Struggling with Sobriety from drugs and alcohol for so long is bound to affect the relationships you hold with family and friends. Some may accept your addiction for what it is, and others may not. Family and friends who want to help will support your recovery at every step of the journey, from seeking initial treatment to reintegrating into the world. Building, nurturing, and maintaining those relationships is a crucial part of overcoming your addiction.
Going down the mental and behavioral rabbit hole of abusing drugs or alcohol for long periods can change you as a person on numerous levels, from the physical to the social. While the physical effects of these diseases are often readily apparent, the behavioral and social consequences are not always at the forefront. Even so, their importance cannot be understated.
Alcohol and substance use disorders can cause you to become withdrawn from family and friends. You close yourself off, allowing your mind to rest increasingly on your addiction. The people around you who align with your drug or alcohol use become part of your inner circle, sharing in the same activities. You consider them friends, perhaps even family, because they live similar lifestyles and enable your habits. Even if these relationships themselves aren’t toxic, they contribute to worsening your addiction and leading you towards dangerous possibilities for your body and mind.
Grappling with addiction also tends to distance you from the people you were close to in the past. Despite your attempts to hide it, alcohol and drug abuse and the problems associated with it become apparent over time. The family and friends who remain close to you do so because they acknowledge that you suffer from a disease.
Nurturing Existing Relationships with Family and Friends While in Recovery
When you come to terms with the fact you face a life-threatening progressive illness like an alcohol or substance use disorder, you may feel lost or hopeless. A plethora of self-reflecting questions may enter your mind, including:
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- Where do I go from here?
- How can I recover?
- Will I have an alcohol or substance use disorder forever?
- Who will support me?
- Will my old family and friends accept me?
- How should I apologize to those I hurt?
Worry not — although these are tough questions and you may not find immediate answers, effort and determination will cause a path to reveal itself in time. Answers to these questions will coincide with your recovery. Just like how alcohol and substance use disorders are progressive illnesses, recovery is progressive as well. You will continuously learn new tools and strategies to fight and overcome these diseases.
At Real Recovery Sober Living, we believe that inserting yourself into a community that thrives on support is a solid answer to some of your questions. With the help of family and friends, new and old, you’ll spend each day learning how you affect others throughout your battle with alcohol and substance use disorders, as well as how your recovery can help to heal those wounds.
On the other hand, the relationships you hold while under the influence also exist in toxic forms, including co-dependent or mutually enabling relationships. The destructive nature of these relationships is not always apparent; you may not even realize these problems exist. However, if you continue to hold onto these relationships, you face a higher risk of relapse.
Successfully nurturing relationships while traversing recovery from addiction requires being honest with other people about your disease and discussing ways they can help you stay sober. This includes not placing blame on them if you relapse. You are in a vulnerable state that is highly susceptible to influence, good and bad. When you feel ready, opening up to other people about your sobriety goals and the progress you’ve made towards them can go a long way towards rebuilding the foundation of trust.
The goals you share with family and friends can be as simple as:
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- Checking yourself into an inpatient facility
- Joining a sober living community
- Regularly attending to 12-Step meetings
- Breaking contact with toxic relationships that would otherwise fuel your addiction
- Apologizing for your wrongdoings while intoxicated or under the influence
- Subtly changing your behavior for the better due to getting sober and staying sober
Building New Relationships in Sober Living Programs
As you work on recovering from an addiction to drugs or alcohol, you will meet many new faces along the way — in inpatient rehabilitation facilities, 12-Step programs, and sober living communities. Whether or not you entered into recovery with the knowledge that you would learn from others similarly seeking sobriety, your peers are likely to have a significant impact upon your development. Without hesitation, these new faces will share with you their experiences while under the influence, just as you will share yours with them. These people will play a special role in your sobriety, as they are the ones with whom you directly correspond on a daily or semi-weekly basis regarding your progress. They’ll ask you informal questions like:
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- How is your day?
- Are you experiencing withdrawal symptoms?
- How do you feel about your recovery?
- Do you wish you could be somewhere else?
- Do you have any regrets related to your alcohol or substance addiction?
- How are your family and friends handling your recovery?
- How did your family and friends handle you while you were still under the influence?
- What is your most significant reason for seeking recovery?
- Will you commit yourself to a recovery program?
