Bringing recovery home means shifting the household to support recovery in a new way.
- Make Sure Everyone Gets Help: Mental illness of any kind affects everyone in the home. Your loved one who is going to treatment is not the only one who needs support and recovery in their lives. Thankfully, there are many programs to support everyone in the family. For example, for addiction and alcoholism there is Ala-teen and Al-anon as well as family groups for younger children. Become involved in your own therapy and have the family become involved in their recovery process as well.
- Have Regular Family Check-In’s: It’s never safe to assume, especially when you assume that just because one loved one has gone to treatment that everything is suddenly better. Even after some time while everyone is recovering, there might be a family member or two who is having a hard time. Checking in regularly to ask how people are doing is helpful.
- Learn Everything You Can: When a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness, family members rush to research every way possible to overturn it. The same ferocity should be applied to treatment for mental illnesses. Learn about your loved one’s diagnosis, what recovery means, and about things which might support their recovery like the 12 steps.
- Prepare For Relapse: Relapse does not have to be a part of your journey to recovery, however, it commonly becomes part of the tale. Have a family plan for what to do when a loved one is caught intoxicated, or begins falling into old symptoms of their mental illness. Together, you can create rules, boundaries, and guidelines. The more swiftly relapse is confronted, the quicker one can get back to recovery.
- Understand Recovery Comes First: If your loved one is fully committed to their recovery, it is going to become their priority in life. Often, families find conflict here. Once their loved one was lost to drugs and alcohol or the interference of symptoms from a mental illness. Now, their loved one is focused on recovery- going to meetings, calling friends, and working on themselves in different ways. This is exactly the life you were hoping for them.
Hired Power is dedicated to bringing recovery home so the family system can heal. Throughout the entire treatment and recovery planning process, Hired Power compassionately serves to empower individuals to create a new life. For more information, call 1-800-910-9299.
