How Local Rehab Facilities Help the Whole Family
For many people struggling with addiction, family members play a pivotal role in helping them finally get needed rehab help. Once a person enters rehab, the family’s role in the recovery process can prove invaluable to his or her success in treatment.
Local rehab facilities provide an opportune setting for families to take an active role in the addict’s recovery. As addiction tends to run in families, both the addict and the family can make steps towards creating a more healthy family environment. Local rehab facilities can also take on a supportive role in terms of helping families cope with the ups and downs of addiction recovery.
Addiction – A “Family Disease”
Addiction affects the whole family.
Whether it be alcohol or drugs, addiction develops out of family systems that are oftentimes dysfunctional in nature. A family history of substance abuse or mental illness may further influence the likelihood of addiction affecting one or more family members.
In this respect, treating only one member of the family does little to address the family dynamics that underlie his or her addiction problem. For these reasons, local rehab facilities encourage family to take an active role in the treatment process.
Family Involvement
According to the University of Washington, family involvement in the drug treatment process can strengthen the addict’s resolve to get well and motivate him or her for treatment. Within a local rehab facility, family involvement may include:
- Attending family therapy sessions
- Participating in the treatment planning process
- Learning about addiction and how recovery works
- Supporting and encouraging the addict throughout the treatment process
Over the course of the treatment process, ongoing family involvement provides the addict with the type of support system that makes continued abstinence possible.
Family Therapy
While addiction recovery remains the overall goal of drug treatment, addressing the issues that contribute to drug-using behaviors becomes a central component of the treatment process. According to the U. S. National Library of Medicine, Family therapy sessions provide an environment where members can gain a better understanding of themselves and how addiction has become a part of the family system.
In effect, local rehab facilities treat the addict’s substance abuse issues while also working to change the family system for the better. In doing so, the addict stands a much better chance at maintaining abstinence one he or she leaves the local rehab facility to return home.
Adjusting to Change
Family therapy can stir up any number of past conflicts and unresolved issues for the addict as well as for individual family members. While helping the addict remains the primary objective, helping family members work through their own issues is important to ensuring the family heals as a unit. In this respect, local rehab facilities can also help family members adjust to changes in the family dynamic along the way.
Family Support
Just like the addict learns to lean on his or her support system when times get tough, the family also needs support in dealing with the ups and downs of recovery. A local rehab facility can become a much needed source of support during difficult times.