Family Addiction Treatment: Healing Together for Lasting Recovery
Addiction is a family disease, and at Family Addiction Treatment, we recognize that the support, involvement, and healing of the entire family are crucial components of a recovery plan. We strive to be a place of growth for the individual afflicted and offer unique opportunities for connecting with the family, especially through our effective, well-planned family therapy.
Total family care is the basis of my addiction treatment philosophy. It is the pathway to encompassing recovery; to not only finding the way back for an individual who is lost in the addiction mire, but also to healing the complex, deep, integral relationships that are often also lost when someone in a family is addicted.
Addressing and treating the mental health and social circumstances of the family members is just as important as treating the addiction itself.
This belief is backed by my direct experience. I’ve seen what happens when it’s ignored or given only lip service. And I’ve seen the way out when total family care is used as a guide.
Family addiction treatment is crucial in effectively combating and overcoming addiction. This is certainly true for handling the affliction of alcoholism. In the history of this serious condition, families have long been the centerpiece, playing a vital yet sometimes complex role.
The understanding behind family addiction treatment is that it affects the entire family. When one person in a family is struggling with addiction, it inevitably creates hardships for the entire family unit. The whole family needs the help of counseling, and the individual needing the most immediate help is the one who becomes the focus of the family counseling. The ultimate goal is to restore the family to a place of wellness and wholeness.
Recovering addicts need support and stability to stay on track and work toward the objectives of their rehabilitation programs.
Informing relatives about the addiction is an important part of family recovery. When the family better understands addiction, it enhances their sympathy and empathy.
Enhancing how families interact by dealing with problems such as not effectively communicating, helping too much, and not dealing with long-standing issues will improve overall family functioning.
Ensuring a Supportive Home Environment: The risk of relapse decreases dramatically when individuals have access to the warmth, understanding, and encouragement of their family members. The home provides not only tangible support but also a place where individuals find solace when they are “between a rock and a hard place.” Relapse can be seen as reduced risk when these “places” are accessible to people in early recovery.
The essential elements of family addiction treatment.
Typically, family addiction treatment is made up of several essential parts.
Family therapy can be very helpful in treating addiction. The addiction is not just in the individual, but it affects the whole family. During structured family therapy sessions, the addicted individual and all family members participate in conversations led by a trained and licensed family therapist. The goals are to promote better understanding among family members, lessen the hurts that have been caused by the addiction, and help all involved develop better ways of relating to one another.
There are educational programs in place to help families understand addiction and the recovery process. Some of these programs offer workshops that educate families about the nature of addiction in a loved one and how the recovery process works.
Families can help themselves in the transition from hospital to home when they participate in support groups. These groups provide opportunities for family members to talk about their experiences in a safe, nonjudgmental setting with others who are going through the same kind of life events. If it is not feasible to attend a local support group, an online support group can provide much the same benefits.
Family therapy is not the only way individuals in a family can better understand and cope with their own emotions and psyche. Isn’t that a splendid way to better help the families? This section will further discuss the importance of providing individual, one-to-one counseling by way of a Memory Book experience for surviving family members coping with the loss of a family member in an altered life.
Lawrence’s complete family care
The Lawrence addiction treatment center called “Total Family Care” epitomizes the concept of a “whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This phrase, coined by Aristotle, reminds us that systems have emergent properties— properties that cannot be understood by analyzing one component at a time. Applying this concept to the American family, our center has come to realize that just as addiction works insidiously to destroy a person’s life, it also destroys the lives of that person’s family members. Indeed, by the time the center first sees a “whole” woman— not simply her parts— family members are often as affected by the disease as she. And sometimes the family members— reeling from the push–pull dynamism caused by the acute illness period— become “Wally sought comfort at a bar and found a disaster instead.”
Total family care combines multiple services—from medical treatment and therapy to education and support—into one package, making sure all sides of a family’s needs are taken care of.
Every family is provided with a personalized treatment plan, which is custom-made to address the specific issues, goals, and dynamics that are unique to that family.
Uninterrupted Support: During the entire rehabilitation process, we, at Total Family Care, are there for the families we serve, offering them the support they need. We counsel families to help them handle the normal ebb and flow of addiction and recovery.
Advantages of Complete Family Care
In Lawrence, the reason why total family care is so beneficial is that there are so many different kinds of care that can be provided, and there are so many different ways in which it can be accessed. When somebody has a total family care grant from Lawrence County, that person’s whole family can receive an almost unlimited amount of medical care for virtually any reason for practically any length of time.
Improved outcomes for patients: Studies prove that patients with strong family involvement throughout treatment are far more likely to succeed in not only finishing a program, but in maintaining recovery over the long term.
Becoming a family of strength: We cannot overstate the very basic benefits that strong family ties bestow upon society, the workplace, and individuals’ lives. Indeed, strong family ties are at the core of what makes a community work well. … Good citizens come from strong families. They attend to their everyday responsibilities and serve their communities with honor and integrity because these are the family values imparted to them.
The power of the knowledge and the tools bestowed by empowerment helps family members reduce the “What do I do?” moments and the helpless, frustrating experiences connected to a family member’s mental illness.
The idea behind total family care is to treat not just the person in recovery but all the family members, recognizing that a person’s home life can have both negative and positive effects on their alcohol or drug use and their prospects for recovery. The family, in this view, is a powerful force — for better or worse — that can either help or hinder a person’s recovery.
Treating family members who are affected by addiction is an essential part of the recovery process. An issue as profound and pervasive as addiction affects not just the individual but the entire family as well. When a family seeks treatment, it is vital for a successful outcome. It is better for a family to stay whole—and in some cases, become whole again—and for all members to be well; and it is not our purpose to treat one family member in a vacuum.
Lawrence, a city with panache, provides two ideal settings for effective family-life recovery programs. And like all programs we offer, these programs are free.
