It's okay to love them. It's your right to help them. Addiction destroys people and can even end lives. When you know or suspect that someone you love is suffering from addiction you have two goals: getting your loved one into treatment and turning that treatment into full-fledged sobriety. Many addiction experts tell you that you have to disengage or risk being an enabler, a codependent bystander, in the wreckage of an addict's life; that you have to cut all ties or be taken advantage of financially and emotionally; that you have to protect yourself from your loved one, who isn't the person you used to know. But many friends and family members find it unnatural, even impossible, to turn away from a person they love who is at his lowest point, and refuse to believe that their addict is lost to addiction. Backed by his years of experience, Dr. Westreich guides you through the process of getting the addict you love on the road to treatment and recovery. He provides detailed scripts to lead you through pivotal conversations with the addict in your life, highlighting the words that he's found to be most effective and the words to avoid. With this book in hand, family and friends will know, for example, how to motivate their addict to recognize his problem based on the addict's own definition of what addiction looks like; how to "raise the bottom" that addicts so often must hit to a more acceptable level -- such as embarrassment, job loss, or ill health; and when to use gentle disagreement, quiet listening, or forceful confrontation to move the addict toward treatment, while managing and protecting their own emotions. Dr. Westreich also shows you how to engage a therapist in the process and provides methods for combating an addict's defense mechanisms. By outlining several treatment options, he helps you to weigh what each can and cannot accomplish, which is the most effective treatment for the kind of addiction you are dealing with, what each treatment requires of the recovering addict and the friend or family member, and how successful each is. Dr. Westreich also takes care to discuss the kinds of special situations you may face when the addict in your life, in addition to having a substance abuse problem, is a minor, is pregnant, has mental or medical diseases, or has other issues that are likely to affect recovery. Helping the Addict You Love is the guide that so many loved ones of addicts have desperately needed. Dr. Westreich supports you through the emotional process of helping the addict you love, tells you it's okay to want to help, and teaches you how to do so.

To solve a problem one must first understand the problem. Unfortunately, that's hard to do with addiction and alcoholism because it makes no sense. Why do people keep on with their substance use when it's ruining their life and making them miserable? In this important book, medical doctor and addiction survivor Dr. Andrew Proulx--a leading expert on addiction psychology--explains the effects of addictive substances on the brain and mind, and why addicts and alcoholics behave the way they do. He then goes on to explain exactly how form a bond with an addicted loved one and to use this bond to help the addict to move to a willingness and mental readiness to accept the help they need. He then explains your role in your loved ones treatment and subsequent recovery and relapse prevention. Dr. Andrew provides guidance for loved ones of addicts to remove themselves from the addict's circle of chaos and to take a different approach to helping the addict that's more effective, and also allows them to take back their own life and sanity. -- Adapted from page [4] cover.

All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

The family recovery classic, Addict in the Family, has been revised and updated to offer parents and other family members even greater support when faced with the reality of a loved one’s addiction. Solid, actionable advice and information about what helps and what doesn’t—and how to care for themselves—make this an indispensable guide. For families of addicts, fear, shame, and confusion over a loved one’s addiction can cause deep anxiety, sleepless nights, and even physical illness. The emotional distress family members suffer is often compounded by the belief that they somehow caused or contributed to their loved one’s addiction—or that they could have done something to prevent it. Addict in the Family is a book about the pain of addiction, but more importantly it is a book of comfort, understanding, and hope for anyone struggling with a loved one’s addiction. As the compelling personal stories reveal, family members do not cause their loved one’s addiction—nor can they control or cure it. What family members can do is find support, set boundaries, detach with love, and eventually discover how to enjoy life more fully. This book helps them do just that—whether the loved one achieves recovery or not.

Are you feeling exasperated and helpless about your family member's addiction? Are you at your wit's end, having tried everything you can think of to make them stop? If someone you love is engaging in addictive behaviors such as alcohol and drug misuse, eating disorders, smoking, gambling, Internet addiction, sex addiction, compulsive overspending, or relationship addiction, you are undoubtedly experiencing unpredictability in your relationship. Some of the most common emotions you will experience include: - Guilt and shame - Anger and anxiety - Confusion and powerlessness Whether the addict in your life is your spouse, partner, parent, child, friend, or colleague, the key to changing this reality for yourself lies in shifting your focus from your loved one's addiction to you own self-care. This book presents a dramatically fresh approach to help you get off the roller-coaster chaos of addiction, maintain your own sanity and serenity, and live your best life.

Recovering addicts are faced with many challenges, and these challenges can often extend to their romantic partners. During the recovery period, couples often struggle with overcoming feelings of betrayal and frustration, and may have a hard time rebuilding trust and closeness. While there are many resources available to recovering addicts, there are limited resources for the people who love them. In Loving Someone in Recovery, therapist Beverly Berg offers powerful tools for the partners of recovering addicts. Based in mindfulness, attachment theory, and neurobiology, this book will help readers sustain emotional stability in their relationships, increase effective communication, establish boundaries, and take real steps toward reigniting intimacy. The material in this book is drawn from the author’s successful Conscious Couples Recovery Workshop. With more than 25 years in the field, she has developed a unique set of exercises that address the issues faced by couples in recovery. This book addresses the roles that both partners play in recovery, and aims to help readers develop a new appreciation for one another and improve self-confidence and acceptance. The road to recovery is never an easy one, but by building a strong support system, the chances of success are exponentially greater. For more information on Berg’s work, visit consciouscouplesrecovery.com

Do you love an addict or an alcoholic? Loving an addict is one of the most painful and traumatic life journeys that any sober-minded person can experience. Feelings of betrayal, powerlessness, anger, fear, desperation and raw grief are an ever constant companion. The person you love disappears as they chase their addiction. People who love an addict inadvertently get drawn in by the addict and their lives begin to revolve around the dysfunctional hell that the addict's life is. According to the World Drug Report, approximately 247million people worldwide were in active addiction during 2016. Statistics on alcohol abuse are not as easily determined because alcohol is a socially accepted drug. It is estimated that 1 in every 12 adults suffer from alcohol abuse and dependence. Alcohol is a drug. There is very little that separates the emotional pain and dysfunction that saturates your life whether you love an alcoholic or a drug addict. Both substances are mind-altering, both substances reprogram the human brain, both substances render the addict powerless over their addiction. The only person who can break an addict's addiction is the addict. No one can convince, force, coerce or threaten an addict to seek professional help. No one can love an addict into sobriety either. This book is about understanding and helping your loved one, and also about helping yourself. You can never 'learn' to live with an addict. You either come to accept the hard truth or you separate yourself from the addict. Separation can sometimes drive an addict to seek professional help, but it's no guarantee. Sometimes you have to just let go. This book will explain how your addict thinks; however, understanding alone does not mean that you can protect them and yourself. You also need the psychological reediness to act and face certain outcomes. Let me show you how.