By Robert Lien (MHA)
Over the years I’ve spoken to thousands of families, friends and employers seeking help for someone struggling with addiction, mental health conditions, or both. Oftentimes, the caller has had a hard time getting the person to accept treatment because they have numerous reasons why they cannot go to treatment today. These reasons are often based in fear of change and are attempts to control the situation despite frequent experiences that have shown otherwise. Callers will back down from encouraging the person to get help because of their own fear of how the person is going to react if pressured into treatment.
Fortunately, today more than ever before there are many ways people can get treatment. Of course there is still the traditional method of going to a residential treatment facility where they are under 24-hour supervision in a structured program. There are also outpatient programs where clients can visit the facility for a number of hours per day and then go home. However, there’s also been the evolution of telehealth and telemedicine. People are now able to communicate with medical and mental health professionals like never before via secure online websites such as zoom.com and simplepractice.com as an alternative to meeting in person.
For the individual who states they don’t have time to go to a facility to participate in a treatment program you may want to look at an online treatment option. It is a convenient way to be able to connect with a therapeutic community for recovery support with conditions ranging from addiction to drugs and alcohol as well as bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression. By logging into the online platform people do not have to travel and can get the care they need to help them function at work, at home and in their community. This option gives people who have busy lives or that do not live in a convenient commuting distance access to professionals that can best serve them.
With the access to more treatment options interventions can be much more successful. Families and friends no longer have to be held “emotionally hostage” out of fear that they are responsible for their loved ones behavior if they try to impose any consequences. Additionally, not everyone needs an acute level of care or to have to take a leave of absence from work to go get help. Online therapy can be integrated into a person’s daily schedule to begin getting help and it is better to start getting some help than nothing at all and it might be just what they needed to get well.
