I need to do something to help my cousin

[Purplemac]

I don't know how active this topic is but I am really hoping there is someone here who can help me. I am 26, married, and am very close to my family including lots of cousins who I grew up with.

One of these I have always been particularly close to - she is currently 19. Up until I got married two years ago (at the same time she left school), we have lost that closeness. We still text regularly but I have only seen her once in the past 2 years. Every time we arrange something she either cancels or just doesn't show up. I'm not sure where she is living, or who she is living with, although it will be local. She is extremely vulnerable right now and has had mental health issues in the past (referred to CAMHS but they didn't do much to help).

Another family member has just seen her and has called me up to tell me how worried they are about her, that she is all skin and bones and her complexion is just awful and there is very little doubt that she is heavily using drugs. She has always denied this to me before, and I have let it go thinking it was probably just recreational and she would grow out of it. But it has always been a niggling concern of mine and now it seems to have been confirmed and she is basically skeletal.

I have spoken to her today and invited her round for dinner one night this week, and have told her that there are to be no cancellations this time around. I really want to get through to her, for her to open up to me. I know that I can't help her until she wants to help herself, but at the same time I cannot just let her carry on this way. I don't know what to do for the best. I would be more than happy to put her through a rehab programme and fund it privately if I have to, but it's then the "aftercare" that I worry about - where will she live, how will she get a job and begin to support herself? It just all seems so difficult right now.

I'm sorry, I don't even know what I am asking on here. Maybe just how I can support her?

Reading that back I realise I sound quite heartless and judgemental, that's not the case at all. I just want to protect her and to make everything ok for her, she means the world to me.

Don't try to 'fix' her or 'cure' her. Honestly, she's not going to come for dinner if she thinks she is going to be lectured at or judged. If you're determined to have her round, just let her come round and just 'be'. Let her know that your place is a safe place that she can come and not have to put on a front. Please don't force her to turn up and then tell her how worried you are etc - all that will do is make her retreat further into herself

I'm not going to try to fix or cure her, I just want her to be safe - I have always done my best to make sure she knows that she can talk to me about anything, and I will never judge her - and I certainly won't lecture her about it. If she doesn't want to talk about it then I won't pressure her to, but I do want to help her. If that means cooking for her once a week to make sure she's having a good proper meal, rather than getting her clean, then so be it. I will do whatever she needs to do. I am terrified for her.

I have no immediate experience of drug addiction, but I'm a recovering alcoholic, so I thought I'd try to give you my perspective from another addict's point of view.

In regards to offering to fund rehab etc (which is unbelievably generous, rehab is horribly expensive), you're running before you can walk, right now. She hasn't even spoken with you yet, and chances are, if you go in all guns blazing saying 'We all know you have an issue, we just want to help', she'll just clam up completely. Many - if not most - addicts are horribly ashamed of their addiction. The realisation that her family know about it may shock and frighten her.

You don't come across as heartless and judgemental at all, it's very clear that you love your cousin and desperately want to help her. Addiction is a tricky, cunning creature, and it outsmarts the best of us. It really isn't as simple as 'Let's get you into rehab, that'll sort you out' - a staggering number of the people I meet in AA have had at least one stint in rehab, at a cost of tens of thousands, and the first thing they did when they left was go to the pub or the off licence.

You need to have a gentle chat with her before you consider ANY of this.

I agree with Hiphop, let her just 'be' - that will probably be what she truly needs right now. A safe space, no chat, no judgement, no prodding to see what the problem is.