One guaranteed outcome of addiction in a family is a disrupted power structure.  Whether the addict in a family is a child or a parent, things always feel mixed up.  Parents are supposed to be at the top of the power structure with children below.  When a parent becomes addicted, some of their authority disappears.  However, the family most likely feels that the addiction is really in charge of the family.  Everyone has to make accommodations, everyone has to suffer, and nobody really gets what they need. 

Who Is In Charge Of This Family

When a child becomes addicted, the addiction still has a stranglehold in the family.  One or both of the parents may give up part of their power because they have to spend so much focus and time dealing with the addicted child.  This can leave the other parent feeling like they are the lone parent looking out of for the whole family.  This kind of isolation can lead that parent to engage themselves in distracting activities.  They may give up some of their power because it feels too difficult too keep it up. 

When this parent feels overwhelmed, the other kids in the family may be expected to fend for themselves.  This gives them some of the parents’ power, but doesn’t equip them very well to use it.  Kids like these end up being parentified and losing some of their childhood.  Or, they may revert back to more childish ways to keep the attention of their parents.  Either way, they end up with some power and authority they were never meant to have until they were ready to live on their own. 

How Do You Get Your Family Back

Drug addiction is so powerful and dangerous.  Drug treatment is the best choice for getting your family back on solid ground.  People sometimes try going cold turkey or just willing themselves to change their behaviors.  The truth is that drug addiction and alcoholism is more than just using too many chemicals.  The mental component can be such a huge barrier to success.  Also, some drugs have extremely uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.  Even with the best of intentions, a person attempting to get sober may have great difficulty getting past the symptoms. 

Drug addiction also affects so many other people in a family besides just the addict.  Everyone in the family needs help and support to recover, not just the person needing direct addiction treatment.  Drug rehab centers and support group organizations can provide guidance for everyone involved.  Treating the family as a unit is the very best way to turn things around.

Drug Rehab Helps The Whole Family

Many drug treatment programs have family support groups.  This includes both outpatient drug treatment and inpatient drug rehab centers.  You will need to contact the treatment programs in your area to find out what situation will suit your family the best.  Don’t take a chance with addiction.  Give your family the best opportunity for recovery by starting drug treatment.

Some girls use drugs and alcohol to drown away a bad family life or haunting mental illness.  Others lack self confidence and believe that they will be more easily accepted if they go along and drink like the other kids.  Some may even drink because they think guys would be more interested in them.  Regardless of the initial reason, girls who drink or use drugs at an early age can evolve into women with an addiction.  Let’s take a deeper look into the long term effects drinking and drug use can have on girls.

Drugs and Alcohol Long Term Effects

Drinking and drug use has a certain kind of desired effect in the moment.  You can feel more energized, more relaxed, more zoned out, or more awake.  Whatever you want to feel, you can probably find a drug to fit the bill.  But drug use does more to you than just give you a high or drunk for a few hours.  It changes your opinions, your beliefs, and your perspective on so many things.  And there is no more vulnerable time in a woman’s life than her child and teen years. 

The human brain isn’t really done developing until a person is about twenty five years old.  The mind is fairly fluid up until then.  So much happens up until that time - Kindergarten through high school graduation, college or a first real job, then possibly marriage and the start of a family.  That is such a huge range of potential change during those years.  The mind is so impressionable and yet still vulnerable to hormonal and biochemical imbalance.  When something destructive like drugs or alcohol embeds itself into a young woman’s life, the long term effects can be profound.

Drugs and Alcohol As A Coping Tool

Drugs and alcohol may become such a familiar coping tool, a young woman may not learn many other ways to handle her emotions.  Drinking or drug use becomes the automatic choice when things get too rough.  They may claim they need to cut loose, have fun, or be social.  But a true alcoholic or drug addict is using because they need to.  Their body has become addicted and their mind has become addicted.  At this point, drug or alcohol rehab may be the only way to turn things around.

Drug and Alcohol Rehab Can Turn Life Around For Women

More drug treatment and alcohol rehab centers are becoming specialized to treat just women.  The staff understands the different needs of women with addiction.  They use holistic treatment methods that help women heal and find peace.  If you know a woman with drug addiction or alcoholism, support them through drug or alcohol rehab.  Call drug rehab centers in your area to find out more about treating women with addiction.

photo credit: opimentas

A drug addict or alcoholic is constantly chasing something elusive.  They pursue the high or buzz all the time, but that’s not really what they are after.  People drink or use drugs excessively because they want to change their reality.  Something in real life is just too much to handle.  When a person lives life through a drug or alcohol haze, they really need drug treatment to get back on track.  Let’s take a look at some of the things they might really be pursuing when they are addicted to drugs.

Drug Addiction To Create a Calm Mind

Worrying can become an all-consuming problem.  A bipolar manic phase can create a lot of disruption and mental strain.  Depression can build up a raging storm of negative hopeless thoughts.  A person with mental illness just wants it all to stop.  They want their mind to be quiet for once.  After enough despair, some people are willing to try anything to have some peace and quiet inside. 

Many people with mental illness self medicate with drugs and alcohol.  Even if they know it’s a bad idea, drinking and drug use may be their only reliable relief.  For a short while, the anxiety lessens.  The wild flighty thoughts are less numerous.  The endless string of depressing thoughts breaks apart for a while.  They keep chasing the numbing sensation from heavy drug and alcohol use.  What they really need is a calm healthy mind.  

Drug Addiction To Make Fear Disappear

Many drug addicts and alcoholics have strong insecurities.  They can come from years of family chaos or personality traits.  If they let their insecurities get the best of them, they may sit and do nothing.  When they drink or use drugs, their social nature loosens up and they can be more “interesting” to others.  Without the substance as a crutch, they feel like they don’t have much to contribute. 

