If you are already working a 12-Step program, but you are still struggling to address your loved one’s addiction and take care of yourself around this issue, you very well may need a family recovery program in order to do so.

There are several things to keep in mind here:

The 12-Step program that supported your recovery is designed solely to support your own individual recovery, not the recovery of a loved one. These programs may use an almost identical process, but they use them for very different purposes.

Also, you will not necessarily find the support of others who can help you face someone else’s addiction in your first recovery program. You will find them in a family recovery program, whether that’s a 12-Step family recovery program or something else.

It is easy for someone who has already recovered from their own addiction to think they can help their loved one recover too. But your loved one may not be willing to hear anything about recovery from you.

There might be too many other emotional ties in the mix to make them open to hearing it from you. They may need to hear it from someone else. Your example of recovery may be all you are able to effectively offer, at least in the beginning.

This might be difficult to accept, and you may need your own support around that, support you will find in a family recovery program.

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