Providing Emotional Support for a Loved One during Recovery

Recovering from addiction is a challenging process. If your loved one is recovering from addiction, she will benefit greatly from the support of family and friends. In fact, a good support network can be a critical component of a successful recovery and may even make the difference between success and failure.

When emotionally supporting a recovering addict, it is extremely important to remember that your loved one suffers from a disease. Addiction is a disease that takes over the mind and will of the afflicted person. As with some other diseases, patients may have made poor lifestyle choices that contributed to the onset of the disease, but that does not mean that he is a bad person. Furthermore, much of the addictive behavior that you may have witnessed can be attributed to the disease, and it is likely that your loved one will feel bad about his past behavior once in recovery. It is critical to be supportive and empathetic and to avoid the natural tendency to judge. Keep in mind that your loved one has made a difficult decision to enter treatment, is likely to be apprehensive at the prospect of an uncertain future and can use all the support you can muster.
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How to Help Your Partner Overcome Addiction

When your partner is struggling with addiction, you may feel overwhelmed or helpless. We can help you understand how addiction is impacting your relationship and how you can get help for your family today.

Love and Don’t Enable Your Partner

Most people who struggle with addiction have some emotional burdens that they must work through. Whether your partner has struggled with past abuse or trauma, mental health issues, or problems brought on by addiction, he or she must work these issues out in order to become well. Many times, we tend to want to protect and comfort our loved ones. Families become trapped in cycle of enabling loved ones. You may have caught yourself thinking or saying the following thoughts:

• I feel helpless, and I don’t know how to help my partner
• My partner has an addiction, but it isn’t his or her fault
• I’d rather my partner use here in the house, where it is safe
• My partner’s addiction is sometimes my fault
• I feel bad, I don’t want to make my partner angry or more upset

While this list is not all-inclusive, all of these statements are signs that you may be enabling your partner. You don’t want to live the way you have been living, so how do you stop enabling without pushing your partner away? Remember, if a person struggles with addiction, it does not mean that person is a bad person. We can help you find ways to gently confront your loved one and help your loved one get the treatment he or she needs.

What Can You Do to Help Your Addicted Partner?

There are two important things you must do to help your partner overcome addiction. First, you must seek support for yourself. Second, you must seek help for your partner.

Even if you feel that your partner’s addiction is not harmful to you, you may be surprised to learn how much your partner’s addiction has affected your life. By seeking support for yourself, you will learn how to deal with your partner’s addiction and learn how to best help your partner achieve full recovery.

You can find support for yourself through local Al-Anon meetings, and you can also find support through your partner’s rehab. Some of the more advanced rehab facilities now offer programs such as family weekends and couple’s counseling to help heal the entire family affected by addiction. In some cases, these extra services are included in the cost of treatment, so they are free to you.

Find Help for Your Partner’s Addiction Today

You may be wondering how to get your partner started on the path toward treatment. In many cases, people can prove to be extremely stubborn and unwilling to seek help. This is why you may need coaching to make the case for treatment effectively to your partner. We can help.

We offer a 24 hour, toll-free helpline that is staffed by experienced counselors who can help you determine the right level of treatment for your partner and match you up with the best treatment available for your family. We can help you accomplish the following goals:

• Arrange family interventions
• Talk with your loved one about addiction treatment and rehab
• Arrange for insurance payment and coverage of rehab
• Arrange travel to and from rehab
• Find family support and ongoing treatment in your area

All of our calls are no pressure, free to you and completely confidential. Call now to find out how we can help you through this difficult time.

How to Get Help for an Addicted Parent

The experience of watching someone you care for deal with substance abuse on a daily basis can be almost as difficult as dealing with an addiction personally. When that someone is a parent, the stakes seem even higher when encouraging the individual to seek treatment.
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