The Holiday Season is Upon Us! Recovery Plans and Tips
The 2024 Holiday Season is upon us! No matter whether and what you celebrate, the season is enjoyable and stressful. The stress comes along with the disruption of our usual day-to-day routines and the added tasks related to the celebrations of the season. Odd isn’t it that the very enjoyment we crave and anticipate, one […]
How Can We Establish Family Boundaries in Recovery?
Let’s face it: family members can push every button. When a person is in recovery from a substance use disorder, the entire family is involved in the delicate process of transitioning beliefs, feelings, and actions. How can we establish family boundaries in recovery? In an upcoming webinar with the Mental Health Association in Michigan, […]
CRAFT and Family Treatment in the Addicted Home
If you have followed my two previous articles, you are aware of how a substance use disorder (SUD), a dangerous disease by itself, becomes a family disease. An SUD negatively impacts the current and future generations of a family. Negative consequences of this disease will impact every relationship and situation in the life of a […]
Alcohol and Relationships – Best of Excursions
Along with the chaos of alcohol addiction, there is a certain predictability. You can expect missed milestones, lies, obfuscations, and disappointments. When someone in the family is misusing alcohol, it impacts the entire family system. Similarly, in romantic relationships, dangerous drinking behaviors negatively impact relationship quality. A study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) […]
What is the Impact of Addiction on Children?
At Sanford Behavioral Health, we treat adults with substance use disorders (SUDs). Part of client treatment is to educate and create informed support for the significant folks in their lives. Our clients can be young adults with siblings in their primary family, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, friends, and partners; most have relationships with young children. […]
Talking About Food with Your Child – Dr. Anna Flores
Notes from Dr, Anna Flores’s presentation “Talking About Food with Your Child” Language matters. Children are wildly impressionable and there is a strong connection between what we say about food, how we eat, and how we feed ourselves as adults, and what the young people around us are going to say about food, how they […]
What to Expect From a Loved One in Early Recovery
“What can I expect?” is a question many therapists hear from families when their loved one enters treatment. The thing is, there is no clear answer to that question. Many different statistics float around the internet on addiction recovery, but there is no ironclad rule book on what to expect from a newly sober family […]
Trust and Mistrust in Addiction Recovery
The concepts of trust and mistrust are important to recovery from addiction. The family of a loved one in treatment must “trust” the process. However, mistrust has ruled the roost during their family member’s active addiction. When a family loses trust, the sense of connection as a family is also lost. And for the family […]
Addiction Defenses: Denial, Justification, Deception, Manipulation
I wrote the complete series on people’s dynamics and defenses as they develop a substance use disorder (SUD) for the Sanford Behavioral Health Family Program. The primary defenses used as addiction progresses are denial, justification, deception, and manipulation. Denial, Justification, Deception, Manipulation For the family members of an individual developing an SUD, these defenses […]
Summer Holidays – Tips for Recovering Families
The 4th of July is upon us – the apex of the summer holidays. And although we love the sun and water fun, we understand that families managing substance use disorders can experience heightened anxiety levels during this time. The sound of fireworks can trigger those with PTSD and anxiety. The coolers stocked with cold […]
