Drug addiction can seem like a vague problem that only affects “other people” somewhere out there in society. It gets a lot more real (and a lot scarier) when it is happening to someone in your own family. When someone in your family is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you want to know what you can do to get them to stop. Here are five steps to helping a family member with addiction.
Knowing that you’re not overreacting
If you’re even asking yourself if your family member is addicted, the odds are that she is. The signs that you’ve noticed and the behavior that is worrying you are not “normal” if they are bothering you. In order to help yourself know for sure, you can research the symptoms of abuse for various types of drugs and then compare them to the behavior you’ve seen. Then you’ll have a lot more certainty as to what’s going on.
Identifying the problem early and bringing it up
It’s better to bring up a drug abuse problem early and start to address it sooner rather than later. Every day that you wait to “see if things get better” is another day that your loved one is hurting herself with toxic drugs. After you are certain that drugs or alcohol are responsible for her condition, it’s time to bring the subject up. Set aside a time that you can both sit down and talk the issue over.
Focusing on help when bringing up addiction
When you discuss a drug or alcohol problem with a drug addict, it’s vital that you focus on help. You need your family member to understand that you are not just being critical of her or naming her faults. You’re talking to her because you love her and want to see her get healthy again. When you focus on this improvement, there is a much greater chance that your family member will listen to you and not shut you out.
Getting the addict into rehab
The focus of your talk needs to be on getting your family member into rehab. Just asking her to quit will not prove very effective in most cases. Most addicts have actually tried to quit many times and been unsuccessful. Addiction is a complex physical and mental process, so it’s very hard to just stop using the drugs that you’re craving every day.
This is where Narconon Arrowhead can help. It’s a world-leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that has addiction specialists on hand to help. If you need someone to help talk to your family member, Arrowhead counselors are standing by.
Helping with aftercare
Getting your family member into rehab is just the first part of an effective journey back to sobriety. After completing treatment at a center like Narconon Arrowhead, your family member will still need to work hard and apply what she has learned in rehab to the rest of her post-rehab life. This is the process of aftercare. Modern rehabilitation treatment procedures recognize that what you do after rehab is over is just as important as the treatment you receive at the center.
In order to help with aftercare, you can talk to the counselors at the rehab center and find out what their recommendations are for keeping your family member sober. They may want you to help your family member check in on a regular basis. They could probably also use your help in making sure that she isn’t associating with drug users she knew before rehab. Whatever their recommendations are, help your family member follow them in order to stay clean!