We do not want to bear silent witness to substance abuse all over the world. This is not about occasional use of some substance to make feel better and lift the spirits. The issue is much more severe, deeper. Still, in our society there are plenty of people suffering from the repeated use of alcohol and/or drugs without being able to keep their actions under control. They cause harm to themselves and those close to them. Such individuals destroy their mental and physical health. The most dangerous thing is that they are not often aware that there is a problem denying their dependence contributing to a challenge.

    Sings of dependence

    If a person suffers from withdrawal symptoms when he stops using or reduces his intake of the substance, if he starts using larger amounts of tabs like painkillers, for instance, if his effort to stop a substance use fails, if this substance use prevents him from vital social activities or he refuses communicating with his dearest people for this reason, such individual can be considered dependent.

    They are just not conscious of the reasons upsetting their relationships. Their career is usually ended by mental illness. Sooner or later, they find themselves face to face with their desolation being unable to cope with the situation. Moreover, people who care about these individuals are getting engaged without being ready to overcome the difficulties, without knowing the way out.

    Family and friends are very important

    It is clear that recovery from any kind of addiction is much easier when an affected person can boast of friends and relatives which support him and help to kick a habit. Such encouragement is very important. But patience and desire of helping is not enough. They can hardly maintain control over addiction without an expert assistance.

    The close ones must have the appropriate education, they should know about those emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms to advance into action showing patience and perseverance with their efforts no matter how hard the work ahead.

    Family preservation services

    Sometimes the lack of courage and patience will cause despair and break down families. Here it is so important to prevent out-of-home placement of children or other relatives caused by hard conditions, poverty, conflicts, intensity. It is difficult to promote stabilization and reunify. While it is very important to keep families together.

    If hope goes down the drain, the experts recommend to turn to in-home counseling and prevention services providing a support and interventions for families. They assist in crisis by improving family functioning. The support programs may be developed for general purposes or aimed just at the problem of dependence, right for families facing mental health and substance abuse issues.

    Outside assistance

    There are organizations focusing on the chemical, alcohol and other kinds of dependence. They provide their help taking every person with respect and dignity supporting those trapped into events or involved into the troubles of their own free will. Their activity is aimed at consulting, informing, delivering instructions, rendering particular services, giving treatment tailored to individual needs.

    One of them is AAFS. Being a nonprofit organization it provides an outpatient chemical dependency treatment to everybody who needs help. Also, they take care of people with mental health disorders as a community clinic. Their activity is licensed under correspondent State of Minnesota Rules. Their goal is to make African American population healthy.

    It is interesting that they believe in importance of culture, family values, social responsibility. They apply innovative techniques and procedures to make African American community healthy, to reach better well-being, and preserve families.

    Whether you are an individual suffering from dependence or you are a person trying to help, don’t expect you’ll be able to cope with it alone. It is almost impossible to turn a dependent around by caring – he will deny everything while you should make him accept the help.

    Reach the organizations like AAFS and ask for medical interventions. You should start with a detox of a dependent’s body so that the physical withdrawal symptoms disappear. Then, it is vital to change his lifestyle and attitude to recovery.

    This is a rocky road but you will definitely find encouragement within dedicated clinics and organizations.