The BALM Blog

#FamilyGoals: Make Healing Your Family Relationships a Priority

Addiction Recovery for Families, BALM, Family Recovery | January 27, 2020

Why Healing Family Relationships Should Be a Priority

Why healing is an important step in family recovery

Blood is thicker than water. In most cases, this is true, but family estrangement can happen for many reasons. Family members can disagree or fight over inheritance, choice of life partners, illness, divorce and substance abuse.[1]

The family plays an important role in the recovery of any health-related problems in a loved one. Family work is one of the strongest and persisting themes of many treatment approaches and family therapy and BALM family recovery life coaching can be widely used to its capacity in the treatment of substance use disorder (SUD). Yet, many treatment programs still lack adequate, ongoing family recovery education and adequate individual family guidance as to best ways to relate to the struggling loved one with a use disorder.

A family’s long-term involvement or participation on an emotional level matters whether or not there is physical participation. They could be separated physically but still emotionally connected and this connection contributes to the dynamics of family functions. In family therapy and BALM family recovery life coaching, family members who are geographically distant can still play an important role in substance use treatment and be included in therapy despite their location.[2] Having healthy family relationships can drive a struggling loved one to recover. Thus, in the BALM we tell family members “You CAN be your loved one’s BEST chance at recovery” and we find this to be true time and time again.

Healing relationship is important to people with SUD and their loved ones.

Here are some of the reasons why:

It restores trust in the family.

When a family member suffers from an addiction or use disorder of any kind, the lived experience is that trust between family members has been violated. Members of the family feel betrayed and it may take a lot of time to regain that trust. Healing relationships with the help of family therapy or BALM family recovery life coaching can restore the trust between a husband and wife, parents and children and in other relationships.

It makes us feel safe and connected.

A broken relationship with family members can make you feel isolated. A healthy relationship gives the comfort of knowing that you have people by your side during tough times to help you manage stress.

It improves emotional well-being.

Emotional health is as important as physical health when it comes to an individual’s well-being. Healthy family relationships contribute a lot to emotional health, especially children’s emotional health. People who grow up exposed to positive family love are fortunate but family therapy and/or BALM Family Recovery LIfe Coaching can still help in repairing broken relationships.

It improves physical well-being.

Healthy relationships with family members can lessen the risk of cardiovascular diseases. A study[3] showed that middle-aged women in satisfying marriages or marital-type of relationships had a lower risk for heart diseases compared to those who are in less satisfying marriages or partnerships.

Another study linked negative interactions with the family with poor health. One research has found that families in hostile situations showed signs of reduced immunity. This can lead to one or more members of the family getting sick.

Provides a sense of purpose.

Humans have an inherent want to feel needed. Healing relationships with family members or any close relationship can give a person recovering from SUD a sense of purpose and well-being.

Family therapy in healing relationships

Important trends widely suggested bringing in family therapy approaches in the treatment of substance abuse. Research studies showed that SUD treatments that include family therapy worked better than those SUD treatments that do not. Our anecdotal experience in the BALM community is likewise that when family members learn and practice the BALM Program, they often report a positive impact on their loved one’s treatment experience, buy in, long term sustained recovery, and shortened periods of reoccurence when it does occur. [4]

Trying to mend broken family relationships can be emotionally draining, especially when one or two members remain unresponsive to your efforts. Family therapists are helpful because they can help identify underlying issues and provide solutions on how to approach it best. BALM Family Recovery Life Coaches, especially when utilized along with the BALM Program, provide custom fit solutions for family challenges, guiding family members to the most effective use of leverage, boundaries, loving interaction, and other impactful family recovery behaviors.

BALM Family Recovery Services

Studies show that when families get the help they needed, the struggling loved one has a greater chance at recovery. We concur and our fourth BALM Principle is “You CAN be Your Loved One’s BEST chance at recovery.” We educate families on how to engage with their loved ones with effective interventions that will encourage them to take action to recover and commit to it quickly.

We provide the one-year BALM® Family Recovery Education program using the Be A Loving Mirror (BALM®) Method of Family Recovery, a powerful educational program that includes instruction and practice in the Be A Loving Mirror method which increases the family member’s inner peace and allows for improved communication that often leads a loved one to choose recovery. We also have a cadre of ICF certified BALM Family Recovery Life Coaches available to help families accelerate their recovery with the BALM.

For more information on the BALM Family Recovery Services, click here.

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64269/

[3] https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships

[4] Stanton et al. 1982-Stanton, M.D., Todd, T.C., and Associates. The Family Therapy of Drug Abuse and Addiction. New York: Guilford Press, 1982.