Understanding How To Get Someone Into Drug Addiction Treatment
What's In This Article?
If you’ve never lived it, it can be difficult to understand the how and why people become drug addicts. If you have lived it, you know the pain and the suffering everyone involved experiences People may think that drug users lack moral principles and willpower and that they can stop using drugs simply by choosing to. It almost always requires some form of professional treatment, so how can you help your loved one seek effective drug addiction treatment?
Quitting when you have an addiction takes more than just strong will and good intentions. The path of recovery from addiction is long and difficult which certainly effects those closest to you. This article is to help you to better understand a few things which can aid you in helping a loved one who’s suffering. You can learn specific ways to help a loved one get drug addiction treatment.
Support Your Loved Ones
If your loved one is using drugs, it can cause an enormous amount of stress and conflict. It might make you feel worried, helpless and frustrated which is completely normal while the drug user might act violent or detached.
In such situations, not everyone knows how to behave around them and how or when to talk to them. All of this might affect your family relations, and this is not going to be easy. Certain strategies can help you convince your loved one to seek the proper drug addiction treatment that they need.
Recognize the Signs of Addiction
As a family member or friend, it is important to have a look and recognize the signs of addiction which can differ according to the drug type he/she is dealing with.
Many people tend to hide their addiction rather well at first. However, some signs are visible. These visible signs that you might identify as meaning your loved one needs drug addiction treatment include:
- Behavioral changes which include things like stealing, lying, becoming suddenly and unreasonably angry
- Distancing themselves from friends
- Quitting work or social activities
- Physical changes like tiredness, bloodshot eyes, memory problems and weight fluctuations.
Have Some Knowledge About Risks
Make it a point to know about the degree of drug dependence that your family member might have, it may be mild or a more severe compulsive dependency (addiction). The following are specific tips:
- Knowing the degree and severity of the dependency can aid in decision making.
- A mild drug problem can sometimes be solved with a family intervention
- On the more severe side, rehab services and medication might be needed before any progress can be made.
- Learn about drugs and their effects to understand the situation of the person using it which can help you assess the risks to the drug user and to those around them.
Try to Talk About Problem
Before talking to your loved one about seeking drug addiction treatment, first talk about the problem itself, and do it with care from a place of concern, not in an argumentative way from a place of judgment.
- It’s common to be anxious to approach someone because of the uncertainty of their reaction, but it could be life-changing for them and you as well.
- Remember to be compassionate and empathetic and ask about their thoughts about getting help.
- One reason why addiction is so difficult to treat and manage is that the addicts refuse to confront their problem and remain in denial. Worst comes to worst, they may start avoiding you and shut themselves away from you.
Be Compassionate
Here the question arises, what should you do in case of avoidance?
- Be compassionate. If you are harsh and blunt, they may feel more cut off and alone. This can cause stress and anxiety leading to an inverse reaction of what you wanted, further hindering getting drug addiction treatment.
- With love, compassion, and care you can motivate them to seek help.
- They will slowly start feeling comfortable enough to open up to you and will hopefully understand how you might be affected because of their actions.
When doing an intervention with multiple members, it’s important that everyone in attendance understands this.
Encourage a Healthy Lifestyle
You should take care of yourself, be positive and have lots of patience as tough as it might be. Common signs of addiction are poor hygiene, declined mental and physical health.
Encourage the affected person to seek help for their health issues will make them realize that how significantly addiction is affecting their life.
Overall, establishing an encouraging and healthy eating environment and exercise can help them realize to have a healthy lifestyle as well as to seek treatment.
Breaking the Chains of Denial
Most of the time addicts do not accept that they have a disease. An intervention can assist them in seeing how much this addiction is affecting all those around them.
Bringing some of their friends and family together to help them realize the significance of the problem and how it affects those around as well themselves, can be a liberating light in an addicts life.
Everyone says whatever they want to but in a supportive setting to make them realize their denial. This can be the first step towards treatment.