When treating addiction, it’s important to understand that you’re dealing with a chronic disease with a variety of potential complications. A quality recovery program should seek to identify all the underlying causes and work with you to educate and advise on how to maintain a healthier lifestyle going forward.

Proper family support is another hallmark of quality addiction treatment. While addiction isn’t an infectious disease, it still harms everyone around the individual—family members in particular.

Family Therapy Aids Recovery

Re-establishing broken lines of communication within the family is a vital step in the recovery process. It provides an opportunity for you to address how your loved one’s addiction has impacted each of you in a safe, neutral space. This encourages accountability for a recovering addict. It also helps identify behaviors that empower addiction or allow it to continue, which are commonly referred to as enabling. These may include:

• Making excuses for an addict’s behavior
• Protecting an addict from experiencing consequences
• Threatening punishment or consequences for poor behavior and failing to follow through
• Paying for things or doing chores and tasks that an addict should be able to handle on his own.

Letting Go to Get Better as a Family

Many families struggle with guilt over a loved one’s addiction. Some try their hardest to fix the problem and experience additional guilt when their attempts fail. If relapse occurs, another wave of painful feelings including anger and sadness can wash over the entire family.
There are three concepts that your family should understand in order to begin the process of healing the home from addiction:

1. You are not the cause of the addiction.
2. You cannot cure someone else’s addiction.
3. You cannot control your loved one.

Addiction Recovery Family Support Can Help Rebuild Relationships

Lies, broken promises and hurtful words tear down the pillars of trust and commitment in a relationship. Physical violence and legal consequences can complicate the family’s healing process in additional ways. It’s often difficult to imagine a world where you can ever truly trust your loved one again.

First and foremost, he/she will have to get treatment for addiction and take responsibility for the pain inflicted. Once that step has been taken, you will all have to do the hard work of rebuilding what was lost. It won’t happen overnight, but with patience, dedication and the healing power of love, your family can be whole again.

Begin the Healing Process from Addiction for Your Family

At Footprints Beachside Recovery, we believe true healing from addiction comes by treating each client as an individual with a customized program. Our holistic approach aims to uncover all the underlying causes of addiction to give your loved one the best chance at recovery and reducing the risk of relapse.

One of the ways we accomplish this is by providing support and therapy that considers the needs of the family in addition to the recovering addict. We understand the pain and emotional turmoil that addiction brought into your lives, and it’s vital that you receive support in order to heal as well. If your family needs help repairing the damage caused by addiction, contact our team now.