Mental Health Minute: How do you help someone who has an alcohol or drug addiction?

On March 16, a grassroots committee hosted the Worland Mental Fitness Fair at the Worland Community Center.

Members of the panel were Dr. Ralph Louis, psychologist from Oxbow Counseling in Basin; Janae Harman, owner of Family Circle Counseling in Worland; Mary Johnson, CEO of Oxbow Center in Worland; and Carol Bell, provisionally licensed therapist at Foundations Counseling in Cody.

The panel answered prepared questions that came from the committee and from similar events in Shell, Greybull and Cowley.

The Northern Wyoming News will be covering the questions on a weekly basis throughout the next several weeks.

How do you help someone who has an alcohol or drug addiction?

Louis: You know, it’s no different from helping people with anything. We’ve talked about how, if you want to help someone, even if they don’t want to be helped, the main thing is being there, is being present, being available to them; being a person that they know that they can open up to. That’s not saying that they will. But that’s means that they know that there is that person there that they can talk to you if they want to.

You can’t make a person change. That’s one of the things when you’re a new therapist that can be kind of frustrating is that you can’t make people change, you can’t make them do what you want them to do. You can only point in a direction. You can only shine a light on things. You can only offer things like physical exercise and nutrition, and things that might help them feel better, and then get them more in a position where they can get benefit from the help. But you can’t make people change.

And so the trick really is just being there, it’s just being present.

Johnson: I would also encourage setting healthy boundaries with those individuals, and really being honest with yourself about enabling behavior that might exist in the dynamic of the relationship.

Bell: And to beat a dead horse, I’ll just say that, again, loving someone who is addicted, is really scary, and hard and sad. So, I think one of the best things you can do, if they’re not ready for helpers, is to take really good care of yourself. Because when the day comes that they do want your help, if you are centered and connected to yourself, and doing well, it’s going to be so much easier for you to provide love and support to your loved one who’s suffering.

Part 2: Are telehealth services available here? Yes, since COVID, everybody does telehealth now, and, and you can you can get telehealth services either over the phone or through your phone through Zoom.

You can connect with therapists really from all over the world with that nowadays.

But one of the things that I think is a real benefit is that our local counseling centers provide telehealth services. And so you’re dealing with someone who knows where you’re from and where you live when you do that.

Next week’s question: Other than WBI — Wyoming behavioral Institute in Casper — are there other locations for people to go and get inpatient treatment for mental health?