Help Another with their Addiction

Over the recent July 4 weekend, I asked a particularly wise 10-year-old girl what she thought about tobacco harassment. She mulled and then answered to the effect that it’s fair for kids to let their parents know how they feel, even by trickery, but a kid needs to know that smoking is addictive and a parent may not be able to quit. I suggested she ought to be surgeon general someday... So, is it OK to harass the smokers we love? For kids, I think, absolutely. Adults—you tell me.

One of the commonest questions anyone working in the addiction field is asked is “How can I stop my wife/husband/partner from drinking so much?” Unfortunately the short answer to that is – you can’t. They will stop when it suits them, whether that is because they hurt so much or because circumstances change. There is some good news, however, and that is if you can’t actually stop them drinking then there are things that you can do, or stop doing, that will make it more likely that they will take action and/or seek help for their drinking.

Dear Bewildered Best Friend -- Sounds like your friend has a severe case of "adult-olescence;" his mindset is far below his numeric age and he continues to play at being an adolescent when he's really an adult. I often refer to it as the "Peter Pan Syndrome." It can be a form of escapism, denial, and delayed adulthood, and it's accomplished by a lot of play, feelings of invincibility, and self-obsession.

This is an interview with Laurence M. Westreich M.D. about his book, "Helping the Addict You Love: The New Effective Program for Getting the Addict into Treatment." Dr. Westreich is a board certified psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of patients dually diagnosed with addiction and mental disorders.

"Charlie had just left the courtroom. He was clean and sober, and so now he’s off probation. What a jubilant moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I want to thank my father for saving my life.’ Later, he asked, ‘Pop, what do you say?’ I said, ‘Bullshit. It’s not true. I didn’t save your life. I got your attention. You saved your life." Martin Sheen

In order to support a recovering behavioral addict, the family needs to understand that they need to pull back and give the person that's working on their behavior the time and the space to go to meetings, to go to treatment, to go do homework, to go and take on things at, perhaps, their own pace, to not necessarily expect them to finish a treatment program and go back to work the first day, and to not necessarily see that they (meaning the family) are innocent and have no ability to contribute.

Generally speaking a formal intervention is always done by a professional. So it would be the spouse, it would be the parent, that would retain the interventionist and they would pay a fee.

See this section of the site for information about Non 12 step approaches, therapists, clinics and alternative medicine support for addiction treatment.

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