As you go through the rehab process, you’ll be able to start family therapy sessions that will involve your loved ones. This is an opportunity for you to start mending the relationships that were strained throughout your addiction experience. In so doing, it provides you with a wealth of benefits that will help you grow stronger as a recovering addict, while also strengthening your familial bonds. For you, it will help you to stay engaged with your recovery by showing you that you still have the support of your loved ones. Even though your family members may be upset with you for your past actions, their willingness to work on their relationships with you will show you that you won’t have to go through this part of your recovery on your own. Although you have the support of the other recovering addicts in rehab, it can be extremely helpful to know that your own family is behind you.
Family therapy also provides you with an outsider’s view of your addiction, allowing you to better understand why your relationships were strained. During therapy, your loved ones will be encouraged to discuss the incidences that strained their relationships with you. This can involve incidences in which you stole money and valuables to fund your addiction or occasions in which you were publicly drunk, verbally abusive, or threatening. These memories will be unpleasant to relive, but looking back at them with a sober mind will give you a clearer understanding of how addiction changed your personality. This is actually beneficial for you because it will demonstrate the adverse effects of addiction and encourage you to stay clean and sober. As the feelings surrounding these incidences are aired out, the therapist will help you and your family members begin to heal your relationships. You’ll engage in trust-building exercises and other types of therapy that will help you grow closer together.
Address Issues That Negatively Impacted Your Addiction
An aspect of family therapy that will benefit you is the opportunity for you to open up about issues that negatively impacted your substance abuse. In many situations, an addict’s family will serve as a trigger to cause them to drink or use drugs. A family member may have been especially critical of you, leading to low self-esteem and other emotional health problems. In many cases, family members don’t realize how deeply they affect their loved ones with their words or actions. Family therapy is an opportunity for you to bring these issues out into the open. If you don’t discuss them, these same problems will persist and continue to compel you to relapse. This is the time for you and your loved ones to understand how pre-existing emotional problems and poorly managed relationships affected your substance abuse problems. In addition to addressing these specific problems, you and your family members will develop better communication skills. Learning how to communicate with each other more effectively will ensure everyone is expressing themselves in healthy ways.
Your family will also be able to learn how to help you after you return home to continue your addiction recovery. Certainly, they will want to help you, but, unless they learn specific methods, they may not be very effective. During family therapy sessions, you and your therapist can help your spouse, children, or parents understand more about addiction recovery. Instead of creating an awkward situation in which your family is afraid to do or say the wrong thing, you can give them constructive methods for showing their support. This will begin with helping you come home to safe and sober living environment by removing alcohol and drugs from the home. This is an important process because it will help your family learn to support you in healthy ways without smothering you. Therapy sessions will also be used to teach your loved ones skills for helping you cope with cravings and triggers. Since you won’t have instant access to the same support structure you had in rehab, having educated family members will ensure you have somewhere to turn in a crisis. It may take patience as your loved ones develop these skills, but, as you work on them together, you will all grow closer and develop deeper bonds.
If you’re ready to begin a path to recovery, call our counselors at 833-846-5669 today. We’re available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We can answer any questions you have, and we’ll help you get into the treatment program that’s best for your situation. Together, we can help you start a sober and clean lifestyle.