MORE FOR THE FAMILY?

THAT IS THE QUESTION that is asked from time to time. It is a good question. For it recognizes the fact that, when one member of a family has an alcohol or drug problem, the whole family is affected. The sickness is not a private affair. By the same token, recovery cannot be a private affair either. The family should be included in the treatment.

They should be helped in several directions.

The family, like the patient, should learn the nature of addiction. They should know what it does to a person physically, mentally, and socially. Such knowledge can give them a whole fresh understanding of why things have been the way they were. Understanding goes a long way in healing relationships.

Second, the family should be helped to understand their own emotions. They have responded with anxiety and anger mingled with compassion and love. Often they have felt guilty about their own feelings and behaviour. The family needs help in recognizing that their emotional responses were not unnatural or unexpected. Not only the person who has the illness but the family, particularly the spouse, should be honest in revealing these emotions, discussing them, and so coming closer to one another in understanding. The great word is "communication".

The Basic Orientation to Addiction course that Donwood ran each week is designed to give the family some help in these directions. Those who have taken the course say that it has been of real assistance. To a lesser degree our weekly Family Day gives some support. Al-anon and Al-ateen are also greatly helpful.

More important, though, is the recognition that recovery is a family affair. What is done in Donwood can only be a small beginning. The real work has to be done, in patience, good will, and love, within the family itself.

DR. GEORGE BIRTCH

DON SAYS:

This article, to me, shows the inner power and love, and insight of this extraordinary man. His ability to come to a very common sense approach is remarkable. Since I have not been in contact with the Donwood Institute for many years now, I do not know what kind of programmes they present now. In the years I had contact, the work done by the staff and doctors was wonderful.