Group offers way to understand struggles with addiction
The group is free and offers a way for families to help understand what their loved ones are going through in their struggles with addiction. It also helps family members who are having trouble coping with having a loved one in treatment and active addiction.
Personal and Family Counselling Services will offer a Drug and Alcohol Education and Support Group on the first and third Monday of every month. The group has been available for family members of those in recovery at area treatment centers and sober living houses but is now open to members of the public.
The group is free and offers a way for families to help understand what their loved ones are going through in their struggles with addiction. It also helps family members who are having trouble coping with having a loved one in treatment and active addiction. It is now open to the public because many people don’t understand how a loved one’s addiction can affect them.
“I get many question like, ‘Why can’t they just stop?’” Harbor House manager Erin Peltz said. “Family members attend in order to become more aware of addiction and why their loved one can’t stop.”
OhioGuidestones and PFCS run Harbor House Women’s Residential Treatment Center in New Philadelphia. The center works to help those with substance-abuse disorder change negative coping skills into positive ones.
Peltz said a big obstacle for those recovering from addiction can be attitudes in the family and community. Some family members think of addiction as a character defect instead of a disease. Many feel the shame and stigma attached to the disease and hold untrue biases.
“In the beginning it starts out as a choice to drink or to use a substance,” Peltz said. “But it progresses to a disease.”
The main focus of the group is how addiction affects the family as few people realize how far it spreads. Peltz compared it to diabetes, which doesn’t just affect one organ but sickens the whole body.
“Addiction doesn’t just affect one individual,” Peltz said. “It spreads through the whole family.”
There are many roles family members can fill. One of the most destructive can be that of the enabler. Some people are unsure how to detach with love and set healthy boundaries, so they may find themselves feeding their loved one’s disease rather than helping to treat it.
Other roles can include the mascot, who feels overlooked because of the attention given to the addict, so they try to be perfect, get good grades and find success to get attention.
Another is the comic, who is similar but uses humor to get attention.
Peltz said it is normal to see addiction in several individuals in a family, which can hinder recovery.
Every addict knows they must change their behavior and friends, but often family members don’t see how their own actions can make it hard for loved ones to get clean. It is just as important for families to change their destructive habits as it is for the addicts.
Peltz didn’t know statistics off the top of her head but admits there is a lot of relapse and some of the same people come into the house multiple times before they find success. She knows the recovery rate is small but pointed out how beautiful it is to see someone recover.
“Seeing people get their children back,” she said, “that’s why we do what we do.”
The group isn’t child-friendly, but children can be a focus of recovery and prevention. Children raised by alcoholics and addicts can have trouble understanding their role models aren’t who they should emulate.
“Children grow up protecting their parents and not learning behaviors are negative,” Peltz said. “And it becomes normalized.”
Several groups in the area can help with aftercare for those who spend time at a residential treatment center. New Beginnings, Celebrate Recovery and Life Recovery are all programs to help those struggling with addiction.
Peltz also pointed to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at St. John’s Church in Dover on Mondays at 8 p.m. as great for families because there is an Al-Anon meeting down the hall.
This allows both addicts and family to attend a support meeting and get together after to discuss what they’ve learned.
While Peltz said community attitudes toward addiction have improved over the past few years, she still thinks more needs to be done. Tuscarawas County still sees many overdose deaths, but the rate declined in 2018 to its lowest level in four years. Coroner Dr. Jeff Cameron reported there were eight deaths last year compared to a record-high 22 in 2017.
Personal and Family Counselling Services is located at 1433 Fifth St. NW in New Philadelphia.
Peltz suggested anyone interested in attending call her at 330-343-2778 and select 1 and then extension 213. She also can be emailed at epeltz@pfcs1.org.