August 18 2020

How to Help an Addict Seeking Help

Do you have a loved one or someone you know who is suffering from addiction’s powerful effects? Do you want to help an addict that you know? Is your life in turmoil because someone you love has a habit?

What to do and where to turn for help can be a very tricky subject. It seems confusing to find the best way to deal with the chaos surrounding everything addiction touches. If you are not sure if what you are doing is helpful, harmful, or just making things worse, let’s read a little more about helping an addict during this terrifying time in life. If you are struggling with addiction, do not hesitate. Call us today at (614)502-6247. Our team of experts is here, and we want to help you start on your road to recovery.

Should You Get Involved?

When deciding if you should speak to your friend, you may have some concerns, such as:

Fear or mixed feelings about getting involved in someone else’s life. Remember, addiction is a leading cause of death.
You believe someone else will say something. But it is important not to wait for someone else to step up.
You may feel hurt by your friend’s past actions or behaviors. So, it is crucial to take responsibility for your feelings too.

Talking to Your Loved Ones

The following can help you talk with your friend:

Do not try to talk when your friend is drunk or high.
Meet in a neutral place. But not at a bar or any area else that serves alcohol.
Talk about the effect your friend’s drinking or drug use is based on what the person cares about most, such as children or careers. Your friend may not be concerned about his or her situation. But they may care deeply for their children and what the problem may be doing to them.
Be aware of treatment or recovery resources available in your community.
If your friend does not want to get treatment, then talk with other people who know and care about your friend to see if they have other ideas.

Do you need help figuring out how to talk to someone you love about their addiction? Call us today, and our specialists will provide you with all of the information you need. Get your friends and family the help they need today.

Having a Hard Time Dealing with Addiction?

It is stressful to watch someone you love and care about suffer from drug use. The addict’s behavior can be erratic, and talking to them about their problem is challenging. While those with addiction suffer from the habit itself, the chemical dependency, family members of the addict suffer the addiction’s effects. Here are some tips on how you can help an addict:

Learn about the effects of drugs — this will help you understand why quitting can be challenging.
Show that you care without judging — being calm and respectful may encourage them to be open and honest with you.
Be positive and encouraging rather than cynical and nagging — remember relapses may happen, but they do not mean the person cannot try again and succeed.
Offer practical support — sometimes just being there is enough, but you can offer to go with them to parties or join them for a walk or run.

Interventions

An intervention is a carefully planned process that helps family and friends realize they need help. Interventions are best performed in consultation with a doctor or professional, such as a licensed alcohol and drug counselor. However, having it directed by an intervention professional (interventionist) can also be beneficial.

Interventions involve a member of your loved one’s family or others who care about the person. During the intervention, these people gather to confront a loved one about addiction’s consequences and ask them to accept treatment.

The Intervention Process:

It provides specific examples of destructive behaviors also how this impacts the individual with the addiction and the effects on the family and friends.
It offers a prearranged treatment plan with exact steps, goals, and guidelines for the addict to follow.
Spells out what each person will do if your loved one refuses to accept treatment.
A successful intervention needs planning to work correctly. A poorly designed intervention can worsen the situation — the addicted individual may feel attacked and become isolated or resistant to treatment.
The intervention professional can help you determine appropriate members of your team.

Interventions Should Not Include Anyone Who:

The addicted individual dislikes
Has a mental health issue or substance abuse problem
Is not able to limit what he or she says to what you agreed on during the plan of intervention
Might sabotage the intervention

How to plan a successful intervention to help an addict

Stage a rehearsal intervention
Anticipate your loved one’s objections
Do not hold an intervention on the spur of the moment.
Appoint a single person to act as a liaison
Stay on track during the intervention.
Plan the time of the intervention
Ask for an immediate decision.
Avoid confrontation
Be honest and open
Do your homework
Share information
Remain firm

If you need more information about interventions, call us today. Our experts will be able to provide you with the right tools to help your loved ones. Call us today, and we can help you get your friends and family into rehab and get them the help they deserve.

Key Things to Discuss

It is essential to tell individuals struggling with addiction that you admire their courage for tackling this through treatment. Also, if they stick with the treatment plan, then you will offer encouragement and support. Be sure to include that when residential treatment is over, they will have to re-enter the community, and it will be a difficult time. Be aware of ways that you can help an addict during their integration back into society.

There will be triggers everywhere that could promote a relapse. For instance, driving by places where the person once took drugs. Also, seeing old friends who possibly provided those drugs. You can encourage your friend to avoid these triggers, and you can try to help identify those triggers. However, people addicted to drugs have to fight much of this struggle on their own, without the help and advice of friends, using the knowledge and skills learned in treatment. Offer as much love and support. You can if your loved one continues to follow the treatment plan. If the patient relapses, you should encourage additional treatment.

