At times, an addict can feel like they are the only person on earth who is enduring a struggle.

But this is often the furthest from the truth. Friends and loved ones are usually right there with them, suffering just as much. An addict who is avoiding addiction treatment makes everyone suffer. All parties involved will have good and bad days. However, if the addict isn’t encouraged to seek treatment, but is instead enabled by family, then everybody loses in the end.

Ways to Help the Addict in Your Life Who Won’t Help Themselves

1. Ask the addict to give you three reasons why they won’t get help. You may have to do this a few times, especially since the initial answers, if you even get them, will cover a range of excuses. Once you can extract three main reasons, write them down and keep the paper somewhere safe.
2.  Now that you know what is holding them back, you can explore how to move forward. Talk to a professional if needed to come up with solutions to the reasons, and then share those with the addict. If fears can be dispelled, they’ll be more open to treatment.
3. Open a conversation with the addict, but don’t deliver a lecture. It’s human nature to shut down when being scolded or talked at, rather than with. Addiction is scary. Love is persistence; meaning stick with it, stay positive, and keep explaining to them why it’s okay to get help.
4. If you can’t get the consequences of addiction through their head, then find someone who can. Someone who has lived the nightmare of addiction can tell the truth. Hearing ‘real life’ accounts of recovery can be very inspiring . . . and can eliminate uncertainty and fear.
5. If you don’t know someone personally to recruit to talk to your addict, or if the time has come to step the game, then talk to a professional. With their training, they’ll be able to move past simple warnings and be more convincing in the argument to start treatment.
6. You can always go old school and plan a family intervention. An intervention is when family members, friends, and a moderator (professional or expert) meet with the addict. It’s not meant to be an attack, but a chance to tell the addict how they are loved while explaining how their addiction is hurting everyone around them.

Banyan Treatment Center wants you to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some tunnels are just longer than others.

Whether you’re in the early stages of trying to help an addict or have hit a wall and think you can’t do anymore, we can help you move forward.