If you’re trying to help a drug or alcohol addict stay clean, this guide will teach you 7 of our best tips for supporting your loved one in their recovery.

This guide contains tips, practical advice, and observations from our clinical team, as well as insights into addiction, enablement vs. support, and even a few tips to help support your own mental health during this process.

Addiction is a disease that can wreak havoc on every part of your life, including your family, marriage, and job. With these tips, you can make your recovery process more manageable.

Read on to learn how to help an addict stay clean and what you can do to improve both of your lives during this process.

What is Addiction?

Addiction is a chronic medical condition marked by the brain’s inability to stop using substances like alcohol, stimulants, or prescription pain relievers despite harmful consequences. It’s marked by an irresistible compulsion (drug cravings) to use drugs and an inability to control one’s intake.

These diseases are listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, as substance use disorders (SUDs). According to the United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 48.5 million (16.7%) of Americans aged 12 or older suffered from an SUD in the previous year.

If you’re caring for someone with addiction, you may have noticed certain signs of addiction, such as:

• Using more and more of their drug of choice despite negative consequences
• Worsening performance at work or school
• Neglecting other responsibilities in favour of using drugs
• Financial issues due to their drug use
• Destructive behaviour not typical of the person (often resulting in legal troubles)

You’ve probably also noticed other signs of drug abuse, such as mood swings, secretive behaviour, or changes in sleep and appetite. It’s painful to watch someone you care about struggle, but before you can support your loved one, you need to understand how addiction works.

Substances like alcohol or drugs hijack the brain’s reward system. They flood your brain with dopamine, the chemical that tells you something feels good (and that you should do it again).

Over time, your brain adapts by reducing its own natural dopamine production and creating fewer receptors in anticipation of the large amount of dopamine you’ll get from a drug. This is the basis of all substance abuse issues.

This change in your brain’s wiring means you need more of the substance to get the same feeling, otherwise known as “tolerance”. 

And with more tolerance usually comes worse withdrawals. Withdrawals are the negative symptoms the addict feels when not using, particularly mood swings and cravings. The more you consume of the drug, the worse you feel without it, which drives you to use again just to feel normal.

This is why we call addiction a negative cycle. You need more and more to get the same effect, which creates even stronger mental and physical side effects. The only solution? To consume more next time. And hence the cycle perpetuates.

Remember, this is not a moral failing. It’s a chronic illness. They need your help because they’re sick. Not because they’re a bad person.

But before you can truly help them, you need to make sure you’re not enabling them.

Understanding Enabling vs. Helping

Enabling is when you do something that actually reinforces your loved one’s addiction rather than helping to stop it. It’s a common problem for parents, family, friends, and caretakers of addicts.

If you truly want to help, you need to support them instead of enabling them. 

Supportive actions include encouraging your loved one to attend counselling, celebrating milestones in their recovery, or simply being there to listen without judgment. While enabling behaviours include lending money, covering for missed responsibilities, or minimising the severity of the addiction. You might think you’re helping them, but in the long run, you’re doing harm.

At our clinic, we’ve observed firsthand how family dynamics significantly influence recovery outcomes. Families who maintain open communication, set clear boundaries, and work together tend to produce better outcomes. Those that struggle with blame, inconsistent boundaries, or taking on too much responsibility often hinder progress.

We recommend offering consistent support, being empathetic, and setting clear boundaries, but never doing something that enables your loved one’s addiction (especially lending money or making excuses for them).

Key Strategies to Support Long-Term Sobriety

Here are the top strategies to help your loved one get clean and stay sober for good from our clinical team:

#1) Encourage Them to Get Professional Support

The first thing you need to do to help your loved one stay sober is to get them help, both in the immediate term AND long-term via aftercare (mostly group support).

The most common forms of addiction treatment are:

• Medical Detox Programmes: Supervised withdrawal in a medical setting, with doctors and nurses managing symptoms.
  
• Inpatient (Residential) Treatment: These are live‑in programmes at a treatment facility offering 24/7 supervision, individual therapy, group counselling, life‑skills training, and peer support. This type of structured programme in a stable environment is the best way to heal severe addiction.
  