Understanding Addiction More Clearly

Many people cannot help the addict because they do not understand. They do not know why or how other people become addicted to drugs. Often people mistakenly think that those who use drugs lack moral principles. Also that they could stop their drug use if they choose to. However, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting takes more than good intentions or a strong will.

People are significantly more likely to have negative attitudes toward those dealing with drug addiction than those with mental illness. Many generally do not support housing, insurance, and employment policies that will benefit those dependent or previously dependent on drugs.

Understand addictions more clearly. Call us today and talk to a professional about your addiction. You can even speak to them about someone else that has a habit. We will provide you with what you need to get on the road to sobriety.

What is Enabling and Codependency Traits?

Enabling is doing things for others that they should do for themselves. When you allow those with addiction, it prevents them from being able to recover. Even though you mean well by helping with things such as:

Doing laundry
Preparing meals
Allowing the person to live with you

You may inadvertently be showing support for continued active addiction. Codependency happens when one person is so entangled in someone else’s life that the person loses his or her identity and sense of self-worth. No one has the power to change another person. The individual must choose to change.

Addiction Affects More People Than You Think

The number of drug users has surged. More Americans now die each year from overdoses than perished in the Vietnam, Afghan, and Iraq wars combined. And that does not account for the way drug addiction has ripped apart families. More than two million children in America live with a parent suffering from an illicit-drug dependency.

By some estimates, nearly half of Americans have a family member or close friend enmeshed in addiction. Do you know someone suffering from addiction? Are you suffering from addiction? Call us today, and we can help you get into the right treatment program for you and your needs. Do not wait. Call us today and start your happier and healthier life now.

Love Up or Lock Down?

Seattle is undertaking what feels like the beginning of a historic course correction, with other cities discussing how to follow. If the experiment in Seattle succeeds, we will have a chance to rescue America from our own failed policies.

In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It relies less on the criminal justice system to deal with addicts and hard drugs and more on public health care programs. Anyone caught in Seattle with a small number of drugs — even heroin — is not typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help for their addiction.

In September 2018, some Seattle prosecutors announced they would no longer prosecute less than one gram of drugs, even cocaine, and heroin (one gram is more than a simple user would usually have at any one time). Put in practice, this means that dealers still get arrested, but not ordinary users.

This method is becoming the new preference to help an addict among public health experts. Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally. It takes courage and vision to adopt this approach: a partial retreat in the war on drugs combined with a stepped-up campaign to help those with addiction to recover.

Overcoming addiction is tough, and no approach has yet to eradicate drug use. Maybe that should not surprise us. We have been wrestling with alcoholism for thousands of years, and we still have not solved that issue.

Convicted of a Drug Offense in Ohio

If you are convicted of a drug offense in Ohio, you face several consequences. The harshest penalties you face are jail time and fines. Your driver’s license may even be suspended or revoked if you are convicted of a drug offense.

If you hold a professional license such as a law license, medical license, or nursing license, you could permanently or permanently lose it. Additionally, you will have a permanent criminal record as a drug offender. Having a criminal record with a drug charge can make it harder to get a job, find housing, and get into higher education programs.

Ohio law differentiates possession and aggravated possession of controlled substances based on the type of drug you possessed. Aggravated possession of drugs is a felony but can vary in degree based on the amount in possession.

Reducing Criminal Penalties for Drug Possession

A common fear is that decriminalizing drugs would lead to more drug dependency and crime. There is no indication this is true. Data from the U.S. and around the world suggest that treating addiction as a health issue instead of a criminal one is a more successful way of saving lives and keeping our communities healthy and safe. Reducing criminal penalties for drug possession will:

Increase uptake into drug treatment.
Provide for treatment for addicted individuals instead of scaring them further with a criminal background.
Prioritize health and safety over punishment for people who use drugs.
Reduce the stigma associated with drug use so that problematic drug users are encouraged to seek treatment and other support.
Remove barriers and enable more access to harm reduction programs such as medicated assisted treatment.
Free up law enforcement resources to be used in more appropriate ways.
Save money by reducing prison, jail costs, and population numbers.

We are Hereto Help You, Not to Hurt You.

In the future, we need to work together to seek better laws and government policies in favor of treatment rather than incarceration. As we push for better successes in Ohio, these new ideas can bring lasting positive changes in every state across the U.S.

In short, addiction affects everyone, not just the addict. Help yourself and your community as you help an addict. Isn’t it high time we all get the help we need? If you agree, then call us today. We are here to help everyone in your community, even you. We promise to provide you a judgment-free zone. Never feel embarrassed or ashamed. We are here to help you. We know that addiction affects everyone, and we want to help you. No matter your situation.

How to Help (or Hurt) an Addict Seeking Help

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