Tag Archives: family addiction

Dating in Recovery

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Thinking of starting your first intimate relationship post-drug or alcohol addiction? The right relationship can strengthen your alcohol and drug recovery. At the same time, dating the wrong person can push you towards relapse. Here are a few things to consider before you start a new relationship.

Build Positive Self-Care Habits First

While you take time to reflect on past dating habits, work on loving and caring for yourself. Loving another person in an intimate relationship starts with loving yourself. Build a foundation of self-love and positive self-care habits before you move on to your next relationship.

One of the biggest threats to a successful addiction recovery is stress. The passion of romance can be stressful, especially for those recovering from alcohol and drugs. Jumping into a new relationship before you master fulfilling your own emotional needs can lead to addiction relapse.

Ask yourself:

  • “Am I happy most days?”
  • “When I get upset, do I keep it in perspective?”
  • “Do I feel just as happy alone as I do with other people?”
  • “Am I excelling at work without feeling stressed out?”

If you can answer “YES!” to these questions, then it’s a good sign that you’re ready for a relationship.

Take Care of a Plant, Volunteer, Start a Project

Once you’ve taken care of your own happiness, try adding on some extra challenges. Taking care of a plant is a classic addiction-recovery cliche. If plants aren’t your thing, try taking on a volunteer project. This can be fulfilling in itself. If you can’t sacrifice a few hours every week to help others, do you really think you’re ready for an intimate relationship? Relationships are time-consuming and can present a lot of emotional challenges. Volunteering is a nice stepping stone.

Before you move on to a relationship, pick up a hobby or start a passion project. It will also help keep you sober and on track with your addiction recovery journey. When you start a new relationship, you’ll have less time to go around. You don’t want to feel like the relationship is preventing you from doing what you love. Once you’ve proven that you can donate time to others and dedicate time to your passions, it may be time to consider dating.

Recognizing Past Relationship Habits

As a recovering alcoholic or drug addicted individual, there’s a chance that you’ve developed some less-than-healthy relationship habits. Before you jump into a new intimate relationship post-addiction, it’s important to press pause and see if you can find any negative patterns that you’d rather not repeat.

Dating instincts are mostly subconscious. The relationship patterns you witnessed your parents engage in can have a significant impact on your dating habits as an adult. If you had parents who were addicted to alcohol or drugs, you might have absorbed some unhealthy dating tendencies. Relationships in the fog of addiction play out differently than when you’re dating with a clean brain and a clear head. By identifying negative patterns in past relationships, your next one will have a better chance of going well.

Avoiding Toxic People

It’s never time to start a new relationship with someone who isn’t emotionally healthy. When you feel like you’re ready, you need to be confident that your new partner will have a positive influence.

Negative interpersonal interactions have an adverse effect on mental health. How do you know that the person you’re interested in is healthy? Take a look at their life as a whole. Do they have a healthy social life? This looks different for every person. They don’t have to have a ton of friends, but they do need to be satisfied with the ones they have. Do they talk positively about life?

People tend to put there best foot forward in the early stages of a relationship. If you’ve only known someone for a few weeks and they’re already complaining, it’s not a good sign.

Start Slow, Love Can Be a Drug

There’s no reason to jump the gun. Take things slow. It can be easy to get too absorbed in your first relationship as a recovering addict. While you were using, you may have deprived yourself of close bonds and genuine emotional connections. Time was spent interacting casually, catching a buzz, and going about your day.

The authentic love of your first intimate relationship can be a drug in itself. In fact, love is a drug — oxytocin to be exact. Oxytocin is a hormone that acts on opioid receptors. It’s activated when you experience emotional and physical intimacy. Oxytocin is influential in the formation of social bonds. The desire to give yourself over to the satisfaction and relief that oxytocin provides can be powerful. Romance has the potential to distract you from your drug and/or alcohol recovery. Your affection should feel like a choice, not an addiction.

Communication is Key

Date someone who is an excellent communicator. Make sure that they’re open to answering questions about their past and answering difficult questions. As somebody working on your addiction recovery, you may have a tumultuous past. Dating someone who’s uncomfortable talking about it isn’t conducive to a healthy and positive addiction recovery. The person you date should be willing to discuss the impact that the relationship is having on your recovery.

Recovery needs to be your priority, and the person you date has to understand that. After all, if you relapse, it’s only a matter of time before the relationship becomes strained.

The High Stakes of Relationships in Recovery

You have to be ruthless with relationships in alcohol and drug recovery. The stakes are high. As your relationship grows, it can impact you in one of two ways. If communication is open and fearless, it can lead to success in recovery and make you a healthier person. If you or the other person doesn’t feel comfortable talking about the hard stuff, it will inevitably strain the relationship and your recovery.

By recognizing past relationship habits, avoiding toxic people, focusing on yourself first, and starting slowly, you can build a relationship that will strengthen your addiction recovery journey and bring joy into your life.

If you or anyone you love is seeking an individual counseling, intensive outpatient treatment program, or are just seeking more information, Stonewall Institute Treatment Center is glad to help. Please, give us a call today at (602) 535 6468 or email us at info@stonewallinstitute.com.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Addiction

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Proposing a conversation upon your children about another’s substance addiction is never easy. Whether the addict is a parent, sibling, or other close relatives, a child’s comprehension on the subject remains vague. Therefore, the adult intending to initiate such a conversation is going to have to explain the situation properly and efficiently enough for a child’s understanding.