• Outpatient Treatment Programmes: Outpatient treatment is a form of treatment that includes scheduled therapy sessions, substance use counselling, and support groups, but it’s done outside of a medical facility (or a mixture of inside and outside). This type of structure lets the addict maintain home life and work while progressing through recovery.

If they are past the recovery stage, we recommend encouraging them to join support groups such as:

After decades in the drug addiction recovery community, we say this from experience: We don’t know a single truly recovered addict who isn’t part of the recovery community. That means participating in meetings, helping other members, and regularly meeting with a sponsor or other recovered addict for support. If you want to overcome addiction, you must be part of a community.

#2) Provide Consistent Practical Support

Ways to support your drug-addicted loved ones include giving them rides to meetings, being there to talk about their addiction, cooking food with them, and helping them with their day-to-day responsibilities. You should also consider attending counselling sessions with them.

It’s imperative that you see the difference between practical behaviours like rides to meetings and enabling behaviours like lending money (which almost certainly will be spent on procuring drugs). One supports long-term recovery while the other prolongs their addiction.

When they talk, listen without judgment. Put your phone away, make eye contact, and reflect back on what you hear. You can say, “It sounds like you’re feeling overwhelmed. I understand, and I want to help”. That simple act shows you care and builds trust.

One of the best things you can do is join them in activities that support their recovery. Go with them to a local meeting or plan a sober outing, like getting coffee, taking a walk in the park, or cooking a meal together.

NOTE: You cannot force an addict to do any of these things. They must do it for themselves. So, don’t feel down on yourself if they refuse.

As always, you should encourage independence by asking, “How can I help you take this next step?” rather than deciding for them.

#3) Establish and Maintain Healthy Boundaries

Establishing and firmly maintaining healthy boundaries is the best way you can help someone struggling with addiction, especially if it’s your spouse or child. These boundaries will often leave them no choice but to seek professional medical help or, at the very least, maintain sobriety.

Think of boundaries as invisible lines that define what you will and won’t tolerate.

Tell your loved one clearly what behaviours you won’t accept in your home, such as drug use or having intoxicated friends over. You should also discuss financial limits explicitly. If it’s your child, explain they won’t be able to live at home unless they get clean. At the very least, tell them you won’t be giving them money for books, gas, food, or entertainment, because you know it’s going to drugs.

Be as direct and caring as possible.

Sit down when both of you are calm and explain your limits using “I” statements. For example: “I feel stressed when you stay out late without texting me. From now on, you must text me so I know where you are”. Do not accuse them of doing anything wrong, though.

#4) Practice Effective Communication

Our next tip for helping an addict stay sober is communicating with them the right way. Your words can either strengthen their recovery or trigger harmful thoughts, so it’s important that you choose wisely here.

Here are some tips from our clinical team…

When expressing concerns, focus on your feelings rather than attacking them. Instead of “you cause me so much stress when you’re with your drinking buddies. I know you’re drinking again!”,” try something more caring and concerned, like “I feel anxious when you spend time with friends from your previous drinking days because I’m concerned about your sobriety.” 

Addicts can be incredibly defensive, but the more you focus on how much you care, the more likely you’ll be to get a good response.

And listening matters as much as speaking. When someone in recovery describes their struggles, they’re processing complex emotions (and it’s not easy). Give them your full attention without interrupting or judging. If they share feelings of temptation at a certain event, resist offering immediate solutions. Let them fully explain their experience first. That way, they feel understood rather than lectured (which nobody likes).

#5) Help Support Their Mental Health

One of the best ways to help someone maintain their sobriety is by helping to heal the underlying causes behind their addiction. And one of the main causes of addiction is mental illness. Addicts are often self-medicating an undiagnosed mental health issue.

We often find that family and friends tend to focus too much on things they can see (financial issues or behaviours) and not on what’s going on inside of the addict’s mind.

Depression, anxiety, trauma, and bipolar disorder commonly occur alongside addiction, creating a cycle that’s hard to break without addressing both issues. If you want to help them get better, you should help them reduce the negative effects of their mental health disorders.

This is because if your loved one has stopped using drugs but hasn’t treated their mental health problems, they face a much higher risk of relapse. 

