Key Takeaways
- Relapse is a possibility for anyone in recovery as they navigate addiction triggers and adjust to the real world.
- Family support is incredibly important in helping your loved one prevent relapse, as it provides accountability, emotional stability, hope and resilience, and a safe home environment.
- Practical family relapse prevention strategies include recognizing relapse warning signs, setting boundaries, having regular family meetings, removing substances from the home, and pursuing stress-relieving activities together.
- Defining Wellness Centers equips family members to help their loved ones prevent relapse, strengthen recovery, improve communication, and promote long-term wellness.
Your loved one has been working through an addiction treatment program and is now transitioning back into the real world. No doubt they’ve worked hard to get to this point in the journey (and no doubt you’re proud of them!). But the hard work of lasting recovery is just beginning.
Considering the circumstances, supporting loved ones in recovery is a critical role family members like you can play to prevent relapse (as long as they don’t enable in the process). With that said, it’s important to have some clear, practical family relapse prevention strategies you can pursue with your loved one as they navigate this next recovery chapter.
Recovery and Relapse: A Tough Reality
Completing a residential addiction treatment program is a major accomplishment. But overcoming a drug or alcohol addiction isn’t a one-time event. It’s not smooth sailing from here on out unfortunately. That’s because recovery is a lifelong process.
The moment your loved one steps back into the real world, they’ll encounter addiction triggers that can easily drive them towards relapse if they’re not on their guard. This, combined with learning to adjust back into the rhythms of everyday life, can be incredibly challenging. Addiction has taken up precedence in their life up to this point. Learning to live without it may feel like going through life with a void you can’t fill, especially early on.
These experiences and feelings combine to make relapse a likely occurrence for many. The reality is that 40 to 60% of people coming out of substance use disorders will relapse at some point, shares the National Institute on Drug Abuse. When relapse happens, it means the person is resuming their addictive behaviors over and over again. Relapse doesn’t mean failure, but it takes even more adjustments to get back on track.
The Importance of Supporting Loved Ones in Recovery
Considering the challenges of recovery and the possibility of relapse, your loved one can’t pursue long-term sobriety alone. They need support from others. And support from family and close friends can often make the greatest impact in helping your loved one stay the course. Sure, peers, therapists, sponsors, and recovery mentors certainly have their place, too. But you’re family. Your loved one sees you all the time and will continue to do so year after year. Supporting loved ones in recovery as a family goes a long way.
When family members help their loved one’s recovery, keeping relapse at bay is absolutely possible. According to the University of Maryland, research shows that family involvement in the addiction treatment process helps reduce substance abuse above and beyond typical treatment and individually-based therapy outcomes. But what does family actually bring to the table in the recovery process? Here are a few key differentiators:
- Accountability: With your close proximity and presence in your loved one’s everyday rhythms, you can provide unique accountability that others cannot. It’s already built-in. As a natural accountability partner, you can help your loved one maintain their recovery goals and remain focused day in and day out, even in the tough times.
- Emotional stability: Your loved one will encounter hardships, negative feelings, setbacks, and more on the recovery journey. It’s inevitable. When that happens, your presence as family can be their anchor to emotional stability. Family members like you can provide encouragement, understanding, and unwavering love, shares Behavioral Health News. This creates emotional stability to help them stay motivated and strengthened to persevere.
- Hope and resilience: Family support fosters both hope and resilience in loved ones in recovery, according to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Your support can provide inner strength, self-confidence, and healthy stress relief in the face of recovery challenges.
- A safe home environment: The home needs to be a healthy, supportive place if your loved one is going to succeed in long-term recovery. As family, you can help in preventing relapse at home through cultivating an environment that offers a sense of security, a safe space to heal, and a starting point to pursue recovery goals each day. The positive home atmosphere you offer your loved one reduces stress, supports healthier mental wellness, and decreases relapse risk, shares Behavioral Health News.
