I decided to talk about recovery for families in this secton, before the one on recovery for the addict, because the addict’s family can provide one of the most critical support systems in the struggle for sobriety or one of the biggest obstacles.

While addiction is progressing in a family, an enormous amount of change is taking place, as we’ve seen. The family is struggling to stay together and keep on an even keel, while at the same time trying to “fix” the problems caused by the addicted member. The entanglements and manipulations that occur along the way are deeply entrenched.

Family members are often so exhausted and enraged by the time the addict enters treatment that no one in the family is willing to expend any further effort. They feel that it’s time for the addict to shape up and take responsibility and for the treatment center to relieve them of some of the burden for a while. Blame gets shifted to the addict alone, and it’s often hard for family members to become engaged in a therapy program just for themselves.

If you’re at that point, or close to it, I’d like you to consider two things. Despite the frustration and anger, you’re going to be much better off in the long run if you undertake your own recovery. Your active participation is helpful in many ways to the addict who is trying to recover, so you are promoting your desire to see the family’s problems get “fixed.” But, perhaps more important, you will probably find that there have been a number of ways in which the addiction has damaged your self-esteem, your sense of effectiveness as a person, your ability to trust, and your faith. You need some care. You have been taking care of everyone and everything else for a long time, and it’s time for you to devote some effort to getting your own emotional needs met. Recovery will help with that.

The addicted person doesn’t always get better. In fact, there may be more losers than winners in this game.

Addiction is a relapsing disorder, which means that some periods of abstinence may be followed by a return of the active addiction. It is difficult for people to get into a good program of sustained abstinence and long-term sobriety. You cannot bank on the addict getting better so that you can get better. The odds are it’s not going to happen.

But you can recover from the damage and distortions that the addiction has caused in your life and in your family even if the addict is unable to achieve long-term sobriety.

Facing the Problem
As we’ve seen, just as the addict develops denial while the addiction is progressing, families practice their own kind of denial, typically wishing to preserve a sense of normalcy and suppressing unpleasant feelings and realities.

Although you can probably easily identify the addictive behavior as a problem - the addict’s irresponsibility, dishonesty, unpredictability - you may have difficulty recognizing problems of your own that might be related to the addiction.

For example, you might be consistently engaging in rescuing behavior, not only of the addict when some crisis occurs but of everyone you care about, even in minor matters.

You may see this as being a caring and selfless person, and certainly you wouldn’t be motivated to help if you weren’t such a person to begin with. But what you’re not seeing is that you are staving off anxiety and depression by becoming overinvolved in other people’s problems; this is part of your denial.

You might simply be minimizing what’s going on because it would be too painful to admit the full truth to yourself.