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The Importance of Family Therapy in Drug Rehab

By John Lee

Addiction affects all areas of life. Substance abuse harms health and emotional well being, and can lead to psychiatric illness. It can lead to job loss or sanction. It also, almost invariably, has a negative impact on familial relationships.

Addiction intertwines deeply throughout all areas of life. This is one of the reasons why drug and alcohol addiction can be so tough to beat, without help.

For the best chance of lasting recovery, a drug addict or alcoholic needs to make comprehensive changes. That means taking care of medical or psychiatric conditions that can lead to relapse, creating a safe and secure living and working environment, and, importantly, rebuilding sober support networks, particularly with family members.

Because family members can be an invaluable source of long-term recovery support, it is important that these people get involved in the treatment process.

Why Should Family Get Involved in the Treatment Process?

We do not live in this world on our own. Our actions affect those around us, and those around us influence the way we act and feel.

Family should get involved in the addiction treatment process for two very basic reasons:

  1. To tap into the strength of the family in support of a recovering addict or alcoholic.
  2. To reduce the harms of substance abuse on the family as a whole and on all individual members of the family.

Some of the goals of family therapy in drug rehab can include:

  • Helping family members understand how their actions can contribute to substance abuse, and helping them find relationship or environmental solutions to minimize these threats to continuing sobriety.
  • Helping family members learn and practice more effective communication tools.
  • Helping parents take back the power in a parent-child relationship (in the case of a teen substance abuser).
  • Helping family members work toward healing and reconciliation for past harms.
  • Helping each family member recognize their needs and the validity of those needs.
  • Helping an addict or alcoholic recognize social, economic, medical or psychiatric threats to continuing recovery and, with the help of family members, developing strategies to deal with those threats.

The Benefits of Family Therapy

An educated and united family can play a strong, supportive role in the recovery process. Family members should make every effort to get involved in the treatment process, for the benefit of every person in the family.

To learn more about family therapy and to find a drug rehab near you that incorporates significant familial involvement into the treatment process, call the treatment specialists at the National Resource Center, 24 hours a day, at (888) 266-6127.