There are many reasons to include family members in your addiction treatment. As long as there is not a need to keep family out of it, involving family members in treatment for addiction can bring lasting and more fulfilling relationships as well as extensive support for a person’s sobriety. This article will explore a few reasons for inviting your family into your treatment experience.
Because addiction affects loved ones, it might make sense to include them when the addiction has come to an end. Here are a few reasons to invite family members and loved ones into addiction treatment:
A Family Can Provide Support
Although relationships might have been broken or damaged because of the addiction, sobriety offers a recovering addict the opportunity to repair those relationships. In fact, rebuilding relationships might be the very reason a person gets sober. It’s common for a person to get sober to save their marriage, their relationships with their children, and/or their relationships with co-workers and their career. Of course, once those relationships begin to rebuild, loved ones tend to want to support the one in treatment. They tend to want to see their relationship endure and continue and not return to the challenges of the addiction. Therefore, loved ones tend to have a vested interest in a person’s sobriety. If you’re considering whether to involve your family in your treatment, this alone can be a significant reason. When you’re feeling the challenges of staying sober, having a network of loved ones around you might be the very thing that prevents a relapse.
The Entire Family Can Heal from Addiction
When an addict gets treatment, it affects the entire family. There is no longer an “identified patient” in the family, and in turn, this affects the patterns of codependency and enabling. When there is no longer someone in the family who is seen as helpless or powerless, then there will be less opportunities for family members to engage in enabling behavioral patterns. When an addict gets treatment, the family has an opportunity to find the homeostasis in their relationships again. When an addict takes responsibility for his or her life, others in the family might then feel the freedom to move on with theirs.
The Dishonesty Can More Easily Come to an End
One of the most challenging experiences for a family that bears the weight of addiction is that there is often a lack of emotional intimacy. This can take place if the person who is using substances feels the need to hide his or her drug or alcohol use. This dishonesty can begin to create a wedge between family members. However, when a person enters treatment, it provides the whole family with the opportunity to be honest. Furthermore, a person who has his or her family around might be less tempted to resort to old ways of behaving, including being dishonest, because of the presence of loved ones nearby.
This is a short but potent list of reasons to include your family in your addiction treatment. Unless there were a significant reason to exclude family from treatment, involving them can be the key to staying sober.