Having Healthy Relationships in Recovery

The focus of the first year in recovery should be on working your program, practicing the 12 Steps and meeting with your sponsor, counsels Desloover, not on the distraction of relationships. Remember that your first priority is to yourself and your recovery.

Today, let’s talk about some of the risks connected to dating while in recovery. One of the most devastating aspects of addiction is the damage it causes to relationships with intimate partners, family, friends, or colleagues. Many treatment programs recognize the important role of relationships in the healing process—especially within the family. It’s not an easy undertaking to begin building healthy relationships in sobriety and your recovery journey, but it will be so rewarding when you do. If you’ve decided to get into a relationship while in recovery, know that it’s going to be an uphill battle.

Recovery And Relationships

Imagine being in a place where you’re expected to change your entire life without knowing a single person in the room. For those of us who are starting treatment, finding someone to connect with as we navigate this unknown world relationships in recovery is often a first step. Creating human connection and building a support system can ease the fear and uneasiness of recovery. Many individuals who have struggled with addiction also struggle to create healthy relationships.

Having a relationship with a God of your own understanding is a very personal matter. Therefore, we believe it would be intrusive of us to tell you how to develop a healthy relationship with your Higher Power. It is especially important to be mindful of the people you are in relationships with.

Always Put Your Recovery First

However, you should first determine which relationships are healthy and worthy of constructing , and which relationships will only threaten your recovery. Below are some tips on how to identify positive and negative relationships in recovery, and how to navigate them as they arise. Relationships are one of our most basic and innate needs as humans. Biologically, we are programmed to desire a closeness to others; we long to feel supported and loved, and want others to accept that love and support from us. Our hearts, as well as science, say that we need these relationships to live life fully. Even though it may feel like the process is agonizingly slow, there is no substitute for taking the time in the first year to focus exclusively on recovery. Recovering the mind, body and spirit requires time to clear the years of shame, guilt, denial and emotional wreckage, and the likelihood of staying sober increases with each year in recovery.

• For relationships to be successful, we need to be honest with ourselves and what we want and be honest with our partner about our needs.
• Many who have struggled with addiction have had negative interactions with their families because they don’t understand how to help them.
• You might remember that it was also relationships that helped you through the bad days, the hard days, the days you felt hopeless or lost.
• Be a good listener.Feeling valued is important in all relationships, and listening carefully to the other person will establish this.
• You’ve been lying to yourself, probably for a very long time, in order to cover that gnawing hole of emptiness inside.
• Therapy and other forms of support can assist in rebuilding an identity and honing the skills necessary to recognize, understand, and appropriately respond to your emotions, and those of others.

Relationships started in treatment can quickly become co-dependent for a few reasons. Many of us who suffer from addiction have low self-esteem or self-worth. We might seek this worth through others by looking for someone who loves and cares about us. Because a lot of times, those of us who struggle with addiction have difficulty differentiating a healthy relationship from an unhealthy one. People struggling with addiction need positive reinforcement and strong boundaries. Another person struggling with the same issues might not be able to provide that for us. It’s the same idea as putting on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else with theirs if your flight is in danger.

Start your journey today

Very young children may not realize that their parent is behaving differently from other mothers or fathers. As they age, they may start to understand that their parent has an issue with keeping promises or being on time. The realization that the problem stems from drug or alcohol addiction will likely only come later in childhood. During treatment, a client will be able tolearn effective ways to communicate with othersand how to truly listen to what another person is saying. There are healthy ways to deal with conflicts that don’t end up with someone feeling as though they need to tune out by using drugs or having a drink.

Resist the temptation to fall back into old, addictive patterns when you are feeling vulnerable. This is the time for trusting your partner to accept you as you are and to build trust within your relationship. The depth and intensity of psychotherapy helps to expand the layer of true intimacy . Not only does the intense personal sharing help to break down the barrier to intimacy, but both therapy and the 12-Step work help to reduce denial and thus shrink the layer of the unknown. Emotional and relationship problems which were caused by the addiction, as well as those which were there before, always become more pronounced once the recovery process begins. This is because the addicted behavior is no longer providing a smokescreen to hide the problems .