What Is My Role In My Loved One’s Recovery
As your family member, friend, colleague finds their way to recovery it is natural to wonder what you might do to help or, at least, not hinder. These early times are just as new to you as they are to them, and you do not have a ready playbook. There is no school course on how to live with an alcoholic/addict nor is there a course on how to live with their recovery.
The advice you will find online and from treatment facilities where your loved one may be involved focuses on the person with the substance use disorder. This standard pattern results naturally from helping the person using and abusing substances. Nothing will result unless and until this individual achieves some stable recovery and it is appropriate that this be a primary focus. Too, given the little success that heretofore has been realized in recovery, as we have written before, most of the effort focuses on the person with the disease.
Typically the treatment facility or counselor will ask to meet with the family member sometimes with and sometimes without the person in early recovery. The advice falls into several general categories. These recommendations for example are from David Susman, Ph.D. in Psychology Today from 2017.
· Express a willingness to help. Your loved one may retreat or be active in expressing their recovery journey or land on any point on the spectrum between. You don’t want to be intrusive or needy, but you do want to be supportive. Offer to help, step back, be present
· Be available. It is a delicate balance between interest and intrusiveness, and you will want to watch for the signs from your loved one. Certainly, you need to continue living your life, but you might want to be more obviously present to respond if your loved one opens up
· Be informed about recovery. Credible sources include the National Institutes for Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, Centers for Disease Control. They may have specific advice about action but what you are trying to do here is create a greater awareness to help you play your role
· Be honest. One doesn’t need to be brutal and respond to every slight but be honest about what is happening for you when appropriate and about whatever your loved one may ask
· Encourage responsibility. It is very important that the person in recovery take responsibility for that recovery. It is not your job! There is a difference between being helpful such as doing the transporting if your loved one has lost their driver’s license on the one hand and taking responsibility for the meeting schedule on the other
· Promote healthy choices. Recovery involves more than “putting the plug in the jug”. Your loved one may be advised to change their dietary habits, reengage with their faith base, revisit or develop hobbies like golf, mahjong, attending the performing arts. You can encourage and participate for your enjoyment and theirs
· Focus on the person, not the illness. It is easy to start to think about a person with diabetes as a “diabetic”. Same with addiction. Obviously, the disease has a major impact on the life of the individual, but it does not define them. Recovery will be absorbing but try to treat your loved one as the person they are not their illness
· Don’t give up. Recovery is not an ever upward trending curve. There will be set backs. Relapse is common. There is no need to praise or reward these set backs but there is a need to persevere.
This is all very helpful and informative. In our view, however, this focus solely on the loved one in recovery creates serious issues by failing to focus on the family members and friends and their needs. This is a consequence of the debate about codependency as a diagnosis. As we previously discussed, the debate surrounds how all relationships are codependent by definition. I rely on you for things, you rely on me for things. We depend on each other. Where that codependency falls on a scale from healthy to unhealthy to pathologic is a matter of debate. Codependency, as a standalone diagnosis, has not been listed as a condition in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual V5. In our view this is a disservice.
If you have lived with a relative or friend with an alcohol or other drug abuse problem or addiction it is likely that you have reordered your life around those associated behaviors. Now focusing on how you might change your behaviors, again, to accommodate their process of recovery perpetuates your lack of focus on you. Of course, you help your loved one by suggestions such as those from Dr. Susman. But you also help your loved one, and you, by focusing on you.
We have written previously about resources available to the codependent. Peer support such as Al-Anon for alcohol related issues, Nar-Anon for other drugs, Gam-Anon for gambling, Families Anonymous for all of the above and others are often effective in the same way that AA, NA, GA are for the person with the disease. A person of the cloth can be of great comfort although we encourage you to remember that unless they are trained in counseling relative to substance abuse that their support is better in matters of faith than addiction. Individual or group counseling are excellent choices also and these clinicians can be found online and through your primary care physician. Do the research, of course, as just like any healthcare professional there are degrees of expertise and service.
