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Coping with a family member with Alcohol or Drug Addiction
If you have a family member in alcohol rehab or drug rehab, it means you are inevitably faced with a great number of concerns.
These worries may cause issues in your own everyday life and you may have misconceptions with regards to how professional treatment works and how it will improve the life of your loved one.
The first place you may need to start is seeking support for yourself. You may wish to seek out individual therapy, marriage counselling or family counselling. The effects of an addiction are wide ranging and can have hugely detrimental effects on loved one’s lives.
If you require further support for yourself or your immediate family, you can take part in mutual support groups. Many people who have experienced a love one descend into an addiction find that joining family groups are positive and sometimes life changing experiences.
You may also take the opportunity to educate yourself about drug and alcohol addiction, and how an addiction can affect every member of your family.
The more information you have about the make up of a family that is being affected by an addiction, the more support and encouragement you’ll be able to offer your family member.
Alcohol and Drug Rehab
The first point to consider is that your family member is in the safest possible place. They are in good hands and rehab is a safe, professional environment that makes a very positive and very real difference to an addict’s life.
Your loved one isn’t being detained against their will – they are precisely in the right place to get the alcohol and drug rehab that they require.
They are being cared for by experienced medical professionals who have received specialised education and training to help people experiencing a drug addiction or alcohol addiction.
Your family member will also be surrounded by their peers – fellow recovering addicts who are in the same situation. This allows them to build up a support network and these recovery groups act as a form of positive peer pressure, a motivator to continue sobriety.
Your loved one will receive individual and group therapy, be offered a balanced diet and receive all appropriate medical care.
Many drug and alcohol rehab programs offer a more holistic drug and alcohol rehab approach which allows recovery for both body and mind. Your loved one is in the safe hands of experienced, compassionate staff.
Support for family
It is important that you try to not take the situation personally. Your family member will need to concentrate firmly on their recovery. You are of course able to get in touch but in the early stages of rehab, contact with the outside world will not be available on a regular basis.
This is important for their recovery – it allows them to focus on becoming and staying sober and this will be made easier for them if they have no distractions and minimal outside influences. In the early stages of their treatment, the primary concern is on maintaining abstinence.
A point will eventually arrive where you will be asked to become involved in your loved one’s rehab. The majority of drug and alcohol rehab programs will include the family of the patient in their recovery. This is because research has determined that the involvement of family reduces the risk of a relapse in the future.
It is normal that in the first month of a rehab program, you will be invited to the rehab clinic for a family day. During this time, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, talk about your feelings and experiences about your loved one and express any concerns that you might have about their recovery.
Family workshops and Drug and Alcohol Rehab facilities near me
Being involved in your loved one’s treatment is beneficial in many ways. It offers your family member the chance to learn how your whole family has been affected by their addiction.
It also allows your loved one’s rehab counsellors to gather input from your family and to make observations about how you interact. It also encourages your family member to continue with their treatment program knowing that they have the full support of their family.
The primary purpose of family involvement in workshops is to give you information about how addiction works, and how your wider family can be affected by the substance abuse of other people. The aim of this is to lessen your burden and accentuate positive and helpful behaviours.
Family workshops allow you to have an overview of substance addiction including the basic concepts, the causes of an addiction and how symptoms will manifest themselves.
You will also explore the effect of addiction and dependency on the addict, the wider family and individual family members, for example children.
There will also be an overview of recovery issues (physical and psychological) and how outcomes can be measured. You will also learn how the family can help someone in recovery, how you can rebuild bridges after a substance addiction may have caused rifts, and how to identify common signs of a relapse and how the family can play their part in avoiding this.
How Rehab Clinics Group can help
If you are worried about the welfare of a loved one, Rehab Clinics Group are here to help you. With comfortable and safe rehab centres across the country, we are ideally placed to help you, or a loved one, who is struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction. We offer family referrals, and support for family is important to our rehab programs.
We offer residential rehab, which allows your family member to recover in the safety and comfort of our clinic without the distractions and temptations of everyday life.
You will be able to keep in regular touch and family led sessions will help your healing. Why not call us today on 0800 470 0382 to text HELP to 83222 and see how we can help you to remove the dark cloud of a drug or alcohol addiction from your life?
Sources
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/14659891.2013.799239
