How to Recover When Your Partner Gets Sober

by wtsadmin

For example, if you both used to spend every weekend drinking and watching football, the sober version of you may prefer a hiking trip with your partner. Don’t be surprised if many of the activities you enjoyed before were simply placeholders enabling you to drink or use drugs. The question of, “can you have PTSD and adjustment disorder at the same time” is an interesting one.

• The goal of recovery is to maintain sobriety, grow, and move forward daily.
• Marriages can survive sobriety—and not just survive, but thrive.
• If you’re struggling with active addiction, it’s important to remember that you aren’t alone.
• Someone to sit next to on the couch when I was numb and out of things to say.
• The spouse is now “out of a job” of watching, enabling, and checking up on the addict and taking over his or her responsibilities.

Addiction Treatment Programs

Go on dates, be completely honest with one another, and try to treat the marriage as a new relationship. Understand that rebuilding your marriage will be a long and challenging process, and keep your expectations reasonable. If addiction https://ecosoberhouse.com/ has impacted your marriage, you may be wondering if the only solution is to separate from your spouse. With work, determination and love, you and your spouse may be able to recover and restore your marriage after addiction.

Love Yourself First

The clear lines of communication spouses established during those early years of sobriety have borne fruit. When conflict comes up, both partners are able to express themselves clearly and concisely and come to a resolution. There is also a greater understanding of a partner’s trigger situations, and couples know how to avoid them. Couples may also be taking the necessary steps to make sure their marriage stays healthy. That could include individual or couples counseling when necessary for relationship tune-ups, or checking in regularly with their support groups. An outpatient program can be especially helpful as couples navigate their relationship during this newfound phase of sobriety.

The Path to Recovery: Hard but Worth It

Whether one or both of you struggle with a substance use problem, there is hope. Here are a few strategies to consider as you set out to rebuild your marriage after the devastation of addiction. Sarah Allen Benton, M.S., LMHC., LPC, is a licensed mental health counselor and author of Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic.

Substance Use Treatment

The difference is that they have 100% control over whether they stay sober and we have none. Worse still, there’s no guarantee of sobriety beyond today. The pitfalls for the affected other (people affected by a loved one’s drinking or drugging) are many. Some of us try to convince ourselves that things will be fine now that our loved one is sober. We want to believe that sobriety is once and for all.

If the person with SUD suddenly isn’t dependent upon their partner to take care of them, this can cause a disruption in the relationship as well. The supportive partner may want to be needed, and feel unhappy, lost, or confused with the new relationship dynamic. Recovery can also sometimes uncover underlying mental health conditions that have contributed to substance use disorder. For example, up to half of people with substance use disorder have also experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

With hard work, patience, and love (for yourself and others), reconnecting with the people you care about most and building new, stronger relationships is totally possible. Our recovering loved ones have the same fear we do – that they will return to using/drinking. The person has a hard time fending off urges to re-indulge in substance abuse daily. There is anxiety that the person with the substance use disorder used to cover and avoid a slip.

Loss of trust

Someone who’s stress levels weren’t spiked by chaos, culture clashes, and kamikaze drivers. It was the most emotionally challenging thing I’d ever taken on and it sucked the life out of me. If you’re a woman, you can drink for free pretty much any night of the week if you want. Of course, we still had to pay for my husband’s drinks, but that’s the rub.

Overcoming Challenges of Alcoholism and Marriage: Healing Trust with Soberlink

They help you understand one another better and build stronger bonds. Al-Anon, for those reading who don’t know, is a companion organization to Alcoholics Anonymous, a 12-step program for those who love an addict or alcoholic in or marriage changes after sobriety out of recovery. But you don’t need personal experience with Al-Anon to have been in the situation you’ve described. I perceived him as an accomplished executive with a relational leadership style appreciated by his colleagues.

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