The Importance of Family Therapy in Recovery

Family therapy seeks to address eroded boundaries and negative habits and behaviors in family systems, with “family” defined by SAMHSA as “a group of two or more people with close and enduring emotional ties.” Poor boundaries are common in families with a loved one experiencing addiction. The prioritization and effects of substance use create opportunities for dependence, loss of trust, and trauma for those who witness it. Some family members are influenced to also begin using drugs, and others shift into the role of caretaker, often to the point of codependence, resulting in a lack of care for themselves as they attempt to shield the user from the consequences of their own addiction.

How Addiction Impacts Families

In short, addiction restructures the family around the impact of substance use. Communication breaks down, resulting in silence, anger, and resentment. Codependent behaviors unintentionally enable addiction, feeding back into poor communication. Family members may become isolated, attempting to hide the impact of substance use from the outside world and maintain a sense of normalcy.

Because addiction often stems from adverse childhood experiences such as dysfunctional family dynamics or trauma, underlying tensions can escalate substance use, further eroding the family unit.

What Is Family Therapy?

Family therapy offers whole-family support to rebuild safe, meaningful relationships and also to begin recovery. During treatment, the loved one struggling with substance use works with their family to address root causes of addiction. This may include examining parenting styles, generational patterns, and other relational issues.

Family members can also begin therapy on their own at facilities like Lantana Recovery. Here, they work with professional therapists who aid them in setting healthy boundaries, healing from the ongoing pain of witnessing addiction, and creating time-sensitive goals to support them in moving forward both as a unit and with community.

How Therapy Helps Families Navigate Recovery

Choosing to participate in family therapy during recovery means electing to be actively involved in substance abuse treatment. Doing so allows family members to directly support a loved one struggling with addiction by encouraging them to reflect on their substance misuse, resulting behavior, learn self-care and coping mechanisms, and sustain their own recovery.

2020 research on family-based substance use disorder (SUD) interventions states that “[w]hen family members change their thinking about and responses to substance misuse, the entire family system changes." In turn, this results in positive outcomes for the entire family because family-based SUD interventions:

• Recognize the therapeutic value of working with family members
• Acknowledge the value of relationships beyond the family
• Adapt family counseling methods as appropriate
• Understand that SUDs are complex and family management can be critical to recovery
• Incorporate a collaborative, judgment-free approach
• Support abstinence alongside other harm-reduction goals
• Expand the measurements that define “successful” treatment

When to Start Family Therapy

Typically, family therapy begins after the person in recovery has made progress in their own treatment. There is no standard time period for this progress; it is based on each individual's unique needs and circumstances. According to SAMHSA, family therapy is the most helpful once the person in treatment has fully committed to the process. At this point, the family can begin the communal work of breaking down old patterns and building resistance to repeating them.

Family Therapy at Lantana Recovery

However, family units or individuals can begin the process of healing from the impact of substance use by a loved one before doing so alongside them. At Lantana Recovery, our team recognizes the importance of a network of loved ones in supporting our clients' long-term recovery. What we often find is that when an SUD is present, family members and friends have often adjusted the structure of their lives to help. While this shift can be meaningful, it can also result in co-dependency with the individual with SUD. Family and friends find themselves controlling, or being controlled by, the individual's decision to accept the help they need.

Instead, families can start empowering loved ones to engage in treatment the moment they ask for help by providing support without coordinating their care for them. That's why Lantana Recovery offers a weekly family support group to help friends and family develop healthy language and thought processes around SUD and recovery. We also include family in monthly sessions with the primary therapist of any Lantana Recovery clients, should the client choose to involve their loved ones.

Help Is Available Now

Families can create a healthy space for our loved ones in recovery by participating in treatment ourselves. This can happen whether or not your loved one is currently engaged with treatment for SUD. By deciding to learn how to establish healthy boundaries and communicate effectively with our loved ones, it is possible to inspire change. In other words, there is hope for everyone on this journey, and the Lantana Recovery team is here to help you or your loved one on their path to sobriety.

Family therapy offers whole-family support for building safe, meaningful relationships for families in recovery. During therapy, families address root causes of addiction in a compassionate and nonjudgmental way. This work can also begin before a loved one struggling with addiction begins their own treatment. By choosing to learn how to establish healthy boundaries and communicate effectively with our loved ones, it is possible to inspire change. In other words, there is hope for everyone on this journey, and the Lantana Recovery team is here to help you or your loved one on their path to sobriety. To get started today, contact our admissions team by calling us at (866) 997-2870.