How Do I Tell My Family I’m Going To Rehab?

Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward healing. While this notion applies to many areas of life, it’s particularly true for addiction. By being honest about needing help, you’re empowering yourself to make healthier decisions moving forward.

After deciding to go to rehab for a drug or alcohol addiction, some people disclose the news to their families. While informing family members is often encouraged because family can be a source of support, it can also be overwhelming, confusing, and intimidating to talk about your new journey. Read on for tips on how to tell your family that you’re seeking addiction treatment.

11 Tips For Telling Your Family You’re Going To Rehab

If you aren’t sure how to approach the topic of going to rehab, or you feel uncomfortable with the process, you aren’t alone. Telling your family you’re going to rehab is an important conversation to have, and it’s normal to feel nervous about it. Consider the following suggestions to help you prepare to have the conversation with them.

Choose An Appropriate Time And Place

Telling your family about rehab may be a quick or in-depth conversation, depending on your family and how much they know about addiction in general and your personal experience with it. Regardless of how the conversation goes, it may include questions and back-and-forth chatter. To give the conversation the undivided attention it deserves, choose a safe and comfortable setting that allows for time flexibility. For example, it’s not suggested that you have the conversation in a loud, busy restaurant, where dinner is rushed because you have show tickets later that evening. Instead, opt for a calm environment, which will, in turn, help you relax throughout.

The time and place should work for you, not only your family. If you feel more comfortable being active, perhaps you can have the conversation while on a walk outdoors. If you’d prefer to tell one family member at a time, such as your mom first, then your dad, you can do that as well. There’s no right or wrong way to have the conversation, but there are ways that will feel better for you.

Talk About Your Rehab Plan And The Treatment Center

As you talk about your decision, you can provide your family with information about the rehab center you plan to attend. If there’s a reason why you chose that particular center, share it with them, whether it’s for a specific program, health insurance reasons, and/or its close proximity to your home. Provide them with the facility’s website, if applicable, so they can learn more on their own. Mention how long you’ll be in treatment and when you’re going, so they can expect and prepare for it.

Share Your Intentions For Going To Rehab

It may seem obvious that you’re interested in going to rehab to overcome addiction, but your family may wonder, “Why now?” You can tell them as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. Addiction is an individual experience, and perhaps you had to reach your personal rock bottom before asking for help. Maybe you had a recent wake-up call after an experience, or perhaps you had a relapse after many years of sobriety. You might have recently broken up with a partner, moved, or lost your job, which caused your addiction to escalate. Or, you may have had a bout of positive changes, such as a promotion, the start of a new relationship, or the birth of a child, and lost your footing in recovery. You can share your story with your family, or you can simply say that you’re going because you’re ready.

Set Realistic Expectations

It’s impossible to predict the future, whether you have a substance use disorder (SUD) or not. Going to rehab is a major first step toward recovery, but sobriety is a journey that happens one day at a time. Like everyday life, in recovery you’ll have ups and downs, and emotional highs and lows. Your family may be excited for you to have a new start, and if they are, that’s fantastic—but it’s also important to help them understand the reality of the journey you’re on.

Treatment often continues after inpatient rehab with a partial hospitalization program (PHP) or another form of outpatient care. You’ll likely be encouraged to join a peer-led support group like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA), where it’s encouraged to attend meetings throughout the week. You may decide to temporarily reside in a halfway house or transitional living facility and/or seek out therapy as you continue your healing. Treatment doesn’t end when you leave rehab, and it’s important they know that.

Expect Them To Ask Questions

It’s likely that your family will have questions, but depending on your situation, some will ask more questions than others. If your family was previously unaware of your addiction, they’ll probably want to learn about it and understand what led to your decision. If you’re someone who previously went to rehab, they may be familiar with the process and have less questions about addiction and more about the treatment center. Some families might have difficulty understanding addiction in general. Allow your family to ask questions, and answer them as best you can, being honest and direct. If you have trouble answering some of their questions, explain that you’ll learn a lot about addiction while in treatment and may be able to provide more detailed answers in the future.

