The Florida Mental Health Act, commonly known as the Florida Baker Act, is available to families and others who believe their loved one is suffering from serious mental health disorders. When someone refuses the mental health treatment they need, it may be difficult to watch. Many times, a person without the ability to make rational […]
Category: Family
5 Ways to Support an Alcoholic in Recovery
Alcoholism is a disease that affects men, women, and children across the U.S. Alcohol addiction can occur in a person’s life regardless of their ethnicity, background, or income level. It’s estimated that 16 million American adults have an alcohol use disorder. Although only about 10 percent of people seek treatment, thousands of people have built meaningful lives […]
Recovery for Loved Ones of Addicts
Recovery is not just for addicts. It’s important that we look at our own health and well-being and find recovery, healing, and peace. When our loved ones are struggling with addiction, we obviously have the desire to help them. It’s so difficult to see the people we care about in pain. However, it’s easy to […]
The Pain of Our Secrets
Holding onto secrets is painful. Here’s why it’s so important to let go, speak our truth, and accept support. When we abuse an addictive substance or behavior, it is often to try and escape some form of pain we have buried within us. For many of us, this pain lies in the secrets we’re keeping. […]
Al-ATot and Al-ATeen Programs for Children
Young people living with adults struggling with addiction, face unique challenges, many of which are rarely addressed because, as we know, there is often a culture of silence, shame, avoidance and denial surrounding addiction. The Al-ATot and Al-ATeen programs are designed for these children who might not be able to discuss their parents’ or caregivers’ […]
The Importance of Enlisting Professional Intervention Services
When our loved ones are struggling with the pain of addiction, we want nothing more than to ease their pain and put an end to their constant suffering. We want them to get help, we want them to be happy, and we often feel a sense of urgency about getting them to a healthier place […]
How Do We Stop Resenting the Addicts in Our Lives?
Sometimes as the loved ones of addicts, we have emotions surrounding them and their addictions that we don’t understand, that we can’t seem to come to terms with, accept or make peace with. Our resentment towards the addicts in our lives is one of these complicated emotions we struggle to make sense of. We’re filled […]
How We Can Benefit From Al-Anon
Al-Anon is a support group designed specifically for the loved ones of those struggling with addiction. When we have a family member or friend in the grips of addiction, we have a unique set of challenges that can be difficult to contend with, to say the least, in part because we might not have other […]
Family Roles and How They Can Impact Us
Part of our recovery work entails looking at our childhoods, our families and our home environments to explore some of the hidden factors in our mental and emotional health issues. Our addictions are sometimes rooted in the family roles we experienced and witnessed when growing up. We might have had parents or caretakers who were […]
Missing Out on Our Kids’ Childhoods
There are a great many things we regret about our experiences with addiction. One of the most difficult among them is when we miss out on our kids’ childhoods because of our struggles with addiction. Many of us find that our dependence on addictive substances and behaviors is so strong that we make regrettable decisions. […]