Why is it so hard to convince an addict to get help? For those who love an addict, this question is maddening. Don’t they want to get better? Don’t they want a second chance at life, or be able to stop hurting people, and themselves? While it may seem like the easiest thing in the world to those on the outside, for an addict, it is the hardest decision they will ever have to make.

Was this really a problem?

I remember the day I checked into rehab. Just a few weeks before that day, I sat with my mother while she tearfully begged me to get help. It seemed so dramatic - I didn’t need rehab. Rehab was for people who couldn’t do it on their own. I wasn’t one of those people, I thought. I just needed to detox, I thought, I just needed a doctor to give me some Suboxone so that I could make it through the kick- that is, the physical withdrawals from heroin addiction. I told her that I had everything under control, and I couldn’t understand why she thought I didn’t. I was fully delusional about the state of my life.

I had lost another job, I had been arrested again, and I was stealing to support my heroin habit. I mixed the heroin with alcohol and sleeping pills frequently, and often woke up wondering where I was and how I had gotten there. My friends had long since disowned me in light of the person I had become, my only interactions with people at this point were the men I used to get me high, and the people I called when I had money to buy drugs with.

Every minute of every day was spent getting high, or scheming ways to get money so that I could get high. I bounced from place to place and in and out of homelessness, often manipulating some guy to let me crash on his couch, and all the while wondering what he would want in return for this favor. I was a sad shell of a human, and yet, the idea of a day without heroin was scarier than the thought of sleeping in the park again.

That first day in rehab, my mom sat with me while doctors asked me questions about my using and my mental health, and while the nurses entered me into the computer system, so they could give me my detox medications. She assured me that if I needed anything, I could call her.

She promised she had packed me enough clothes. I remember looking at her with tears in my eyes and telling her that I was scared. She told me that she knew it was scary being in a new place, so far from home. She comforted me, and yet she didn’t even understand what I was so afraid of.

My mom wanted me to understand that I would be safe and taken care of, and I wanted her to understand that I was being faced with the hardest decision I would ever be faced with: to change everything.

The truth about change.

Heroin Addiction Rehab isn’t just a 30 or 90 day get away from the people, places, or things that are dragging you down. It's agreeing to spend the next 3-4 weeks of your life sick; it's consenting to address your mistakes, to feel the emotions you’ve been avoiding for most of your life. It’s one day, suddenly making a decision to say goodbye to the one thing that’s taken the feeling of never good enough, or unlovable, of shame, and made it bearable.

Committing to relearn how to be a productive member of society, rebuild relationships you build to the ground, and face your consequences head-on. I remember the day I checked into rehab, and it felt like heartbreak.

Why is it so hard to convince addicts to get help? Because, for addicts, it is hard to get help. Try to remember, they don’t want to hurt other people, they just don’t want to hurt.

They do want a second chance at life, but that life seems impossible to them. Remind them that there is hope on the other side of detox, and love them even though they won’t believe you. It will be worth it in the end.