Why a Person with Addiction Doesn’t See the Problem and How to Lead Him to Treatment

Why a person with addiction doesn’t see the problem

Viacheslav begins by explaining that a person with addiction lives by emotions and desires, not sober reasoning. There is almost no awareness, especially in those who started using as teenagers. As long as his every wish is fulfilled, he simply has no reason to think that something is wrong with his life.

Hence the “geometry” of his thinking: everything that comes into view — mom, relatives, work, relationships — the illness turns into a means of carrying on. That is why talks and persuasion hardly work: a person’s picture of the world doesn’t change until his circumstances change.

The “gadgets and candy” model

To explain the mechanism, he asks parents a simple question: what is the easiest thing to give a small child today to keep him busy? Almost everyone gives the same answer — a tablet, cartoons and something sweet. The child grows up feeling that he should get everything he wants, and the parent calls it love, though often they themselves understand they are doing something wrong.

If one day you stop giving, a tantrum begins. And most parents can’t take it — they hand the gadget back. That is how the pattern gets fixed from childhood: push hard enough and you get it. With age, only the “gadget” changes: instead of a tablet — money, an apartment, paying off debts, “we’ll help you start a business.”

What an intervention really is

An intervention, in Viacheslav’s words, is the moment when the family stops giving and withstands what follows: tantrums, pressure, manipulation and its own guilt. At that moment the person is left with a choice: look for “candy” elsewhere, or for the first time start thinking and ask himself what to do next.

He compares the life of a person with addiction to a maze with several familiar doors. For a person to get out, every door must be closed except one — the exit to treatment. Then a specialist can show him that exit and the consequences of both paths. This does not yet guarantee successful rehab, but for the first time something shifts in how he sees things. And even if a relapse happens after treatment, the process has already begun — many later return to sobriety.

Viacheslav stresses that every intervention is prepared individually and that the key is not coercion but a choice the person makes himself once the old paths are closed.

The family, the wife and the “Bermuda Triangle”

A wife or girlfriend often appears in the “person with addiction — parents” bond. She is either used in place of the mother, or through her he keeps getting the same “gadgets and candy” from his parents. She becomes a hostage to these relationships and a human shield behind which it is convenient to keep using. Breaking up such a bond is very hard.

Viacheslav asks parents an uncomfortable question: why do you need a relationship with the person with addiction at any cost? Often behind it lie guilt and the hope of “making up for” the past. But by rebuilding the relationship on the old terms, the family helps the person return to the old pattern. An example is a message from a rehab center — “send money, I need to see a doctor” — to which a parent responds immediately out of anxiety.

A participant’s experience: coercion and choice

In the second part, a group participant who has been through addiction himself joins the conversation. The first time, he was taken to treatment against his will. Back then he didn’t see the problem, felt only resentment toward his family, “went along with it,” and on the day he got out he started drinking again.

The turning point came when his mother stopped giving him money and “shut off” all the familiar routes. After talking with a specialist, he chose treatment himself — a different center and a different format. The second time he experienced rehab completely differently: without resentment, because it was his choice. The scariest part, he says, turned out to be learning to take responsibility for his own life — before, his mother had made all the decisions for him. After treatment he did not go back to his former unhealthy relationships: they would have pulled him back in.

Takeaway: family members need their own work

Viacheslav sums up: people with addiction think in similar ways, and if the family consistently holds the chosen line, the likelihood that the person will agree to treatment is high. But holding that line is very hard for family members — many believe they already know everything and step on the same rake again.

That is why he advises investing in yourself: therapeutic groups, work with a specialist, the ability to hold boundaries. It is cheaper and more useful than paying for one rehab after another. He answers parents’ questions at the end in the same spirit: after rehab, a person first needs to rebuild himself, and an apartment with no obligations lowers his sense of responsibility.