If someone from your loved ones got into the network of drug addiction, then you can’t avoid confusion, new questions and tasks, the solution of which may not come immediately. There are many books written by narcologists, psychotherapists, and drug addicts themselves. But there are several main guidelines, adhering to which, it will be easier for you to help your relative.
Helping an addict can be divided into two stages: before and after treatment. Until you persuade him to be treated, while he denies the presence of addiction or claims that this is not a problem for him, your position should be extremely tough. As soon as you find out that your child, brother or spouse is using drugs, talk to him about it. Do not read the notations, but ask him, try to understand his position. What does he think about it? What are his plans? Is he going to be treated?
Of course, you arrive in shock, but scandals will only aggravate the situation. Addiction is not a one-time misconduct, but a chronic disease with its premises, symptoms and consequences. Unfortunately, she is not being treated with health stories and attempts to inform her. If a person is not yet ripe for treatment, do not drag him by force to expensive clinics and to quack magicians.
You can inject a medicine that relieves withdrawal and removes the drug from the body, but you cannot inject the thought into the addict’s head that he should stop using drugs. And even more so, there is no pill that will give him the will to refuse the desired potion. So what can you do? Be extremely tough. Gather your own will into a fist, tell loved ones about your problem. Explain to them that they must be careful with money, let them not lend, do not help financially. It's hard to talk about this, but it will be better if they learn from you and support than if they start whispering behind your back.
In no case do not give a "dose". Do not succumb to blackmail and provocation, do not destroy your own person with your own hands. Each "last time" they will swear and bow at their feet, but this last time will never come until the addict runs out of money.
If the addict began to steal and poses a danger to you and your family members, change locks and drive them out of the house. Set a condition that let go back only after treatment. This seems like an extreme, but it is this extreme that often helps the addict to turn off the curve of the track. Finding himself on the street in hunger and cold, the addict "is seeing", begins to realize where he has rolled down and look for a way out.
Do not lie, do not cover, do not come up with excuses for acquaintances, employers or teachers of the addict. He must be responsible for his own life. Covering absenteeism and punctures, you extend the path of the addict to the bottom. A sincere decision to be treated, as a rule, appears on this very bottom.
Consult a psychotherapist or narcologist. A specialist will advise you, answer your questions, tell you what is best to do in your case. The psychotherapist will help you stop looking for the guilty and get rid of the co-dependency that relatives of drug addicts often suffer. After a loved one wants to be treated, change “anger to mercy”, give him support, but be careful.
Help me choose a place for treatment and rehabilitation. The addict himself can not cope with this task. If you do not have money for paid treatment, contact a free narcology. They are not registered there the first time, and assistance will be rendered approximately the same as in private clinics.
Treatment consists of the medication (withdrawal, cleansing the body) and psychotherapeutic rehabilitation, which takes place when the patient is already living at home. The second part of the treatment is especially important and lengthy. We can say that a drug addict needs rehabilitation throughout his entire subsequent life.
It is now that your loved one needs you more than ever. But your goal is not to monitor and seek out traces of repeated drug use and not to intimidate. You need to forget about drugs. Do not remind them, do not persuade a person by his recent past.
The addict will learn to live anew, seek goals and supports, learn to find strength to overcome difficulties, relieve stress, spend time and enjoy life without drugs. Become a good friend to him. Respect, try to interest in something exciting and useful, do business.
Relapses often occur after treatment. In such cases, you have to start all over again. It’s very hard to bear, but try not to lose heart. I also want to write briefly about what should not be done, although such thoughts come to the minds of many parents of drug addicts.
So: do not move and do not send the addict to the village, do not send him to the army, do not put him in jail. These "brilliant ideas" have a simple logic - to alienate their "blood" from the drug, to hide away. But, alas, these days you can get the drug anywhere, especially in the army or in prison. You can think about moving already after treatment.
A change of scenery and the absence of reminders and “fellow players” can have a positive effect on rehabilitation. The goal of drug treatment is long-term remission. There is no way to permanently get rid of drug addiction. But if the addict has a desire to recover, and there are competent specialists and loving people nearby, then there are chances.