's really kind of that simple. It's not easy. But it's simple. It's not easy. But how easy is it to keep going the way you're going? If you're living this kind of life with an addict? That's harder?

Well, you know, I'm curious. Just again, I'm sure we're gonna have people that are listening that this is resonating with them. Yeah. And so let's say for example, teenage teenager gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming, and parents are trying to put some lay the law down, shall we say, and it's not going well? Or, I mean, consistency. I know, I'm answering my own question. Consistency is king, obviously. But do you have some suggestions when it comes to? You? Nobody wants to throw someone they love out on the street?

No. So and that's not and that's not usually the first thing I suggest, of course, are things we can do

before. Yeah. Like, is there Do you have a couple things that people can start testing the water with to see if they get the response they're looking for? Like, what are some thoughts?

Okay, well, I'm gonna answer something else first. Because I believe that it's imperative for the loved ones to understand why they have such a problem setting boundaries and maintaining those boundaries. Because you know, they can set a boundary and the first time the addict they love says, No, or eff off or whatever they say. They're going to back down. Loved ones are often what we call people pleasers. The buzzword in the in the industry is codependent and a codependent person. My simple definition for codependency most people have heard that word now is when we when we put other people's needs ahead of our own on a pretty consistent basis. That's codependency and I like to call it people pleasing sometimes because people pleasers are historically terrified of confrontation. And if there are any people pleasers listening and there probably are Hello, I'm a recovering people pleaser just so you know. You know what I'm saying is true. It's like

Amen. I don't want yeah, I have that badge. too.

So, so it's like I will do anything I need to do to not have conflict because I don't know how to handle the conflict. I don't know how to handle it. I don't know how to handle it when they get angry at me. I don't know how to handle it when they say you're a rotten mother or you're a horrible sister. Yeah. You know, I don't know what to do with that. And I feel terrible. And so I don't want that to happen. So I'm going to say yes. When I really mean no. And that's like, the worst thing you can do with an addict. Because it hurts the addict. It harms your own self respect. But it can really hurt the addict, it can be a question of life and death when we enable that. Yes. So. So the the important thing is to be able to learn. What's that about for you? Where does that start? How can we feel that so that you can actually have the self respect that is your birthright, and be able to say, No, this is not going to continue to happen. And you can say, whatever you want to me, if you punch a hole in the wall, or if you hurt me, or anybody else in the family, you're out. But no, this is not happening anymore. So we need you to be up in the morning by eight, you need to be either looking for a job, or being in a school program, or being in a recovery program. And your might not be out of the house because of code COVID. But you're, you're online and you're and you're doing something with your life, and you're not sleeping all day, and you're not keeping us awake all night, as no, no more of this. That's what needs to happen. But for many loved ones, there are steps involved in getting to that place. That's what we will put you on. And it's totally understandable that you'd be a little nervous about this. But if you think about, you know, I like to say that there are two kinds of pain. Pain is pain. But there are two kinds of pain. One kind of pain goes on, and on. And on and on and on. This could take me a while on and on. And on. The other kind of pain, curse. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And you get to decide every one of you that's listening today, we each get to decide which kind of pain we want in our watch. The other thing is that loved ones need to understand that when they set boundaries and maintain them, they have consequences. This is not a punishment for the addict. This is not a punishment, this is a consequence. But it's not a punishment. We're doing this because we love you so much. It tears us apart to watch you be in your addiction like this, it it terrifies us that you're going to die. We hate seeing you like this. We don't want you to live this life. That's how much we love you. This is why we're doing this. And what's and and when that message can be given a lot of things can change and shift.

Do you find that if it's the family or the you know, whoever the influence is in reference to that the you know who owns a home or you know, whether it's like you say siblings, parents, loved ones do you find generally and I know you shared this at the beginning. I'm assuming there's a spot where it gets worse before it gets better. And then

yeah, like, and that's problematic because addiction can be life or death. Right? Right. And we want to stop loving addicts to death. We want to stop loving addicts to death. We want to love addicts to life.

That's really beautifully said Love Addicts to life. And how Okay, so here's the other thing. We have people in our lives, some social drink some drink every day, some some do. What you would deem social, you know, smoking marijuana, etc, etc. How How do you know if you've got this experience in your life? Is there a defining moments where you know, it goes from social use to addiction? Like are there some keys that people can look for?

