Once a family gets a loved one into a drug rehab center, I'm sure they breathe a huge sigh of relief. They probably have the first real night of sleep they have had for months as they know first the first time in many many nights their addicted family member is not in danger and not using. It is a period of high hopes for change and the possibility of a new direction. It is all up to the client and the rehab…..Right?
No, the family has a vital role to the outcome in the rehab center. Just as the intervention had a plan, focus and a goal, so does the family's role in the actual rehab treatment. The family can and should play a vital role in helping to maintain the focus of the client at the rehab center on the target at hand. All conversations and communications in the first month must have the primary purpose of helping the client stay on target and help them to remain at the center to learn the new skills to allow them to move past addiction. The family is not there to advocate for the client, or to pull strings to make the clients stay easier. If it were easy to make the changes for stopping using drugs and alcohol, they would have changed before going to rehab. Making it easy, most likely means change will be slower or will not happen at all.
Also remember that just because a client has been in a rehab center for one or two weeks does not mean that patterns of lying and manipulation that have been used for the past several years will suddenly stop overnight. Your loved one will continue to lie and manipulate for a significant period of time. I'm not saying to totally distrust the person, just only believe what you can prove yourself. If fact, this is one of the reasons that 30 day stay ot a rehab center are usually unsuccessful. It take longer than 30 days to break negative patterns such as lying.
The focus of the family should be soley on getting the client to stay as long as possible at the rehab center up to several months. The longer the client stays clean, the greater the chance they will continue to stay clean. It is most definately not over after the intervention.
