Substance Abuse and the Family

Pulling Life Back Together AgainBy: Mara Zuschlag

Course Code: PSY481Date: March 2, 2009

What to Do to Reconnect With Your Children During Recovery:

Write the children a letter without blame to anyone for drinking and behaviorsArrange and Attend Family Therapy

Write with love, acknowledgment of past behaviors, letting it go, leaving the present and hope for the future to be allowed to be the better parent (Lawson & Lawson, 1998).

Express commitment to ongoing recovery treatment to grow, to make good choices; to learn more good choices to be a better a person/parent through continued therapy.

Indicate open communication thereafter for further discussion. The letter is to create an opportunity

for undivided attention, without verbal interruption, thus increased awareness and reception of your thoughts and feelings.

Change is difficult, change takes time, and ambivalence is normal. They should not expect immediate results, but an ongoing promise of living a new lifestyle of change in recovery.

Attend Family Therapy – To address your adaptive ways of past drinking (Lawson & Lawson, 1998) To learn that drinking behavior as

only one party of the family interaction

To allow you and those to get rid of this label and reenter the family with new interaction patterns;

To have the family members recognize the roles in the drinking behavior;

To learn interpersonal skills with each member to increase emotional maturity growth.

Separating the past from the present. Learn to realize that when they

overreact to something now, "they are really feeling pain from the past." Once they have that skill, they can start to move on.

Steps to rebuild a marriage with trust and emotional intimacy:

Encourage marital therapy with a family therapist experienced in addictions and the recovery process.

Learning about your former roles (Lawson & Lawson, 1998). Change and adaptations necessary to establish healthy relationship

Intimacy and sexual behaviors are intertwined with alcohol abuse and can be an ongoing conflict, openly or internalized with feelings (Lawson & Lawson, 1998). Therapy can help them separate reasonable expectations for intimacy and coming to terms with old grief from previous relationships. Couples who have been struggling with substance abuse for years have large storage vault

full of hurt, anger and resentment (Lawson & Lawson, 1998). Therapy aids in acknowledging the wasted years of dealing with his drinking. Unites the spouses with shared pain and losses, instead of adversarial blaming of each

other and come to a position of acceptance.

Trust develops over time, with positive actions

Express readiness to attend marital group therapy to acknowledge responsibility for difficulties in their relationship through identification with other group members (Lawson & Lawson, 1998)

Suggest Al-Anon as your recovery is recovery for spouse The spouse continues to decompress from the alcoholic past (Lawson & Lawson, 1998). Recovering with your sobriety requires treatment for her to emotionally rebuild (Lawson &

Lawson, 1998). Identifying with others helps the spouse with recovery during this process.

Share your experiences for family substance abuse prevention:

Volunteer in youth programs/activities/sports Provides opportunities to speak on such matters at appropriate

times Communicative contact with both children and parents Become a positive role model and inspiration to others with

current substance abuse issues Attend church where his “story” can be told and will be heard

by old/new attendees seeking guidance for recovery. Seek out suggestions from others as to where your

experiences can benefit in the community, such as public speaking in substance abuse prevention programs. Public speaking reaches someone in a family in a

transtheoretical model of change recovery stage, from precontemplation, contemplation, preparation to action (Argosy University, 2009)

ReferencesArgosy University. (2009). PSY481: Substance abuse and the family: Module 7: Treatment:

The family as a system: Retrieved February 28, 2009 from http://myeclassonline.com/

Lawson, A. & Lawson, G. (1998). Alcoholism and the family (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: Aspen Publishers.