Why Does The Family Choose To Wait?

July 24, 2020

By Arthur Westinghouse CIP, CADC

Why does the family of the person living with Untreated Alcohol or Drug Addiction/Substance Misuse and/or Mental Health wait to accept help? Usually while everyone in the family is standing by waiting for their loved one to finally “hit bottom”, there is one or more of them unfortunately in most situations simultaneously making life comfortable for this person that they’re most concerned about. This would be considered enabling. One of the first questions that I’ll ask a family member is “have you hit bottom”? The truth is that if the family has yet to hit their bottom, the chances of their loved one hitting bottom are slim to none. Until the family has hit their bottom, they will usually continue to engage in enabling behavior. I’ve actually had a parent tell me after sending their adult child to treatment over 33 times that they were “addicted to the enabling behavior” and that they could not stop. The biggest part of an intervention process is to guide the family to lead the way to recovery through healthy changes in their family dynamic and behavior. This is the greatest challenge to the process. As long as there is any level of ambivalence from the family toward the current untreated addiction or mental health, positive change and recovery will remain out of reach. If a family can admit that they’ve hit a bottom and that they’re willing to do anything to change their current situation, the possibilities for real change and recovery become endless. I’ve personally witnessed hundreds of miraculous recoveries of entire families over the many years that I’ve been involved in this work. The keys are asking for help and most importantly accepting the help that is then offered.

So again Why does the family choose to wait? There are many reasons contained in the following list.

They’ll get angry
They’ll never forgive us
They can’t emotionally handle it
What if they go live on the street?
What if they die by suicide?
They seem like they’re doing better with the new job.
What if they lose their job?
They told us never to involve a stranger.
They seem to be cutting back on their drinking.

They’ll hate us forever.
They have to want “it” for themselves
We just have to wait until they “hit bottom”.
What will everyone think of us if they go to a treatment center?
Our Priest, Minister, Pastor or Rabbi will have the answer.
They did go to church this week.
They just need to get a job.
We’ll never forgive ourselves if something happens.

There are many more that I could add to the list but I think you get the point. There’s almost a constant thread of fear about what may happen and a yearning hope that the problem will be resolved on its own. The hope that time will heal the problem. The reality is that the longer a family waits to accept guidance for their situation the worse that it will progressively get. The window of risk continues to widen. Often times ending with a now irreversible situation.

The beautiful reality is that waiting to accept help and guidance for a loved one that is living with Untreated Alcohol or Drug Addiction/Substance Misuse and/or Mental Health is optional. The sooner that a family can admit that they’ve hit bottom and accept help, the sooner we can begin to open the window of opportunity and possibilities. Intervention does work and there is always hope as long as your loved one is still breathing.