Statistics show that more than 28 million children have at least one alcoholic parent. These children have been shown to grow up with emotional, behavioral, and academic problems. This is due to the fact that these children grow up facing issues the average child doesn’t have to handle. With addiction’s arbitrary inclinations, substance-abusing parents are more likely to threaten their children to abuse, neglect, and the witness of domestic violence.

Over time, these effects play their role, and children of addicted parents end up four times as likely to become drug addicts themselves. Depending on their environment, there’s the strong chance they won’t understand a life outside of their drug infested home. However, there are steps that can be taken to avoid this. One of the most important being the proper conversation.

To whoever decides to take this task upon themselves, you should be aware of a child’s developmental stages in coordination to living within an addict’s home. For example, if the addicted parent(s) never gave their children proper discipline, there’s the impregnable possibility that they will grow up with a shortfall in self-discipline and an understanding of their responsibility.

Emotions within a child as such can be confusingly sporadic. Often, the case of resentment becomes an issue. Especially as a child enters their adolescent years. With these emotions in mind, the conversation about addiction can get tricky. What you are about to undertake is the explanation of addiction’s destruction to a young, fragile mind that has already witnessed much of the horror. We should attempt to put that horror into perspective and a clear understanding for the child’s sake.

Listed below are different factors to keep in mind when preparing for the conversation. Obviously, everyone’s situation is different and no two conversations will be alike. But these factors have remained consistent in terms of how to handle a child born into an addicted family.

  • Cue Yourself Properly

    There’s a time and a place for this conversation. Preferably, within a private setting and following a pinnacle moment of the addict’s abuse. The talk should be one without distractions and remain in a relaxed manner.

    If there’s a plan set forth to help the addict, use the opportunity as a way to speak with the child. Bringing up that a solution is set in place is a reassuring factor to the overall discussion. If any major changes are to be expected within the child’s life, to shy away from bringing them up. Be sure to always let the child speak if they desire to and let him/her learn to open up to such a dilemma.

  • Remember the Child’s Age

    The maturity of the child has much to do with the way you’ll speak of the matter to them. They may be too young for big language or too old for skimpy details. Be upfront and speak the truth, but keep in mind two important aspects.

    1. The amount of information a child can retain truly depends on their age and understanding.
    2. The details of the situation may (or may not) be inappropriate for certain periods of time. For example, if the child’s parents have recently overdosed on a substance and the child has yet to enter preteen years, you’ll want to go about the situation in an illustrative, yet, forgiving manner.

    Remember to always end the conversation with a sense of hope. No matter how old a person is, hope can be a leading factor in how someone handles with the emotions of an addicted parent.

  • Educate Yourself

    If you are fairly unaware of how addiction works outside of the obvious traumas, it’s vital you teach yourself about the situation. The internet offers research on any regard to the subject. A look through Stonewall Institute’s blog will even give you much information on a variety of topics.

    More often than not, a child will have many questions upon addiction. It shouldn’t be underestimated that they’ll probably believe whatever the adult has to say. Without proper answers, you’ll find yourself misleading. If you truly don’t have an answer, there’s no reason not to look one up together.

  • Remain Honest

    Never let yourself mock-up an explanation or work around certain matters that may be sensitive towards the child. Lying is another way of underestimating a child’s intelligence. Though they may believe a lie or two, it’s unfair to place them in such a position. Though it has been said many times, honesty can go a long way.

  • Liberate Humiliation and Create Perspective

    There are many instances where children will blame themselves for their parent’s downfalls. It’s important a child realizes it isn’t their fault. With this, an addict’s behavior and intentions have more of a possibility of coming into perspective.

    Through this perspective, a child holds the potential of realizing that they are facing troubles on their own. And that these struggles are not their faults. It’s key to make sure they realize they are not alone in this struggle. More often than not, the person attempting to give this conversation has, likewise, been through much due to another person’s selfish decision.

    This can be an enlightening moment to bring up what’s called “The Seven C’s”. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics” have created this list as a way for children to better understand their situation.

    1. I didn’t CAUSE it.
    2. I can’t CURE it.
    3. I can’t CONTROL it.
    4. I can take CARE of myself.
    5. By COMMUNICATING my feelings,
    6. Making healthy CHOICES, and
    7. By CELEBRATING myself.

  • Remain Open to the Child’s Words

    Children who are put in such a position may feel disconnected from many around them. If so, you should attempt to understand this disconnection and give them time to open up to you. The emotions they must combat are strong and patience is a vital factor in helping their comprehension.

  • Look for Other Support

    Sometimes we can’t give a child everything they need. No matter how hard we try, there are areas of understanding beyond our own comprehension. And professional help becomes a possibility. Whether it be a counselor, teacher, therapist, or religious leader, a child may find their comfort in places outside of you.

    If you or anyone you know is looking for a treatment plan or you would like more information on how to properly talk to children about addiction, please, give us a call at 602-535-6468 or email us at info@stonewallinstitute.com.