People experiencing addiction and recovery might have difficulty with both. Addiction and recovery can also be difficult for their friends and family members. Addiction causes a ripple effect that affects practically every aspect of a person’s life. Substance use disorder can also affect the lives of addicts’ friends and family members.

Recovery also affects friends and family members. During this time, addicts’ relatives still worry about their loved ones. They wonder if treatments have been effective. They wonder whether their loved ones will be able to stay sober.

Friends and family members of recovering addicts thus experience a lot of uncertainty. They can’t really make their loved ones do anything, either, which can make them even more anxious and worried.

That’s why it’s important for friends and family members to seek treatment, not just addicts. Treatment such as therapy can help people develop coping strategies for dealing with the addicts and former addicts in their lives.

This therapy could remind loved ones that people going through rehab have to focus on themselves. This focus can help them address their addictions and treat them. This focus might mean that people in rehab might not stay in constant contact with their loved ones.

Therapists could reassure people not to take this personally. They could remind people that this isn’t a sign that the recovering people don’t care. It’s just an indicator that the recovering addicts are working on their sobriety, that they have a new focus.

This focus is temporary, or it should be. That’s because people in rehab and recovering addicts often receive therapy too. This therapy often involves learning ways to repair the relationships in their lives. Addiction could’ve caused such damage in the first place. But while addiction can cause great damage, therapy and other treatment can help to repair it.