What’s the Role of Family in Addiction Recovery?
At Pinnacle, we know that substance abuse and addiction can severely impact family dynamics, erode trust, and weaken communication. This is why family programming is a central piece of our inpatient treatment program.
During the process, we educate families and help them understand the situation they’re in, as well as how to cope in a healthy way. Pinnacle’s family programming also teaches how to have healthy boundaries and tools to transition back into normal life after inpatient treatment. Moreover, family therapy sessions open the door to healthy communication and trust-building for each part of your family dynamic.
What Can I Expect from Family Programming?
Family Therapy sessions occur once a week, typically by phone or ZOOM. These sessions and calls are based solely on the individual’s treatment plans and goals and the client will have signed a release of information for them to occur. Family sessions and family weekends are designed to facilitate the resolution of past problems, identify both the healthy and unhealthy family dynamics and establish new boundaries and patterns in order to support the client in recovery and relapse prevention.
Our trained clinicians provide action-oriented therapy that aims to rebuild healthy family interactions, heal wounds and break co-dependencies. Other family therapy topics covered include:
- Understanding substance abuse, dual diagnosis, and mental health disorders
- Family roles and restructuring
- Improving relational communication
- Setting healthy boundaries
- Confronting triggers
- Planning for discharge/aftercare
What’s the Impact of Substance Abuse on Families?
The effect of substance abuse varies based on family structure. Alcohol and drug-abusing behaviors have an impact on family dynamics in several ways. That is why family therapy can benefit many families.
- Negative emotions – A result of substance abuse for family members could possibly cause negative experiences; emotions such as anger, resentment, anxiety, concern, guilt, and embarrassment.
- Safety – At times the safety of other family members may be put at risk by a person’s substance abuse.
- Responsibilities – There could potentially be family members that inherit too many responsibilities or responsibilities that are not age-appropriate. Which may make children or spouses feel overwhelmed, anxious and resentful.
- Communication – When a family member is abusing drugs, communication within the family unit is often negative and positive interaction is very limited.
- Structure and boundaries – Homes in which substance abuse exists often have a lack of structure with minimal parental involvement and loosely existing or non-existent boundaries. This results in confusion for children and negative/inappropriate behaviors. Parents and siblings may also adopt enabling behaviors that contribute to their loved one’s substance abuse.
- Denial – At times when a child has a substance abuse problem, parents will deny that there is an issue. This may be because they don’t want to face the problem or they simply cannot see it clearly.
- Relationships – Substance abuse can create damaged relationships that can continue on through generations through negative behavioral modeling.
Rebuilding Healthy Families
We understand that every client is different and needs to be treated differently. The same goes for families. The clinicians at Pinnacle Recovery take time to understand your family and how addiction has affected each family member.
The critical role families play in addiction recovery can’t be said enough. At Pinnacle Recovery, we help families understand how they can support their loved ones during and after inpatient treatment. Our primary goal is to restore unity and peace within the family as their loved one continues on the road to recovery.
If you or your loved one is struggling with substance abuse, Pinnacle Recovery can help. A better life and a more unified family are just one phone call away. Contact us today!
