When someone you love needs addiction treatment  from a rehab for drug addicts, it’s hard to know what to do. By the time you see your loved one’s need for addiction treatment, it’s likely that addiction has already destroyed the person he or she was. You know that the only way to save your loved one, your family and even yourself is to get that person treatment.

Even though your loved one might resist the idea of going into an inpatient rehab at first, you should know that treatment can still be effective even if the addict was initially coerced into seeking help. Your loved one can succeed at treatment even if you take steps to force him or her into treatment against his or her objections.

Nevertheless, many friends and loved ones of drug addicts make mistakes when trying to get their loved one into rehab. If you know what these mistakes are, you can avoid them, and get your loved one the help he or she needs much sooner.

1) Not Educating Yourself About Addiction

Despite the fact that your loved one needs to enter a rehab for drug addicts, you – and the rest of your circle – may be suffering from some common misconceptions about addiction. Before you talk to your loved one about his or her problem, research treatment facilities or plan an intervention, your first step should be to educate yourself about the nature of addiction – and its effects on the friends and family members of addicts as well as the addicts themselves.

The best way to learn about addiction is to begin attending local support groups for the relatives and friends of addicts. Al-Anon is one such group. There, you can learn from the experiences of others who have been through the same situation. Other members can point you towards helpful books and other resources, and share with you their own insights about getting someone into a rehab for drug addicts.

2) Holding an Impromptu Intervention

An intervention is a valuable and important way to convince a loved one of the need to go to a rehab for drug addicts. However, it’s most effective if it’s carefully planned and orchestrated, usually with the help of a professional interventionist. An intervention that is not carefully planned is unlikely to have the desired effect.

To be effective, an intervention must be attended by all of the friends and relatives who are affected by, or concerned about, the addict’s drug use. During the intervention, each person must take the opportunity to express their concerns and explain to the addict how his or her drug use has affected them. You should also have a plan in place to get your loved one into a rehab for drug addicts immediately following the intervention, or be prepared to enact consequences – such as withdrawing financial support – if your loved one refuses to get help.

3) Being Judgmental About Rehab for Drug Addicts

It’s hard not to be judgmental when someone you love continues to abuse drugs or alcohol even as his or her life falls apart because of it. But your loved one has already experienced enough judgment, and heaping more judgment upon his or her head will only drive him or her away. Instead of passing judgment or falling back on philosophical or religious arguments, stick to painting a picture of how your loved one’s addiction hurts him or her, you, and others the addict loves.

4) Making Idle Threats

If you threaten consequences for your loved one if he or she doesn’t get help at a rehab for drug addicts, you have to be prepared to follow through with those consequences. If you make empty threats, the addict will think you’re not serious about getting him or her into addiction treatment. You’ll only encourage your loved one to keep using.

5) Not Supporting Your Loved One’s Recovery

Once you do get your loved one into an addiction treatment facility, it’s important to follow the advice of the treatment specialists. Many people think they know better than their doctors what’s good for them; don’t be one of those people. Assuming you choose a reputable facility, the treatment specialists know what’s best for your loved one.

This also means you should refuse any practical or emotional support that could help the addict stop treatment or backslide after leaving treatment. If your loved one decides to leave the rehab for drug addicts before his or her program ends, don’t pick him or her up or wire any money for travel expenses. Instead, encourage him or her to remain in treatment – and remind your loved one of the consequences you established at the intervention.

If you have a loved one who needs drug treatment, our counselors can help.

Call us today at 888-699-5679 to learn more about our programs. 

When someone close to you needs to go to a rehab for drug addicts and alcoholics, it can be difficult to know how to set appropriate boundaries. That’s because for an addict, drugs or alcohol is the most important thing. Feeding the need for drugs and alcohol is even more important to an addict than meeting the needs for food, water or shelter. For the addict, drugs and alcohol will always be more important than their relationships with friends and loved ones – at least, they will until the addict gets help from a rehab for drug addicts.

What can you, as the friend or loved one of an addict, do? While you can’t force your addicted friend or loved one to seek addiction help, healthy, strong boundaries can protect you from the emotional fallout of watching your loved one crash and burn. Good boundaries can also help you refrain from enabling the addict in your life, so that he or she might be more likely to eventually acknowledge the need to enter a rehab for drug addicts and alcoholics.

You Can’t Help Others Without First Helping Yourself

If you’re like many people watching a friend or loved one struggle with addiction, you probably want to do anything you can to help. Most people balk at the idea of setting limits with an addicted friend or loved one; they feel guilty for withholding whatever the addict might demand, whether that be time, money or practical assistance.

Believe us when we say that you’re not betraying your friend or loved one by setting healthy boundaries. Setting boundaries protects you from being taken advantage of, and keeps you healthy so that you can offer whatever assistance and support is within your means to provide. Without strong boundaries, you’ll soon find that you’re of little use to anyone, least of all yourself.

Decide Where Your Boundaries Are

When someone you love needs addiction help, it’s important that you decide what behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable. Study your interactions with the addicted person over the course of a few weeks or a month, and write down the behaviors that bother you.

A person who needs to go to a rehab for drug addicts and alcoholics may not behave very well, even towards those he or she has professed to love in the past. Don’t take it personally; it doesn’t mean your addicted friend or loved one doesn’t love you anymore. It just means that his or her addiction has taken over and is dictating his or her behavior. Your addicted loved one may be rude to you, make degrading remarks, be late frequently or even become abusive.

Take your time making this list; many behaviors from a person in need of rehab for drug addicts can fall into an ambiguous grey area where you’re not sure if they are tolerable or not. You need to be certain that you’re setting the right boundaries, because changing them later will only make you look like a person who can be pushed around, and the addict will seize on any weakness you show. In the process of making your list, take note of any frequent or recurring arguments you find yourself having with the addict.  Later on, you will want to sidestep these disputes as they arise.

Establish Consequences During Rehab for Drug Addicts

Once you’ve decided where your boundaries are, you’re going to need to enforce them. The first time your addicted loved one does something that violates your boundaries, let him or her know, and advise him or her that there will be consequences the next time it happens. These consequences shouldn’t be designed to punish the addict, but to protect yourself and stop any enabling behaviors.

For example, if you decide that you’ll no longer tolerate lateness, then an appropriate consequence could be to wait 15 minutes and then carry on with whatever you were doing without the addict. If you set a boundary around money and the addict violates it by, for example, withdrawing money from a joint checking account without permission or spending money earmarked for another purpose on drugs, an appropriate consequence would closing the account and opening another that does not bear the addict’s name, or refusing to give the addict any more money. Consequences such as these minimize the damage the addict is able to do to your own life, while hopefully encouraging him or her to see the need to enter a rehab for drug addicts.

If you or someone you love is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, our rehab for drug addicts and alcoholics can help.

Call The Delray Center for Healing today at 888-699-5679.