Advice please
If you have a family member with an addiction problem that is affecting the entire family, as well as themselves, and their job..etc
How do you get them to get help? When rational conversation hasn't worked. Do you have to wait until they are ready? Do you have to watch them hit rock bottom (and take the family with them..again)? Do you give them an ultimatum? And if so, how? Without causing resentment or having the opposite of intended effects?
If the drug problem relates to underlying issues (don't they all?) with things like depression...is the depression the key?
What can spur some action? Help me please, its getting impossible to deal with, or work around or make excuses for. I can't take it anymore - it needs to stop.
I don't know the cir****tances you are dealing with, so I will share my experience.
1. My younger son came home from college addicted to heroin. I told him flat out that I would get him treatment, but he could not use while living in my home. I spent months getting him outpatient treatment, as well as inpatient treatment. When he got arrested for possession months later, I kicked him out.
2. One possibility that has worked for some families is a family meeting with a family therapist, with the addicted family member.
3. An ultimatum is usually what is necessary. If the person does not get treatment, then show them the door.
Addiction is not pretty, but it is something that can be dealt with. There are treatment facilities that offer both inpatient and outpatient programs. There are 12 Step programs for maintaining recovery once it is achieved. If a person has an underlying issue, a therapist will not even address it until the person is no longer actively using the drugs or alcohol. So, a person MUST get treatment first.
For family members there is Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, which offers support and encouragement to the loved ones of alcoholics and addicts.
If you would like to PM me, I can speak more specifically.
Trish
1. My younger son came home from college addicted to heroin. I told him flat out that I would get him treatment, but he could not use while living in my home. I spent months getting him outpatient treatment, as well as inpatient treatment. When he got arrested for possession months later, I kicked him out.
2. One possibility that has worked for some families is a family meeting with a family therapist, with the addicted family member.
3. An ultimatum is usually what is necessary. If the person does not get treatment, then show them the door.
Addiction is not pretty, but it is something that can be dealt with. There are treatment facilities that offer both inpatient and outpatient programs. There are 12 Step programs for maintaining recovery once it is achieved. If a person has an underlying issue, a therapist will not even address it until the person is no longer actively using the drugs or alcohol. So, a person MUST get treatment first.
For family members there is Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, which offers support and encouragement to the loved ones of alcoholics and addicts.
If you would like to PM me, I can speak more specifically.
Trish
Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
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