How to Help a Family Member to Get to Rehab?
You have long suspected it. Your husband has not taken you out to dinner in ages because every moment he is off work he is drinking. Your teenager has stopped seeing the friends he grew up with and the new group of friends he is seeing has you feeling uncomfortable. Your wife is hard to live with when she is running low or out of her prescription medication, although the injury she was on meds for happened well over a year ago and she has been given a clean bill of health. Your brother calls from jail or some motel room, strung out yet again and asking you to help him out.
So how do you help a family get to rehab? Enabling the addiction, fighting non stop, none of this is helping. You feel like you can not do it alone yet you do not think you can take another day like so many before it. There is good news. You are not alone.
Call the helpline. That is your first step. Speak to our counselor. Let him or her know that you are concerned about your family member. The counselor has heard your story before which is GOOD NEWS because you are not alone. You are not just a statistic and the counselor will most likely advise you to set up an intervention. This is where a group of you will talk to the family member with the addiction. A professional counselor will more than likely be there in order to oversee that it is done in the most positive yet straightforward way possible. A discussion filled with love and concern without the accusations and yelling that often occurs in these family battles.
The intervention will be gone over thoroughly with you before your family member is addressed. It could even be rehearsed. The important thing is that you are able to come together to let the family member know it is out of love and concern and that it is not a ganging up situation. Interventions are commonly used because the ultimate goal is getting the family member into rehab and by having a heartfelt discussion without a lot of accusations, in an environment of trust, with a professional counselor who knows how to proceed is the best route for most families.
Call the helpline and get started on getting your family member to a drug rehab centre. This time next year you could very well be celebrating a new life, a new lifestyle and the old family member that you loved and knew was hidden somewhere in that controlled addict.
