Addiction Treatment and Rehabilitation

Parents don’t know how to parent a young adult who is an alcoholic and/or drug addict. Period! What they do know, is that there comes a point when they reach outside of themselves, their family unit and ask for help. Usually, when everything they have tried to do to save their child from alcohol and drug addiction hasn’t worked. And, when they get to this point, we the addiction professionals can hear their emotional exhaustion and psychological desperation. But most importantly, we can hear the unconditional love that they have for their children. We can only hear it, if we are actually listening. And if we are listening; it is that love, that bond that we the professionals should be nurturing.

We should be utilizing every clinical skill we have attained to strengthen the individual and secure the foundation of their relationships, which are based on unconditional love.

Addiction and Codependency: Breaking the Cycle of Enabling

Drug and alcohol addiction affects the addict and everyone around them. It’s this circle of influence that plays a key role in either enabling the drug or alcohol addiction, or encouraging recovery. That’s why it is crucial to understand the fine line between encouraging your loved one to get help – or becoming codependent and helping to maintain the addict’s destructive behavior.

What is Codependency?

A ‘codependent’ is someone who has developed an extreme dependency on someone else – in this instance, on the addict. They are often spouses, children or other relatives of the addict.