What to do to help someone with drug addiction?

Some tips for helping a friend or family member who has a drug addiction problem.

Addictions are among the most common psychological and psychiatric disorders. Therefore, it is possible that someone you know in your environment has gone through this type of problem.

However... how to help someone with drug addiction? Each case requires solutions adapted to the context that is lived, but in general there are a series of guidelines that help a lot to leave behind drug addiction.

What to do to help a person with drug addiction?

These are some useful tips to give support to someone who has developed dependence to some addictive substance, or to several.

1. Make them see the problem

Making that person see that he or she has a problem is essential to start him or her on the road to overcoming drug addiction. But don't do it with a hostile attitude, or it will only serve to push the person away, do not do it with a hostile attitude, or it will only serve to alienate the person from our lives..

A good way to do this is to help them see the positive aspects of a drug-free life, and show them that it is possible to leave addiction behind.

2. Do not interrupt their consumption

Do not act like a policeman by imposing material limitations on that person's access to drugs (for example, by throwing away the addictive substance without his or her permission). This is a way of creating a strong rejection of the idea of giving in to this blackmail and stop using in order to be happy. and stop using to please someone who does not respect his or her decisions.

3. Recommend that you study your drug use patterns

A good way to begin to move away from addiction is to look at the feelings and situations that anticipate the craving.

That's why, to help someone with a drug addiction, it's a good idea to encourage them to better understand how their body works, it's a good idea to encourage them to better understand how their body works.. In this way, he will understand to what extent he does not control this type of behavior, but that there are mechanisms that act outside his control.

4. Encourage him to go to therapy

Going to psychological therapy is very important to reinforce the person's commitment to the recovery process, in addition to providing information and tools and strategies to manage the discomfort that abstinence will produce.

On the other hand, medical attention is also important to help you get the physiological and neurological aspects of addiction under control, and to avoid certain dangerous situations for your health (for example, in people with a strong addiction to certain substances, stopping consumption cold turkey and without medical guidance can be very risky).

5. Help them create short-term goals

To help someone with drug addiction, you also have to make it easy for them to see this process not as a long-term goal, but as something that brings them short- and medium-term benefits. This way, they will have more motivation.

For example, create together a program of challenges to accomplish daily (the simplest ones) and weekly (more complicated ones) and whose overcoming can make you feel good: not going in front of a certain cocktail bar, doing relaxation exercises when the anxiety due to abstinence becomes higher, etc. If possible, do this in coordination with the plans of the psychotherapist handling the case.

6. Take an interest in your progress

Asking him/her how the rehabilitation process is going helps to get him/her engaged in therapy, as long as it is not done in an overly insistent manner or with real interrogations. Just take an interest in the subject in a way that the other person talks more than you do, giving him or her the opportunity to focus on the positive aspects of it all.

In this way, we will be creating an extra incentive for further progress.If you relapse, you will have to tell us or lie to someone who pays close attention to your progress. Neither experience is pleasant, and you will have all the more reason to continue to improve.

Of course, what should not be done is to assume that his past drug addiction is a taboo subject and that he will not want to talk about it because he is ashamed; this would only contribute to his return to drugs, since he will believe that it will not have too many effects beyond his own life, without considering that it is a subject that worries his loved ones and friends.

7. Help him not to isolate himself socially.

Loneliness is one of the direct routes to relapse in those who already have a past in those people who already have a past of drug use. For this reason, a good part of the detoxification and rehabilitation process involves the support of those people who relate to the patient on a daily basis.

Doing activities together, giving them the possibility to participate in projects in which their contributions are valued, making it easy for them to express themselves and share their hopes and concerns in contexts where there is trust is crucial, and is something that must be maintained indefinitely, also after the psychotherapy phase for detoxification is over.

Thus, to help someone who has gone through withdrawal but is still vulnerable to drug cravings, it is necessary to look for help from others and to seek it from others, help should be sought from others and, together, to create environments in which the person can enjoy an active social life (and, of course, in which he or she can be involved in the social life). (and, of course, where addictive substances are virtually non-existent or, in the case of alcohol, remain very much in the background).

You can also provide support so that, through you, he or she can make new friends away from drugs. In this way, you will gradually weaken the association between "substance use" and "free time" and "fun", while increasing the chances that you will find sources of motivation that have nothing to do with drug addiction.

Looking for help?

If you are interested in having expert psychologists in the treatment of drug addiction, visit us at Instituto de Psicologia Psicode. Our team of psychotherapists has many years of experience in helping to overcome this kind of disorders, both in the initial stages and in the subsequent rehabilitation. To see our contact details, click here.

Bibliographical references:

• Nestler EJ (October 2008). Transcriptional mechanisms of addiction: Role of ΔFosB. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 363 (1507): pp. 3245 - 3255.
• Kalivas PW, Volkow ND (August 2005). The neural basis of addiction: a pathology of motivation and choice. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 162 (8): 1403–13.
• Torres, G., Horowitz J.M. (1999). Drugs of abuse and brain gene expression. Psychosom Med. 61 (5): 630 - 650.