Unfortunately, the lack of fear isn’t the same as having courage.  What would happen if you had no fear as you approach a railroad crossing or a highway?  Having no fear is not always realistic or a good idea.  Courage is taking action while also feeling fear.  It’s not letting fear take over your life to the point that you take hardly any risks.  Using drugs and alcohol can lead a person to take risks without considering reality.  The drug addict may think they want to have no fear, but what they may really want is to be respected for having courage.   

Drug Rehab Helps You Find What You Really Need

Drug treatment can help clear the fog of drug addiction and alcoholism out of the picture.  It’s not easy, but it’s the only way to really get at the source of pain.  Mental illness, lack of self worth and insecurities - whatever the reason people drink and use drugs excessively, it’s a wild goose chase.  The chase will go on and on because addiction finds ways of keeping people hooked.  But when people really address their deeper problems, they can have true peace in their mind.  They can discover their true inner courage.  Finally, they can find what they were looking for all along.

Drug addiction has a way of really beating a person down inside.  Their mind tells them lies, they make bad decisions, and they often lose important relationships.  Coming back from a low point like this can feel so undignifying, like everyone already has a strike against you.  It’s normal to feel overwhelmed by this process, but you don’t have to hang your head in shame and disgust.  You can hold your head up high after drug rehab.

Drug Rehab Takes Courage

Before you start imaging that drug rehab is part of some punishment or consequence, know one thing.  Facing your worst fears and inner struggles takes courage.  Courage is not the absence of fear, it is action in the presence of fear.

You could easily turn away and decide you don’t want to go through the trouble.  Or you could offer a good excuse or two about why you can’t go right now.  If you think about avoiding drug rehab but do it anyway, you transform yourself into a very courageous gutsy person. 

You Are Taking Good Care of Yourself

Women tend to put themselves at the bottom of their to-do list.  Women often feel selfish asking people to do caring things for them.  They often feel selfish asking people to do caring things for them, so they simply don’t ask.  Some women are drowning in plain sight, feeling like they have a hole in the bottom of their bucket.  When difficult times come in their life, they may feel all they can do is drown their feelings in drugs and alcohol.

When you go to drug rehab, you learn how to put yourself first again.  You find out how to keep your own bucket filled up and patch the leaks when they come along.  You learn how to keep your body healthy, how to keep yourself safe, and how to keep your mind on a sober track. 

Learning To Live Day By Day in Drug Addiction Recovery

Many people struggle to appreciate their life in the moment.  That doesn’t mean only living for the moment and forgetting everything else that is important.  It does mean soaking in life as it happens, trying to really be aware of your whole experience. 

The whole reason people use drugs and alcohol to the point that they become addicted is because they want to avoid and cover up the pain and bad things in life.  Despite this challenge, you as recovering addict or alcoholic are learning to put more focus on living each moment than most people ever do.  That focus and awareness can truly be a gift.

Appreciating Recovery After Drug Rehab

Going through drug rehab can be pretty rough.  But that kind of experience can be rich with insight and “aha” moments.  You often can’t get those unless you are put to a strong test.  Those insights can give you keys to keeping your sobriety in check.  And even just one day of sobriety means you can hold your head up high.

Everyone’s drug addiction recovery process will be a little different.  However, most people will share some universal experiences with addiction and drug treatment.  In this post, we’ll go over a handful of good things to keep in mind as you go consider drug treatment and a sober lifestyle.  These do’s and don’ts can keep you going in the right direction for sobriety.

Do Participate In Drug Treatment

Women often feel the burden of stereotypes that say they are weak and helpless. So if they reach out for some support, it somehow proves their worthlessness.  Nothing could be further from the truth, but a woman crushed by an addiction could easily take this perspective.  Getting help from a drug treatment program is a sign of strength and courage.  It takes a lot of guts to step over your ego and admit you can’t do it alone.

Do Be As Honest As You Can

Your mind is probably used to being dishonest if you are a drug addict.  In fact, you may know you have trouble telling the truth apart from the excuses and lies.  The lies can come from many directions - others who are addicted and not in recovery, your mind as influenced by addiction, people in your life who have hurt you.  Also, you may have gone through many painful things, and facing the truth was just too much to handle most of the time.  Even when your body is sober, it may be tough to speak the truth to yourself and outloud to another person.  Be patient with yourself and take it one step at a time.  Trustworthy counselors can help you gently coax the truth out into the open.  As you get used to it, you can better appreciate the benefits from working with the truth instead of struggling with lies. 

Don’t Think of Drug Rehab As A Cure
 
First, there is no known cure for drug addiction.  Many people become sober and never use again, but others go through cycles of sobriety and relapse.  Working your sobriety plan can make relapse less likely.  However, remember that each person is an individual so it may be difficult to completely explain one person’s repeated relapses and another person’s long stretch of sobriety. 

Don’t Worry About Going To Drug Rehab More Than Once

You may need to go to drug rehab more than once in your life to stay on track.  Probably not everyone’s dream, but in an entire lifetime it is certainly possible.  However, it’s no reason to think you are some kind of worthless failure if you need drug treatment a second or even third time.  Your recovery journey may just require more support at certain points in your life.  If you are still breathing, still living, and still working on a sober lifestyle, then you still have hope every day to keep on going.

Drug Addiction Recovery Goes For A Lifetime

Perhaps the biggest thing to remember is that recovery lasts for a lifetime.  Drug rehab is actually a small blip on the radar compared to the days and months and years of independent or supported sober living.  While drug treatment is an important part of recovery, it is just one part.  Contact your local drug rehab canter for more information or to ask questions.