Involving Family Members in Addiction Treatment | Guest Author – Nadine Herring
I can so relate to Nadine Herring’s guest post, today. What is so often missing in treatment programs for those seeking help with a substance use disorder is a comprehensive program directed specifically to helping their family members and friends. The presumption by the person in treatment, family members and friends, and society as a whole, for that matter, is “fix the addict | alcoholic and everything will be fine.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
So it is my great pleasure to share’s Nadine’s guest post. She is the owner of Virtually Nadine, a virtual assistant company that provides online administrative support and social media management to addiction specialists and social service organizations. She specializes in working with leaders in this undervalued and overworked field to help them deal with the time consuming process of running an organization. You can connect with Nadine on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, or her website.
Why Doesn’t Addiction Treatment Involve Family Members? by Nadine Herring
Nadine Herring shares her thoughts on the importance of involving family members in addiction treatment.
Open and honest discussions are finally taking place about the issues of addiction, but there is one area that needs more discussion that hits very close to home for many of us. The following is from my article dated August 18, 2015 “Why Aren’t Families Involved in Addiction Treatment?” appearing on my Virtually Nadine blog.
Addiction: some say it is a disease, some say it is a choice; others say it is a weakness in character or a moral failing… There is a lot of open, honest discussion taking place about the issue of addiction, and I, for one, say it’s about damn time, but there is one area that needs more discussion and hits very close to home for many of us.
As I’ve written about before, I am the sibling of an alcoholic brother and a crack addict sister. My brother lost his battle with alcoholism 8 years ago, and my sister has been in long-term recovery for 10 years now. My brother was the oldest of 5 children, and my sister was the youngest; imagine that: the oldest and the youngest both suffered from addiction.
Why did they suffer from addiction and my other two sisters and I didn’t?
To this day, no one has ever explained that to us. I know that there is alcoholism on both sides of my family; both my paternal grandfather and my aunt on my mother’s side suffered from it, as well as some cousins, so it may be genetic, but then why did it skip us and affect my brother? Was it genetic or as I suspect, did it have to do with things he experienced while in the army? No one ever noticed my brother’s drinking until he got out of the army, so is that what did it?
With my sister, she started with marijuana. I know because I was there when she went to go smoke with some “friends” for the first time. I suspected something was up with her, so I followed her one night and sure enough, there they were on the side entrance of a local school in our neighborhood smoking weed. Now for all those out there who say marijuana is harmless…maybe it is for most people, I don’t know, but I know that for my sister it was the gateway drug to hell. As far as I know there are no drug users in the family, so where in the world did my sister’s addiction come from? Again, no one has been able to explain this to us either and therein lies the problem….
How are we as family members supposed to help our loved ones suffering from addiction when we don’t even understand it ourselves? If we don’t understand the reason behind the addiction or how it started, why it changes our family members from the loving people we knew into unrecognizable shells of their former selves, how can we understand their behavior and show compassion? How can we be blamed for doing what we think is in the best interest of our loved ones (better known as enabling) when we don’t know what else to do? Do you sense the frustration here?!
So many times an addict is put into a program, whether voluntarily or court-ordered, and they start to get help. They work with clinicians and counselors to understand the root cause of their addiction, why they behave the way they do, how their brains literally change from the drugs and alcohol, and how they can get their lives back. They get the tools they need to cope with their addiction, get to and hopefully stay in long-term recovery. While the addict rightfully receives the help they need, what do we as the families get? Usually nothing.
