Your Family Needs It Too
Family members of addicts and alcoholics go through their own personal traumas when a loved one is suffering. To help cope with addiction, family members might develop negative habits like enabling or codependency. In addition, they may suffer their own issues like depression or anxiety. Loved ones might cover up for the addict, make excuses, take over responsibilities, or blame themselves for everything. An addict needs proper counseling to learn how to handle themselves and others. However, the family also needs proper counseling and education to create a healthy environment for themselves and the addict.
Building Your Support Network
When you’re in recovery, you need as much help as you can get. Family therapy brings your family together. It teaches them the subtleties of addiction and how to help the addict through their sobriety journey. The more emotional support, the more likely someone is to stay sober.
Family Programs Help Your Children
It can be difficult for small children to understand why you had to go away to get better, or why you’d suddenly get angry for no reason, or why mom had to take them to Grandma’s house on some nights. Children can suffer emotional trauma from growing up with a parent with a substance abuse disorder. As a result, they may turn to self-medicating for relief themselves. Intensive family therapies offer programs that cater to the unique needs of children and helps them learn coping skills to deal with any emotional wounds.
Help Your Family Understand
Misunderstandings and misinformation between addicts and their loved ones make the situation more difficult than it has to be. It can be tough for a family member to watch their son or sister struggle against addiction, especially since it’s difficult for a non-addict to understand what’s happening in the addict’s brain. Education and family counseling can better help the family understand the unique challenges that come with recovery and how they can better support the addict on their path to recovery from addiction.
Heal Damaged Relationships
It’s well understood that addiction is a family disease, and the irony of addiction is that it harms the most important people in your life more than anyone else. It’s not uncommon for relationships to reach their breaking point during addiction but family therapy can rebuild broken relationships. In family therapy, you can open the lines of communication with your loved ones. It will help restore an open and honest relationship.