Five Helpful Ways to Support Your Spouse in Recovery

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Five Helpful Ways to Support Your Spouse in Recovery

When your partner is struggling with alcoholism or drug addiction, it can become very stressful on you as well. Drug and alcohol rehabilitation is one step in the right direction, but recovering from addiction will have its own hardships as well. A tough time is ahead even in total sobriety. A typical question that a spouse may have is “How can I support my husband/wife in their recovery from addiction?” Here are Five helpful ways that you can offer your support to them.

1. Allow Them to Follow their Program
   First and foremost, you have to understand that for a while, it is necessary for your loved one put their sobriety first in their life. This can cause some spouses to feel jealous or left out, as their spouse goes to meetings and begins to meet new friends. Do not become jealous! Recovery is a long process and in the beginning, it needs to come first over anything else. Understand that you have to let them follow their program, be with a sponsor or counselor, and attend all of the meetings. You must be supportive in this. Try not to be too involved. This can have a negative response in the beginning of treatment. If your partner wants to share with you any information about how things are going in their program, they will. If they do not want to share things about how their meeting went, or what they talked about with a counselor, don’t take it personal, just continue to give your support and encourage them as they follow their program.
2. Take Care of Yourself
   It is understandable that you are hurting from your partner's substance abuse as well. The alcohol and drug rehab program will help you and your family by providing workshops, educational/emotional support and therapy for families.. As your loved one follows their program, you too will have to take care of yourself. Sadly, in most families where drug abuse is happening, family dysfunction, unhealthy roles and boundaries have been already been established. By getting help for yourself, you can learn to re-create the healthy boundaries and establish the new roles of you and your spouse. 
3. Find your Common Ground and Build on it
   It does take time to build trust real back. It will take time to heal those wounds. As you spend more time doing things together, it will act as an ointment towards these past hurts. Find a something, in your life that you and your spouse in can enjoy together in their recovery. Plan a night each week as a type of date night. Go out to dinner and see a movie. If you have kids, find common ground activities that you can all be involved in together as a family. Once you begin to enjoy these new life experiences with your spouse, it can help with the adjustments that come with addiction recovery. In time, it will help to heal past wounds and hardships.
4. Do Not Blame Yourself
   There is one thing you will learn is how to handle your own emotions when it comes to your spouse's drug addiction recovery. You can’t take everything personally, because this will cause you to be be faced with even more problems in the recovery process. Your relationship will most certainly change to some extent, with a sober spouse. In the future, there may be a few set backs, but you should never take the blame for any of these situations. Your partner’s recovery does involve you, but their sobriety is totally about them. When bad things begin to happen, or the old habits and even during a relapse, you have to understand the nature of the addiction. This is not your fault. Continue to try to support them and encourage them to get the proper help they need.
5. Be Patient 
   Your spouse may not become the person you were expecting them to be right away. Treatment takes time. Recovery takes time. Your patience can be the key. It might be a long process before they start to live up to your expectations. There can be a bit of an adjustment phase to go through after they have completed alcohol or drug rehabilitation. This can be frustrating. Please be patient with them. You will be moving at different paces when it comes to the recovery process and with your relationship. Be patient.