Having a loved one in recovery is simultaneously glorious and challenging. On the one hand, watching someone work on becoming their best self is fantastic. However, recovery is a long and complicated road requiring patience and understanding. Often, family members and loved ones can find the process confusing, and at times, frustrating. Undeniably, recovery learning is a group effort. To learn more, contact Bayview Recovery today at 855.478.3650.

How Do I Support a Loved One in Recovery?

More often than not, family and friends breathe a collective sigh of relief when someone that they love takes the first steps on the recovery journey. Unfortunately, addiction is rarely, if ever, a solo act. Throughout active addiction, relationships are strained, tested, and frequently broken, seemingly beyond repair. Therefore, the desire for the turmoil to end at recovery’s doorstep is understandable, if not wholly unrealistic.

Engage in Your Own Recovery

Undoubtedly, your loved one’s addiction created undue stress and strain for you. Perhaps, caused rifts in your relationships with others, threatened your reputation at work, or led you to neglect your own health. Whether you are dealing with an active addict or a loved one in recovery, your health and well-being must be your priority. There is a slim chance that you can help someone else when neglecting your own basic physical and emotional needs.

Acknowledge Your Role in the Problem and the Process

Frequently, in an attempt to help or ease the pain of the addicted, well-meaning friends and family members will enable the addictive behaviors. It is unbearable to see the sickness and struggle of someone that we love. Sadly, enabling serves only to prolong the inevitable and allows the addiction to continue to consume. Once you acknowledge any role that you may have played through enabling, you can begin to understand the importance of boundaries. Setting boundaries is an integral part of all healthy relationships. It will help you break out of the enabler’s role, giving yourself and your loved ones a much better chance at a happy, healthy, and peaceful life.

Accept What is Within Your Control and What Isn’t

To provide support to a loved one in recovery, it is not uncommon for friends and family members to want to control others’ behaviors. During the early stages of recovery, an addict has to learn how to assimilate back into life. It is only natural for you to want to protect the addict from themselves and others. Supporting a loved one in recovery is about letting them decide about their own life. Thus, giving control and responsibility for both the good and bad consequences.

Allow Yourself to Get Back to “Normal”

You may or may not even know what “normal” means. Depending on how long you have been dealing with addiction, you may have no idea how to return to the status quo of life. Possibly, the family dynamic may have changed in such a way that means going back isn’t even an option, and building a new life is in order. In any case, laying down the worries and concerns that addiction presents daily can be more complicated than it sounds. However, moving beyond the strangulating hold that addiction can place on a family is paramount. Engage in healthy and fun activities and don’t allow the illness to continue to be the center of the family’s attention any longer.

Supporting a Loved One in Recovery with Bayview Recovery’s Help

Regardless of how long you have been suffering through addiction with someone you care about, you probably have questions. Our fantastic team of addiction professionals at Bayview Recovery, are ready and willing to answer any questions you may have. Whether beginning treatment, continuing treatment, or breaking the behaviors that may not be the best for supporting a loved one in recovery, we can help. Call our team today, 855.478.3650, and get yourself and your loved one on a brighter path to the future.