Sending a family member to a drug rehab program is about new beginnings.  It is about the faith in someone to get their life back on track with their dreams and goals.  This can be difficult for the rest of the family.  Sometimes Moms and Dads as well as other as other family members harbour deep seated resentments and anger over the past.

Parents who have spent a good deal of their retirement funds on their adult child's addicition and drug rehab.  Siblings who have felt a loss over family trust and anger about the addicted individuals impact on the family.  It serves no purpose re-living these evnts over and over.  Setting boundaries for today and getting on with your own dreams is vital.  If you can it might be wise to give the person going to drug rehab the room to grow.  Statements like, "I can't even imagine them having a regular life, not being addicted to drugs"!  While I understand your pain and frustration, statements like these may just keep the addicted family member "addicted" in your eyes, no matter what they do.

How do you beak the negative feeling towards someone?  How do you start to mend the mental fences in your mind that have been broken by drug and alcohol addiction.  As with most times, it is with a better quality of question.  "What do I appreciate about my daughter?" is a good place to start.  The first time you ask this your brain may say, "NOTHING!"  Keep asking or modify the question.  What did I used to appreciate about them before thier addiction?  When they are not using, what are their best qualities?  If anything happened to them what would I miss the most about them?  What are the way my life is better because of them?  If you keep asking questions in this line you will start to build a list.  No person is simply an addiction.  

I am not asking for you to to be taken advantage of.  I am not asking you to minimize what someone and their addiction may have impacted your life.  I am asking you to at least make room for the possibility of change.  I am asking you to look at everything about someone equally, not just the pain or their drug addiction.  The reason is, that if you cannot imagine them changing, you might just convince them that they cannot change.  Then everyone does not win.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 6:10 am and is filed under Drug Addiction. 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.