Let me rephrase that…if we’re lucky we may get a group session once a week for an hour, but that’s about it and that’s only if the treatment center is progressive enough to include the families at all. Why is this? It’s widely accepted now that addiction is a family disease, so why not treat the family as well??? I’ll give you an example that may explain how foolish this type of thinking is…
I was recently diagnosed with type 2 pre-diabetes and put on medication. My doctor told me that I had to completely change how I eat and cut way back on certain foods that my family absolutely loves in order to slow down the inevitable march toward full blown diabetes. Now if I just came home and said to my family: “that’s it, no more pasta, no more pizza, no more white bread, very little sugar (this is THE hardest part for me), I can’t eat it anymore so you can’t either and you’ll just have to deal with it”, do you think that would go over very well? Of course not; they would want to know why, and they would be well within their rights to know what was going on. So I explained to them my diagnosis and why I couldn’t eat this way anymore and had to eliminate some foods and cut way back on others. When I did this, both my husband and daughter completely understood and supported me by saying they would eat the same way; as a result we are ALL getting healthier, not just me. Do you see the point I’m trying to make? My diabetes diagnosis doesn’t just affect me, it affects my whole family, so now that we all know what’s going on, we can all support each other.
It’s the same way with addiction.
It’s not just the addict that is sick, it’s the whole family, so the whole family should be treated. How can you possibly expect success if you send a healthy person back into a sick environment; how long do you think that person’s recovery will last? As my husband always says “two sickies don’t make a wellie,” and he is so right. If you only treat the addict and don’t treat the family, how is that helping anyone? And I’m referring to long-term recovery, which is what we all want, right?
Remember when our family member completes their treatment program: whether it be 30, 60, 90, 180 or longer day program, they will eventually be coming home to us, and we are the ones who will have to live and deal with them on a daily basis. If we haven’t been in treatment, and we don’t know how to deal with the addiction, and our loved one comes home a changed person, and we’re stuck back in the mindset we had when they first when in, how well do you think that situation is going to work out for any of us?
I ask these questions because we as the family have to be included in treatment!
Whatever the barriers are that keep us out of treatment now: cost, insurance coverage, mindset of clinicians, whatever it is, they have to be removed. Recovery doesn’t happen in a vacuum; when the addict leaves treatment they come back to the real world which includes their families. Treat us all and the stigma around addiction is destroyed and all the issues surrounding addiction can be addressed with understanding and compassion.
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Lisa, I cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to guest post on your amazing blog! I have followed you for some time now and really admire the work you do on behalf of families with loved ones suffering from addiction.
So many times we’ve been told that all the focus needs to be on the addict and getting them to recovery with no thought being given to how important a role the family has in that process. You cannot address one side of the issue without addressing the other, and with addiction that means treating the addict AND the family! Addiction affects all of us so it only makes sense that treatment involves all of us as well.
Together we will keep fighting until treatment is provided for all of us because that will ensure long-term recovery success, and that is what we all want!
And thank you, Nadine, for all you are doing to raise awareness about the family’s health and wellness and the absolute need to treat both sides of this family disease. As you so beautifully write in your post, it’s critical. I appreciate you sharing your work with BTC readers!
The tide is changing. It just seems so slow from this vantage point. I am doing more family coaching and it is amazing to facilitate this type of learning. We are all the agents of change. As long as we keep doing what we’re doing Love will contiue to lead the way. I advocate healing with every person I meet. We’ll get there as we unite, educate, and stay strong. Thanks for the post gals. Lisa @SoberIdentity
Hi Lisa, thank you so much for reading and commenting on my post 🙂 While the pace of change does seem agonizingly slow, at least it is changing and that alone is motivation to keep up the fight. As long as we keep working together, we can and we will affect change for families and that will benefit us all. Thank you so much for all you do in helping to advocate for families because it is desperately needed!
Hi Nadine,
This is so true.
I recently separated from my husband because of his opiate addiction. He may have been in recovery (in all honesty I couldn’t really tell anymore) however there was no support for me, and I found it really, really hard.
His family are all in various stages of denial, and I have layers of co-dependency to deal with.
He is / was in a SMART recovery program, which is great. And yet still I didn’t know where to turn.
There were no Al Anon meetings nearby let alone NarAnon as we lived in a rural area.
In the end I chose to come away because I realised how insane I was becoming.
