When someone you love suffers from substance abuse, it can feel like your world is ending. How can you help them? What will happen to their future? How do we stop this spiral before it’s too late?
These are just some of the questions running through a loved one’s mind when they discover that someone they care about is struggling with drug addiction. Fortunately, there are ways to support a friend or family member who is in recovery from substances. You can play an essential role in their journey by being supportive, non-judgmental and willing to listen whenever necessary.
Read on for some useful suggestions on how you can help them through the process of drug recovery – and hopefully save their life in the process.
1. Offer Your Unconditional Love and Support
First and foremost, you need to show your loved one that you love them, no matter what. Whether it’s a child, parent, partner or friend who has been using substances, you need to keep your love for them strong no matter what.
No one deserves to feel alone or unloved, and this is what your loved one needs from you at this time. When they feel loved and supported, it makes it much easier for them to want to get clean, because they know they have people in their life who care about them no matter what.
2. Don’t Shame or Judge
It can be hard, but one of the best things you can do for your loved one is to not judge them for their substance use. Don’t shame them for the substances they’ve been taking, or the choices they’ve been making. Don’t make them feel ashamed for the path their life has taken up to this point.
Instead, try to understand where they are coming from. What led them to this place in their life? What have been some of the biggest challenges they have faced in their life that have led them to make these choices? Don’t judge them for the mistakes that they’ve made, but do try to understand why they made these choices in the first place.
When you fully understand why someone is using substances, it becomes much easier for you to help them stop.
3. Help them Find a Counselor
Helping your loved one find a counselor who specializes in addiction can go a long way. A counselor can help your loved one find the root cause of their addiction and put a plan in place to overcome it once and for all. The counselor will also be able to help your loved one through the challenges of drug addiction and help them to find the strength inside themselves to get clean. On the other hand, if the patients feel shy about the physical consultation with doctors, they can always consider having consultations in the digital world with the help of an online suboxone clinic near me.
4. Show Them There is Hope
Your loved one may be feeling hopeless right now. They may feel as if they are alone, that no one cares about them, and that they have no one to turn to. They may feel ashamed of the path their life has taken up to this point.
You can show them there is hope by helping them to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let them know that you are there for them, that there are many others who care about them and want to help them get clean.
This will give them the strength they need to get clean and stay clean for good.
5. Don’t Enable Their Behaviour
One of the worst things you can do for your loved one during drug recovery is to enable their behaviour. What do we mean by this? Well, you don’t want to give them money to buy substances, you don’t want to let them live in your home if they aren’t getting clean, and you don’t want them to be around other people who are using substances.
In Conclusion
Recovering from a drug addiction is challenging. It takes time, effort, and support from loved ones to get there. If you have a loved one in your life who needs help getting clean, you can support them and speed up the recovery process by observing the tips highlighted above.
