To the Family and Friends of People Who Use Drugs: What is Harm Reduction?
Although they may not speak these words out loud, many people who have someone close to them engaging in chronic drug use carry the belief that they have the power to change this person. Specifically, changing them to get them to quit using and acheive abstinence. Thoughts like “if only they would stay away from this person, if only they would go to these meetings, if only they would listen to what I tell them,” go through their head regularly. What they usually don’t realize for a long time is that their loved one is going to go through their own, self-driven process, whatever that may end up looking like to them. Completely independent from what the push of friends or family members. Therefore it is up to the friend or family member to identify their own needs and boundaries when it comes to the person in their life who uses drugs.
In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (or DBT) we are taught that two seemingly opposing views or facts can both be true at the same time. We can weigh both sides of a disagreement and hold space for both to find mutual understanding and agreement. Balance. This is the same principle that we can apply to our relationships with a person we love who is using drugs: we can determine what boundaries will help us to satisfy our own well-being and emotional safety, while also holding space and…
