Learn as Much as Possible about Addiction
Learning about addiction can help families to escape the blame game. Believing that the person’s addiction comes from weakness, willfulness, or stubbornness, they might learn how addiction stem from changes in brain chemistry and electrical impulse alterations. Knowing this can help families to let go of their anger, so they can focus on healing.
Connect with other Families
Connecting with other families may help, particularly if families go to a trusted program like Al-Anon or Alateen or other family groups. The idea here is to provide help for families of drug of drug addicts. These groups can provide a nonjudgemental safe space for family members to use in order to learn, discuss, and overcome an addiction unfolding in their midst.
Manage Expectations
When the person enters a program and the family starts on family care, the sense of hope everyone feels can be overwhelming. Finally, the addiction issue is being addressed. Finally, things will get better.
Sometimes, it can take more time for the changes and behaviors tied in with addiction to really change. Sometimes, that slow shift leads to disappointments.
Adhere to normal sleep/wake schedule
Some of the most frightening episodes of addiction happen at night . It’s during this time that people with addictions overdose, stumble home from parties or benders, or otherwise get into situations that family members must fix. It’s no surprise, then, that some families with addicted loved ones struggle with sleep. Part of them are always waiting for the next night crisis to arise.
Educate and Advocate
Stress and depression can come from different sources, sometimes, family members feel the attacks most acutely when they come from the friends, people they work with, and/or relatives they see on a regular basis.
These attacks come from all sides. To some people, addictions really are a form of weakness, and these people have no problem with pointing out that fact in casual conversations. To others, addictions are something family members should either fix or ignore. If they attempt to help, these people will label the family as “enabling.”
Sadly the language we use regarding addicts as 'junkies', dope fiens, the stigma of addiction attaches that to a person, and that person is looked at as an object.
It’s hard to stay positive in an environment like this, but families can be part of the change. Every time they hear a phrase like this, they can speak up about addiction truth. They can share some of the knowledge they’ve gleaned from
research, support groups, and therapy sessions. They can tell the people around them about their family’s work to overcome an addiction, and they could help to shift the nation’s conversation about addiction.
Advocating on behalf of addiction is courageous, and it can be a vital and health-affirming thing to do. Rather than staying silent and with out a solution, families that speak up are doing something to make things better, and those conversations that are happening rather then being swept under the rug can be the very thing that helps bring the family together.