Addiction
Seek Advice from Those Who’ve Gone Before You
Don’t go it alone when a loved one suffers from substance use disorder.
Posted November 15, 2022 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Too often, families try to solve the problem of a substance use disorder within the family system. When it comes to helping a loved one suffering from a substance use disorder or process addiction (food, gambling), find resources in those who have been where you are. There should be no shame or stigma in seeking outside help; if it were any other condition, you would seek the appropriate professionals without hesitation, and addiction should be treated no differently.
Unfortunately, families wait until all means have been exhausted, finances depleted, and emotions fraught with anxiety, fear, and hopelessness before the thought of seeking outside help is even entertained. It’s all the above coming together that drives the need to find something—anything—out there that can make a difference. Don’t wait.
There’s no doubt that family and friends have the best intentions regarding their loved one. Everything they have done in trying to convince their loved one to seek help, treatment, or recovery is out of love, care, and concern. The problem is that addiction is a cunning and baffling proposition. It’s likely the family members and friends are great people, proficient at their jobs, persuasive, resourceful, and effective in other areas of their lives. It becomes extremely frustrating and overwhelming when they can’t get their loved one on board to see what they see: the toll the addiction is taking on them and everyone around them.
By the time family and friends realize they’re not effective at making a difference in their loved one's destructive behaviors, they have become a nagging thorn in their side, giving them more ammunition to continue the use. They have likely lost all credibility with the addict. Not following through with consequences, having their expectations and boundaries walked all over, and giving ultimatums that have fallen apart all play into the addict carrying on with their destruction.
Emotions are high, tension is palpable, and resentments and anger make it impossible to deal effectively with their loved one. The loved one has simply stopped listening. They may placate the situation with false hope, manipulative tactics, or instilling fear, but their goal is not to change, while family and friends' goal is to motivate change. It can all become counterproductive. What starts as best intentions turns into continued and harmful outcomes.
This is why going it alone without help from outside the family often fails.
Ask anyone dealing with a loved one with a use disorder how many conversations they’ve had or avoided having in hopes they will seek help. Attempt after attempt, most will find themselves in a vicious cycle of exasperation and helplessness. On the flip side, when families engage other available resources, change can happen.
People outside the family dynamic are not emotionally charged or triggered, as are those close to the addict. They don’t have the history, the built-up resentments, or a relationship that has suffered. They are unbiased and have a neutral position when providing guidance, advice, or simply making suggestions that have worked for them or others.
To move a loved one suffering from a use disorder to change is a balance of helping them to see the difference between the path to their dream life and the path they are on.—a path that can lead to the happiness in life that they are trying to get out of a bottle or drug. When there is no shaming, blaming, or guilting, but rather compassion, empathy, and hope of not having to keep living the way they’ve been living, an addict can begin seeing things differently.
Often a family pleads for a change in behavior because of their own fears and the suffering the addiction inflicts on them. The goal is for the loved one to want to change for themselves.
Addicts give up everything for the one thing: their drug of choice. Sometimes it’s family and friends; sometimes it’s their hobbies or job; sometimes it’s even their freedom, having been hospitalized or jailed. When they can be moved to change, when they can give up the fight for their addiction, everything they’ve lost can be regained. Giving up the one thing makes everything else possible once again.
If I could change one thing a family goes through when dealing with an addicted loved one, it would be to reach out for help sooner. Ultimately, going it alone will cost you much more financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically than if you had support on your side to begin with. Families can avoid the mistakes that every person trying to help a loved one will inevitably make.
If you or someone you know suffers from substance use disorder or behavioral addiction, ask for help and engage someone who has gone before you. It’s never too soon and never something to be ashamed of to bring in someone that knows more than you do about addiction and recovering from it. Waiting guarantees prolonged agony for everyone involved and, unfortunately, can be the difference between life and death.
Here are some resources to get families the support they need:
• Go to 12-step meetings for families: Alanon (for families dealing with alcohol use), Nar-anon (for families dealing with drug use), or Families Anonymous.
• Find a sponsor in a 12-step meeting that you resonate with.
• Find a therapist or counselor that specializes in addiction.
• Find a family addiction coach.
• Join a Facebook group by searching “families and friends of addicts.”
• Find community resources by googling “help for families of addicts” in your area.
• Reach out to your place of worship; often the clergy is knowledgeable about addiction.
• Seek a professional that can intervene, especially if you are dealing with a life-or-death situation.
