You’re a good parent, a loving spouse, a decent boss, a fair judge, or a caring therapist. You took psychology in college. You learned that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement. Therefore, you reason, all you need to do is reward your loved one when he does well. Give him love and praise when he spends time with his family, when he takes out the garbage, when he saves for a rainy day, when he racks up the clean time; then he’ll naturally stop doing drugs, gambling at the casino, running up the credit card bill, running around with other women, and getting hammered every time you turn around. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. But you don’t know addiction; or, if you do, you haven’t thought it out.
Your praise, your rewards, your love, your kindness, your convincing rationale, your unconditional positive regard, is never, ever going to be enough. You’re competing with crack cocaine, with crystal meth, with heroin, with hitting it big at the blackjack table, with a big sale at the shoe store, with passionate sex with a new conquest, with a good buzz. Do you know what you’re up against? Do you think gold stars are better than that?
The only thing that can challenge addiction is pain.
You don’t have to provide the pain. Addiction and its consequences will provide plenty of pain. You just have to get out of the way. Stop covering for them. Stop taking the pain yourself. If the kids are too noisy for him when he’s hung over; then you don’t need to save him from them, there’s a negative consequence that provides the pain.
So, does this mean that, with enough pain, your loved one will be motivated to do something against their addiction? Do you need to become a hard ass and practice tough love?
Wrong again, addiction continues on its merry way, despite all the pain. Addiction will use the pain as an excuse to keep doing what it was doing. For any normal person, losing big at the casino, getting hungover, being arrested for a DWI, losing their job, getting kicked out of the house, or winding up in jail would be a reason to stop doing what they are doing. For an addicted person, it’s a reason to get high.
You see the result of over-applied negative consequences when you walk on city streets and look at who’s living there. The streets abound with homeless, abandoned people, in plenty of pain. The hope is, if they hit bottom hard enough, they’ll be motivated to do something about their addiction.
I’ve seen it, I’ve tried it, and I can tell you, it doesn’t work. If the person ever does become motivated, he then lacks the hope and the resources to follow through with recovery. If you’re thinking of kicking your loved one out of the house, so that he’s homeless, because it’s not safe to live with him, that’s one thing. If you’re doing it because you think it’ll motivate him, that’s different. It won’t. The person needs certain essentials if he’s ever going to fight addiction. They need good food, clean water, a healthy environment, and a roof over their heads. They need to be safe and have access to healthcare. Because people are social creatures, they need to be surrounded by people who aren’t afraid to connect with them. Because people are self-aware, they need to have a sense of dignity and purpose to their lives. Take away any of these, and you cripple their ability to change.
Positive reinforcement is not enough to motivate a person to recover from addiction. But neither is pain. They need both. The suffering addict needs a reason to stop doing what he’s doing and the resources to stop doing it.
Keith R Wilson is a mental health counselor in private practice and the author of three self-help books, three novels, and innumerable articles.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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