Up until this point, you and your family may have spent weeks or months planning an intervention with the goal of getting your loved one on the road to recovery. You’ve spent countless hours researching rehabilitation options to help him or her. Although you may have done everything right by planning accordingly with a specialist and carrying out the intervention properly, the person in question may not agree to going to a rehabilitation center. While this would obviously be devastating to your entire plan, there are various approaches to getting your loved one the help that he or she needs. Here are some steps of what to do when an addict says no to rehab.
Don’t Make Idle Threats
You may be disappointed that your loved one does not want to enter a rehabilitation center, but you must follow through with the goals of the intervention. In the intervention, you may have outlined consequences if the addict did not choose to go to rehab. If one consequence is that you told the addict that you will not longer pay for anything, you need to follow through with that. This is considered a “tough love” approach, which for some families of an addict can be very difficult to do. Remember that by providing things like money, you are enabling this person to feed his or her addiction. You then become a major part of the problem, which is opposite of the solution that you intended. Making idle threats gives off the impression that you won’t actually provide any consequences to the addict’s behavior. It is important in these cases to stand your ground, and follow suit with your list of expectations and consequences.
Try Another Approach to Drug Treatment
You will be frustrated that your loved one has not chosen to go to rehab. You may have chosen the route of threatening or manipulating the addict into going. This is normally a mistake that incurs more damage than it does help. Some addicts may respond to this method, but many do not. This approach can send an addict into withdrawal, which is often remedied through more drug or alcohol usage. The common thing to remember is that in most cases, fear is the major reason as to why an addict would not want to enter a rehab. The addict fears something about this situation in order to fight doing it. He or she may not want to confront this right away. A great approach in this case would be one of full support and care. Try and convince the addict to go to rehab, rather than force. Use the support of the entire family in this case. Show the addict that everyone is in this together, rather than he or she being isolated. Even though this may have been the opposite approach to what you tried in the first place, it may work where the other failed.
Gradually Move Them to Motivation for Recovery
This will take a lot of patience and continued support. Pull back on emotional support. In some cases, it is more beneficial to allow the addict to make mistakes on their own to see the light. This doesn’t mean to allow the person to overly use drugs and alcohol. This means that a person may need to reach the bottom, before they can get themselves back up. If they get arrested, do not bail them out. Once again, enabling cannot happen to achieve this. If your emotional and financial support are pulled, this will cause the addict to possibly break down and finally realize what they are doing to his or herself.
Leave a Reply