Rebuilding a Sense of Family Through Recovery
Addiction does not just impact your life but also the lives of those around you. One of the hardest but also the most rewarding parts of addiction recovery is rebuilding and re-connecting to your family. This task may initially feel overwhelming, especially when there are children involved, but is perhaps the most important for long-term recovery.
Here are some different tasks that may help:
1. Family Meals
Dinner can be a great time to come back together. Many families have gotten into the habit of eating alone or watching a screen at the table but this time can be transformed into a time for reconnection. Cooking dinner for your family and catching up on each other’s day can turn this time into a 1family ritual. It may be hard to establish in the beginning but soon everyone will begin to experience a sense of togetherness in contrast to mindlessly eating alone in front of a screen. Even just starting with one meal a week that everyone eats together is a step in the right direction.
2. Create Opportunities for Connection
Rebuilding a relationship requires actually spending time with someone. It’s important to do things as a family that includes laughter and play no matter what your age is. It is also important to engage in activities that help to preserve a sense of worth and efficacy that can help boost well-being and connection. This could include:
Spending time in nature
Family Movie Nights
Ice Skating
Paintball
Game Night
Camping Trips
Kayaking or Paddle Boarding
Art Night
Bring back playfulness and creativity with your family. These activities will help lift the heaviness and allow you to create new positive memories.
3. Family Therapy
Just as an individual who is struggling with substance abuse changes, so too does their family. The parents, siblings, and partners of the person struggling with addiction all suffer also. It is possible that the children shut down and are unable to talk about what is going on for them. The silence and “blame games” that begin can cause even more harm to a family that is in need of healing.
Family therapy and support groups can help break down these walls so healing can take root. Often families and individuals do not have the tools and skills to overcome these challenges and barriers on their own. Family therapy can help break down the guilt, anger, and distrust to help build a new solid foundation for the family to rebuild upon.
4. Take Time For Yourself
It can be tempting to throw yourself back into family life whole-heartedly, but you must make sure you keep your recovery a priority. Taking time to continue your healing journey is very important. Many people feel that self-care is selfish but truly, it is vital for you to put your healing and recovery first through this time.
Do not take on so much that you become over-stressed and tired. Continue to see a counselor, go to meetings, and take time to do the things that fill you back up and sustain your recovery. If you do not take time to refill your cup you will have nothing to give to your family and risk falling back on old unhealthy coping mechanisms. Be honest with yourself and those around you, and advocate for yourself to take the time that you need.
5. Build Trust Slowly
It can take time to rebuild trust, so it's important to not place expectations on how quickly it should or shouldn’t happen. Just make sure you keep showing up for your family. If you promise or say you will do something or be somewhere, be there. Keep true to your word and help them out where you can by not participating in activities that give the appearance of deceit. Start to establish a routine of trust to help create a new reality with them where your word can be trusted.
Just as you did not recover from your addiction through a snap of the fingers, your children and family will need time. Trust in the process, establish positive recovery practices, and locate resources that may be beneficial to you (or them) during this time. Grow your understanding of their experience in witnessing your addiction and path towards recovery.
Resources:
1)Fishel, A.K. (2016), Harnessing the Power of Family Dinners to Create Change in Family Therapy. Aust N Z J Fam Ther, 37: 514-527. https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1185
2)https://al-anon.org/