As you keep the focus on you there are aspects of your loved ones recovery and your living through that which might be helpful to recognize. Solomon Recovery published a very good article about those issues in 2017.
· Early recovery is an emotional rollercoaster. Your loved one may be feeling withdrawal that is not physically dangerous (although it could be especially with alcohol) but may be distracting. Too, they are experiencing feelings they haven’t felt for months and years and they are facing everyday life and its successes and challenges without their drug. They realize that they have not developed the tools to manage some things. They may also experience heightened stress, sensitivity and anxiety, low energy and depression, impaired concentration and short-term memory loss, poor coordination and balance, and sleep disturbance. Know that these are all normal and likely transient. Be patient with them but also with your own reactions and frustrations.
· Your loved one might be even more absent than they were in active using and drinking. Recovery is most effective as a fully immersive experience. That means your loved one may be attending multiple sober meetings a week, meeting with a sponsor, attending formal outpatient rehab treatment, and/or seeing an individual therapist. This, too, is likely transient. Counseling sessions will taper and end as will recovery meetings. Until they can focus their attention back on their lives you will find ways to support yourself in these feelings of neglect. Yes, you hope for a sober family member re-engaged in your life. They will
· Relationship roles will likely change. During active use and drinking one partner probably picked up managing most if not all of the activities around the home and in the relationship. It will not be long before your loved one is eager to reassume their role as partner, family member, parent. Intellectually you will welcome them back as partner but realistically it may be hard to let go. Patterns were established; everything was orderly and timely. Even if you were unhappy with certain roles you or your family members were playing, and glad that your family member has returned, the change may be uncomfortable.
· It may begin to feel as if your loved one is experiencing a lot of personal growth while you are standing still. The reality is that they are now assuming the role of responsible adult – a role that you have been practicing for some time. Yet, you may feel a need to match their growth. They may be so exuberant over their newfound physical and emotional growth that they want you to share as well. This may seem unfair. Your initial reaction to such a suggestion may be anger; you may be insulted and feel blamed for your family member’s addiction. You may feel that it is your loved one’s responsibility to make things right. These are normal feelings to have, and you don’t have to try and match their growth spurt. On the other hand, none of us is without areas in which we may grow if motivated and this may be an opportunity
· In early days of recovery you may feel great joy about this nightmare ending; finally. There will be euphoria for you and your loved one. As recovery progresses and becomes the norm you may be tempted to surface the hurt and anger that you have suffered at the hands of their disease. The overall sense of disconnection, betrayal, and powerlessness you felt while your loved one was in active addiction may have been overwhelming and even traumatic. Your pain may have built up for years and years, and it’s normal for you to want to share it. It is important for both you and your loved one’s recovery to be heard and to express what you went through. Doing so in a productive manner and with the right timing is the key. Having an outside person or professional to process your feelings with, like a therapist or a sponsor, can help you process feelings before discussing it with your loved one. Sometimes people find that once they discuss with an outside person the need to share it with their loved one dissipates. For other people, the emotions may be so intense that having a third party in the room may help facilitate those discussions
· Intense fear about potential relapse is very common. Sadly, relapse is common and very often a part of the process of recovery. Most likely, your loved one also has anxiety surrounding the possibility of relapse. It is important that you and your loved one learn to express that anxiety. There are different strategies that family members use to help decrease relapse anxiety. Clear communication with your loved one about expectations and accountability measures can greatly reduce anxiety.
Lastly, remember that the process of recovery requires patience. Over time trust will be rebuilt, your loved one will return to their true self, the intensity and complete focus on recovery will ease, a new pattern of living will occur.
It is not our purpose here to reject the counseling and advice from a therapist treating your loved one. It is our intent to suggest that a focus on you is helpful and both to you and your loved one.
Gene Gilchrist
September 2025
