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7 Tips for Helping Someone with an Addiction

If your loved one or close relative is experiencing drug addiction, you may wonder how you can assist. Once you’ve made up your mind to help someone struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, remember that your support and commitment are crucial. 

This article explores various effective strategies you can employ to help a loved one, workmate, or friend in need of substance abuse help. Also, you can reach out to Mcshin Foundation about how to get drug addiction help.

Take Care of Yourself First

Problems resulting from substance abuse are chronic. They not only affect those abusing them, but also their friends and family. 

Most people take upon them the problems faced by an addict as their own. Although this may be a good thing, they may neglect their own, increasing illness and lack of self-care. Others may even struggle with anxiety and depression, which builds resentment and strain. It can be hard helping someone who has contributed to the tremendous difficulty in your life.

Focusing on your well-being is an essential step to helping the addict. By putting your physical, spiritual, and emotional needs in order, you empower yourself to better care for your close ones throughout recovery.

Educate Yourself About Addiction

The more informed you are on matters concerning addiction, the better tools you have for helping your loved one. The drug addiction recovery process may be unique for your loved one or based on an assigned level of care. Therefore, the required treatment should be tailored to their needs.

Understand the addict’s disease process. Learn more about recovery programs, treatment methods, interventions, and substance use disorders. You may have feelings of fear, worry, and anger seeing your friend or loved one addicted to substances, but knowledge empowers you to understand more about their condition.

Expect Difficulties

More are times when you have to overcome difficulties in your attempt to help a close friend or loved one. Some can fail to admit their problem in the first place. And when they do, most would prefer their comfort bubble instead of opting for solutions. Also, some addicts usually feel embarrassed discussing their addiction with others. They may even find it awkward to admit personal issues to a counselor or doctor. 

But you must understand there is no magic pill for helping an addict. The remedy comes from great effort and support. Remember, dealing with an addict can be frustrating at times. But they are human. So, avoid treating them as outcasts. It can build walls between you and hold them back from actively seeking help.

It can Be a Life-Long Process

More often than not, recovery is a gradual process with challenges. The patient may slip back into using alcohol or drugs in the first year of treatment. In fact, a study shows that 2 out of 3 recovering patients relapse in their first recovery year.

But they overcome relapse with time. In the meantime, don’t perceive relapse as an indication of failure but a call for an alternative treatment method.

Get Specialty Help

Start by getting individual counseling to support yourself. For financial or legal help, you can reach out to covered legal aid providers. Also, call the United Way or your local Mental Health Agency for leads to organizations that offer similar services on a sliding scale fee.

Counseling can be beneficial to both the addict and yourself. The more you can manage your own concerns, the better you can help your loved one overcome addiction.

Establish Trust

It’s hard to rebuild and maintain trust after a close friend or loved one betrays it. But to make them think of change, you must engineer trust both ways. First, watch out for trust destroyers such as name-calling, yelling (and exaggerating), criticizing, nagging (and lecturing), or pursuing addictive behaviors yourself.

Trust goes both ways. You can’t put up with unhealthy behaviors yourself and expect to establish trust. Also, understand you may be working from a different perspective than the individual struggling with addiction. While you may genuinely try to help, they may feel you are attempting to manipulate and control them.

Communicate Effectively

Be eager to learn the various available ways to communicate with loved ones battling drug or alcohol addiction. That way, you can effectively let them know the consequences of their actions and help them desire to recover from addiction too. 

Remember, it’s up to the drug addict to decide to change. You can influence this decision through honest and nonthreatening communication. Try as much as possible to avoid confrontation and blaming.

Christopher Stern

Christopher Stern is a Washington-based reporter. Chris spent many years covering tech policy as a business reporter for renowned publications. He has extensive experience covering Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commissions. He is a graduate of Middlebury College. Email:[email protected]

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