As much as we want to help the young adult in our life to overcome their substance use issues, our eagerness to do so may merely result in us enabling their habit. One of the most important first stages of interventions for young adult addiction treatment can also be the most difficult: simply being yourself and focusing on your own life, rather than running after your loved one, enabling them and cleaning up after their messes.
This first stage is vital for effective family interventions, forcing the young adult to confront their problems with alcohol or drugs and realize some of the very real consequences of their actions. Once the process begins of your loved one coming face to face with their own struggle with substance addiction, you should carefully research treatment programs, choosing the best and most appropriate that you can afford.
Once you have chosen a suitable young adult addiction treatment program, you’ll need to get an intervention team together, and plan an intervention for when your loved one experiences a ‘crisis’ or is otherwise in urgent need of treatment. You are advised to hire an interventionist or intervention professional to lead and coordinate such a plan.
Contact Red Oak Recovery® about young adult addiction treatment, and we can refer you to a suitable interventionist or intervention professional. Once you have the right team together, you should talk about the plan so that everyone involved knows what will happen. Your intervention team should be told about how the young adult’s addiction is affecting their life.
It’s vital to motivate your loved one to seek treatment by not enabling or bailing them out of trouble unless treatment is immediately required. You should be ready to risk angering the young adult to help them to live independently, and plenty of patience may be needed as the addict gradually recognizes how their substance misuse and the adverse consequences in their life are connected.
When a crisis does happen – which may be after a romantic break-up, the loss of a job or another catastrophic life event, or even just you ceasing your past enabling – it’s time to act. Pack their bags, get in touch with the treatment center and gather your intervention team together. Don’t depend on every member of the group being available – swift action is essential. Communicate with the young adult in a simple and matter of fact way so that they agree to go to treatment.
Make sure, too, that you have chosen a young adult addiction treatment center that takes the right clinical approach – one that prizes the wellbeing of a person’s mind, body and spirit. Together, you can join the many concerned people who have helped their loved ones through effective family interventions.
