Addiction Outpatient Treatment: The Role of Families

Do families play a role in addiction outpatient treatment? Not only is the answer a resounding yes, but it’s more important than in any other type of rehab. Let’s explore the connection to better understand how addiction recovery can hinge on the participation of the family.

There’s a reason they call addiction a family disease. After all, everyone around the addicted person will be affected in some significant way. However, to understand the depth of family involvement, the following two stories can go a long way.

Relationships and Addiction

My personal experience of addiction came through my mother’s alcoholism. Growing up, it was tough to live with a parent who could never be entirely present, and who made some awful decisions.

But the issue went beyond danger or trauma. I became my mother’s confidante, always expected to be present to help her with her burden.

Family Support and Recovery

Throughout my career in addiction recovery, I’ve learnt more from patients than I could ever have from books. The second ‘story’ is actually more of a pattern. It is something that is seen in treatment centers over and over again around the world.

Every group in rehab has two types of people: those with family support and those without it. There are exceptions, but in many cases we can tell who is more likely to be successful. Those who have family (biological or chosen) to take care of them, providing shelter, emotional support, and accountability, are significantly less likely to relapse.

This isn’t hard to understand. If you’re struggling to meet your basic needs while experiencing isolation, it is much more difficult to gain stability and focus on your recovery.

Now, with this context, let’s take a look at how it links to the role of the family in outpatient rehab.

Why is Family More Relevant in Outpatient Rehab?

If addiction is always considered a family disease, does the type of treatment really make a difference? In this instance, it certainly does.

The major difference between outpatient and inpatient rehab is where the person lives during the process. Inpatient rehab is also known as residential rehab, as the person stays in the center throughout their program.

People in outpatient rehab, on the other hand, live at home. Depending on their circumstances, they may be living with their family, living with friends or roommates, or living on their own.

The Role of an Absent Family

Our society tends to idealize the concept of family. People from dysfunctional backgrounds, however, understand that some families do more harm than good. This is especially true when there is a history of physical, sexual, or verbal abuse.

Therefore, it is sometimes necessary for a recovering addict to disconnect entirely from their family. In addition, some families need to cut ties with the addict due to the harm that they are causing through their behaviors. In some cases this is temporary, while in others it is permanent.

That being said, regardless of the necessity of cutting family ties, their absence plays a role in the person’s recovery journey during outpatient treatment. Family provides a sense of safety and security, by taking care of some of the person’s needs and giving them a place where they belong.

When a person goes home from outpatient treatment every day and has to take care of basic needs all by themselves, they are more stressed and have less time to work on their recovery. They may also feel distressed by their isolation from others.

The good news is that an addict’s ‘family’ need not be their biological relatives. The concept of chosen family is crucial for many in recovery, as they can strengthen their relationships with those who are capable of providing support.

The Role of a Dysfunctional Family

The majority of addicts have not cut ties with their families. When there are opportunities to address and work on the dysfunction, there is hope for a brighter future in the home. But the work needs to be done.

Let’s consider my story again. When my mother first got sober, she returned home feeling healthy and positive. Unfortunately, our family hadn’t been involved and our roles had stayed the same. Her continued reliance on me for emotional support was harmful for both of us. I had to carry a burden for which I did not have the wherewithal. She did not learn to manage her own emotions.

Considering that each relationship within our family system had similar issues, being back at home created the perfect conditions for relapse.

When the person is in outpatient treatment, this dysfunction undermines the process every single day. The person cannot disconnect from the environment that gave rise to the addiction or facilitated its continuation. After a good day of meaningful work, they go home to a place that actively drags them back to where they were.

This is why family therapy is such a crucial part of outpatient rehab.

Family Therapy in Outpatient Rehab

Family therapy is something that every family can benefit from but most people misunderstand. It is not simply a space for family members to air their grievances and ‘talk it out’. Rather, it is a meaningful reconfiguration of the family system.

Toxic patterns are identified, both between individual members of the family and the family system as a whole. These patterns include codependence, enabling, parentification of children, emotional manipulation, and more.

Once these patterns are understood, the family works with the therapist to break them down and build new ways to relate to each other. By the end of a successful therapy journey, the family is not just kinder to one another, but is also actively working to approach their relationships in a whole new way.

Family therapy therefore becomes both necessary to facilitate recovery, as well as a valuable part of it.

Conclusion

A person in outpatient treatment goes home at the end of every day. This makes family therapy even more important than it is for people in residential rehab. Addiction is a family disease. Without addressing it within the home environment, it remains contagious. When incorporated into treatment, it helps each and every member of the family, while contributing to the addict’s recovery.