Keeping Your Family Healthy During Addiction Treatment

Navigating your spouse’s addiction with a family is incredibly challenging. While seeking treatment and rehabilitation is an excellent step forward, the process is a marathon rather than a sprint. Spouses guiding their partners through substance abuse recovery run the gauntlet as they try to balance family life, navigate their own emotional health, and offer support. 

Keeping your family healthy— mentally and physically— should be the number one priority during this trying time. Here are some key considerations in pursuit of this goal.

Practice Open Communication

Even at young ages, children are extremely intuitive and pick up on more than you may realize. That is why practicing open, age-appropriate communication with your children is essential while your partner navigates their recovery. Alcohol abuse and drug addiction impacts our family in many ways, and keeping lines of communication open about these impacts is going to help reduce resentment and feelings of being lied to.

Parents often try to shield their children from negative subjects. It’s important to adjust the phrasing and language to help your child understand, but negative conversations must happen. 

Create a safe space for your child to ask you questions and share their concerns without judgment. Validate their feelings and offer reassurance throughout the journey ahead. Remind them that substance abuse is a complex disease and that nothing that happens is ever their fault.

Avoid Negative or Derogatory Talk

Protecting your children’s mental health while enduring the emotional processing of a substance abuse spouse is tough. However, it’s paramount that whatever you’re feeling, while valid, should be filtered for your children. Regardless of what happens, your children will still feel unconditional love for their other parents.

Avoid using derogatory terms, casting blame, or putting down the other parent when speaking to your children. Find a safe space to vent your frustrations when away from them, reaching out to an online support group or trusted friend. 

Invest in Additional Support

Recovery is a family journey. Many families of people facing addiction endure traumatic events, high levels of stress, and challenges in developing healthy coping skills. Children raised in families with addiction are more likely to become substance abusers themselves. Putting support systems in place now can positively shape their path forward.

Reach out to a licensed mental health professional or take advantage of local support programs and groups. Talk to your doctor or local mental health initiatives for additional resources. 

Don’t Engage in Enabling Behavior

One of the best things you can do to support the health and wellness of your family is to refuse to engage in enabling behavior. Many spouses unknowingly enable their partner’s addiction. While these actions typically stem from love or protection of the family unit, they can make things worse.

Some examples of enabling behavior include:

• Providing money to support their addiction
• Providing excuses to family members or employers
• Helped avoid prosecution for illegal activities (bailing from jail, creating false alibis, etc.)

If you’ve engaged in enabling behavior, allow yourself some grace. Their choices are not your fault; you did what you thought was best at the time. Now that you know better, you can do better.

It’s important to consider this aspect of the recovery process because the risk of relapse is always there, especially during the early days. When facing this situation, you must know what to do and what not to do.

Create a Financial Nest Egg

Financial strain is another huge stressor put on families of those with addictions. This issue stems from the purchasing of substances to job insecurity related to substance abuse. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to limit your spouse from accessing your shared assets.

Opening a separate account and putting away money is necessary to protect your family’s health and wellness. You should use this emergency fund for you and your children to provide food and shelter as needed. This could mean paying the mortgage when your partner is unable to work or finding a place to stay the night if a potentially damaging situation arises. 

Find Joyful Experiences

Carving out time for joyful experiences for you and your children will create happy memories during a difficult time. Put together a list of experiences and activities you and your children can do together to escape the stress of daily life. 

If possible, incorporate movement into your joyful activities. Run around and play tag, have a dance party in your kitchen, or go on a scavenger hunt on a local hiking trail. These moments are excellent for being present and fostering a loving connection.

Develop Stress Management Skills

Substance abuse often stems from trauma or as a coping mechanism for chronic stress. Stress also has long-term health effects that impact longevity and quality of life.

Work with your children to develop healthy stress management skills, using professional guidance as needed. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques like progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) and positive visualization can help. You can also find short meditations to help your children unwind and let go of negative emotions.

Stress management also requires the prioritization of physical health. Prioritize eating nutritious food, moving the body, and getting quality rest. 

Practice Self-Care

As a parent, you’ll always feel the need to put your children first during this challenging situation. Meanwhile, you may be putting your strong emotions on the back burner to support yourself. It’s essential to remember to practice self-care as well. Remember: you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Find time to unplug and put yourself above others. This likely sounds easier said than done. If possible, reach out for support from others. Ask a trusted friend to watch your kids for an afternoon or evening while you take care of yourself. 

Try to find micro-moments throughout the day. Maybe you can’t invest in a day alone just now. However, you can sit out in the sun with your eyes closed for five minutes. You can treat yourself to a baked good or luxurious coffee drink from the local café now and then. You can lose yourself in a book or podcast while waiting in line. Get creative and carve out these moments for yourself.

Draw a Line in the Sand

Finally, know when to draw a line in the sand with your spouse. Make the expectation clear with your partner as they navigate their recovery. You’re agreeing to be a supportive spouse, not put your children or yourself at risk. Set clear boundaries and stick to them.

This journey is difficult for everyone involved. Prioritizing the health and wellness of yourself and your children will help you navigate this difficult time and live a long, healthy life.