Family beliefs, relationships, and expectations influence you throughout your life. Even when you leave home to begin your adult life, you carry the lessons you learned in childhood with you.
Your primary source of connection with others stems from the attachment, nurturing, and socialization you witnessed and experienced as a child. When you are actively drinking or using drugs, your substance use disorder (SUD) creates strains on the fabric of the family. The brunt of your substance-induced behaviors changes how your family members react to each other and you. When you start substance addiction treatment, it is vital to include your family in the healing process.
Family Systems
How you interact with others outside of your family is different than the interactions in your family. While your family is the foundation for your beliefs, morals, and core values, they're also an independent unit. Families have their systems and expectations separate from society. As a result, your family can either be a source of comfort, protection, or happiness.
Your family sets boundaries within particular relationships. For example, parents set boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable in their relationships with their children. Some parents want to be friends or authority figures. Parents and children try to maintain that equilibrium. A SUD smashes both boundaries and the sense of safety, too.
Family Relationships
Any relationship you have is developed around communication and attachment to others. Your ability to maintain healthy relationships within your family is aided by your capacity to understand and develop healthy relationships with friends and loved ones. A SUD impairs connections and our attachments to others. Mood changes, constantly seeking a high, or nursing the aftereffects of alcohol or substance use distances you from your loved ones. As a result, you miss opportunities to connect and build healthy relationships.
The consequences of these missed opportunities to bond with another also hurt you physically. Positive relationships can increase your psychological well-being. Without a healthy support system, you cannot turn to a parent or sibling for help. It would help if you had your family because they can alleviate isolation, depression, or anxiety.
The Effects of a SUD on the Family
Siblings and parents are affected in different ways by your substance addiction. Family members may have some of these reactions to your SUD.
A parent or a sibling can feel their needs aren't met because the focus is on your SUD.
Sometimes the connection between a family member and you is severed because they want to distance themselves from your use.
A parent or sibling may lend you money despite the financial strain they incur. People who give you money think they're helping you, but they're not. Instead, they're enabling your use.
Legal problems you have can spill over to a loved one's life. Sometimes a loved one will act out their frustration or anger in a harmful manner, causing legal problems.
Loved ones can also express feelings of depression or anxiety.
Substance addiction treatment without family therapy can decrease the effectiveness of treatment. The article The Impact of Substance Use Disorders on Families and Children From Theory to Practice explains the two main reasons why alcohol or drug treatment without family involvement has a limited effect on the individual.
The first reason is that, by omitting the family from your addiction treatment, you ignore the emotional impact your addiction has on the family. If your family doesn't have a way to comprehend your addiction or reduce the roles that enabled your addiction, they can't change. The second reason is, when your family doesn't know about the effects of addiction on your brain, body, and behavior, they don't know how to support your effort to become and remain sober. Instead of becoming a healthy support system, they may treat you with distrust.
Lessons Learned in Family Therapy
As you participate in family therapy, your family learns about addiction and the effects alcohol or substances have. Substance use education is vital to help your loved ones incorporate long-term and short-term coping skills into your relationship with them. In addition, parents and siblings can identify their roles and how their harmful coping skills damaged their well-being. Without an understanding of how they feel and react towards you, healing cannot begin.
To help them start the healing process, they need the chance to discuss their feelings, even if they hurt your feelings. Substance addiction can make you selfish, and that behavior has consequences. Be prepared not to like everything you hear, but also keep an open mind. Therapy is a healthy way to listen to your family and work with them to regain their trust. As a result of building trust, your parents or siblings can find healthy alternatives to harmful feelings.
Parents and siblings can also reach out to support groups like Al-Anon. Al-Anon was created as a safe place to meet, listen, and discuss thoughts and concerns loved ones have about a parent, sibling, or child's substance addiction.
Substance addiction treatment that includes family therapy benefits both the family and the person with a substance use disorder. Addiction affects everyone around the person struggling with addiction and can create fractures in relationships. In family therapy, parents or siblings learn about addiction, family roles, and processing their feelings towards their loved ones. A person with a substance addiction may not want to hear how they hurt their loved ones or how their loved ones feel about them. However, family therapy provides a safe space for family members to set boundaries and stability. Monte Cristo Recovery helps the family in their loved one's detoxification. We provide the care and support needed our clients require to start healing physically and mentally. Our comfortable treatment facility is staffed by those who know how addiction impacts lives. Monte Cristo Recovery's belief is each person has their unique journey to recovery. To learn more about our detox services, call us at (714) 824-9896.