Hold Space For Them To Express Their Feelings

Telling your family you’re going to rehab is an emotionally fueled conversation. Your mom might be worried about how addiction has affected your life, and your dad might be sad that you’ve experienced some of the consequences of SUD. Your brother may be angry about your SUD because of the ways it has affected him, and your sister may be proud of you for making such a big decision. Or one family member may experience all these feelings and more. Since your family held space for you to explain your decision, you should allow them to share how they feel. If it’s hard to hear, it means that you care, which can serve as another motivator for change.

Don’t Hesitate To Share Your Own Feelings

SUD affects everyone it touches, which is one of the reasons it’s known as a family disease. However, SUD is debilitating, disheartening, and devastating for the individual who is suffering. It’s okay to share your feelings about how difficult a journey it’s been, and for your loved ones to empathize with your pain. Sharing how you feel is also a way to show them how important this decision is for you.

Ask For Their Support

Having the support of family can make a big difference in recovery. Support can help you feel accepted for who you are and safe among the company of other trusted adults. If you live with your family or plan to after rehab, having their support can make your living situation more comfortable. Most of all, family can provide love, connection, and stability. When families are involved in the treatment process, it increases the likelihood that their loved one will complete treatment, according to a research review published in BMJ Open. If your family doesn’t outwardly vocalize their support, there’s no harm in asking them for it. However, remain steadfast about following through with treatment, regardless of what they say.

Suggest Resources For Them To Access Support

In addition to services available to help people recover from SUD, there are also services for families of people with SUD. Some families participate in therapy, whether that’s one-on-one with the therapist and/or with the family. Other families attend peer-led recovery groups like Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, or Ala-Teen. These groups are structured similarly to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, where members follow the 12 steps and are encouraged to work with a sponsor, or spiritual advisor.

These resources can help educate families on the nature of addiction and how they can be helpful to their loved one without enabling them. These resources also help with learning to set boundaries without feeling responsible for their loved one’s addiction, and also moving toward acceptance of a potentially challenging reality. Additionally, peer-led recovery groups can help members connect with like-minded people so they don’t feel as alone in their experience and can form a support network of their own.

If you can, write down information for a few sources, e.g., the days, times, and addresses of local Al-Anon meetings, as well as websites. You don’t have to force the thought of attending these meetings; at such a fragile moment, it’s best to keep the focus on yourself. However, providing information is “planting the seed,” as they say in recovery meetings.

Be Patient With Them (And Yourself)

Having big conversations can stir big feelings within yourself and others. Your family, depending on their experience with addiction and/or mental health, may not understand the disease or how rehabilitation can help. While you may attempt to explain, be aware that it may still take time for them to process the information. Family members may blame themselves and feel guilty about your experience with addiction; this isn’t your responsibility to sort out, but you should be patient with them as they embark on their own healing journey.

With that being said, be patient with yourself. It’s okay to feel scared, happy, excited, proud, sad, or angry. It’s okay to feel all these emotions within the span of an hour. Change brings forth mixed reactions about whatever transition you’re going through. Try your best not to beat yourself up or shame yourself for feeling these emotions. You’re human, and struggle is part of the human experience. It’s your right to be able to feel the way you feel and express those emotions regarding the challenges in your life.

Give Yourself Grace

It’s strongly suggested that with each decision you make that brings you closer treatment, you continue to give yourself grace. Know that you won’t always feel the way you do right now. As you progress in your recovery, the way you feel and the way your family members feel will change. It’s all a matter of taking it one step at a time, one moment at a time, and one day at a time.

As long as you’re making the effort to live a healthier life and giving yourself the freedom to “be” without the chains of addiction, it will get better. If you need reassurance about the ways that recovery can improve your life, check out any in-person or virtual peer-led recovery meeting like NA or AA, and listen to people tell their stories.

