Friendships between women are invaluable treasures, providing support, love, and laughter throughout a lifetime.  When addiction is involved, there is an inevitable point when help and tough choices come into play.  These deep ties can be the very thing that saves a women drowning in drug and alcohol addiction.

Two Addicted Friends One Gets Sober

The great thing about friendship is that you can spend time with someone who shares a lot in common with you.  What happens when one friend’s entire lifestyle changes?  When too much changes between two friends, it’s hard to keep the relationship going. 

When two addicted women become friends, the drug lifestyle is the key bond between them.  They may have families, be of similar age, or come from the same town, but the day-to-day activities and struggles of being addicted are something both women can deeply understand about each other. 

The Choice of Sober Living or Staying Can Help Another Addicted Friend

When one friend takes major steps toward a sober lifestyle, she has to also step away from the activities that bond them.  This test may prove to be too much for a relationship that wasn’t based on much more than hanging out while getting high.  But for a friendship that develops deep trust and caring, it can be a struggle for both women. 

The friend who wants and needs to be sober can be tempted to spend a lot of time with her friend and risk her progress.  However, the change in the sober friend could motivate the other friend to also chose sober living.  This kind of caring female fellowship is so important in drug addiction recovery.

Intervention For a Woman With Drug Addiction

Sometimes the best act of friendship can be the most heartwrenching and conflictual.  When you see a friend suffering at their own hands from addiction, it can be so hard to just sit by and watch.  Even close friends may be so uncomfortable and bewildered by the change caused by drug addiction that they may not be sure if they could even make a difference.

When a person’s life is in trouble, a true friend puts it all on the line for the sake of their friend.  It’s about more than just being liked, it’s about saving the person’s life.  And they may hate you for trying.  This isn’t easy by any means, nor is it always successful.  If you have a friend or family member that you think needs an intervention, get the help of an addiction counselor or addiction intervention specialist.  Their recommendations and involvement can really help you focus your efforts.

Women Friendships Are Important For Drug Addiction Recovery

At The Orchid Recovery Center for Women, relationships between women is seen as a vital force for progressing addiction recovery.  These healing connections are promoted and sustained through a woman’s time in drug and alcohol rehab.  If you have a friend who needs drug rehab, take loving action and help her get in touch with The Orchid.  You could be saving her life today.

 

It’s just all women all the time.  Any time a woman has been in an all-female environment, they can sense the difference in the environment.  It’s not a bad thing when a man enters the group, just different.  Women “get” certain things without having to explain why.  When the feminine spirit is allowed to permeate through a drug treatment center, the experience can be truly life-changing for a woman in need.

Women Come Together to Heal From AddictionThe sense of sisterhood from women joining together for a certain purpose is a unique experience.  It doesn’t matter if it’s moms gathering while their kids are in weekly dance class or a church group of retired women.  When women gather with good will, there is feminine strength available for everyone in the group.  Everyone’s personal feminine strength becomes affirmed and amplified through the relationships that are formed.  This gives each woman confidence and a sense of security to do the work of their daily life.

Add the all-female component to a well-designed drug treatment approach, and you have a rich environment for healing and growth.  A specialized treatment setting gives women opportunities that no other rehab center can.  Women gain a unique sense of community when they support each other.  In drug rehab, women can learn how to build this kind of relationship network for when they return to their hometown.  This kind of network introduces women to compassion and mutual support.  It creates an environment allowing women to be open to self discovery and the rebirth of their identity of themselves as a woman.  A big part of being a healthy empowered woman is developing and relying on caring relationships.  Years of isolation and just trying to survive can make a woman hardened to relationships.

Women Have Sense of Community in Drug Rehab

In drug rehab, each woman has the chance to learn how to trust again.  They become part of a circle of women who care about each other.  In fact, when women who need help learn to accept help from others, they are more likely to step out to another woman needing help.  This teaches women about the reciprocity of relationships, that they are not all abusive, self-serving, or dangerous.

Women absorb and sometimes “borrow” the courage of other women, using them as role models for getting through their own struggles.  When they can face their emotional problems with renewed courage, they stand a greater chance of standing up for themselves after drug rehab is completed.  They understand that they are not alone, other women have come through similar or even worse things than they have.  It is possible to be “reborn” as a different kind of woman than they ever thought they could be - a strong healthy woman with something to look forward to in life.

When a woman asks a question or expresses a fear that relates to her personal addiction experience, am all female staff is able to relate to the feminine undertones of her concerns.  No one knows a woman like another woman.  That’s not to say that all women are exactly alike, because that is anything but true.  However, there are some certain things about geing a woman that only another woman would truly be able to relate or understand the importance.

All Women Drug Rehab Can Be Powerful Experience

Drug rehab that is tailored just for women provides a powerful opportunity for change.  When a drug rehab program is well-targeted and matched to its clients, conventional wisdom would say that a successful rehab experience is more likely.  If you are a woman in need of drug rehab, would you agree or disagree?

The human soul is the spiritual element in all of us, the part that lives on forever in space, time, and people’s memories.  It is intangible, sometimes hard to define.  It makes people distinctly unique and can make a lifelong impression on others.  When the soul is crushed or otherwise broken, a woman can become very vulnerable to drug addiction.

The Human Soul Holds Meaning

For this post, I’ll use the words “soul” and “spirit” somewhat interchangeably.  Also, the soul has various meanings in different religions.  To remove any confusion about this, I’ll talk about the human soul or “spirit” in a way that is not specifically religious.

A healthy robust soul is well-fed with positive thoughts, enriching experiences, and warm relationships.  A person’s spirit celebrates joy and flourishes when a person uses their personal talents well.  Also, the soul is what drives a person to persist in the face of challenges, devastation, and exhaustion.

The soul is the keeper of deep meaning for a person.  When someone experiences something powerful, it becomes part of their spirit.  After a while, a person with a defeated spirit is open to wandering and confusion.  What do they really have to stand up for?  What is their identity?  What do they have to lift them up?  If the answer is “not much”, then this can be too painful to bear every day.

The Broken Soul is Open to Addiction

A person with a broken spirit or soul is vulnerable to many dangerous temptations.  Covering the pain or escaping from it becomes desirable.  with the wrong kind of friends or key opportunities, a person in this condition could easily begin an addiction.

An already deep sense of self doubt or worthlessness will often be magnified by a drug addiction.  It may seem to temporarily diestract the person from the pain, but it only adds more problems to the pile.  How could they ever live sober, knowing what kind of useless existence they face?  Hope of a truly better life may seem impossible. (more…)