If you have a drug or alcohol addiction, your behaviors affect much more than just you. The people you care about, including your biological family and close friends, often feel the impact as well. In many cases, the dynamics between you and some of these people may actually be contributing causes of your substance abuse problem. For that reason, addiction treatment often involves a family therapy program.
A Historical Perspective on Family Counseling
A family therapy program hasn’t always been a part of addiction treatment. In previous years, treatment centered only on the person with the addiction. Many professionals focused solely on the individual’s substance abuse disorder. People often left their home environments to receive residential rehabilitation. Family counseling is typically different.
However, while they returned home sober, they often re-entered a toxic family situation that resulted in relapse. Therefore, a family therapy program should no longer be an afterthought. Instead, qualified facilities conduct it in conjunction with other forms of treatment, including individual addiction therapy. Furthermore, the definition of “family” now also includes your entire support system, whether or not they’re biologically related to you.
Working with the entire family has several benefits. The person with the addiction can gain an awareness of his or her own needs and patterns. At the same time, family therapy for addiction allows other family members to come up with strategies that help them to care for their own needs as well as those of the addict.
Having an outside perspective can also help everyone to recognize codependent and enabling behaviors that contribute to the addiction. Finally, family members can better understand the cycle of addiction to ensure that future generations don’t also suffer from this disease.