Family Therapy For Addiction

When one family member battles an addiction, the entire family suffers together. That’s why family therapy for addiction is one of the most effective rehab programs. Family treatment allows the entire clan to heal as a collective unit. Reaching out to The Freedom Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland will set you and your family members free from the bonds of alcohol and drug abuse.

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What is Family Therapy?

Family therapy is a type of addiction counseling that involves the family members of those recovering from substance use disorders. During family therapy sessions, a trained family therapist helps facilitate conversations between family members as they discuss their struggles, concerns, and heartaches. Family counseling uses these discussions to help lay a foundation for an effective recovery process.

When family members emotionally open up with one another, it helps everybody, including the recovering individual, to better understand the effects of addiction. Recovery is only effective once all parties involved come to terms with the gravity of your struggle and move forward with the necessary processes as directed by your physician.

Types of family therapy include the following:

Behavioral couples therapy (BCT)
Brief strategic family therapy (BSFT)
Family behavior therapy (FBT)
Multisystemic therapy (MST)
Community reinforcement and family training (CRAFT)
Solution-focused brief therapy
Functional family therapy (FFT)
Family recovery support groups
Family peer recovery support services

Each of these family therapies can help improve family functioning, address family strengths and weaknesses, and better the overall family environment.

Benefits of Family Therapy

Some of the many wonderful benefits of family therapy for substance abuse include the following:

It builds a strong support system.

Family therapy for addiction helps family members to establish a foundation for support and understanding for each other and the recovering individual. When a person struggling with addiction partakes in family therapy, it allows him or her to receive support from their family members. Family counseling also provides support for the individuals who love the struggling person.

It offers discipline training.

It becomes nearly impossible to resist addiction impulses alone once substance dependency has taken hold of the brain. Therefore, it takes medically-aided self-discipline techniques to get yourself back on your feet. A strong therapist and training program can put you on the fast track to sobriety. Our compassionate receptionists are standing by to show you just how achievable your sobriety is.

It addresses and corrects enabling behaviors.

Families dealing with substance abuse may not always know how to best help their struggling loved ones. Sometimes, enabling behaviors occur within family units. Parents of addicted adults may give their children food or money. Siblings of addicted individuals may “cover for” their siblings. Spouses of people suffering from addiction may carry the burden of keeping the home running alone. Other family members may also enable addicted individuals in some shape or form.

These types of behaviors may only enable the person with addiction, allowing them to continue supporting their harmful habits. Family sessions can help remove these enabling habits from the entire family system and break the cycles that have developed.

It enables family members to share the burden.

Both the person struggling with addiction and his or her family members feel the effects of substance use disorders. They all suffer from the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse. With substance abuse comes financial issues, health complications, family problems, and much more. But, although each person feels the weight of these consequences simultaneously, family members may often feel alone in their struggles.

Family therapy programs allow recovering individuals and their families to know that they are far from alone. Through this type of group counseling, each family unit can find that hope and healing are possible! They can receive the support they need for the journey ahead.

What are the Goals of Family Therapy?

The goals of family therapy for addiction are as follows:

Establish open family communication
Encourage strong family support for recovering individuals
Resolve family conflict as it relates to substance use disorders
Improve family relationships throughout the recovery process
Educate family members regarding their loved one’s recovery from substance use disorder
Provide support for all family members, encouraging self-care tactics
Improve family dynamics

Family therapy seeks to result in improved family relationships and create a safe space for people to talk about their challenges regarding substance abuse and recovery. This type of therapy works to better family interactions and, in turn, improve communication and family life. As a result, families can help an addicted family member find healing and make amends throughout their recovery.

How Does Family Therapy Help You Achieve Sobriety?

Family therapy operates under the common understanding that when one person suffers, the whole family suffers. That’s why it takes the whole family to achieve sobriety. This is achieved through a meticulously-designed therapeutic process as directed by your family therapist. Bearing that in mind, here are some of the many ways family therapy helps people achieve sobriety.

It helps identify and resolve addiction triggers.

Family therapy enables your therapist to identify your substance abuse triggers by getting to know the roots of your struggle. With the knowledge of these triggers, your therapist and loved ones can map an effective route to help you resolve these triggers. It takes a village to overcome addiction. Let our caring team of family-oriented therapists show you how to come together to resolve addiction triggers as a family unit.

It helps families replace bad habits with positive ones.

It’s often very difficult to find things to do once you have absolved substances from your life. That’s why the only thing more important than removing substance cravings and use is replacing them with productive hobbies and activities. Not doing so often results in relapse.

Picking up a hobby or activity with family can be one of the greatest relapse-prevention techniques. This phase of finding new activities is reported to be one of the most enlightening and relaxing experiences among all family members. This especially opens the opportunity for the family to develop a weekly bonding routine that can help the entire family grow closer together.

Receive Family Therapy for Addiction at The Freedom Center

Here at our Maryland substance abuse treatment facility, we strive to help our patients throughout every stage of the addiction treatment process and recovery journey. We understand the challenges that come with overcoming drug abuse and alcoholism. This is why we offer a variety of addiction treatment programs, including the following:

Inpatient/residential treatment
Outpatient treatment
Partial hospitalization program
Intensive outpatient program

We also offer dual diagnosis treatment, which extends mental health counseling and mental health services to those who are suffering from addiction and mental health disorders. Additionally, our treatment center offers many types of addiction treatment therapy and counseling, such as:

Individual therapy
Group therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy

We truly believe compassion and understanding play a vital role in recovery. We also understand the importance of accountability and guidance when it comes to substance use disorder treatment. This is why we offer comprehensive therapeutic approaches throughout the addiction treatment and recovery processes.

To learn more about our family therapy services or any of our other professional treatment approaches, please contact us today. Whether you or a loved one needs our help, we are here to assist your family! Let our team help make a difference in your life today.

Break Free From Addiction

At our substance abuse treatment center in Maryland, we do our best to meet each individual where they’re at. Each person comes with a different mold - a different struggle. The best way we can help them is to offer them care that is unique to their own situation; there is no one-size-fits-all method to substance abuse treatment. This is why individualized care is so important to us. If you or a loved one are interested in finding out more, you can contact us here.

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