Coaching a family struggling with addiction involves a multidimensional approach

Family Addiction Recovery

How to address both the individual's experience of addiction and its effects on the family:

1. Understanding Addiction: Addiction, properly understood, is neither a disease to be cured—though it has aspects of a disease—nor a problem to be eliminated. On the contrary, addiction is the individual’s attempt to solve a quandary. Before we can address addiction, this simple fact must be understood. 
2. The Role of Family: Family plays the critical role in the healing process. Their support contributes significantly to the success of the treatment, while negative behaviors or dynamics can hinder the process. Thus, family members get to be actively involved in the process, equipped with understanding and tools to help rather than exacerbate the situation. People heal best in healthy and safe relationships.
3. Establish Healthy Boundaries: One of the crucial parts of coaching a family dealing with addiction is teaching them to establish healthy boundaries. These can protect the family from the harmful behaviors associated with addiction while still showing love and support to the addicted individual.
4. Communication: Teach effective communication strategies. Open, honest, and nonjudgmental communication can help the family express their concerns, needs, and feelings, helping in the healing process for everyone involved.
5. Education: It's essential to educate the family about addiction—the nature of the learning disorder, the signs and symptoms, the effects on the individual and family, and the process of recovery. This knowledge will help them understand what their loved one is going through and how they can help.
6. Coping Strategies: Family members often need to learn how to cope with the stress, anxiety, guilt, and other emotional challenges that come with a loved one's experience of addiction. Techniques can include therapy, support groups, mindfulness exercises, and self-care practices.
7. Support Networks: Encourage the family to find or build a support network. This can include other families dealing with similar issues, professional counselors, family addiction recovery coaches, support groups, or online communities.
8. Engagement in the Recovery Process: Family members get to participate in the recovery/healing process. This gets to involve family therapy sessions, attending meetings or sessions with the individual, or participating in interventions.
9. Self-Care: Family members often neglect their needs, focusing solely on their loved one experiencing addiction. Teach them the importance of self-care, and remind them that they can't pour from an empty cup.
10. Hope and Resilience: Foster hope and resilience within the family. Despite the challenges, recovery is possible, and families can rebuild trust and healthy relationships. All-in family recovery will take time, patience, and a lot of work, but it's not only achievable it's absolutely the right thing to do.

Conclusion
Coaching, guiding, mentoring a family struggling with addiction is a nuanced and sensitive task, and it's often best undertaken by humans on their own healing journey and that are educated in compassionate inquiry, EMDR, somatic experiencing, family addiction recovery coaching and family trauma therapy. This knowledge is power and gives context to the coaching process rather than it being about one thing, like going to meetings, getting the right sponsor and praying more.

It's always crucial to refer families to appropriate services mentioned above if the situation is ever beyond your expertise or capability. It takes a community to heal. Healthy and safe connection is the currency of wellness.

Next post we will get more detailed about boundaries.

​If your family needs an experienced guide and mentor to start this very challenging journey please click here.

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