Comments for How can I help my family?
Get Some Help for Yourself
You need to get some help first. Addiction to pills isn’t something you are going to change, but what you can do is learn about how to be helpful. You can call a drug treatment center and have a discussion with one of the counselors, or perhaps your personal physician. Alone you will not be effective, so you need to get non-addicted members of the family together and have a collective effort. Al-Anon can also help. You need to understand the nature of addiction to understand what they are experiencing. Arm yourself with useful knowledge, get a plan together, and execute that plan. As family members, we tend to just react to addiction, a kind of emotional reaction that isn’t helpful. We get mad, we blame and we go nowhere. Get help from a professional person and then move forward. Continue to love your family and let them know you care. But don’t give in to their addiction. Set rules, boundaries and stick to that. |