Counseling is used to help individuals to deal with variety of problem situations.

During counseling, the counselor establishes a warm, supportive, therapeutic relationship with the client using a variety of skills. Based on the strength of this relationship, the counselor helps the client explore problem areas, set goals and assists the client to work through problems in order to establish a more meaningful and productive life style. During addiction treatment, individual counseling aims at enabling the client to learn how to identify and pursue realistic and satisfying solutions to his/her problems, particularly those related to his/her chemical abuse. In order to make individual counseling effective, the counselor has to understand the client as an individual – the influences which have affected him/her, his/her perception of himself and others around him/her – so that he/she can help the client realize how those forces have led to unhealthy ways of coping both prior and after onset of addiction. This understanding at the level of feelings rather than at the intellectual level will enable him/her to cope with life more satisfactorily. The purpose is to help the client in making decisions about his/her life and enable him/her to understand the need to take responsibility for his actions as well as the consequences.

Counseling includes methods that are sensitive to individual client characteristics and to the influence of significant others, as well as the client’s cultural and social context. Competence in counseling is built upon an understanding of, appreciation of, and ability to appropriately use the contributions of various addiction counseling models as they apply to modalities of care for individuals, groups, families, couples, and significant others. For a DRUG addict it is very important to understand the consequences of drug addiction, and how drugs is affecting his/her life as well as lives of people around them. Unless and until this feeling or sense of responsibility is there recovery is difficult. Counselor has to take into consideration the clients background.

Addiction it’s impact on the family
When one person in a family is addicted to alcohol or drugs, the whole family is affected. A family is like a mobile* which hangs in a room and shifts and changes when the wind blows. If one part of a mobile is touched, the whole thing reacts.

A family is a group of people related by mutual commitment and/or by blood. The people are inter–related, just like the parts of a mobile. If one person is out of balance or in a crisis, all the members find themselves off balance too.

Addiction is a progressive disease, and the addicted person finds himself involved in a series of crises, which worsen over time. In order for the family to deal with that, they learn how to hang out of balance to compensate. This way of relating and behaving becomes familiar, and the whole family finds itself ‘sick’ together.

* A mobile is a light structure, which is hung from the ceiling as a decoration. It usually consists of several small objects which move as the air around them moves, and is often hung above children’s cradles to keep them entertained.