Although most of the time, these questions may not be asked directly, they will either come up in conversation or arise in your mind, leading to deeper introspection. You will see for yourself that your experiences are not as abnormal as you may have thought. Similar issues afflict many others who find themselves suffering from alcohol or substance use disorders. Sharing your stories of addiction can help you relate to your peers in sobriety and develop a greater level of self-acceptance.
Additionally, the most important relationship you build while recovering in a sober living program may be the one you form with your sponsor. The same goes for having a sponsee once you when you reach that point. While not all recovery programs require you to have a sponsor or sponsee, having either or both can significantly add to your support system.
How Having a Support System Helps You in Recovery
Having a support system is critical to your recovery from any form of addiction. In particular, surrounding yourself with family and friends is important. The reasons for having a strong support system begin with:
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- Loneliness. Loneliness leads to wanting to fill a hole in your life. If you already abuse alcohol or a substance, loneliness can propel your use into dependency and addiction. A support system provides you a mechanism of communication and expression to help break out of the cycle of loneliness and isolation.
- Boredom. Like loneliness, boredom when suffering from addiction can lead to substance or alcohol abuse instead of finding healthier ways to spend your time. Filling your day by interacting with family and friends can negate boredom and reduce your chances of relapse.
- Stress reduction. Stress plays a significant role as a trigger for relapse in alcohol and substance use. A support system can give you a time and place to vent intense emotions that would otherwise influence relapse.
- Better coping skills. The help of a support system such as a sponsor, family, and friends who understand your triggers for relapse can make it easier to stay sober by relying on them through difficult moments.
- Accountability. When surrounded by others who also suffer from addiction, accountability becomes a huge part of staying on track and progressing through your recovery.
- Preventing you from lying or hiding your substance abuse. Honesty is key when navigating the old bad habits associated with your alcohol or substance use. If you reveal triggers to your support system that would otherwise lead you to lie and hide your behavior, they’ll be in a better place to look out for any unusual activity and keep you on track.
- Reciprocity. You are not the only person in recovery from alcohol or substance use disorder. Lending your advice or assistance to the others in your support system who also fight these diseases allows reciprocity to play a mutually beneficial part in your recovery.
Recovery Support Resources for Family, Friends, and Other Loved Ones
Do not simply expect your family, friends, or other loved ones to know off the bat how to support you in your recovery from addiction. For the longest time, you were unsure yourself about how to move forward. Similar to how it took you time to admit to yourself that you suffer from an addiction, it will take your support system time as well. When they understand and accept all that you are going through, support will begin to flow, and long-term sobriety will appear closer than ever before.
Finding the right resources is necessary for your family, friends, and loved ones to better understand the disease you are fighting. Resources for your loved ones exist in various formats and mediums. Some of the more common avenues include:
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- Open 12-Step in-person meetings, in which all are welcome
- Open 12-Step online meetings
- 12-Step groups specifically designed for family and friends of persons with alcohol and substance use disorders
- 12-Step and other recovery-based literature
There also exist a variety of groups and organizations to which you can guide your family and friends for a wide range of information and resources:
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- Al-Anon – Al-Anon exists across the world as a support system for friends and families of people who struggle with alcohol abuse.
- Nar-Anon – Like Al-Anon, Nar-Anon is a global support system for friends and families of people who struggle with substance abuse.
- Families Anonymous – Families Anonymous provides a support system for families worried about a relative’s drug use.
- GRASP – Grief Recovery After Substance Passing exists as a support system for those who lost a loved one to addiction.
- PAL – Parents of Addicted Loved Ones is a support system for parents to share information on how to better care for a child who suffers from substance use disorder.
- SMART – SMART is a non-religious support system designed as an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
Alcoholism and drug addiction are detrimental to your mental and physical health. If you or a loved one require treatment for alcohol or substance use disorder, seek help as soon as possible. Before treatment at Real Recovery Sober Living, we ask that you complete a medically supervised detox, as withdrawal from alcohol and many drugs can be dangerous, even life-threatening. Inpatient treatment is recommended for those at risk of relapse.
At Real Recovery, we welcome those who are serious about overcoming addiction. Our mission is to help you transition from your treatment or rehab facility to our sober living homes. As Florida’s largest provider of sober living beds and the state’s highest-rated sober living home, Real Recovery offers a safe and stable environment with a strong community support system to help men successfully transition back into the REAL world.
To learn more about achieving long-term sobriety, speak with one of our recovery specialists by calling (727) 290-9156 today.
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