Why It’s Important To Tell Your Family You’re Going To Rehab

There are several reasons why people tell their families about going to rehab beyond making them aware of what’s going on. Some of the main benefits include having a support system, inspiring changes across the family, and rebuilding relationships.

Having Support

Community is one of four major dimensions of recovery for substance abuse and mental health, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). However, for many people, family support also falls under another major category: home. Having support from a family that is positive, hopeful, and loving can offer stability and a sense of fulfillment. If the recovering person lives with their family, then establishing and maintaining healthy relationships can translate into a peaceful and safe home life.

Having stability is the opposite of addiction, where life is characterized by a lack of stability. When there are difficult moments in life, family may offer support, which can take the form of talking and listening, assisting with chores or other responsibilities, or connecting the loved one with applicable resources. The nurturing and care that comes from these relationships can serve as a core motivator for staying in recovery. If someone has caregiving responsibilities, like raising children or aiding elderly parents, then these relationships fall under another dimension of recovery, which is purpose.

Inspiring Change

It’s been said many times before that addiction is a family disease. The reason addiction affects the entire family is because it often requires non-addicted family members to take on responsibilities. According to Psychological and Counseling Services (PACS) at the University of New Hampshire, the addiction essentially takes over and becomes the primary focus of the family.

People make accommodations for their addicted loved one out of necessity. Unfortunately, accommodations turn into enablement, which essentially allows the addicted person to continue the same behaviors. For example, grandparents may care for or even raise grandchildren, or siblings may repeatedly lend money to help with rent. It’s common for family members to make excuses for their loved one, especially to children, as a way to justify and/or minimize behaviors. Sometimes, children are left to care for themselves. In other words, over time, the disease affects the entire family as people work to take on extra weight, whether that’s financial, task-oriented, or even peace of mind. The extra responsibilities can manifest as physical and mental health issues in other family members. Children of parents with untreated SUD are also more likely to experience depression, anxiety disorders, and other behavioral and mental health issues.

When the loved one with an addiction enters treatment, their family can benefit from learning how to set and maintain boundaries and hold the individual responsible. Because working around a person’s addiction can become so ingrained, no matter how dysfunctional, it can be difficult for family members to change these behaviors without support from a therapist or family counselor. With addiction having such a potentially widespread impact on the family system, the whole family has the opportunity to heal when a loved one enters rehab.

Rebuilding Relationships

Recovering from an addiction involves repairing and taking responsibility for wrongdoing. In AA and NA groups, some of the 12 steps focus specifically on identifying wrongs done to others and making amends. Having fractured relationships can weigh heavily on the mind, especially for people in recovery, who may have an understanding that their addiction contributed to current issues.

Rebuilding relationships can be a new beginning, so long as both parties are willing. When it comes to family, repairing relationships can change the dynamic of family systems and dissipate feelings of discomfort during family gatherings. It can lessen or remove tension and improve communication, which may significantly improve the environment for all, especially children. It can also help all parties involved to better understand one another’s needs, feelings, and experiences, and empathize with each other in general.

Stick To Your Plan

Just like snowflakes, no two families are the same. You might have a tight-knit relationship with your parents and siblings, or you may be estranged from them. Perhaps you were raised in a household that was free of drugs and alcohol, or had a parent, caregiver, or sibling who struggled with addiction themselves. You may have family members who fully support recovery and are in recovery themselves, or who continue to use drugs and alcohol.

If you choose to talk to your family about going to addiction treatment, remember that whether they agree with your decision or not, going to rehab is the healthiest choice for people with SUD. Those who understand the severity and potential consequences of untreated addiction, and know anything about how it impacts your life, will support you or come around to doing so. Keep in mind that going to rehab may be off-putting to some family and friends who use substances, because it casts a light on their choice to continue using. Stay focused on yourself and your path, and everything will fall into place, including your relationships.

Find Freedom From Addiction

If you are dealing with a drug or alcohol addiction, you don’t have to handle it alone. Help is available whenever you’re ready. Call Bedrock Recovery Center for more information today.