Avoiding Mistakes When a Family Member Needs Help With Addiction

When you find out that a family member is struggling with addiction, as crucial as it is to do the right thing, it is equally important not to do the wrong thing. In other words, there are plenty of mistakes that you want to avoid that will exacerbate the situation.

A few mistakes that can happen include sending a family member to a rehab clinic that’s not a good fit. One example could be sending them to one that is too far away and might potentially make them feel isolated. For instance, if you lived in or close to Abilene, TX you might potentially search for a local rehab center to help your loved ones, so they don’t feel isolated from you all of a sudden. Other problems can be, acting with judgment rather than acceptance, misunderstanding the stages of loss and grief that a person can be going through, or even possibly just ignoring the problem entirely and hoping it will go away. Doing any of those things can easily make a situation worse.

Choose Good Outpatient Services

Not all rehab clinics are a great fit for people struggling with addiction. There are many considerations to finding the appropriate place for a family member to go. There’s always the budget consideration. And then there’s the fact where some rehab clinics have good outpatient services, whereas others don’t have that option. If you end up picking a rehab clinic that doesn’t suit a particular person, then you’re wasting time, money, and even emotional credit instead of finding a reliable solution to the issue.

Act Without Judgment

One of the worst things that you can do to an addict is judging them openly and personally. Every person is going through different struggles, and they don’t need to hear anyone tell them that they’re a bad person because of what they’re doing. Chances are they already know there’s trouble. You need to treat addicts, especially family members, with acceptance first, and then move from there to try to figure out what the root cause of their addictive behavior is. Speaking and acting with judgment is the quickest way to have someone turn away from you.

Understand the Stages of Loss

A lot of times, addictive behavior comes from loss and grief. And one mistake that many people make is that they don’t understand what the stages of loss and grief are. They can misinterpret all sorts of different parts of someone’s behavior, which leads directly to potential miscommunication and the breaking of bonds between family members.

Don’t Ignore the Problem

One thing that you need to avoid as well is ignoring the problem altogether. If you see that a family member is struggling with something, you need to make it a point to talk to them about it. Maybe if you catch them early enough, it won’t turn into an addiction that’s hard to fight. Many people are good at masking their problems as well, which is why family intervention is even that much more important. Family members at least have a better gauge of when people are acting peculiarly.