Family Counseling Services for Addiction for Austin Residents

Family Counseling For Addiction For Austin, TX Residents

A person suffering from drug or alcohol addiction does not live in a bubble. Addiction impacts an individual’s entire family, often affecting loved ones in different ways, depending upon each unique relationship and the makeup of that particular family unit.

At JC’s Recovery & Counseling Center in South Florida, residents from Austin seeking rehab treatment for addiction will undergo family counseling services as part of their recovery program. The addiction specialists at our South Florida rehab center understand that substance use disorders cannot be effectively treated without considering the impact of addiction on the whole family. 

How Addiction Affects the Family

Everyone in a person’s family feels the impact of addiction. Through family counseling sessions, you can better understand why a substance use disorder may have occurred in the first place and how family members might contribute to and are affected by your negative habits. 

If you’re suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, your family will likely notice changes in your behavior. Families will note or possibly dismiss these disruptions or changes in your:

•   Physical appearance 
•   Health issues
•   Mood fluctuations
•   Job or school status

Close relatives may not understand what these changes mean, or they may choose to ignore the patterns that point to a substance use disorder by downplaying the symptoms. Eventually, though, substance abuse ends up touching a family on nearly every level: emotionally, psychologically, financially, and socially.

Once a loved one’s relationships with drugs or alcohol have come to light, different family members can be affected by addiction in various ways, depending on the nature of your relationship.

Addiction directly affects the relationships between you and your family. The person suffering from addiction plays a key family role, while others end up taking up supporting roles of different sorts. The person with an addiction will always put substances first in their life, which is hurtful to their loved ones. They will separate from those who care about them, blame them for their addiction problems, and be the cause of anger and resentment. 

Family members react and take on various roles when a loved one is addicted to substances. One may become an enabler, who performs the tasks the afflicted person can no longer accomplish, sometimes even providing the funds for perpetuating addiction. An older child may take on the role of a hero, projecting an aura of normalcy outside and within the family, resulting in stress and anxiety. A child can also become a scapegoat, acting out and misbehaving to cause a distraction from addiction issues the family experiences. 

A family member might also act as the family mascot, providing comedic relief when everyone if feeling down and uncomfortable. This need to be funny to help the rest of the family de-stress can be stressful and anxiety-provoking. Other family members and spouses may take on additional roles as they find themselves dealing or not dealing very well with a loved one’s addiction. 

Substance use disorders can have a severe effect on your children, which is especially true if you’re a single parent because your children have no one else to turn to to help with your addiction disease. Substance use disorders in parents are also related to an increased risk of child abuse. Other impacts include:

• Create a loss of trust: Someone suffering from drug or alcohol addiction often makes promises they can’t keep or cannot honor, even though their intentions are good. The same is true of not being able to carry out their obligations to family and close friends. This can be very frustrating to spouses, parents, and children. Children can become especially mistrustful of a parent who is suffering from addiction, causing them to have a difficult time forging bonds with others in the future due to having trust issues.
• Increase in an abundance of stress: A parent or partner of someone amid an addiction disorder often has to take over all of the homemaking responsibilities, including cleaning, paying bills, raising children, and all other obligations. This person then becomes an enabler of the person in the throes of addiction. The stress and anxiety involved in caring for an addicted family member’s obligations can be tremendous.
• Create financial problems: Substance abuse can cause a person to lose their job, dip into joint savings accounts to pay for substances, and eventually cause the family to have problems paying the rent, mortgage, groceries, and other essentials. Partners who have become enablers might even provide the cash for substances, furthering the family’s financial problems.
• Can cause physical or emotional abuse: The entire family is anxious and on edge when someone is dealing with an addiction issue. People can act out on various levels, emotionally, verbally, and physically.
• Create fear and confusion: A person with substance use disorder often exhibits unpredictable behaviors. In order not to upset this person, family members may tiptoe around to avoid upsetting anyone or becoming the object of physical or emotional abuse. Children are at risk of becoming more fearful of life in general and confused about how a household should react in certain situations.

Learning Coping Skills as a Family

Dealing with addiction in the family requires communication and education. The whole family must go into therapy to help everyone, including the person with addiction, recover, and move positively.

Being able to express your thoughts and feelings is an essential component of family counseling. Learning how to communicate better and understand what each person is going through will help change the patterns that have been acquired during this stressful period of addiction.

At JC’s Discovery in South Florida, our Family Program helps each family member better understand addiction as a disease with specific causes and effects. During family therapy, your loved ones will learn:

•   The inner workings of addiction, treatment, and recovery
•   About the role the family takes on during recovery
•   How to interact with a family member facing addiction without becoming an enabler
•   Ways to develop a healthier relationship that encourages maturity
•   The difference between dependency and inter-dependency
•   To work through old familial conflicts that may have contributed to addiction
•   Ways to improve communication amongst one another
•   About the policies and protocols at JC’s Recovery

Bringing Family Together to Heal

One of the Family Program’s primary goals at JC’s Recovery is to help families reconnect and learn to deal with the stress of addiction, support one another, and be a source of healing rather than pain.

JC’s Recovery is a faith-based recovery center that relies on Christian family programming and the power of prayer. Using faith in God’s power to help us learn forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional love, we help families reunite to take on the challenge of addiction together, as a unit, with the person suffering from addiction.

At JC’s Recovery in Hollywood, Florida, we accept clients of all faiths from across the country to participate in our addiction rehab programs. If someone you care about is having problems with substance use, contact us today to learn more about our various treatment options, including our family program and evidence-based therapies. If you’d like more information on how our addiction rehab program can help you, too, call us today at 844-524-6873.