Who’s On Your Child’s Addiction Recovery Team?
As a parent, your child’s addiction can make you feel isolated, alone, stigmatized, scared to death and so much more. Today’s guest post is written by Leslie F. Yerger, ACC.
Leslie is a credentialed life coach serving the parents of kids in treatment. For more information, go to her website, www.phase2foryou.com. She can also be contacted at Leslie@phase2foryou.com.
Who’s On Your Child’s Addiction Recovery Team? by Leslie F. Yerger
When our child goes into treatment for drug or alcohol addiction, an eating disorder, or anything else for that matter, we as parents are thrown completely off of our game.
In fact metaphorically, we are not just thrown a curve ball in an already familiar game of baseball, but rather we find ourselves playing a totally different and unexpected foreign sport with new rules, an unfamiliar field and equipment, and a very unclear path to victory.
Leslie F. Yerger is a credentialed life coach helping parents build their team to help them with their child’s addiction recovery.
And our current teammates, those in our lives who had been playing along with us, supporting us quite nicely in our successful pursuit of victory in the previous game, will inevitably change as well.
In fact, some of our old team members will change without us even doing anything. Sadly, some teammates will decide to only cheer us on from the sidelines, while others may even back away from our huddle completely, due to their very high discomfort level with our new game. Others however, will rush to join us, because they understand our new game, and want to help us learn to play.
It is said that human beings do not thrive when isolated from others and that we were meant to live in community. Yet when our kids go into treatment, many parents will isolate, trying to carry the burden alone, shying away from both new and old ‘teammates’. And on the contrary, this is precisely the time for us to gather a different crew for ourselves, in order to get the support that we so need.
And just like every successful sports team, all of the key positions must be filled. In our case, those ‘positions’ might include someone to cry, laugh, complain, be grateful, exercise, or commiserate with. Other members might include a therapist or coach, support groups, spiritual leaders, family and spouses, coworkers, and more.
This new endeavor in our lives gives us the perfect opportunity to reassess, to reassemble our personal support squad. It behooves us to be intentional regarding our team, paying particular attention to whether it is right, complete, and serving us well in light of our new undertaking.
Make no mistake, I am talking about your team, not your child’s. It is our natural tendency for all of our focus to be on what our child needs. However, if your child is in treatment, most likely his/her support process is pretty well established. Right now, I am asking you to look at what, and particularly WHO YOU NEED.
Take the time to create the right ‘team’ for yourself. You will be glad you did. Your new teammates will become a blessing to you that you would have never otherwise experienced.
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I can resonate with your article, Leslie. The game does change and we need new teammates. What is most important is that parents reach out and find the support they need via support groups, counseling, coaching, etc. This situation can be very hard on a parent’s health and support is vital. Thank you for a great post!
Thanks Cathy. I tell you with all certainty that I just don’t know what I would have done without a few keys friends and my life coach. What difference it makes!!
FANTASTIC!!!!
What a great help! As parents with a child in need we do not thing enough about what we need and how getting that help can actually be very helpful for our children!