Yeah, there are some tools and I think people see them they just don't want to.

Well, this is why I want to shed some light on these babies. We know but we don't want to know it.

It's so understandable that you Don't want to know it, it's understandable that you don't want to see this. But until you do see it in your loved one, until you're willing to take the blinders off, nothing much will change one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, I wish I could take credit for it. But I didn't make it up, but I stole it. It's instead if nothing changes, nothing changes. So true. And the other way to say that is if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. So so some of the, some of the signs, and it kind of it can, some of them can be different, depending on the age of the person. You know, if it's a kid in school, for example, their grades are going down, they're not spending time on the schoolwork, they're skipping school, there's just a lot of school trouble, usually there. And again, you know, COVID has changed some of this because people aren't as free to kind of roam around as they used to be. Maybe that's coming back at some point, but we're not talking about that. So we'll go into that. But but they, they start choosing different kinds of friends to hang out with. Adults are more often isolated, okay, they they will go out and play depends on what the addiction is, you know, sometimes, sometimes they will go out and party with with people party is a word that I you know, because there comes a point where it's not a party anymore, it's a need for the absolute need. And, and when when addiction goes past the point of partying into need, it is no longer fun at all, right. So you know, they might go to the bar and hang out and be you know, raucous with their friends. But many addicts and alcoholics use Isola templi. They isolate, and they drink, and they use and they game for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. And they you know, or they go to the mall, and they shop and they bring home all kinds of stuff. And they start hoarding and there's just a whole lot of things that can happen. But patterns change habits change. Friends seem to change. Mood swings. You know, he tried to get a gamer to come up to dinner. That's not a lot of fun to try to do. Oh my gosh, yeah, um, you know, yeah. And when an over spender doesn't have money for the rent or gambler doesn't have money for the rent. They need you to pay their rent. If you say no, that's not going to be very pleasant. Right? Well, if you don't deal with that, you're going to be they're going to be 65 years old, still living in your house when you're 90.

Right, and you'll still be paying their expenses and bills. And

if they're still alive, right? If the diction hasn't gotten them, you know, and I've known families who, you know, they've lost their eyelids. And, you know, the enabling didn't stop soon enough. And they've lost their Alex. The line and how could this have happened? Well, we kind of know how it happens. We want to stop it. We want to prevent it from happening. We need education, prevention, and treatment, about enabling not just about addiction, but about enabling addiction. Because that's the flip side of the coin, as what keeps it going.

You know, I've got this question for you. And I, I would guess there are people listening it just we have, you know, we have a lot of young people struggling right now. And yep. When does it become? Like, you know, because this is the thing that hit a certain age. It's like, okay, you're on your own. I'm not doing this anymore. The fear of doing that, and the parent seeing their kid on the news, or, you know, getting the call from the police. I think that holds them hostage in that enabling face.

Yeah, I'm having a does. Yeah, I

have suggestions or advice around that. Yeah. I

have a family that I'm working with right now. With a 20 year old son, they've just been going through this and the sun has moved out. And he actually, I worked with him as well, because we work with the addicts as well as the family. And he's actually not using right now. Which is great. He stopped using thing. Mm hmm. I hope it continues. But I'm sorry. I kind of lost the gist of your question. Can you ask me again, please? So

So let's, you know, we've got a parent with it with an 18 year old at home that has to move out for survival, right, like to keep that family unit from imploding and like be unable past that.

Yeah, it's very difficult. This is not it's not easy to kick somebody out of your house that you love, and you're worried about, you're scared might die out there. And this is really a difficult thing. One thing to know, is that if, if enabling doesn't stop, your addict can die in your home, too. That's a good, they can overdose there. Yeah, they can kill themselves there. Because, see, when when addicts are using like that, and this is similar to what happened to me, it was a little different, but similar. On paper, enabled, addicts seem to have it made, they get their meals cooked, and their laundry done, and they don't have to do anything, and they can be obnoxious. And, you know, they, they can have the friends over till, you know, three in the morning. And they, they they seem to have made. But as we know, as adults, we know what we're doing. I can guarantee you that we know what we're doing. We know we understand the choice we're making. And we look around at other people our age, or, you know, we see that other people have different lives, they're married with families, they've got jobs, they're, you know, they've got a nice car, they're nice. And we know that's not us. And at that point, when an addict to really admit that to himself, and that doesn't happen when they're continually enabled. Right? When an addict can conceive themselves. I don't like this life, I don't like this life, I want a different life. That's when change can be made. So I know how

