When a loved one is addicted

Addiction is hard on family members. It’s also difficult for friends or anyone close to the person addicted. It might seem hopeless, like the person doesn’t want help, but, even if the addicted person won’t get help, the family member or significant other can get help.

Most times when someone has a friend or family member who has an addiction problem, they’re confused — no matter what they do to help, it gets worse. It might get better for a while, only to go down hill again creating another round of disappointment, anger, sadness, confusion, etc. You want to help the addicted person, but you don’t know what helps and what hurts. Often, it becomes so frustrating you just want to give up, but then you remember the person they were before the drinking or drug use got so bad, and you feel you have to try. They’re killing themselves, but what do you do?

There’s help available. There are treatment facilities or individual therapists who can help. Family members and friends of an addicted person can get sick, too, just from the craziness of dealing with the ups and downs and irrationality of addiction. So, first, you have to help yourself. If everyone in the family gets sick from dealing with addiction, it spirals downward. Getting help for yourself enables you to deal more confidently with the problem. Understanding addiction and recovery goes a long ways toward finding solutions. Understanding how certain reactions cause consequences allows you to avoid the traps of addiction and the emotional entanglements that so easily wrap you up in a ball of frustration.

There are also self help groups like Al-Anon and Nar-Anon where family members of addicted loved ones help one another with the madness. These groups are valuable because you’re talking with people who’ve experienced and are now living with recovered loved ones or they’re still dealing with the problem.