Prioritizing Your Mental Health While Helping A Loved One Recover From Addiction
Every family is unique. But the one thing that all families have in common is a bond shared in blood. This bond, though intangible, can be easily seen during tough times when members support one another by going beyond lines of possibilities and probabilities.
When it comes to helping your loved one recover from addiction, you may often seem to be on the losing side. No matter how strong you are emotionally your hope and faith may falter. By seeing the traumatic ups and downs in the life of your loved one, it is not unusual for you to lose your calm, your strength, and most importantly, your sanity. But as any professional would say, you're never alone in it. Hope is always there. It's just a matter of handling things in the right way. If you detach yourself from the heat of the moment and analyze the problem (not the person), it gets easier to solve it in the first place.
Responsible Love
There is never a one-size-fits-all solution to addiction. When a person is using drugs, alcohol, and other psychotropic substances, there are layers of problems associated with his personality. While an underlying mental illness is quite common, his/her behaviors and etiquette are also equally affected, whether or not there is a mental health condition at hand. Still, it becomes the responsibility of a family to support the person facing such problems, and seeking professional help is the first step. By asking for professional help at an early stage of the problem, the family can play a major role in helping their loved one in dealing with mental and substance use disorders.
Prioritizing Your Own Mental Health
When your loved one is experiencing a mental or substance use disorder, it can affect you too. Living in a traumatic atmosphere for a long time can lead you into an unhealthy pattern of living also. Your personality may have changed after all. Evidence suggests that family members of addicts may be at a greater risk of developing a mental health problem owing to their environmental factors.
Therefore, families should be open to exploring support groups or family therapy and counseling, which can improve the treatment effectiveness of your loved one while supporting the whole family. This one is a top priority for your family's recovery. How could you ensure your loved one's well-being if you are not ready to face the challenges effectively?
Help is available
It’s not just people having advanced mental health problems who benefit from professional intervention. Even those coping with the unseen advancements of depression, stress, burnout, anxiety, and various forms of abuse or trauma prevent the onset of a possible mental health condition. Help is available everywhere. It is the stigma and discrimination that prevents many people from getting the care they need. It is the lack of awareness about the options available at hand that leads to undetected problems, sometimes for even years. When mental health problems are not addressed timely, they cause unnecessary trauma and pain for the entire family. This can easily be avoided with timely professional intervention.
World Mental Health Day represents a global oath to raise awareness around mental health issues and mobilize support. The theme of World Mental Health Day this year is to 'Make mental health & well-being for all a global priority. At Shafa Home, we take pride in sharing this article with you today and being part of this initiative by the World Health Organization (WHO). If you ever need our help in managing your stress levels, don't forget to write to us or call us directly for some really valuable knowledge and support. If you know a friend or a relative who is battling his addiction, ask for help now.
Do you or someone you love needs help to quit an addiction? Learn more about our deaddiction treatment or call us to discuss in detail: +91 981 022 3987.
OM
This blog post is written by a recovering addict who found his wings in the hands of 'Shafa'. Shafa Home is India's largest & oldest rehabilitation center for correction, detoxification, and treatment of alcohol and drug-related problems.
To see us in action, Please Visit our YouTube Channel.
Keywords: Young people, prevention, mental disorders, preventive psychiatry, psychosis, bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, evidence‐based medicine, neurodevelopment, children, adolescents
