When you have a loved one who has struggled with substance abuse and is now working through recovery, as a family member it can be hard not to focus predominantly on their problems. After all, they’re attempting to emerge from the shadow of addiction and are juggling support meetings and therapy sessions and resisting cravings and much else. They have a disease and, as a loved one, you want to help them. But by focusing solely on your loved one, you can do damage to yourself, ultimately making yourself useful to neither yourself or your loved one.
It is important at this time to work at practicing self-care as a family member of someone in addiction recovery.
Much of the advice for practicing self-care is fairly basic. Get enough sleep, eat healthy, exercise, these are all things you are encouraged to do at any time. Reading a list of them can feel disappointingly condescending, as if you’re a child being scolded for not brushing your teeth before bedtime. You know what you’re supposed to be doing, you don’t need someone else to tell you to do it.
Yet, consumed with helping your loved one, you might need just that.
It can all too easy, when worried about others, to start neglecting your own needs. You tell yourself you’re healthy and don’t need as much attention as your sick loved one. They’re fighting addiction. You’re just missing a few hours of sleep or eating poorly. It’s hardly comparable, you further say to yourself.
But it adds up. One night of poor sleep can be overcome. You could experience that for any number of reasons, anyway. But a week of it? A month? That adds up and can be extremely detrimental to not only your own health, but to any chance you can help your loved one.
To truly help a loved one in recovery, to the extent you can, you must practice self-care to make sure you’re in a position to offer such help. By putting your own needs at the forefront, you can be better prepared to help your loved one with their needs. A little sacrifice from time to time may be necessary, but making a practice of it helps no one.
There are support networks for the loved ones of addicts to find more such help. Group meetings and support sessions can be found where family members of addicts can meet together and share their stories and find support in each others’ struggles.
And you can find a helping hand at Good Landing Recovery. Good Landing offers assistance for family members, as well as resources to help them practice self-care even as they help their loved one deal with their recovery from addiction.
We valorize those who help others before they help themselves, and such behavior can be quite admirable, as long as it’s not taken to extremes. But if such people do not take care of themselves to some degree, they’ll quickly find they can no longer help anyone at all.