How to Convince Your Loved Ones to Go to the Rehab

Loved ones who are addicted to drugs or alcohol – just like lions with a thorn stuck in their paw –tend to lash out while they’re in agony, even against those who are trying to help them. Their agony will only be resolved once they allow people to give them a helping hand. With that in mind, how should you go about convincing loved ones to go to rehab? Should you stage an intervention? Would that motivate them enough to go and acquire the help they need? Or will they lash out like lions with thorns, in complete denial of the trouble they’re in as the addiction slowly pushes them farther and farther into a downward spiral?

Usually, when you think you’re doing the right thing for them, it might end up backfiring in your face, causing a rift in your relationship. They might argue with you, feel defensive, and close up communications with you altogether because they feel like you’ve “betrayed” them. Let’s discuss effective ways of encouraging your loved ones to seek help without alienating them from you.

Methods for Convincing Addicts to Go to Rehab

Quite a lot of people wish to know how to help those who are close with them with their addiction problem without breaking ties with them or ending up with strained relations. It’s important to tread lightly as this is quite a sensitive subject. Overcoming an addiction without going to a rehabilitation center like Lanna Rehab is quite difficult. Luckily, there are proven ways for you to convince or encourage friends or relatives that they should go into rehab and get proper assistance for their addiction issues.

• Keep Them from Hitting Rock Bottom: “Rock Bottom” isn’t just a wrestling move of wrestler-turned-superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Many addicts who never go to rehab will find that their own addiction will compel them to do stuff they normally wouldn’t do (like steal or lie) in order to feed their habit. As a direct consequence of this, they usually end up losing everything they have, both socially and financially.The best way you can go about helping an addict is to be a true friend and preventing them to hit rock bottom. As people say, there are certain individuals in our lives who are willing to send you flowers in your funeral but aren’t willing to lift one finger to help you out when you’re in the process of dying or undergoing self-destruction. Don’t be that kind of fair-weather friend or family member. This is why it’s important to get your loved ones to go to rehab early on before they pass the point of no return.Don’t just sit idly as they waste away. Be the type of person who takes care of an addict during the darkest hours of his life. Don’t be there simply when everything is fine and disappear when things are getting rocky. Remember that even though many people have turned their lives around after hitting rock bottom, getting to that lowest point should be avoided as much as possible. If you can avoid rock bottom, then do so. Explain to your loved one that you don’t want him to ruin his life and you love him. Going to rehab is for his own good.

Be aware that not all addicts will respond to your efforts, and you could end up enabling their behavior.

Some addicts will need to hit their level of “rock bottom”, whether than be financially, job, family, relationship, legal or something else. Some addicts may even hit a level of “rock bottom” and keep going. It can be stressful for people trying to help them.

• Set Boundaries: It’s vital for you to set specific, healthy boundaries in order to keep your own sanity when assisting your loved one. It’s the same deal when helping a dying family member, actually. When you play caretaker to someone who couldn’t help themselves because of their condition, it can get overwhelming for you. You don’t want to see them suffer and they tend to do things beyond their control that might hurt you and your feelings.You know you need to set boundaries when the following happens during your interactions with your addicted loved one:
  • You send him on guilt trips.
  • You criticize or you’re critical of him at every turn.
  • You walk on eggshells around him to avoid arguments or conflict.
  • You are stolen money from or taken advantage of by your addicted loved one.
  • You haven’t been asked yet you’re giving out solutions to the addict’s dilemmas.
  • You constantly tell him what to do and warn what will happen if they don’t heed your warning.
  • You have to cover for him by picking him up from the bar, calling in sick for work, or lying for him.
  • You regularly bring up what he has done wrong in the past, especially when it has to do with his addiction.