What you can do is encourage them to see a therapist who specialises in dual diagnosis treatment. In this case, it’s best if you offer practical help by researching providers who accept their insurance, driving them to appointments, or helping with paperwork. Instead of just making a suggestion, find ways to actually contribute.

And remember, daily stress management is one of the most important tenets of recovery. When emotions become overwhelming, the urge to use drugs returns with force. Help your loved one develop healthy coping strategies like exercise, meditation, or creative outlets. 

It can be something as simple as practising one of these activities together, like accompanying them on a walk.

#6) Be Prepared for and Respond to the Potential of Relapse

Recovery is a lifelong process, and there will be bumps in the road.

Relapse happens to roughly 40-60% of people in recovery. It’s just a fact of the recovery journey. It doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. As long as you get back to sobriety and stick with it, it’s not a hindrance to long-term success.

Having a relapse response plan saves time and drastically improves outcomes.

Write down emergency contacts, treatment options, and specific steps to take if you suspect a relapse. Keep this information somewhere easily accessible. The plan should include who will take them to treatment, who will handle their responsibilities while they’re away, and which facility they’ll enter.

Imagine this situation: your sister, after nine months of sobriety, takes a drink at a friend’s birthday party. You spot the warning signs, pause, and consult your response plan. You call her sponsor, arrange transport to an outpatient programme, and book an extra therapy session that afternoon. You’ve increased her chances of staying sober the next time around drastically.

#7) Promote Healthy Lifestyle Changes

It’s impossible to understate the importance of healthy lifestyle changes in recovery from a drug problem. Addicts tend to have hours of free time. This is why so many people claim that there’s a “void” in their lives in early recovery.

The best way you can help them fill this void is by encouraging new, healthy hobbies to fill the time. There’s a saying in the drug addiction community: You need to build a more exciting life in sobriety than you had with drugs. It’s possible. We’ve seen it over and over again.

Here are a few of the healthy activities you can do in sobriety:

• Exercise: Exercise releases the same feel-good chemicals that drugs artificially triggered, but in natural, sustainable amounts. Something as simple as a 30-minute daily walk reduces cravings and improves mood.
• New activities: Offer to join them in trying new activities, like hiking, swimming, or taking a fitness class together.
• Social connections: Their social circle needs rebuilding too. Old drinking buddies and dealers must be replaced with people who support recovery.
• Support groups: Encourage them to attend support group meetings regularly, where they’ll meet others facing similar challenges.
• Sober events: Recovery communities often organise sober events that provide safe opportunities for socialising without substances.
• Nutrition: Healthy eating repairs the physical damage caused by addiction. Many recovering addicts have nutritional deficiencies that affect their energy and mental clarity.
• Cooking together: Cooking nutritious meals together gives them practical skills while strengthening your relationship.
• Daily routine: The structure of regular mealtimes also helps establish the daily routine that many recovering addicts desperately need after years of chaos. Having a structure will help reduce stressful situations.

Taking Care of Yourself While Helping a Loved One

Supporting a recovering addict drains you emotionally and physically in ways you might not immediately notice. Many family members report feeling constantly anxious, experiencing disrupted sleep, and struggling with their own health problems after months of focusing solely on their loved one’s recovery.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s normal. In fact, it should be expected. There are entire support groups dedicated just to family members of addicts. That’s how exhausting this can be.

When you neglect your own needs, you eventually have nothing left to give. Helping yourself is in a way like helping your loved one, too. They need you to be healthy and present for the long journey of recovery.

Finding Support for Yourself

In our family counselling sessions, we’ve seen the transformation that happens when families get their own support. The weight visibly lifts from their shoulders when they realise they can get help:

How The Cabin Can Help You Maintain Sobriety

We know how difficult it is to maintain sobriety. It’s a lifelong commitment. If at any time in your journey you need help recovering from addiction, we are just a phone call away.

We are one of Asia’s longest-running and most respected treatment centres. We are located in Northern Thailand, but we have recovery services online, as well as in-person locations in major locations around the world, such as London, Sydney, Hong Kong, and the Middle East.

As soon as you let your guard down, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. Don’t let that happen. Contact us today to join the Cabin family and get lifelong support from other recovered addicts.

We want to get you help, even if it’s not with us. The call is free.