How to help someone quit smoking

Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the world, and also the most media manipulated. As its consumption is regularized in more and more countries, online communities and companies that manipulate information about the effects of cannabis, exaggerating its supposed benefits and minimizing its risks.

In part, thanks to the ignorance and hoaxes that circulate around the use of cannabis (for clear economic interests) more and more people fall into the clutches of this addictive drug (yes, she is addictive, and I see it every day in consultation).

• Related article: "How does self-deception work in addictions?"

How to support a family member to stop using marijuana joints?

Almost every day I am contacted by mothers, fathers, partners and friends of people who have developed addiction to marijuana, they witness how they suffer and wonder how to help them. In this sense, let's see several tips on how to help someone quit smoking joints.

1. put empathy

No one chooses to have an addiction. Suffering from an addiction consists precisely in the fact that the person loses their ability to choose. The first thing we must understand is that at first the person will have little or no control over their consumption behavior.

Your son or your partner is going to smoke joints even knowing that it is very harmful. That's what marijuana addiction is, you know it makes you unhappy and destroys your mind and body, but you can't stop smoking.

You have to understand that the person smokes joints to isolate himself and escape from reality. We always use drugs as an attempt to cope with distressing events and unpleasant emotions. So, to understand the person's marijuana addiction problem and help them quit joints, we have to understand what difficulties he is having in life, what concerns, what challenges.

An important part of any treatment for marijuana addiction will be helping the person face your problems face to face, with new strategies, so that you do not have to depend on marijuana to long term.

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2. Don't confront their delusions directly

If the person we want to help quit joints doesn't want to quit because they think she doesn't have a problem, it means she is still in the pre-contemplation phase. It is very difficult to help someone who is not aware of her problem, and we can make the mistake of confronting her too directly, putting her on the defensive, damage the relationship and give you reasons to leave us and that we can no longer help you.

Before, I mentioned the large number of hoaxes and lies that circulate on the Internet, such as thinking that marijuana is a innocuous drug, that does not cause addiction, or that even cures depression or anxiety, or that connects you with reality hidden. These hoaxes are spread by organizations and individuals who profit from the sale of marijuana or cannabis-related merchandising and paraphernalia (self-cultivation materials, for example).

In that sense, quitting joints is a lot like quitting a cult. It involves realizing that we are trapped in a bubble, questioning our previous beliefs, and looking for real evidence for or against it.

In order to quit smoking for good (or ask for help), a person has to question their previous beliefs about marijuana, admit the possibility that you might have been wrong and that you have been misled (by friends who are consumers or by those who make money with marijuana).

Therefore, as difficult as this process of "getting out of the marijuana bubble" is, many family members make the mistake of confronting too strongly. For example, entering the room as if it were a police raid, searching everything for marijuana, throwing it in the trash and threatening the person.

As you can imagine, this type of intervention, in many cases, will only make the person try harder to hide their consumption, and will serve to justify their desire to continue consuming.

In most cases, the best strategy is to have a calm and respectful conversation with the person, ask him what he likes most about consumption and what he likes least, help him see the relationship between joints and some of his problems. Little by little, with respect, so that the person begins to ask new questions. From that position it will be much easier to help him see the problem and make decisions.

• Related article: "5 excuses for cannabis smokers not to quit"

3. Applaud small progress

If he tries to quit joints and relapses, praise him for trying. If he tries to cut back little by little, praise him for trying.. If he starts to change his habits, exercise more, change friends, congratulate him for trying. Giving up joints is not easy, if it were you would not be reading this article.

Encourage him for the small steps he takes, because he is going in the right direction.

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4. Set clear limits

And when we talk about empathy, love and patience, it is also important to talk about limits. No matter how much we love a person, no matter how well we mean, we have to mark limits somewhere.

It is like when they explain to us the security protocol on a plane. They usually explain that, if the pressure in the cabin is lost and the oxygen masks go down, that we always put our mask on first, even if we go with a baby or a small child. Logic tells us that we should ignore the first temptation to put the oxygen mask on before the others. people, because if we don't put ourselves first, we won't be able to really help other people either. be saved. The moral is that our mental health comes first, always.

What I am trying to say is that there are extreme situations in which the person does not want to give up joints, does not want to go to therapy nor does he want to commit to making changes, even though that makes us suffer a lot or even puts us in danger. There are extreme cases in which, to help the person in the long term, we must set limits such as stop giving him money, ask him to leave the house, or give him an ultimatum and cut off the relationship.

They are very hard decisions, but unfortunately they have to be taken in some cases, to protect our mental health and help the person realize what he is missing out on in life by not giving up marijuana.

5. Consult with a professional

The last piece of advice and the most important is that you encourage the person to consult their case with an addiction professional. People move much faster and get stuck less when they have the help of a professional. Everything becomes less difficult when an expert accompanies us along the way.

I am a psychologist specializing in addictions; If a person you love suffers from addiction, contact me and we will evaluate the situation.