  Boundaries help you keep control and order in your life even though addiction breeds chaos. They will also keep you from lashing out by impulse and inadvertently hurting the feelings of your loved one even as you struggle to try to help him out. We’re all only human, after all. Without these boundaries, you will lose your personal space, freedom, and yourself, compromising what makes you who you are. In setting boundaries, remember the following:

  • You set boundaries because you want to help without making things worse for your loved one or for yourself. Also, make your intentions clear when it comes to helping them out.
  • Boundaries allow you to maximize your ability to help without you getting dragged into the pit of despair yourself.
  • You should communicate with your loved one in regards to what you will or will not do for them. Setting boundaries and limits is about you and not about the addicted loved one.
  • Establishing boundaries can in turn reduce the stress and pressure you experience when dealing with alcohol or drug abuse and appealing to your loved one to seek rehab.
  • You should be specific on what you’re willing or unwilling to do. You can communicate this to your loved one without making idle threats.

  Setting boundaries can help alleviate the pressure of taking care of an addicted loved one. After all, the most important and healthiest decisions you can make about a person’s addiction are about how it can affect you. Maintaining healthy boundaries is possible even though your loved one isn’t healthy and can by impulse inadvertently hurt you or keep you stressed out. Furthermore, you can avoid being his indirect enabler by finally stopping to cover for him and his shenanigans.

  

The boundaries you can set can include (but aren’t limited to) the following:
• • No more ridicule or insults.
  • None of his drug-using friends are allowed in your house.
  • No drugs or alcohol should be allowed in the house or around you.
  • You will not cover or lie for him anymore regardless of the circumstances.
  • If he’s arrested, you won’t bail him out or pay for his lawyer to defend him.
  • If you don’t end up on time for dinner, you aren’t welcome to join the family when eating.
  • You will not give him any more money, whether it’s for putting gas in his car, buying him food, or paying his bills.

• Making an Intervention Plan: Making an intervention plan involves knowing how to approach your loved one in regards to his issues. Knowing how to plan it out can help the addict’s friends and family out when it comes to being prepared for anything that can happen during such a conversation. The addict may become defensive, combative, or feel like everyone’s ganging up on him by confronting him about his so-called demons and vices.

  You can ease the burden of conversing with your addicted loved one by gathering a group of individuals who can help. You can also potentially hire an intervention professional to help develop the plan in the first place. Having a whole group help you out can serve as a united front in convincing the person that you care and that he really needs to go to rehab because so many of his family and friends wish he’d get better. It’s a way of showing you have his best interests at heart.

  Contact the Association of Intervention Specialists in finding the right specialist who’s trained in the art of interventions to plan the event for you. The rehab center you wish to get your addicted relative or friend might also have resources available to support the whole intervention process. Establishing the right plan in advance is your guarantee that everyone is prepared with the right responses for multiple objections that the addict might use to get away from getting rehab. This will in turn help ease your loved one into realizing that he really does need treatment when push comes to shove.

• How to Get Someone to Rehab by Enlisting Assistance: You might not be able to convince the addict in your family or friend circle to seek help through rehab, but there are methods you can use to further assist him in his time of need whether the realizes he needs help or not. You can seek advice from the rehab center you wish to enter him in or contact an addiction treatment specialist on what to do next. You can also call a friend or family member who has gone through rehab himself.

  Furthermore, you should go to a local support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous for further assistance. They should able to tell you want to do when dealing with addicted or alcoholic loved ones. It’s also important to consider getting a professional intervention involved if the addicted person is already moving towards the point of no return or a slippery slope of sorts, like getting an overdose. This interventionist is trained to get the addict to realize that he really needs to get rehab.

  When staging an intervention, you should do so in a way that doesn’t trigger the defensiveness of your addicted loved one. Show such people that you care and they’ll be more open to getting help because you were able to touch their heart and communicate that you’re there for them in a positive manner. With that said, keep in mind that the decision to go to rehab is their own. You should coax them instead of force them to go under rehab if that’s a possible course of action.

• Empathy Is the Key: One of the best methods of helping an addict go to rehab is to demonstrate empathy and understanding of their plight. You should be patient and understand that many of your loved one’s behavioral issues stem from their addiction. You might feel angry, exhausted, or frustrated with him. However, it’s important that you show your addicted friend or family member that you care for him and you’re always there for him. By demonstrating empathy, you will keep them from feeling like they’re being forced into rehab.

