How Family Programs Can Help with Addiction Recovery

Feb 3, 2016

Sometimes it is easy to think that your addiction is something you suffer on your own, but the truth is that your family is suffering right along with you. When you decide to get help with your addiction, you might want to consider a program that includes family recovery services. Here are some of the services available and ways family programs in addiction recovery can help.

A Focus on the Patient

Perhaps the most important part of a family recovery program is that they are focused on the patient. Therapy sessions and activities should be designed to educate the family to help them better understand the disease of addiction, and learn ways to manage recovery.

A Focus on Family Members

While recovery programs are designed to help the patient, you want to make sure you find a program that also identifies the needs of others around the patient as well. Therapy sessions that highlight the challenges family members face, discuss self-care skills, introduce recovery and sobriety organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (Al-Anon), and highlight relapse prevention strategies that families can adopt.

Covering Important Topics

Any family program should cover a variety of important topics to ensure that everyone understands the best ways to overcome addiction and the role that each person plays in the process. These topics might include:

  • What is addiction
  • How addiction impacts the family
  • The role that family members play in addiction recovery
  • Healthy communication
  • Defining and enforcing healthy boundaries

Outside Homework

Some programs may also ask that family members participate in things like a 12-step group meeting, or group therapy with other families who are dealing with addiction recovery. Spouses, parents, and extended family members might also be asked to work on 12 steps of co-dependency, exploring ways to improve awareness and interact with a loved one who has a chemical dependency. If you want, you may also decide to obtain your own Al-Anon sponsor to provide families with someone to lean on when they need emotional support.

Retreats and Bonding Time

Sometimes the best way that you can recover is to participate in the therapeutic process of a retreat—creating your own path for awareness and healing. Learn about addiction and codependency, how the stigma of addiction can impact the entire family, and really connect with your loved ones to help heal some of the bonds that may have been broken by addiction and move toward a path to recovery for everyone.

Addiction is not something that you need to suffer alone, and often times your family members are suffering just as much as you are. If you or your loved ones have been affected by alcohol or drug addiction, find out how the family programs at Renaissance Ranch can help you with your recovery.