If she tried to reduce it she wouldn't do it. Nobody is holding a gun to her head. She does it because she wants to do it. Until she takes responsibility for her actions she will not change.
Well yes, the essential working part of all interventions and therapies is to help the client understand how they can take responsibility and what control they have, and to believe in it. They aren’t pure victims, no one is.
That's miles different from what GP said. Dependency issues are a complicated matter, and for sure the affected person needs to be interested in changing and willing to do the needed steps. But to do that, to SEE that, you need external help and support, otherwise inertia and the dependency issue itself will keep you in the same circle forever.
Yeah this is how all therapy works. It’s about learning what change you can make and taking responsibility and making that change. Not sure why you’re being downvoted but likely because there’s an idea floating around now that all such issues are purely externally imposed by a defect in society, and that it has nothing to do with the actions of the individual who is portrayed as helpless. I think that is a deeply depressing and disturbing trend. I’ve literally seen communities of people telling others they should kill themselves because it’s impossible to be happy under capitalism…
If there is no external stimuli to push a desire to change it is unlikely a person will even want to change in the first place.
Hence the other comments, well done you just solved all drug dependency, just stop doing drugs.
Therapy isn't just about how to take responsibility and making changes. It's about learning how to build a support network and the mental resolve to actually go through with the change in the long term.
Blaming the person in addiction doesn't help much without actually taking steps to improve. But it's all too common to believe you have brought an issue to an addicts attention but it didn't quite sink in to them.
Sometimes a phrase like "this is a problem and if you don't seek help I am going to have to take action by doing x" can be a decent wake up call. But if it comes over as aggressive or happens during a fight of some sort you will still not get the response you were looking for.
Inter personal relationships are hard, sometimes it is beneficial for the person's effected be someone else addiction to seek therapy at the same time or even before the addict seeks therapy.
In this case it's even more true, a long term relationship with children is the one place you really do want all the support you can get to ensure the person that needs help gets it and the family as a whole doesn't suffer more than needed.
