Taking Care of Yourself

Addiction is often called a family disease. If your family member has a substance use disorder, or addiction, you may have suffered physically and emotionally from loneliness, guilt, resentment, stress, lack of sleep, or other health problems. Addiction affects each family member differently.

Often family members feel that they must hold everything together or else the family will fall apart. This sense of personal responsibility for the person with a substance use disorder, as well as for the rest of the family, can lead family members to feel victimized, angry, and full of blame.

It’s often true that people with an addiction have caused any number of problems and brought harm to others. But family members will not gain anything from remaining stuck in the blame game. Instead, healing and balance will come for you and other family members when you turn your energies toward thinking about what you want for yourself.

The importance of self-care is often illustrated by flight attendants instructing passengers to put on their own oxygen masks before they attempt to help others—even their children—in an emergency situation. We’re of little use to anyone if we can’t breathe ourselves.

When it comes to caregiving, we’re often the last people on the “care” list—if we make the list at all. Think of your own lives for a minute. If you made a list of the things you intend to do today, would anything having to do with self-care be on it? What gets in the way of your own self-care?

Self-care can be as simple as turning off the radio, television, or screens and reading a book or taking a bath. It’s taking time to reflect on where and who you are, and where and who you want to be. When we take care of ourselves, we can think more clearly, communicate more effectively, and be better able to see if what we’re doing is actually helpful or is making the situation worse.

What Can You Do to Take Care of Yourself?

• Give yourself permission to take care of yourself. Take care of your own well-being, focusing on your needs and healing.
  
• Talk to a professional. Visiting with a counselor who has experience in substance use disorder will benefit both you and your loved one.
  
• Find a support group. Attend a family program where you can learn how to deal with the recovery of your loved one while still taking care of yourself.
  
• Attend meetings. Learn more about the culture of recovery by attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Al-Anon, Narcotics Anonymous (NA), or Nar-Anon meetings. Search for other mutual support groups online.
  
• Seek out new activities and skills. Encourage positive activities for the person with an addiction and for yourself.
  
• Check your emotions. Expect that your relationship with the person who has a substance use disorder will continue to be emotional in early recovery. Make sure your interactions with your loved one include compassion, while not reinforcing (or rewarding) substance-using behaviors. Don’t lose your temper.
  
• Seek the truth. The truth is often painful, but seek it anyway. Don’t cover up or hide the consequences of your loved one’s alcohol or other drug use. Doing so may reduce the immediate crisis, but it only perpetuates the illness.
  
• Leverage your influence effectively. You cannot control your loved one or make their choices for them. Anxiety and fear may compel you to try to force your loved one to take the actions you would like to see them take, but this approach is not usually effective. You will be able to best leverage that influence if you approach your loved one with validation, empathy, and clarity/communication around your own boundaries.
  
• Learn to let go. Your stress level will decrease when you stop trying to change the unchangeable—your loved one and the disease of addiction. When you choose to let go, you will gain a sense of freedom. Letting go does not mean you’re letting go of your relationship with them. It means that you’re letting go of holding yourself hostage for thinking you caused this. You’re letting go of worrying about what the outcome will be. You’re letting go of the crippling fear.

When we pay attention to caring for ourselves, it’s easier to move away from habits that do not serve us or our loved one and move toward a better balance in all areas of our lives. When we do this, we see our situation and the world differently.

When we begin treating ourselves with respect, kindness, and the tenderness we deserve, our relationships change too. If our loved one is taking equally good care of themself, in time, the relationship has a better chance of growing healthier, more honest, and more balanced.

Learn more about letting go from others who have been where you are: