An Unexpected Gift…

Please work with my loved one and return them to me ‘fixed’ at the end of treatment”. This is a common thought for family members of our patients.  Sometimes this thought is spoken and at other times it is an unspoken assumption or wish. By the time a patient enters treatment at Dilworth, family members usually feel that they have lost the person they love to the disease of addiction. They have watched their loved one disappear before their eyes through a very slow progression or through a very fast and furious process. The attempts of family members to control and fix the problem have failed and the continual decline of their loved one is devastating to witness. So when a loved one enters treatment, it can bring with it a lot of hope for changes in the person suffering with the disease of addiction. For family members, the initial focus is on how their loved one can get better. However, at Dilworth, our focus is not only on how the designated patient can get better, but just as importantly, how the family system can become healthier so as to support a change in behaviors that are required to continue a successful life of recovery.

Through treatment, family members can become more educated regarding addiction so that they can better understand why their loved one has done what they have done. They can begin to comprehend that addiction is not a moral failing, but rather a brain disease that is deserving of treatment. Family members can learn about patterns that have kept them stuck in unhealthy cycles and allowed the addiction to take advantage of others. Many family members experience an “awakening” as the chaos of living with active addiction begins to die down. They see how much of a burden they have been carrying, and begin the scary process of implementing new behaviors for themselves.

In treatment, families learn what they can and can’t control, how to set boundaries for themselves, and how to check their motives. For most family members, the change in themselves comes as an unexpected gift that keeps on giving as long as they do their part. At the end of each family meeting, everyone says, “It works if you work it, so work it, you’re worth it.”