I believe in the POWER of love! I love working courageous family members. My life\’s mission is meant to be helping struggling families. One of my strong childhood memories, perhaps age 4 or 5, was sitting in front of my house and helping one of my little neighborhood friends deal with a hurtful and sad family situation. Can you believe that? I surely can\’t remember what the issue was, but I remember her tears and the compassion I felt for her. I was blessed to have begun my life feeling safe, loved, and valued by my parents. After my dad died, from co-addiction and stress, it turns out, (I was 13), my world changed as my mom began dying, as well, from her own broken heart. The next years were filled with my mom\’s alcoholism, my own eating disorder and other compulsive behaviors associated with keeping my world together. My gratitude is knowing throughout, that I had been and was loved. I struggled through my mother\’s, step-father, husbands, sons, and my own addictions, miraculously given the gift of drug addiction treatment, and am now recovering.

Through all of this, family has remained the most powerful influence and force in my life, and I have learned so much about being strong and happy through the ups and downs of this family recovery. Thank God, I now have a marriage in recovery, which is God\’s Grace, again! God\’s Grace is the power of love in my life, today. There are so many things I have to share with other family members who are just beginning a drug addiction treatment journey; it\’s a passion of mine, now. I don\’t like to see others\’ pain and grief, anguish and despair; though I know it needs an outlet and someone to validate those feelings. I know it\’s the only way we can heal and I want to be that person who listens, shares, informs regarding this disease and all its chaos. Family group members all mention the first thing they feel is some relief that they are not in this alone and that finally they have other family members they can talk with about their pain, anger and confusion. As the groups begin to hear more about co-addiction and adult children of alcoholics and drug addiction, they can begin to turn the focus onto themselves and start identifying their own troublesome behaviors and vote for change within themselves. That is a beautiful thing to behold! It happened this week, again, just today, a few minutes ago. I heard a husband share with his spouse and the group, that he is seeing himself and his own behaviors through his wife\’s addiction. He is taking ownership of some of his own behaviors, drug addiction treatment, and is also able to better understand the disease concept, the toxic brain, and how long it may take those frontal lobes to wake up or possibly begin developing for the first time.

Usually, family members drink in the information we give them, as if they were literally dying of thirst…relief from pain is actually a survival instinct and many family members realize they have been operating out of the survival area of the brain themselves. They find out that\’s where addiction happens, in the primitive brain, where all our survival instincts are. That helps them to better understand why alcoholics and addicts cannot stop, on their own, and why craving the drug is just like craving that next breath. This also explains why family members have lost control of their own compulsivity. We\’ve all been reactors to life, rather than actors, for far too long. There is immense relief in learning and believing there is a different way for all of us. I love, love, love it when I hear patients ask their family members to go to Al-Anon and to stop enabling them. It\’s music to my ears when patients tell the family members how they have manipulated and pulled off this disease for so long.

It\’s a new day for all when family members quit blaming themselves for their loved one\’s disease while understanding how they may have contributed to the disease out of their own fear, guilt, and deep love for the addict. I love when I see both patient and family member become willing to receive the power of love from each other after such a long time apart. How blessed am I to be a part of that miracle! How blessed am I to see whole families in drug addiction treatment, even years down the road, grateful for the 12-Step programs of recovery. How blessed am I to be able to feel the deep and intense level of gratitude when someone else begins to allow themselves the freedom to feel and experience their own strength, courage and the power of love!

Go to www.valleyhope.org to learn more.

Vicki Nash, MA., LADC
www.valleyhope.org

Vicki Nash, MA., LADC
http://www.valleyhope.org

Author Bio: Vicki Nash, MA., LADC
www.valleyhope.org

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: drug addiction treatment, alcohol rehab, drug rehab, drug rehab centers, drug rehab center