We are separated now and live very far apart.
I am not sure how he is doing, I think perhaps he is using. I miss him all the time.
However I am in my own recovery now, and at least here I have the support of my family and Al Anon meetings nearby if I need them.
Thanks for the post.
Julie, first of all let me say congratulations to you for putting your needs first and concentrating on your recovery! The thing that is so frustrating is that the addict gets help for their needs and the tools to cope, but we as family members are given nothing…in what world does that make any sense??? How is it that addicts are taught and given the support and services they need to move on in life and we as the family are just left to fend for ourselves??? How does that help either the family or the addict???
I just wish more clinicians understood what we as family members are going through. I completely understand your pain, frustration, and feeling of helplessness in trying to deal with your husband’s addiction and getting no help at all. That is why your decision to do what you did: leave the situation and concentrate on YOUR recovery is so courageous and strong!
Support from Al-Anon and family is vital to our recovery and we will continue to fight until access to treatment for all family members is easily available and offered to all of us who want and desperately need it! Here’s to your continued success in your recovery 🙂
Nadine,
I completely understand your point of view about involving the family with treatment. I worked as a clinician at an addictions clinic and one problem we face in our program is we do involve the families touching topics like resentment, forgiveness, acceptance of the disease and what troubles me is families tend to be in denial that they are also the problem. What is even worst, families are worst of emotionally and mentally than the addict. It makes no sense sometimes to “treat’ the person and put him back into a toxic family. Many families are mentally and emotionally wounded they don’t bother continuing family therapy. They blame the addict and want us to “fix” him. Sometimes, I believe we should treat the families first, then the addict see what outcome results.
Best,
Ricardo
Hi Ricardo, thank you so much for reading and commenting! Thank you for your perspective from the clinical side; I hear what you are saying and I understand.
I think there are a lot of families in denial because they just don’t understand the nature of addiction. They’ve watched their loved one change into someone they don’t recognize and do horrible things to themselves and the family, and for a lot of us we think “why don’t they just stop?!” I know I thought this for years and it was very, very hard to get out of that mindset.
You have to understand that families are usually blamed for their loved ones addiction and the guilt, shame, and heartache that goes with that is unbearable! When you couple that with not knowing why this is happening and not knowing how to deal with it or what to do, you will encounter a lot of resistance with some families…
I so appreciate that your clinic took the time to involve the families, so few do and your idea of treating family members first is interesting. I would suggest treating the family at the same time as the addict, and before the addict is scheduled to go home, the family and the addict go through a few joint sessions to see where they are and get the tools needed to deal with the family and addict coming back together. This would ensure a successful transition back home and long-term recovery success for both.
Nadine, I love your message regarding family members. It is a family disease and thus everyone needs to participate in the recovery process. Treatment centers do need to offer more information for families and my hope is that they are given a variety of options regarding future support. Thanks for sharing this important message!
Cathy, thank you so much for reading my post and for your kind words! It’s so important that clinicians and treatment centers change their mindset in thinking that they just need to treat the addict and not the family. Until they do this, the issues leading to addiction will never fully be resolved and relapse is inevitable.
The more education and tools we as family members have to deal with our loved ones addiction, the better. Thank you for all you do in helping to advocate for families suffering from addiction, I’m proud to follow the lead of you and Lisa in getting this important message out!
I wholeheartedly agree with this. As a billing company, our clients are predominantly substance abuse treatment centers. As we help them develop their programs, we always recommend family therapy sessions, it helps the patients get face to face with the people they are getting clean for. It’s so powerful.
Hi Medpro Billing, thank you for reading my post and your comment! Thank you as well for understanding the importance of including families in treatment by working with the treatment centers to develop programs for us. When we as family members get the education and tools we need by going through treatment, we gain the understanding and empathy needed to help our loved ones deal with their addiction. By ALL of us working together, we form a powerful support system to help our loved ones achieve long-term recovery and that benefits all of us!