How to Get a Person to Seek Treatment

someone reaching for help

Addiction exerts such a powerful grip on a person that it can be very difficult for him (or her) to even step outside of the cravings and compulsions long enough to see that he can get help. When a family member—wife, mother, father, son, daughter or other—begs the addicted person to please stop, in many cases, this is not a powerful enough enticement. Even when the person himself wants more than anything else to be sober again, this may not be enough.

Some people do manage to stop on their own. But the majority struggle on for years, sometimes never managing to quit abusing alcohol, prescription drugs, marijuana, methamphetamine or synthetic drugs like bath salts.

When the right tactics are used, it is more often possible to get a person to reach out for rehab help.

Making Withdrawal Positive

It is tragic that drug abuse perpetuates itself in multiple ways. The primary way is through the intense cravings that occur when drugs are withdrawn. For an addicted person, getting more drugs to prevent withdrawal seems as vital as taking his next breath or having a drink of water when he is about to die of thirst.

With opiates, it is very common for an addict to say that when he gets the drugs he needs (heroin, prescription opiates), he will “get well.” In other words, he’s starting to feel the withdrawal sickness and the only things he knows of that will make that sickness go away is more drugs.

This is why so many people will enter drug “maintenance” programs that offer methadone or Suboxone. There is no treatment here, only an effort to reduce the harm done by drug abuse. Methadone and Suboxone are both opiates that satisfy the cravings. But a person is still using a drug and will still feel the effects of being drugged.

The idea of going through withdrawal, especially from opiates, is so grim that some people don’t feel they can face it. When a person withdraws from a stimulant like methamphetamine or cocaine, the cravings can be so intense as to make him wild. And with many drugs, a deep depression can make withdrawal a miserable process.

The Narconon rehab program makes withdrawal a much more positive process, thereby alleviating the worries many people have when they are considering treatment. Following any required medical detox to safely step down from opiates, heavy alcohol use or drugs such as benzodiazepines, the Narconon drug-free approach assists a person through the final stage of withdrawal. With generous nutritional support and innovative techniques to relax the body and calm the mind, many people say that the Narconon method of withdrawal is a positive process that itself gives them hope of true recovery.

When a Person Has Not Been to Treatment

Even if there have never been any earlier episodes of treatment that failed, a person may be reluctant to go to rehab. A major reason for this is the harm that drugs do to a person’s mind and personality. They rob a person of self-worth and make him feel like the can’t be helped or is not worth helping. His guilt over neglect of his responsibilities and the knowledge that he has harmed others while addicted further burden him. In every case, a lot of money has been diverted to drugs that could have been used for education, children, business success or other positive purposes. He knows this and it may make him so guilty that he doesn’t want his family to spend any more money.

man feeling guilt over drug use

A family member trying to get someone to rehab may have to convince the person that the valuable, loving person he once was can come back. That the relief he needs from the guilt lies in an effective rehab program. And that the sobriety he wants in his heart is on the other side of this relief. After all, no matter what anyone says, he (or she) does not want to be an addict. No one ever set out to become an addict when he started abusing drugs.

When a Person Has Been to Rehab and then Failed

It can be very tough for a person when he goes to rehab really wanting to get clean and then fails afterward. His guilt may double because his family already supported him and invested in him and he failed them as well as himself.

The answer to this one is a rehab where an individual will address all aspects of addiction and have a real chance at long-term sobriety. The Narconon program is built on a philosophy of repairing the damage done by drug abuse and then teaching a person how to maintain a sober life when they go home. The specific points that could lead a person back into drug abuse are covered in a comprehensive series of life skills courses.

When a family talks with an addictive loved one about rehab, very often the innovative nature of the Narconon program is enough for them all to see that this time, it can be different. Both the addicted person and the family often see that The Narconon New Life Detoxification, a deep detox utilizing a sauna, exercise, and nutritional supplements, offers a person an advantage they can’t get anywhere else. Many people say that this phase of the recovery program greatly helps with cravings, one of the biggest barriers to lasting sobriety.

Still, as with a person who has never been to rehab, it is often necessary for a family to convince the person of his value to them, and that they know he is still the person they love and they just want him back like he was before the drugs robbed him of his beautiful soul. Just be sure to talk to the addicted person when he is most likely to be sober. For most people, this is usually in the early part of the day.

When an Interventionist is Needed

If these actions fail, an interventionist can still turn the tide. Most rehab centers have professional interventionists they work with who have good track records of enabling the addicted person to reach out for help. In many cases, these people have been addicted themselves at one time and know what lies in store for the addict if he does not get help. They can spell out what the future will probably be like if he doesn’t get help. This and their skill in reminding a person what a sober life is like can be just the right thing to bring about a willingness to go to rehab.

In Conclusion

Even if you meet with failure multiple times, you should not give up. Just realize that if you have asked eight times for your loved one to go to rehab, it might take nine or ten or twenty times. Whenever you get an agreement to enter rehab, make sure it happens as soon as possible after that agreement is made. Hours is best. That agreement could evaporate at any moment.

Just keep telling yourself that no matter what the manifestation you are looking at, no one wants to be an addict. No one ever wanted to be addicted. You can succeed.