I'm hearing that is basically, if you truly love the person that you are, with, whatever that is, whether it's by blood, whether it's by choice, when you enable them, you're hurting them. Whereas if you stand firm, no matter what the path, you're actually showing them that you love them unconditionally. Yes.

Yes, that's exactly right. I couldn't have put it better. And enabling is never a loving act with an addict. Okay? Because it keeps them stuck in whatever addiction or addictions, they're stuck in. It just keeps them stuck there. And how can it be a loving act to keep an addict stuck. So the loved ones who love their addicts, so much, you know, need to understand, again, need to understand why they're doing this and how they can stop doing this. And once that happens, all kinds of changes happen in the family, families heal. Everybody's affected, and everybody needs to heal. And that's what we do at love the foundries. That's what we do.

I can't thank you enough, Candace, for being on the show today for sharing this wisdom. It's not an easy topic for people. It's not a light hearted topic, but it's an important topic. Because yeah, we are all touched by you know, as you're sharing your stories, I'm thinking of all the people I know that need to listen to this episode, and myself included as a mom in setting boundaries that are healthy for my children and lighting firm and it was found, you know, it might not be addiction related, but they're still they're still boundaries, right and yet loving through action, and I can't thank you enough for for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Can I say two more things, please? Yeah, okay. Maybe even three. One is that when you walk down the street, or you're in a coffee shop, or someplace out in public, even though we're not worrying signs on our foreheads to say, I'm affected by somebody else's addiction? Pretty much 99.999 of the people that you see, are either affected by somebody else's addiction or know somebody who's affected by somebody else's addiction. That's how rampant it is. And so many loved ones. Don't talk about this because they're so ashamed. They think we're the only ones and nobody's going to understand me. We understand you. We understand what's going on for you, and we know you need help, and we can give you that help it that's why we're here. It's our bliss to do that. So, so know that you're not alone. If you don't want to be you're not alone. The second thing is, please never give up. Never give up, don't quit five minutes before the miracle happens. Like saying goes, don't like keep going, keep trying. And I want to let people know that at level boundaries first my company love with boundaries we offer. And we're at love with boundaries.com, we offer a free 30 minute consultation, amazing where you can tell us what's going on for you, we'll tell you how we can help you, we'll see if we're a fit. You know, it's no obligation, no money, nothing. You just tell us if you need help. And what you need to do is fill out a questionnaire. And if you go to love with boundaries.com, you'll see that questionnaire it's right there on the homepage, and just fill it out and submit it and we're going to get back to right away because we know that addiction does not wait. I love it.

And you know, everybody that's listening, if you're walking right now or driving your car, don't panic, we're going to put all of tendances information into the show notes. Yeah, don't worry, you will be able to find her. We want to make sure that you are not is a generous offer. So any of you that are feeling that you might need support, or you're not sure if you do need support, and to Candice up on that, that free offer and connect with her. Yeah. It could change your life.

It could change your life. It could change your addicts life, they could keep your addict alive. Yeah.

It's a powerful analogy. All right, all the things. Oh, thank you so much Canvas from the bottom of my heart. And for all our listeners for being here. I appreciate you sharing not only your vulnerability and your own story, that those beautiful suggestions to help people move through this, you know, tragic and changeable situation that people are in.

Yeah. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be able to do that. And yeah, if you're if you're listening today, we're here. We're here for you.

Awesome. And thank you so much for listening, everyone. I appreciate you being here. We hope this has ignited some type of movement in your lives, whether it's to reach out to a friend that you see that might be suffering as somebody that is supporting an addict or two that you might be as well somebody that's in that codependency situation, do not hesitate to reach out you are not alone. We invite you to obviously come and check us out at your holistic earth and we encourage you to ignite the wellness warrior in you. Thanks so much for listening,

Fanstatic bye everyone.