Answer by Sheryl Rahme

If your loved one is in denial, it is very difficult to break through it on your own. There is much emotional history and probably many unhealthy coping skills within the family and it often needs an addiction professional intervention. This intervention however does not mean that you confront the chemically dependent person. It means that the family needs to learn new coping skills and the family needs to take the necessary time to learn more about addiction, heal and make healthy changes in their own behaviour so that the family is part of the active process that brings the addict’s bottom up to meet them, rather than waiting for them to fall towards their own rock bottom.