Addiction Family Education: A Word on Helping vs. Enabling
Lending your support and help as a family is monumental in your loved one’s recovery journey. But it’s also just as critical that said help doesn’t transform into enabling. So what’s the difference between helping vs. enabling?
Helping means offering support that empowers your loved one to pursue recovery on their own. It gives them the boost they need to take ownership and make healthy choices that keep them on the path of sobriety.
Enabling, on the other hand, involves actions that ultimately support and justify unhealthy behaviors like substance abuse. You may mean well and think you’re helping, but your enablement pulls your loved one away from taking personal responsibility for their recovery. Over time, your enabling may contribute to your loved one’s eventual relapse.
Preventing Relapse at Home: 5 Practical Family Relapse Prevention Strategies
It’s evident that family support goes a long way in preventing a loved one’s relapse. But what does healthy family support look like on a daily basis? Here are some practical family relapse prevention strategies that you can adopt now in order to do your part in preventing relapse at home:
1. Know the Relapse Warning Signs
One of the first family relapse prevention strategies you can pursue is centered in addiction family education. You need to be in the know on relapse and how to recognize its warning signs. After all, relapse usually occurs in stages, not as one isolated event; you have time to take action and help your loved one course-correct if you notice the signs early. The signs and symptoms associated with the three stages of relapse include:
- Emotional relapse: Mood changes, social isolation, poor self-care, minimizing emotional stress, and avoiding resources or help.
- Mental relapse: Glamorizing past substance use, downplaying addiction’s negative consequences, visiting friends associated with substances, and lying.
- Physical relapse: Returning to substances and resuming their use.
2. Set Boundaries
Boundaries are set parameters that promote and assure recovery, explains Mental Health America. Your loved one may have boundaries they want to establish on their own. Honoring those boundaries will go a long way, but you can also set boundaries with your loved one, too. You may want to create curfews for your loved one, for example. Or perhaps you may limit dining out as a family where alcohol is served.
3. Hold Regular Family Meetings
Part of creating a safe home environment can include scheduling regular family meetings to talk through any concerns, share openly and honestly, keep tabs on goals, and check in with one another. This is something everyone can participate in, not just your loved one. Making space for this kind of dialogue fosters healthy communication, empathy, and understanding.
4. Eliminate Substances From the Home
One of the best ways of preventing relapse at home is to remove anything and everything that can lead to substance use. No matter if your loved one doesn’t have an alcohol addiction, it’s still best to get rid of any beer or wine at home. Any drug related items need to go. Even if you have medications, you should take steps to secure them out of sight.
5. Participate in Stress Relieving Activities Together
The family that plays together stays together. Making time to participate in social outings, hobbies, or favorite activities as a family will help your loved one manage stress in healthier ways, aiding in relapse prevention. At the same time, you can pursue self-care activities as a family that help relieve stress, such as exercise, meditation, and going outside.
Equipping Families With Relapse Support at Defining Wellness
You don’t have to be an expert to provide impactful support to your loved one. Being family is plenty enough. But receiving guidance from a professional treatment center can help you learn the best approaches to supporting your loved ones in recovery during this season.
At Defining Wellness Centers in Mississippi, we’re committed to integrating family into our holistic addiction treatment approach. Through our Family Program, we equip family members like you with the tools you need to prevent relapse, help strengthen your loved one’s early recovery, improve communication, and promote long-term sobriety and wellness. Call us today to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if your loved one relapses?
Relapse happens to many people in the journey to long-term sobriety. All is not lost if it happens to your loved one, too. When a relapse occurs, it’s important to debrief the situation with your loved one. This can help your loved one adjust their relapse prevention plan as needed to refocus on their sobriety goals. Additional therapy may help, as well.
What additional resources are available to your loved one once treatment ends?
Once your loved one finishes residential treatment, they typically continue on to outpatient treatment. After outpatient treatment is complete, your loved one can utilize a variety of resources to aid in their recovery, including peer support groups, individual counseling, aftercare, and the treatment center’s alumni programming.