Hawaii Island Recovery 
Addiction is a complicated disease. While living with alcohol use disorder (AUD) or navigating drug addiction can bring feelings of isolation, the effects of addiction are often widespread. Addiction can affect a person’s personal life, professional life, and relationships of all kinds, from casual peers to important family members and loved ones. Even those who are hiding their alcohol or drug use from family to “protect” them can still have these relationships profoundly affected. However, while recovery involves making amends with loved ones, families also play an important role in sober change. Hawaii Island Recovery’s Hawaii recovery center is available to help families approach difficult situations and support sober change in loved ones.
The Effects of Addiction on Families
Addiction is a family disease. Having a family member living with addiction or living in the same house as a person with the disease is taxing. For many, these relationships can become strained, with anger, resentment, frustration, and more being common. Others may feel a drastic increase in stress and anxiety, especially since addiction can cause an atmosphere where family members feel they have to “walk on eggshells” around those engaging in drugs or alcohol. Those who may lash out, become angry, or otherwise change while under the effects of drugs or alcohol can further create a tumultuous, or even fearful, home environment.
Compromised trust due to addiction is also common and a major factor in the deterioration of some relationships, especially among spouses with one member living with addiction. This compromised trust can make it difficult to communicate with loved ones, leading to additional challenges.
Isolation is another common effect of addiction in both individuals and their families. For some, this can manifest as a reluctance to go out with friends if a loved one is left alone, feeling as if they need to care for a loved one living with addiction to keep them safe from a crisis. Others may feel embarrassed due to pervasive stigmas surrounding addiction and may distance themselves from other personal relationships.
Addiction also has a profound financial impact on family members. It can be expensive to provide support, and those living with addiction may also experience unforeseen economic hardship, especially if jobs are lost and budgets are compromised due to substance use. Family members may feel compelled or forced to pick up more financial burdens to care for a loved one, even at the expense of their financial stability or plans, such as canceling a vacation trip to tend to a loved one’s needs and health.
No form of addiction affects a person in isolation. Addiction is difficult for those living with the disease and their families. However, there is always help available to help family members heal and support sustainable sober change in a loved one’s recovery.
Confronting Sober Change
Pursuing sobriety is challenging, with a deluge of changes ahead. However, while family members can be an amazing resource and support network for those overcoming addiction, that doesn’t mean that it is easy to be an effective support. First, many family members will be tasked with reconciling and forgiving a loved one for how addiction has impacted them.
It is normal to feel resentful, frustrated, and angry at loved ones due to the effects of addiction and its impact on families. Even if addiction is a disease, these feelings are real and something that family members will need to confront. Feeling this way doesn’t mean that an individual doesn’t still love their family member or that they don’t care for them. However, recognizing the reality of how addiction has affected entire families is difficult. Family treatment programs are sometimes necessary to navigate sober change while confronting these real and valid feelings.
This can be exceptionally difficult, and each family member may forgive loved ones at their own pace. Professional support is instrumental in creating an honest, open, and fair environment in which to have difficult conversations and encourage forgiveness at each person’s own pace.
Being a Part of a Loved One’s Sober Change
Family members can be invaluable resources throughout any stage of recovery. Many are an integral part of every phase of a loved one’s sober change. However, while many may want to jump in and support a loved one in any way possible, being an effective support is a learned skill. Hawaii Island Recovery can empower families to support the most effective transformation and sustainable sober change. Working with professionals can also ensure that each person can manage their health and healing while providing the most effective support possible to help a loved one navigate their sober change.
Sober Change Starts With Education
Addiction is a complicated disease, and understanding it and how it affects a person’s health, behaviors, and more is paramount to best communicating with a loved one. Educating oneself about addiction can be the basis for reaching new understandings and is instrumental in exploring forgiveness. Others may use this education to better understand how to approach future challenges that will be common throughout each person’s continued recovery journey.
Overcoming addiction is an ongoing process, and sober change requires constant adjustments and edits to maintain each person’s sober lifestyle. Educating oneself about addiction can be paramount to helping a loved one make these adjustments while expelling unhealthy expectations, like expecting a loved one to be “cured” entirely of addiction after a treatment program.
Talking to professional treatment facilities like Hawaii Island Recovery and using a combination of effective online resources and professional guidance can provide the best approach to educating oneself about the disease and each family member’s potential role in facilitating effective sober change.
Be Ready for Change
A loved one navigating their sober change may express many new ideas and perspectives. Change can be a constant, from new hobbies and ideas to ways of thinking and talking. Being open and active in exploring these changes is necessary to effectively facilitate sober change, alongside dismissing preconceived expectations. A willingness to make adjustments to one’s own daily routines, such as adhering to new bedtime routines or self-care schedules, is also important during this time. It is completely normal for an individual to express large amounts of change after a treatment program, and further encouraging this change at home can be paramount for sustainable sobriety.
Be Cognizant of Triggers That May Compromise Sober Change
Loved ones navigating recovery and sobriety are met with a deluge of new changes, experiences, and stress. What can seem mundane for some may be very triggering for another. Working to understand potential triggers in a loved one, either through talking with loved ones or paying attention to how they may react to certain situations, environments, conversation topics, and more, can be an exercise in familial healing.
It is also possible that those who have graduated from a treatment program may still have more triggers that they have not yet discovered themselves. Regular meetings to talk about their experiences can be instrumental in helping to identify triggers and create a more comprehensive plan for managing sober change. Being aware of known triggers can help inform how families interact, new potential hobbies, and any changes around the house that may need to be made to facilitate a sustainable, sober change and healthy daily life.
