How to Persuade a Single Parent to Seek Addiction Treatment
October 30, 2019If there’s a single mom or dad in your family or close group of friends, you probably already understand the unique challenges that come with being a single parent. These same obstacles can make single parents more vulnerable to developing mental health and substance misuse issues.
Addiction can make people neglect both their family and professional responsibilities, no matter how “high-functioning” someone may believe they are. As the cycle of substance abuse worsens, your loved one will have more trouble hiding it, and it will begin to affect their ability to take care of their children. At this point, you may be wondering what you can do to convince them to get help. Here are the major objections you’ll need to overcome along the way.
1. Childcare Worries
Single parents may be reluctant to seek long-term residential treatment because they believe nobody can take better care of their kids than they can. As a family member or trusted friend, you can offer to have the children stay with you, making sure to feed them nutritious meals, take them to and from school and help them with their homework. Your support in this way can be invaluable in helping convince someone you care about to enter treatment.
2. Fear of Losing Custody of Their Children
No parent wants to think about someone taking their children away, but the longer your family member or friend delays entering treatment, the more they are putting their kids at risk. Though you should not make light of the fear of losing custody, you can explain that going to rehab demonstrates responsibility and the desire to become a better person and parent – qualities that should paint them in a positive light.
3. Stigma Around Addiction
Another factor that can prevent people from seeking the lifesaving drug and alcohol treatment they need is a sense of shame that they got caught up in the cycle of addiction because they are weak. Part of talking to a loved one about the need to get help involves emphasizing that addiction can happen to anyone, and that it is not a moral failing.
You Don’t Have to Do It Alone
There are solutions for overcoming these objections and getting someone you love to enter addiction treatment – even as a single parent. A correctly timed and executed intervention can make all the difference between your friend or family member getting the help they need and watching their home life gradually collapse around them. If you care about a single mom or dad who is struggling with addiction, consider hosting a professionally managed intervention to address the problems, outline treatment programs and offer compassionate ways to help them.
At Whitman Recovery Service, we understand how heartbreaking it can be to see someone you care about struggling with addiction while simultaneously keeping up with the stress of being a single parent. Over the past three decades, we have conducted hundreds of interventions in all 50 U.S. states, with a success rate of over 90 percent. Contact us today to inquire about an intervention for your friend or family member.