Addiction is a devastating disease that affects entire families, not just individuals. The use of drugs or alcohol can have significant repercussions on family life. The effects of their use can impact home atmospheres, relationships, and the mental health of all involved. Effective healing from addiction and its effects is a familial effort. Embracing familial support, as well as the benefits that the family can provide, is necessary to create a healthy and comprehensive approach to a new and healthy sober life.
Confronting the Effects of Addiction on the Family
While addiction can feel like a very isolating experience, it doesn’t truly affect an individual in isolation. Instead, it impacts everyone close to an individual, from friends and peers to work colleagues and especially family. Parents, siblings, and spouses are all intimately affected by the disease. Internalizing the profound effects that addiction has had on the family is necessary to best incorporate their support and healing into an effective intensive outpatient program (IOP.)
Loss of trust is common in families as lying or secrecy becomes more prevalent as a result of addiction. This can also foster a growing emotional distance even between spouses. The loss of trust can create a familial schism that takes time, effort, and professional care to mend.
Others may inadvertently affect the family in other ways. This may include forcing additional responsibilities upon family members or increasing their financial burden as personal budgets are compromised with the increasing use of drugs or alcohol.
The emotional toll of addiction can be extensive. Pervasive feelings of anxiety, anger, depression, helplessness, and more are all common among family members of those challenged by addiction. IOPs can help each person address their unique journey with addiction, embrace familial support, provide family education, and take time to address the needs of family members and repair these relationships.
The Importance of Familial Healing
Each individual will have their own best practices and strategies for overcoming addiction. However, family members will also have their own needs in recovery. Embracing familial support in dedicated recovery programs can ensure that healing is an all-encompassing effort. It helps entire families understand and overcome the effects of addiction for a healthier and sober future.
Creating a Comprehensive Approach
IOPs in recovery are not just a single program, nor are they all identical. Combining IOPs with individual therapy, doctor visits to address physical health needs, and appropriate support outside the treatment facility is necessary for a transformative recovery. Utilizing the opportunities for professional treatment along with familial support and education is necessary for this transformation. IOPs provide support to both family members and create an effective and educated support network for those overcoming addiction outside the walls of a treatment facility.
Family Education and Support
Families learning to embrace their own self-care or engaging in dedicated support groups for families of those overcoming addiction can be necessary to process the effects of the disease on entire households. Not only can this give the family the best support possible. It also provides families with a space to explore their own needs and heal through their own challenges and traumas of a loved one overcoming addiction. Additionally, it ensures that a given household is facilitating the necessary changes and environment for all while navigating the challenges of addiction throughout an IOP.
This education is paramount throughout the recovery process, educating families on how to best empower change in loved ones overcoming addiction rather than enable self-destructive or risky behaviors. Family education can be essential in developing the best approach to establishing accountability and helping those in recovery remain accountable for their actions. Both parties are responsible for their accomplishments and overcoming challenges.
Rebuilding the Relationship
Education is important. This doesn’t just help to provide families with the best support strategies possible and process their own challenges but also to repair the effects of addiction on these relationships.
Rebuilding trust and understanding is difficult in recovery. Educating families about the effects of addiction can help them find new perspectives and reach a point of understanding to begin the process of forgiveness. Providing families and those in recovery with communication strategies, new perspectives, and exploration of daily practices in IOPs can be instrumental in helping entire families continue their dedicated recovery efforts while rebuilding an atmosphere of honesty and trust.
Families will all have to recover together to overcome the effects of addiction effectively. Familial support and education are crucial for creating a healthy and effective plan outside of a treatment facility. Taking time to support family members themselves is essential for both fostering comprehensive healing and developing the best environment to facilitate a continued sober support system to overcome the challenges of daily life.
The family plays an important role all throughout recovery and sobriety. Whether you are overcoming addiction yourself or are the family of those on their own sober journey, comprehensive support, education, understanding, and more are all part of an effective and comprehensive sober transformation. At Redpoint, we are committed to the healing of not just individuals but entire families and communities to create the most effective, sustainable change. From family support groups and education to personalized strategies in our outpatient programs, each journey with recovery is a concerted effort for familial healing. For more information on how we can create a recovery program that works best for you and your family, call us today at (303) 710-8496.
