Is Addiction a Family Disease?

Addiction is a disease that impacts individuals, their families, and their entire community. As a result, addiction is a family disease. Therefore, treatment for addiction is most effective when it takes individuals and their families into consideration. This process helps individuals to have helpful support in healing. However, it also offers a chance for both individuals and their families to truly heal from addiction. As a result, addiction treatment at Reviving You Recovery incorporates family support in person and remotely. In the process, individuals learn to reconnect with their loved ones and leave treatment with a network of support that will help them in recovery.

How Addiction is a Family Disease

A family disease is something that impacts the entire family. However, it is also a disease that is impacted by the family. Addiction falls into both of these categories. When an individual is addicted to drugs or alcohol, their loved ones are affected by their choices, and family dynamics can be one piece of why an individual is struggling with addiction.

Addiction Impacts the Entire Family

Family, the nuclear family, in particular, is most individuals’ primary social attachment. While not all individuals spend significant amounts of time together, families often hold traditions that keep them connected to a certain degree. As a result, the way that each individual behaves and the challenges they face are felt by their families.

Addiction is a disease that impacts how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. When using a substance, a person’s behaviors will be distinctly different. However, with addiction, individuals also face long-term changes in the brain. Therefore, family members might begin to notice them taking more risks, having a shorter temper, or connecting less with loved ones. As a result, a person who is struggling with addiction might lash out, put a family member at risk, or avoid events where they could connect with others.

Family Plays a Role in Addiction

While addiction impacts the entire family, the family also has a role in addiction. Many individuals who struggle with substance abuse have family members who also have issues with drugs or alcohol. This is a combination of genetics and learned behaviors that put a person at higher risk for addiction.

Due to the family being the primary social attachment, individuals spend significant amounts of time with their families. In addition, the patterns that occur in a family impact a person throughout their lives, even when they have distanced themselves from their family. Therefore, family patterns can lead to a person using substances in a manner that contributes to or leads to their own challenges with addiction.

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Healing From a Family Disease

Fortunately, families can heal from the family disease of addiction. Understanding that addiction impacts the entire family and that the family system plays a role in developing addiction is vital to the healing process. This helps clients to heal more effectively and gives their loved ones a chance to adjust in order to heal themselves and support their family members struggling with addiction.

In treatment for addiction at Reviving You Recovery, individuals learn how they have impacted others through addiction. Clients learn to take responsibility for these actions and that they have the power to change their choices in the future.

This process often requires addressing those they have impacted on the road to healing. However, it also includes reconnecting with their family and going through the healing journey together.

Reconnecting With Family

Over time, individuals with addiction lose connection with their families. This does not mean they do not spend time together. Instead, it means that they either stop having or never have a true emotional connection with their loved ones. Reconnecting with family is an important step in treatment for addiction and in long-term recovery.

When connecting or reconnecting with family, individuals learn how to communicate effectively. They take strides to build a foundation of connection that will improve and grow over time. This process looks different for each person. However, with support, clients can make and maintain connections that are helpful in their healing.

Incorporating Family Into Treatment

Healing effectively from addiction is complex. It involves detox and individualized treatment. However, incorporating family in the process is also extremely important. Family involvement in treatment will vary. This is due to the individual challenges each family faces and a client’s personal preferences for their treatment plan.

At Reviving You Recovery, families are offered a weekly chance to see their family member who is in treatment. This can occur both in person or virtually. As a result, families connect while the individual is in a safe and supported environment, which helps them in any challenges they face while trying to build or rebuild a connection with their families.

Addiction is a disease that impacts the entire family and is impacted by the entire family. It is truly a family disease. Fortunately, with support, the entire family can heal. At Reviving You Recovery, we offer a chance for clients and their families to heal together. We believe that addiction is the antithesis of connection and that helping our clients to reconnect with themselves, their families, their community, and their purpose helps them to recover from addiction in treatment and beyond. If you would like to learn more about our treatment programs or know someone who would benefit from our treatment, call us today at (951) 723-7598 to learn more.