  Providing empathy when you’re pushed to the limit by someone’s addiction is something you need to do even though it might be the last thing you want to do in such a situation. You should be the one to let go of your frustration, anger, and exhaustion to help the other person who can’t help themselves with their callousness due to their addiction. There are multiple methods of being empathetic, at that. Remember the following:

  • Make Addicts Feel They Are Still In Control: People want to make decisions for themselves even when they’re addicted and their decision-making skills have been compromised by their own addiction. Empathy can go a long way in making them decide to get help by themselves.
  • Don’t Force Them to Rehab as Much as Possible: Any person who feels like they’re being forced into something will make them more resistant towards it. Just as how they were goaded to drug use or alcohol intake, you should be less forceful in recommending them to go to rehab. Be more objective and less emotional.
  • Make Them Decide for Themselves: A person who feels like it’s their own decision to go to rehab will more likely go through the process versus someone who’s sent to rehab. There has to be a modicum of willingness on their part to change their self-destructive lifestyle.
  • Keep Conversations in General: Don’t be accusatory when it comes to your conversations with your loved one regarding his growing addiction. Rather, be more general with it. Don’t make closed statements or questions about them either but instead ask them open-ended ones that allow them to share.
  • Open-Ended Questions: Ask your addicted loved one some open-ended questions like “Do you agree that detoxification is a good idea to deal with your issues?” or even open-ended statements like “Tell me about your marijuana use throughout the week,” to encourage him to open up about himself.
  • Avoid Criticism: Nothing makes an addict more closed off with the possibility of going to rehab like criticism. The elephant in the room is already there, so there’s no need to belabor the point or blame the addict for becoming addicted since it’s not helpful to him in encouraging him to go to rehab.
  • Walk Away from Conversations: When a conversation becomes too heated, learn to just walk away instead of arguing or disagreeing with the loved one you’re trying to help. Arguing with them will only make them become worse and more closed off, feeling as though the whole world is against them.
• Encourage Change and Responsibility: One of the best things that can be done for your loved one is to encourage them to change themselves by changing their environment. They can do this by attending rehab to far-off places, as in the case of the Lanna Rehabilitation Center in Thailand. Changing his surroundings can also determine whether they should seek help or not, although having that help in a different country altogether can also be beneficial. There’s nothing wrong about encouraging your loved one for a change, since staying where he is can get boring and even outright dangerous.

  In turn, you should also be encouraging to that special someone you know who’s in dire straits due to drugs and alcohol. Talk to him about how important it is to take responsibility. Instill into him the value of avoiding making excuses for his behavior or the behavior of others. When your loved one ends up addicted to alcohol or drugs, your family is often blamed for the struggle. It’s difficult for an addict to take responsibility for being addicted. However, it’s a necessary step in order for him to face the music when it comes to rehab.

  More to the point, an addict is less likely to seek help if he can blame someone else, like friends and family, for him losing his job, getting his electricity cut, having neighbors complain about his behavior, or having enablers enable him to continue using addictive substances. The first step when it comes to going to rehab is accepting responsibility for his actions then having the willingness to change and take control of his life for once instead of living day-to-day purely on his addictive compulsions and impulses.

To Summarize

When dealing with addiction, it’s easy to see that your loved ones are suffering from their compulsion to take drugs or alcohol. With the right help or rehab, they could get unshackled by the chains of their addiction as well as the struggles associated with it. As a friend, sibling, spouse, parent, relative, or neighbor, your heart will sink in pain as their condition. However, when helping your addicted loved one with their issues, it’s not always a matter of reaching out to them.

Lanna Rehab Will Help Your Loved One Get Addiction Treatment

Are you in need of assistance in convincing your loved one to attend rehab? It might feel impossible and frustrating. However, Lanna Rehab can help you out. Contact the Lanna Rehab staff and crew today in order to avail of or get free consultation for its all-inclusive addiction treatment. Their establishment in Thailand is just what the patient needs to organically achieve a personal transformation while betting their chances for sobriety. Their lines are also available 24/7. You can also call their rehab for advice on how to coordinate a professional intervention.