Early recovery, especially, is a trying time for a lot of recovering addicts. After they leave a substance abuse treatment center, life becomes filled with both big lifestyle changes and lingering drug cravings that could easily get them off track and cause a relapse. One of the best ways for them to stay sober is to find support in their recovery journey. While their sponsor or fellow friends in recovery can be a big help, your loved one also needs your support.
How to Support a Recovering Drug Addict & Alcoholic
Knowing how to support a recovering addict can be challenging and may involve some unexpected twists and turns. While there may be times when you start to feel hopeless or drained, your loved one needs you. To help you both on this sobriety journey, our residential addiction rehab in West Palm is sharing some tips on supporting an addict in recovery.
Help Yourself
While it can be tempting to throw your needs to the wayside in favor of your recovering loved one, this will only get you so far. With time you will burn out and then both of you will struggle. It is important to find a balance so that you both can continue to move forward together.
Avoid Old Habits
Many people’s addiction problems are exasperated by their relationships with their loved ones. Without realizing it, loved ones will enable the addict’s substance abuse or a codependent relationship will develop. Now that your loved one is in recovery, you will want to avoid falling back into these toxic relationship dynamics. You should educate yourself on the topic, and if you find this dynamic present, our South Florida codependency treatment program could help you address these issues.
Tell Your Loved One that You Are There for Them
While this may seem obvious, many loved ones of recovering addicts never openly offer their support and assume their loved one already knows. The problem with this approach is that the person in recovery may feel too embarrassed or ashamed to come to you. You want to develop a relationship of open communication so that your loved one can come to you in times of distress instead of turning back to drugs or alcohol.
Follow Up
It is one thing to offer your support and another to actually give it. Supporting a recovering addict means being there in whatever way your loved one needs you. This support may include weekly phone calls to check in or stopping by unannounced to get them out of the house. Ask them what they need from you to be successful in their recovery efforts.
Supporting an addict in recovery can be difficult, but it could keep your loved one from relapsing. Everyone is different, so it may take some time to discover what exactly your loved one needs from you. In the case of relapse, it is especially important to stand by your loved one’s side to keep them from falling back into a full-blown addiction.
Watching your loved one fall to addiction is never fun. At Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches, we want to try to get your loved one the help they need. Reach out to us at 561-220-3981 to learn more.
