How to Help someone who is Struggling with Drug Abuse

Learn as much as you can about their addiction

How can you help someone with substance abuse? The first step is understanding how they got there in the first place. There are a variety of factors that lead to a person’s first experiment with drug use. Many people who suffer from conditions like depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder use substances to dull the emotional agony of these conditions. Some people may be misdiagnosed and use medications to handle specific symptoms, while others are aware they have a mental health issue but are unable to find alternative means of coping, a practise known as self-medication. Others use drugs to alter their mood, join a social group, or cope with feelings of boredom or discontent. Some people even become addicted to drugs or alcohol while their doctors try to help them with their health problems.

More than a quarter of those prescribed opioids for pain relief, for instance, are predicted to develop an opioid use disorder.
Addiction has many environmental and genetic influences, but its precise causes are still unclear.
One individual may be able to take substances sometimes with no ill effects, while another may discover that even occasional usage swiftly escalates into compulsion and addiction, a very dark pit from which they may feel unable to emerge.
Understanding the root causes of their addiction will help you to act with compassion while also being able to recognise potential triggers, and guide them through their struggle with addiction as you learn how to help someone who has a drug problem.

Encourage them to seek treatment

Some people are able to kick their drug habit on their own, but those odds improve when they have a strong support system.
In an effort to help them seek the necessary treatment for their addiction, it may prove indispensable to provide support during that first phone call, attend all the required therapy sessions, and become a stable part of their peer support group.

Help them to understand their co-occurring issues

Your loved one’s drug use was a symptom of deeper issues that won’t go away just because they quit using. A person who has turned to drugs as a means of coping with mental health problems like anxiety or depression should seek out alternative methods of resolving these problems.
Both the addiction and the mental health problem must be addressed simultaneously if they are to achieve a lasting recovery.