Family Addiction Treatment In California

Recognizing the fact that the family plays a major role in the success of a member's addiction treatment program, California authorities through its various agencies encourage and promote the involvement of the whole family in the program. This is very important, as residential treatment slots are not enough to accommodate all patients as many are on waiting lists.

Most addiction patients who undergo treatment programs from home often skip their treatment sessions for one reason or another. However, most reasons given are not satisfactory and it emerges that failure to attend treatment sessions is a result of resistance to the treatment. This is particularly true for the youth undergoing treatment programs. Involving the whole family in such a case becomes necessary, as the family will be in a position to ensure that their member attends treatment sessions through encouragement and motivation.

It at times occurs that the resistance developed by a patient is tolerated by his/her family. This happens in families in which support for one another is lacking. When looked at deeply, such families are found to be having other addiction patients who may not have come out to seek treatment. In such a case, counseling becomes the first line of treatment. This is done for all the family members to make them realize that they have a problem that if not dealt with in good time may eventually explode. The success of this approach largely depends on the cooperation of the family with a treatment centre or a treatment counselor. In most cases, families that tolerate resistance have obstacles in their way that stop them from assisting their member. It is the duty of an assigned counselor to establish the obstacles and address them.

The most common obstacles that California families have include:

a) Patient position in the family: A patient who is highly regarded in a family is the biggest obstacle that counselors have to deal with. The patient may be the head of the family or a youth member of the family who has some sort of influence over the other family members. Talking to such a family member into accepting to undergo addiction treatment may be a hard task for a counselor. However, the counselor has the duty to engage the whole family and ensure that the patient, however influential he/she may be in the family gets treatment.

b) Protective parent(s): An over-protective parent may turn out to be the obstacle to a family member getting addiction treatment. This is common with mothers, especially with their favorite son or daughter. They fail to realize that their protection will eventually destroy their son or daughter. The thought of missing their son or daughter for up to six months in case of residential treatment is enough to make them protect the patient more and do not let go of them. Counselors have a duty to talk to such parent(s) into submission and let go of the family member.

c) Unconcerned parent(s): Unconcerned parents are a disservice to other family members, especially to those members suffering from addiction problems. Their lack of interest makes the patient lose interest in treatment. In most cases, families with such parents lack cohesiveness and cooperation amongst the members. A counselor may find dealing with such parents hard and may be forced to seek additional help, including from authorities, in assisting the patient.

d) Secrets: A family fond of keeping secrets may be hard to deal with in trying to assist one of their members with addiction problem. The situation may be made worse if substance abuse has been running in the family for a period. A counselor assigned such a family has to strategies and find a way of convincing the family by elaborating the positive side of the planned treatment.