Family Therapy & Healing Program

JC’s Recovery Center Family Program

Addiction is often called a family disease. It not only infects the addict but also everyone close to them. The significant emotional, physical, and financial toll it takes on the family is heartbreaking. At JC’s Recovery Center we realize that loved ones often need help too. Our family program is designed to help the family and significant others cope with the overwhelming feelings of anger, confusion, hurt, and fear that so commonly go along with loving someone with an addiction.

It’s easy for people to make themselves feel better by saying the addict is only hurting themselves by their actions. But the truth is that those close to the individual suffer as much and sometimes even more than the addict. A flood of emotion takes over loved ones as they try to help the addict while keeping their own lives on course. While family and friends of addicts aren’t usually seeking treatment for themselves, it is beneficial for loved ones to assess their own lives and relationships and talk to a professional about the struggles they are facing too. Our family program addresses the often unspoken needs of loved ones and helps everyone work together better for sobriety.

Addiction is Stressful for Loved Ones

A natural first reaction of family members to finding out their loved one is using drugs or alcohol is anger. They feel like the person is being selfish and uncaring toward family and loved ones, and they are hurt that the addiction has become more important to the person than the people close to them. As time goes on, the anger continues, but other emotions also become commonplace. Fear is always present with the family of addicts. They are afraid for the addict’s physical health and afraid the person is going to get in trouble or hurt someone else. They are afraid for their own welfare and reputation if others find out. They are afraid the addiction will continue to get worse and they will lose their loved one. Loved ones also feel confusion over how to help their family member and how to continue to have positive interactions with them.

Not only do adult family members of addicts suffer, but children are also greatly affected by a parent’s addiction. These young people don’t process stress and negativity like adults do, and children of addicts often bottle up their emotions, causing significant mental anguish. Children might feel the addiction is their fault, or worry about their parent’s wellbeing, or even grow up thinking the behavior of the addict is normal or OK. While every close family member of an addict should consider going through treatment or counseling themselves, children of addicts should especially be provided with mental and emotional support when necessary.

The family program at JC’s Recovery Center helps loved ones understand the disease of addiction and its causes, as well as ways they can contribute to the person’s recovery. We help family members heal and learn how together they can move forward without drugs or alcohol.

Learning How to Interact without Enabling

A daily struggle for family members of addicts is how to support the person without enabling them. It’s easy for loved ones to feel like they are helping the addict by giving them money or helping them out of sticky situations. Families who enable are quick to make excuses or cover up for the addict, they will defend the person’s behavior, and they will even make sacrifices in their own lives to help out the addict. However, too much help allows the addict to continue in their addiction without facing consequences. It is often very difficult to know where to draw the line, and families need help knowing how to have meaningful interactions with the person.

Co-dependency is a term used to describe the dysfunctional relationship between certain addicts and their loved ones. Living with an addict is life-altering, but some individuals start to crave the drama, fights, and the resolution. Usually stemming from dysfunction in their past, these loved ones become dependent on the attention and the emotional roller coaster associated with loving an addict.

The unhealthy behaviors of family members, including enabling and co-dependency, are addressed in our family program. We help loved ones inspect their own behaviors and heal their own wounds so that they are better equipped to help their loved one through recovery. Our therapists work with families to help them develop healthy relationships that encourage peacefulness and maturity.

Families Play a Significant Role in Recovery

Rehab and recovery are a time of change and restoration. As the individual participates in therapy and counseling, they learn to address past experiences that have caused their addiction. The recovering addict will spend time identifying their thought processes, interactions with others, and internal dialogue that need improvement, and then working to make necessary changes in their life. Part of the restoration is the rebuilding of relationships with family and loved ones.

Family therapy allows the person and their loved ones to work through conflicts from the past that keep haunting them and helps all involved to make improvements on how they talk and act toward loved ones. Family and friends who are able to participate in family therapy become a source of support for the addict, as they need to be surrounded by those who will forget about the past and work on a future relationship, and who will be there when the individual returns home to offer encouragement and support.

Christian Family Programming

It has been said that the family that prays together stays together. We believe in the power of prayer and the importance of daily spiritual growth for a renewed living. All of our programs are Christ-centered, and for family therapy, we use God’s love as a perfect model of how family members are to treat one another. We help families focus on God’s love and compassion for each of us and apply those principles to their lives and interactions with the recovering addict. Following Christ’s example for our lives, families learn how to forgive, care for, and love unconditionally, even when conflict arises.

Together with God’s peace and power, loved ones and addicts alike are able to take on the challenge of living a renewed and sober life.

Family Program at JC’s Recovery Center

The family program at JC’s Recovery Center is focused on helping family members and loved ones deal with the stressors of addiction and also to support and enable them to be a source of healing and recovery. Although it is not necessary for an addict to recover with the support of his family, it is certainly significant. The support of the family can make the road to recovery a fuller one.

JC’s family program offers a solution to the various issues the family may be facing. Families and loved ones who participate in our family program will learn the following: