Addiction can often stress a family to the breaking point. It impacts the stability of the home, the family’s unity, mental health, physical health, finances, and overall family dynamics. Addiction can totally disrupt family life and cause harmful, lasting effects. This is why addiction is referred to as a family disease. At Waypoint Recovery Center, we want to address the whole family system to optimize success. In order to do so effectively, we provide three different ways for the family to engage:
The Intensive Outpatient Program offers many opportunities for family involvement with Multiple Family Group Therapy (MFGT).
Family therapy with a single family unit as an adjunctive service with any of our other treatment services.
Family counseling as way to educate, support, and treat the family unit. We teach strategies to establish healthy boundaries with loved ones in active addiction and to help the entire family manage the impact addition can cause. Often times families need support and have questions before their loved one reaches out for help. This service can provide families with the tools to be proactive with their support.
When a family member is struggling with a substance use disorder, the stress can often push a family to the breaking point. A family member’s use of drugs or alcohol impacts the stability of the home, the mental and/or physical health of individuals, the state of the family’s finances, and the overall health of a family’s dynamics and unity.
That is to say: Addiction can totally disrupt family life and cause harmful, lasting effects.
This is why addiction is frequently referred to as a family disease. Far from impacting just the person with the substance use disorder, addiction upends family life in ways large and small—and cumulative effect can be simply devastating to the lives of everyone who is touched by the problem.
In the worst of times, it may seem as though there is no way for a family to rally and find a way forward. Fortunately, however, that is not the case. Just as there is help for a person who wants to get sober, there is help for a family that wants to heal from the damage caused by a love one’s addiction. And those two kinds of help—individual and family—can be found in the same place.
At Waypoint Recovery Center, we want to address the whole family system because that is the best way to support the ongoing sobriety of the person struggling with drugs or alcohol and to support the wellbeing of the family as a whole.
As part of our comprehensive treatment services, we provide three different ways for the family to engage:
- Waypoint Recover Center’s intensive outpatient program offers many opportunities for family involvement with multiple family group therapy (MFGT). This form of therapy combines family and group psychotherapy in a setting in which several families meet together under the guidance of a therapist or therapists who serve as a catalyst for the conversations throughout the group. This allows for a range of interactions—families with other families, older generations with younger generations, children with adults, and more—which can enrich the overall therapeutic process.
- Waypoint offers family therapy with a single family unit as a supplemental service with any of our other treatment services. This therapy can help the person with the substance use disorder realize the impact of their addiction on other members of the family. It can also help other members of the family come to terms with their own behaviors or expectations that may have contributed to their loved one’s development of a substance use disorder.
- Waypoint also provides family counseling as way to educate, support, and treat the family unit. We teach strategies for establishing healthy boundaries with loved ones who are actively using drugs or alcohol and to help the entire family manage the many and varied impact of a love one’s addition. Often times families need support and have questions well before their loved one actually reaches out for help. Through our family counseling service, Waypoint can provide families with the tools they need to be proactive in their effects to support their struggling family member.
As we have noted, it can sometimes seem as though there are no resources available for families who are struggling to help a loved one with a substance use disorder. As the stress mounts, family relationships may begin to fray and the entire situation may start to feel hopeless.
But that is not how the story has to end—for your loved one or for the family as a whole. Waypoint Recovery Center is committed to providing services that can strengthen family bonds and help everyone move forward together.
