Can You Succeed at a Rehab Center If Your Family Will Not Support You?
Support is a major component of all successful recoveries from substance use disorders. Most people look to their families as a source of this support. But, what do you do if your family is part of the problem and can’t support your recovery? Or, what do you do if your family can’t support you because of burned bridges? There are a lot of scenarios that leave you searching for family engagement and failing to find it.
For immediate help finding a treatment program that includes the vital support you need for successful recovery, call 800-481-6320Who Answers?.
You may feel that you cannot enter a rehab center without this system of familial support. But, you can. You need to remember the fluid definition of family—it isn’t just blood relatives—and the other sources of support offered by the rehab centers themselves. You won’t go through rehab alone, even if you arrive that way and feel isolated from a family that others can depend upon.
If you remain open to offers of support, you will receive them. Your rehab center will make sure of that. To find a supportive rehab center, call RehabCenters.com at 800-481-6320Who Answers?. Your questions will be answered; funding can be discussed; and, you can get solid recommendations for centers that are appropriate to your needs. Get the help you need and deserve immediately.
What Is Family?
Your elected family should be your primary source of support during rehab.
The first thing you need to do if your immediate family or blood relatives are uncooperative is to explain what family truly is.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is emphatic in stating that the definition of family is not static. Definitions are the product of cultures and beliefs, which change. Family is about enduring involvement at an emotional level. If you know people who will remain connected to you, even across a geographical distance, those people are family.
SAMHSA identifies the following possible categories of family:
- Traditional families, including couples, single parents and families including adoptive families, blood relatives, foster relationships, adoptive families, stepfamilies, and grandparents raising grandchildren
- Extended families, including aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and other relatives
- Elected or intentional families are those that self-identify and join by choice, rather than by blood or law
The first two categories are probably the ones that you think of when you think of family, but the third category is the one that rehab will make you embrace and develop.
Therapy Groups
Family therapy is obviously somewhat important when you are in a rehab center, but it isn’t the only effective or valuable form of therapy. You can still succeed by using group and individual therapy.
According to SAMHSA, individual therapy focuses on:
- Adherence to a recovery plan
- Social, professional/educational, and familial outcomes
- Skill building
- Reducing or stopping substance abuse
When you work on yourself and your relationships with others in individual therapy, you become more open to alternate routes of support, which is good because that’s where group therapy comes in. It provides social reinforcement for the work you are doing in individual therapy.
The people in your group therapy will prove to be supports. They will share your barriers and help you to overcome them. They will not act as “yes men.” They will challenge you, but, at the end of the day, they will support you while you are in the rehab center. If you form particularly good relationships with your therapy peers, you may continue to support one another when you exit the facility and return to the community.
Support Groups
Many rehab centers rely on what is called the social model of treatment. This relies upon the influence that peers have on addiction recovery. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous and other groups that follow the 12 step model rely on the concept of “addicts helping addicts.” The idea is that having peers who understand what you are going through (as in group therapy) makes it easier to receive help and maintain motivation.
Many rehab centers use 12 step programs as part of the services that they offer. If you participate, you make a new support group and a lot of 12 step groups continue to be accessible to patients once they leave the center. Or the rehab center has you attend a 12 step group in the community. Regardless, a 12 step group may provide a support system with a greater chance at longevity than that posed by group therapy.
You can succeed at a rehab center, even if your immediate family/blood relations won’t participate. There are a number of people waiting to know you and support you. Call 800-481-6320Who Answers? to speak to an expert who also wants to support your recovery.
