When a person dealing with addiction enters treatment and the family embarks on family care, the sense of hope everyone feels can be overwhelming. Finally, the addiction issue is being addressed. Finally, things will get better. Unfortunately, it can take a long time for the changes and patterns associated with addiction to really change. Sometimes, that slow shift leads to disappointments. The key is to focus on the work part of recovery. It is a process, and it comes wit

Just as an addicted person changes in the course of an addiction, so does the family. Spouses, siblings and parents of addicts often absorb many of the consequences. Often, family members become distant. They can’t talk openly about the issue that’s harming them, so they end up not talking about much of anything at all. Meanwhile, these same family members can blame themselves because the addiction is still in play, even though they want the problem to stop. These silences an