When you love someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, it can be very difficult to know how to help them. You want to provide assistance to a friend or a family member, but everything feels futile. With someone who is struggling to stay sober, it is actually very clear. The person either truly wants to stop using drugs and alcohol or they don’t. If the person you love does want to get sober and live a happier, healthier life, then you can help them. But you can’t make someone change who doesn’t want to change. Below are some ways you can offer help to someone with addiction without enabling them.
Participate in an Intervention
Whether you plan the intervention or participate in it, one way that you can help is by simply sharing your thoughts and opinions. When there is someone in your life struggling with drugs or alcohol, there are often other people who are worried about them too. If you can get together with these people and confront the person abusing substances, you will be able to share what you actually think and believe.
Once you do that, the person will either agree that they need professional help or deny the situation and continue down their path. If they refuse help, there isn’t much you can do. However, if the person knows they need assistance you can continue helping them.
Research Addiction Treatment Facilities
When the person has stopped denying and admits that they need help, there are still things you can do. First, you can research addiction treatment facilities. When you are looking for a rehab center, there are a few things to think about. What is the person addicted to?
There is specialized opiate treatment, alcohol treatment, upper treatment, and more. The location also matters. Where will they need to go to treatment? Will they need to be near their family? Or should they get away for a while. Whatever the case, researching addiction treatment facilities is another way you can help the person going through this in your life.
Determine The Appropriate Treatment Modality
Beyond specialized treatment, there are various recovery modalities to choose from. Does the person need inpatient treatment, or will outpatient suffice? Inpatient is when the person goes in for about a month to get treatment. This is the classic rehab experience you are probably familiar with. Here they can safely detox, start counseling, and begin going to meetings.
Outpatient treatment is a similar regimen, but it allows people to go home to sleep. Sometimes the outpatient asks the person to come in every day, but there is still room to continue working and living life. This is for the functional person who needs to go home to their work and families.
Next, dual diagnosis treatment is when a facility doesn’t just provide treatment for the addiction but for underlying mental health issues as well. A large portion of the people struggling with substance abuse also have a disorder or trauma. If this type of treatment could be helpful to your loved one, a great way to help is to inform them about dual diagnosis centers.
Take Them to 12-Step Meetings
Even after rehab, a lot of people still need support, stay sober and live a rewarding life. Many people coming out of rehab can’t drive or don’t have a car. One way you can help them without enabling is to take the person to 12-step meetings. These meetings are credited for keeping thousands of people sober. If they don’t have another way to attend these in-person meetings, taking them there is a good way to help.
A few things you shouldn’t do is give the person money or offer shelter when they have not stopped using drugs or alcohol. It may not be enabling to help a person who is committed to sobriety by offering them a place to stay, but if you find out they’ve been using again the right thing is to kick them out. It’s difficult to know when to help someone who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, but if you follow these tips and broaden out from there you will have a better idea how and when to help.