Addiction affects everyone, not just the individual but their close family and friends. If your spouse has struggled with addiction or is currently in recovery, there are many things that you can do to support them in an effective way without accidentally enabling them or saying the wrong thing.
That support can take the form of encouraging them to get help if they relapse, like returning to an outpatient program, creating a peaceful and safe home environment free from triggers, attending family therapy, and participating in support groups.
How a Spouse Can Help During Recovery
As the spouse of someone who struggles with addiction and is in recovery, you might feel helpless, unable to provide the support they need, or you might not feel that you know what support they need.
Spouses can play a key role in offering support and helping a spouse during recovery in many ways.
Support
One of the best ways that a spouse can help during recovery is by providing support, namely, moral support. Moral support is an essential part of recovery and those who enter into a program rely heavily on the support network they have at home to not only keep them motivated but to remain committed to their sobriety when they return to everyday life.
Home Environment
To that end, how a spouse can help during recovery might extend to preparing the household. This might mean getting rid of any alcohol or paraphernalia, removing triggers, and keeping the house a safe place for continued recovery when a loved one returns home.
Family Therapy
One way a spouse can help during recovery is to participate in Family Therapy with their loved one.
Family therapy is best started a few weeks into a recovery program after a loved one has gone through detox and made their initial progress in recovery. These sessions can include family members like brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, godparents, and even close friends.
During these sessions, a therapist will work with you and your spouse to develop goals like better communication, forgiveness, or even education.
With these goals in mind, you can:
- Learn more about addiction and how it has influenced your spouse in the past
- Learn how to improve your communication and recognize when your spouse is setting boundaries and when they need additional support
- Learn how to identify signs of relapse or risk of relapse
This information can help you support your spouse in their goals for long-term success.
Support Groups
How a spouse can help during recovery also extends to support groups. Someone going through the difficult transition of drug and alcohol recovery will need to participate in regular support groups.
This is usually done on a weekly basis but anytime there is a trigger or a need for additional support, meetings are available.
Having a spouse to go with can be even better in offering continued support and letting that spouse know that they are not alone in their recovery even if it might seem like it.
Tip: Spouses can also find support groups for themselves with SMART, NA, and AA offering support groups specifically for family members of someone struggling with addiction.
Getting Help with Sequoia Recovery
How a spouse can help during recovery might extend to recognizing the need for support if there has been a relapse or if someone is struggling and near to a relapse.
In these situations, spouses can be an integral voice when it comes to seeking out treatment from a qualified facility like outpatient rehab with Sequoia Recovery. Our facility focuses on meeting clients where they are offering all levels of care, so if you have a spouse who is struggling with relapse and needs additional support, we can offer flexible outpatient programs that keep them on the right path and give them continued support and tools for coping with their sobriety.
A big part of our programs involves group therapy and, to some extent, family therapy, where family members, particularly spouses, have the opportunity to provide continued support, learn more about addiction on a neurological and biological level, and build skills they need to be as supportive as possible during recovery.
Call our admissions team today to learn more about our flexible outpatient programs for yourself or a spouse.
