How to support your child, dependent or loved one when they return home after treatment
Since the drug or alcohol misuse of one individual affects their whole family, the whole family also needs to be involved in the process of recovery.
Welcoming someone back into your home after they have completed their rehabilitation therapy is a major step on the road to recovery, for all of you. There are often complex reasons for why people begin to misuse drugs and alcohol, and this needs to be acknowledged and respected. Home life will need to be different now to what it was when their problem developed.
Planning is very important to make the move successful. Make sure that your plan involves everyone affected and that they are all aware of the plan and comfortable with it. This will significantly ease the initial transitional period of the return to home life of someone in recovery.
Here are some tips and ideas to help keep everyone on the right track.
Aftercare meetings and group sessions…
Don’t be surprised or disappointed if the recovering person returning to the home spends a lot of their time focusing on what they need to stay clean or sober. He or she will have to ensure that they continue to meet with their key worker and attend support groups. This may seem a little one-sided but it is vital that they continue to seek support through this part of their recovery. Remember, there is still a long way to go, so keep positive.
Communication is vital to the treatment process…
During their treatment programme, your child or loved one will have been encouraged to talk openly about their feelings and relationships inside and outside of the home. Getting to the root cause of why someone started to misuse drugs or alcohol is a fundamental part of the recovery process. You need to be comfortable with your son, daughter, partner or parent continuing to express their feelings, even towards yourself and your family members during this time. This may be very difficult for all of you, but open communication can help to solve problems and conflicts and, in the long-run, create a healthier home environment for everyone.
How to show your affection…
The person you are welcoming back into your home may be a very different person to the one that left. They may find it hard at first to show affection – don’t be disappointed, talk it through so that you are each aware of how the other person may be feeling. Give it time: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day!’
Rules and responsibilities…
You need a plan to have a solid foundation of rules in place for when your family member returns. Everyone involved in your household will have to buy-in to the house rules and be prepared for the consequences that may follow if the rules are broken. Remember your family member has most likely been through a programme where rules were paramount to their treatment, so this will not be new to them. The same applies to responsibilities – each person in the treatment program will have been given a certain level of day-to-day tasks that they were responsible to complete. Give them the same opportunity to undertake similar tasks in the home. It will help them to feel that they belong and build trust.
Friends and family…
If there are people in your family or friends of your family that you suspect may be a negative influence, make sure that they do not visit the home or that you do not go to see them. This may seem harsh, but the return to family life for someone in recovery is a challenging time. Someone straight out of treatment should not be around temptations and especially not around people who are drinking or taking drugs. Give it time and they will be able to develop and strengthen the coping strategies that they have learned in treatment to deal with such situations.
Support for you…
Contact a support group for parents or guardians and families who have been affected by addiction, such as the Coolmine Family Support Programme. You will find details of what is available in the links section of this website. Good friends and family also provide excellent support when you need some TLC.
On-going family counselling…
You will most probably have been involved at some level as part of your son or daughter’s treatment programme; you need to think about how to continue this involvement when they return home. Many services run support groups for this purpose. Check with the treatment centre to see if they can enrol you in their programme or guide you in the direction of a similar support service.
Relapse…
A relapse is when someone in recovery goes back to using drugs or alcohol, on more than one occasion. It’s important that parents and family members don’t see this as a failure. Many professionals consider that relapse is an intrinsic part of the process of recovery. So instead of planning for disappointment, make sure that you are all prepared for this possibility, so that you can provide support for your family member at the time when they need it most. If they relapse, the first thing to do is to contact the treatment centre they attended and ask for their advice.
Click here to see information on relapse.
When your family member is settled back at home, make sure that you keep an eye out for signs of relapse – this will help everyone in the household manage the situation effectively so that long term recovery is achieved.