Bruce Bassi5 Tips to Talk to a Loved One About Addiction.
Bruce Bassi is an addiction psychiatrist with telepsychhealth.com and sees patients in California, Illinois, Florida, and Minnesota.
1. Find the right situation.
- Everyone’s situation will be different. You know your loved one the best. You may have tried before and been met with anger or aggression. If you feel that’s the case, approach the situation with a professional and don’t put yourself in harm’s way. Don’t put yourself in harms way and trust your gut.
- There won’t be a pleasant time to talk about addiction but set yourself up for success and give yourself the maximum opportunity for success.
- Allows the person to save face and not become defensive, which is a common response.
2. Understand their perspective of the issue
- Treatment is lifelong and they need to be on board. Change has to come from within the addict.
- What does your loved one see as the problem? What do they miss about life before the addiction?
- There are many different treatment options, so you’ll want to off your help in ways that they would like, without dictating what they must do.
3. Show empathy yet be assertive.
- You can accept the addict as a person, even if you don’t accept their behavior.
- You can feel multiple feelings toward someone at once. You can love them but also be completely frustrated and fed up with their behavior or maybe feel hurt by them.
4. Choose your battles
- Stratify what is most important to you.
- Now isn’t the time to go through a laundry list of grievances and character defects.
- Certain requests might mean a lot to you, but if you bring everything up at the same time, the other person won’t be able to differentiate what is most important to you.
5. Come ready with some treatment options.
No time for treatment will ever be a convenient time.
