The Family's Role In Treatment: What Do We Say, When They Say "___________"?

If you have a loved one being treated for a drug or alcohol problem, there's a good chance you've heard—or will hear—one or more of the statements listed below at some point during the course of their treatment.

"I'm not as bad as everybody else here."

"I'll quit the hard stuff, but I can still smoke pot."

"I need to focus on my depression."

"I don't need to go to IOP."

"AA's not for me."

"I'm doing fine now. I don't need all this treatment."

"I can be around my friends and not smoke."

"I'm working my program."

And as innocuous as some of these may seem, these are precisely the kinds of issues that, if left unaddressed, have the potential to derail an entire treatment process and sabotage any chance for treatment success.

But the good news is this can easily be avoided!

As a matter of fact, I just finished a new set of videos where I address each one of these statements from the perspective of "How do we respond when they say _________________?"

I put them all together on one simple page where you can browse through them quickly and find answers to some of the most common questions families have when their loved one resists a specific part of the treatment plan. In many cases simply being armed with this information can make the difference between treatment success and treatment failure. 

GO NOW: "How Do We Respond When They Say "_________________?"

The story behind the videos...

I actually made these videos as part of a new feature for my RehabWorks Family Support Program, which is an online course for families addressing a substance use issue with a loved one. The new feature I added is a review module designed to help families apply material from the course to some of the real-life situations they will likely find themselves in as the treatment process unfolds. It's like a "Frequently Asked Questions" section, only in this case it's more like a "Commonly Experienced Scenarios" section. 

The point is, these videos provide an opening discussion on the particular topic. But as a review module, they then direct the course user back to specific material from the course that addresses the respective topics.

However, when I finished these introductory videos, it occurred to me they're actually pretty valuable on their own—regardless of the backup course material—and that there isn't any reason I shouldn't just go ahead and make these available to public, separate from the course.

So here you go. I hope you find some helpful information in this! 

GO NOW: "How Do We Respond When They Say "__________________?"