When families are faced with finding a drug and alcohol rehab center for a family member it is certainly a stressful time.  What is interesting is how stress can and will affect our decision making abilities.  It really drives home the danger of stress in our behavior.  Siblings will often phone for advice and information about the options available to them in drug and alcohol rehab.  They are looking for information in understanding addiction and steps they can take to help their family member and stay sane themselves.

When you go through the history of how addiction has affected the family from the sidlelines most times it is easy to see how the decision making process works in the family.  The old adage it is easier to see another's problems is quite true.  Often through careful questioning and suggestion you can usually lead the person to see what might be a better choice than what they are presently doing.

However following through on some of these ideas certainly can be a more stressful step.  What is clear is that when people get stressed that are very likely to return to their old behavior and decisions.  When stressed, often even the most clear family member can return to enableing addictive behavior.  Stress robs us of our best judgement, even if we don not have a problem with alcohol and drugs.

This is why stress control is such a priority in drug and alcohol rehab.  In stress we return to our tied ant true solutions, EVEN WHEN  THOSE SOLUTIONS DO NOT WORK.  It is also useful to know that when trying something new, often the doubt you feel in your new decision is linked simply to stress, and your desire to go back to what you know when you are stressed.  Write out your reasons of how and why you are choosing a new course of action.  When the stress of the actual change starts to kick in, this list will help you to stay focused on the job at hand.  It will help to stop the slide back to the same behavior patterns you are trying to change in the first place.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 8:11 am and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.