Is it time to get started? Taking action.

If you or a loved one has come to the conclusion that addiction to drugs or alcohol is a real and present danger, now is the time to take action.

Postponing treatment can have tragic consequences, from DUIs to accidents, ER visits to overdoses. We often hear stories of celebrities found dead. Imagine how much longer their lives may have been (and how much more pleasant and fulfilling), if they had accepted they had a problem and sought professional treatment?

Taking action means putting treatment for addiction first. As long as you or your loved one is abusing alcohol or drugs everything and everyone else suffers.

If you are the addicted person, it should be clear to you that helps no one:

• Your children suffer because the aren’t the best parent you could be
• Your company suffers because you can’t give 100% as an employee
• Your spouse or mate suffers because you are either intoxicated or recovering from being intoxicated whenever you aren’t at work
• You suffer because every time you drink then stop you are damaging memory and brain functions
• You suffer because every time you say you are going to stop and don’t you feel demoralized

If you are the loved one seeking help for an addict, there are a few things you can do to move that person toward treatment

• Stop enabling them: no alibis, excuse-making, or cover ups.
• Stop financing them: no bail outs or covering bills so they have money for drugs
• Stop supporting them: you now support only recovery efforts.

Once you tell the addicted person that you will only support them in recovery, you need to follow through. Otherwise, if they call your bluff and you cover for them, help them out financially, or otherwise support their continued drug or alcohol use, this will be an idle threat in the future.

If you do not feel like you have the ability to confront the addict, consider hiring an professional intervention specialist who can plan an intervention to get them into treatment.

Read about INTERVENTION