Model and Reward Healthy Habits
Recovery is a time of change in every aspect of daily life, with those committing to a sustainable, sober change exploring new daily routines, diets, perspectives, hobbies, and much more. Families of those in recovery can equally benefit from making healthy changes to daily life and are even instrumental in modeling some of these changes for a healthier approach to new routines.
Deciding as a family to eat healthier, omit caffeine, start an exercise routine, or try new hobbies can all be ways for families to explore new interests while supporting sober change. Exploring a personal hobby and eating healthy oneself can normalize these practices, empowering those in recovery to continue developing their sober life while modeling their best practices and encouraging effective self-care for loved ones.
Be Open to Difficult Conversations
Communicating with loved ones and navigating sober change is paramount. While it can be challenging, families and loved ones can support effective sober change by creating ways for those navigating their recovery to have honest conversations without feeling judged. For some, this can be as simple as making oneself available to talk whenever needed, either in person or over the phone. Others may want to add structure to these conversations to prepare for the potentially emotionally charged conversations ahead. Having scheduled weekly meetings, or at least scheduling ahead to ensure that there will be time to clear a schedule and focus on these dialogues, is paramount.
Loved ones can also continue educating themselves through these conversations and exploring new languages that may be more appropriate. Educating oneself about appropriate language and avoiding potentially hurtful terms, like “addict,” is important while having these dialogues to avoid unnecessarily compromising a person’s healing efforts and sober change.
Likewise, ensuring that caring sentiments are often expressed, even in difficult conversations, is crucial. It is possible to be both frustrated and still loving. Regularly expressing caring sentiments is necessary for garnering feelings of love and hope throughout these difficult challenges. Not shying away from difficult feelings or topics but being upfront and honest while balancing caring sentiments with difficult conversation topics can be the best way to create a truly open and honest atmosphere with loved ones.
Know When and How to Set Boundaries
Loved ones and family members can rely on each other for many things, from camaraderie to emotional support and more. However, effectively supporting a loved one’s sober change means knowing when to set and enforce clear boundaries. While some boundaries can be physical, such as wanting to maintain personal space and requiring knocking or restrictions about entering one’s bedroom, other boundaries can be more enigmatic. Boundaries around topics of conversation, or set at certain times of day, are all important to establish.
Making these boundaries clear can help each person tend to their daily lives, such as going to work without being contacted during work hours or while engaging in personal self-care efforts. For those in recovery, these boundaries can also ensure that a person doesn’t rely too heavily on a single support structure in their lives, instead benefitting from a variety of supportive people while encouraging further self-care. Having multiple supports, coupled with continued outpatient treatment programs and the peers met in these sober environments, can create a robust support structure to navigate any challenge without bringing additional stresses, such as compassion fatigue or burnout in a family member.
Setting and enforcing consequences and boundaries is necessary. Establishing boundaries without enforcing consequences when they are breached can lead to a dangerous and complicated slope that can make it difficult to tend to personal needs.
Learn the Difference Between Empowering and Enabling
Providing support to loved ones navigating their sober change is important. However, there can be a fine line between helping to encourage sustainable sober change and skills and enabling self-destructive practices. For example, many of those establishing their sober lives will need to find new ways to manage finances to prevent the purchase of addictive substances while tending to financial responsibilities.
While it can be tempting to cover costs such as groceries for a loved one during this time to be sure they are eating healthy, this direct form of support can enable more destructive mentalities, with developing budgets not accounting for these personal expenses. Rather, helping to create a budget and even going with a loved one on errands to ensure they stay within a budget and grocery list can be ways of supporting financial agency without enabling self-destructive practices.
Be Patient With Sober Change
Change takes time. Addiction recovery is complicated, and it is a long, ongoing journey. Setting appropriate expectations with loved ones is paramount to support a loved one’s sober change. Not all of the challenges of addiction and recovery are going to be solved immediately, and new challenges may arise as loved ones continue to manage their sober lives. Giving loved ones time to navigate new stresses and empowering them to solve these problems with support and time is part of an effective healing process.
This patience is also important for oneself. Just as an individual cannot expect a loved one to be completely “cured” of the effects of addiction immediately, an individual also should not expect themselves to be able to “fix” all challenges that arise. Seeing both a loved one’s sober change and one’s own healing as a journey with new twists and turns while staying on the sober path can be a great way to approach hurdles and set fair expectations.
Have a Relapse Prevention Plan
Experiencing a relapse is unfortunate, but it is important to be prepared in case of a relapse. While relapse is undoubtedly a setback and can cause feelings of anger, resentment, sadness, and more, it is still important to have a plan. Knowing who to call and the number of local facilities that can help with detox are all important. Likewise, having established consequences and adhering to them is also necessary.
However, in the unfortunate event of a relapse, an individual does not necessarily have to start over completely with their sober change. There may have been many practiced skills that are still effective. Rather, looking at recent changes, new stresses, and other specific factors can inform the best approach to creating a plan that addresses these needs for a sustainable future and what level of treatment will best address these needs.
Healing is a family journey, with those overcoming addiction and their loved ones all going on the journey together. Hawaii Island Recovery understands the connected nature of healing, offering support to those living with addiction and their families for a sustainable and effective approach to sober change.
Families are an integral part of effective sober change, and families all working together to pursue sobriety and a healthy future is necessary for effective healing. If you or a loved one is overcoming the effects of addiction and is ready to take the first step toward effective healing, our Hawaii recovery center can help. At Hawaii Island Recovery, we understand the widespread effects of addiction on family members, as well as the important support that families can play in sustainable sober change. From a dedicated community of sober peers to effective family programming and education, we take a holistic approach to healing that impacts the entire family. For more information on how we can help you, call (866) 390-5070.
