Substance abuse treatment and family therapy frequently go hand in hand. It is often stated that addiction is a family disease; all members of the family unit suffer from the negative consequences of the single-family member’s substance abuse problem. No matter how much time an individual spends working toward sobriety, if the most important people in his or her life are not part of that recovery, it can cause problems. In all ways, the family is a system. Our goal and mission are to revitalize the family and support healthy relationships in our community.
If there is one broken part of any system, the entire setup can fail. Family substance abuse counseling explores dynamics such as:
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- How certain family members have enabled the person with a substance abuse problem and how to change that behavior
- How familial relationships, as well as actions and conflicts, can spur substance-seeking behaviors
- How different family members can support sober living after treatment or during recovery.
- Genetics, including the impact of one’s environment on gene expression, account for about 40% to 60% of a person’s risk of addiction.
- Environmental factors that may increase a person’s risk of addiction include a chaotic home environment and abuse, parent’s drug use and attitude toward drugs, peer influences, community attitudes toward drugs, and poor academic achievement.
- Teenagers and people with mental health disorders are more at risk for drug use and addiction than other populations.
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Psychotherapy, or individual counseling, has become one of the cornerstones of drug treatment services. Most rehab programs feature two key treatment elements: detox and medication therapy (where applicable) and counseling (individual and group programs often based on the 12-Step model)
Individual counseling addresses both the symptoms and root causes of substance abuse and serves as a monitor of the recovery process itself. In this way, therapy works to address the past drug addiction, present recovery, and the client’s future.
During ongoing individual counseling sessions, a recovering substance abuser can expect the therapist to incorporate the following approaches into therapy:
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- Acceptance
- Cravings management: Teaching strategies to make new, healthy decisions at critical trigger times, like when experiencing drug cravings
- Motivation: Encouraging abstinence through different life-affirming techniques.
- Commitment: Working to create a lifelong recovery plan.
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