How Family Systems Wellness Help Manage Addiction
- Jul 16, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 24
Understanding how addiction impacts the entire family is the crucial first step toward lasting recovery. We know precisely how to help your family navigate this chronic disorder: by applying the Family Systems approach, which establishes each member's vital role in combating the challenges of addiction and fostering a powerful, united front.
What is the foundational belief of the family systems theory used in addiction recovery?
The core assumption of family systems theory is that a family is best understood as one complete, deeply-connected system. Each member has a known purpose or function, and focusing on this system, including relationships, communication, accountability, and boundaries, is essential for holistic healing and robust recovery.
We have compiled a complete, in-depth explanation of how improving your Family Systems Wellness strengthens your support network, provides the strength needed to obtain and maintain sobriety, and details the other five dimensions of our comprehensive holistic treatment approach. Keep reading to learn how to transform your family dynamics and achieve a life of recovery.
Addiction is a chronic disorder that affects the entire family. To manage symptoms together, the whole family must better understand the disorder. Chateau Recovery uses a family systems approach to establish each family member's role in combating the challenges of addiction.
Many people do not realize how family affects your mental health, well-being, and addiction recovery. Family systems theory helps you understand how you function and interact with your family.
Understanding your family dynamics is essential to healing from the disease of addiction. At Chateau Recovery, we can help you learn how your family can support your recovery while also helping family members better understand their roles.
Six Dimensions of Wellness
One of our focuses as Chateau Recovery is offering clients a holistic approach to treatment. A holistic approach treats the whole person. We treat holistically through our six dimensions of wellness. These dimensions look at complicated underlying issues that fuel problematic behaviors, so we can help you identify goals, skills, and motivators and overcome personal challenges.
Our Six Dimensions of Wellness include the following:
Daily Wellness: This type of wellness is about practicing healthy habits every day to improve your physical and mental health.
You will practice daily wellness by maintaining jobs, furthering your education, creating daily routines, being financially responsible, prioritizing health and self-care, creating a healthy living environment, and finding ways to stay motivated.
Relationship Wellness: This type of wellness requires you to build healthy, nurturing, and supportive relationships. Fostering genuine connections with others is essential for optimal mental health and well-being.
Relationship wellness offers you positive relationships, improves your social intelligence, and impacts how you see others. This focus carries into your relationships with sponsors, mentors, and connections you make in peer support groups.
Family Systems Wellness: Family systems theory assumes that a family is understood best by examining the family as one complete system. This system is a complex, deeply-connected changing collection of parts, subsystems, and family members, where each member has a known purpose or function.
A healthy family system will include healthy relationships, communication, accountability, and boundaries. Healthy family systems can be pillars of support when it comes to mental health and addiction recovery.
Mental and Emotional Wellness: When you are emotionally healthy, you can effectively control your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and are equipped with the tools to cope with life’s challenges in an emotionally healthy way. This means that you are also resilient, able to feel comfortable with yourself, and have solid relationships with others.
Physical Wellness: This type of wellness involves doing what you can to help strengthen and care for your body. Improving physical wellness benefits all areas of your life and is less about being physically fit and more about feeling good about yourself and your body. Ultimately, the healthier your body is, the healthier your mind and spirit will be.
Spiritual Wellness: This last dimension of wellness involves achieving harmony with your surroundings and finding balance. Achieving spiritual wellness requires you to find a balance between taking care of yourself and your needs and being able to care for others.
You can achieve spiritual wellness by practicing mindfulness and gratitude, finding purpose, accepting challenges, showing empathy to those in need, and maintaining a sense of hope throughout your life despite any challenging circumstances.
Understanding these dimensions is invaluable to healing from substance use disorder (SUD), and all six dimensions are crucial to achieving a life of recovery.
The Third Dimension of Wellness: Family Systems Wellness
As mentioned, family systems theory assumes a family is understood best by examining the family as a whole system. Family systems include immediate and extended family members; the “wellness” relates to how you deal with those relationships.
Focusing on family systems wellness requires you to focus on your ability to communicate with your family, create healthy boundaries, and create independent bonds. This third dimension of wellness is somewhat similar to relationship wellness; however, relationships within families are quite different than other relationships.
Family systems wellness help manage addiction by addressing how addiction impacts these core family connections. Family systems wellness focuses on the relationships with your spouse, parents, extended family members, and children. If you have a child, addiction will affect your ability to parent. If you are a spouse, your marriage will be affected. It can be easy to fail to see how the family suffers from one person’s struggle with addiction.
Healthy family relationships can make or break recovery. By improving your family relationships, you can strengthen your support network and build stronger connections and communication within the family system. Access to proper resources for families dealing with a loved one's mental health issues or SUD is also crucial.
Understanding the Benefits of Family Systems Wellness Help Manage Addiction
In addition to our belief in these Six Dimensions of Wellness, which include family systems wellness, research also indicates the benefits of family involvement in addiction treatment. According to the 2018 article “Family-Focused Practices in Addictions:
A Scoping Review Protocol,” published in BMJ Open, “Family involvement in treatment” reduces harm and can also “Improve treatment entry, treatment completion, and treatment outcomes for the individual coping with an addiction.” The article also examines various family interventions and states that family members can be involved in your recovery by:
Learning more about addiction, treatment, and recovery
Participating in the recovery process
Attending family therapy sessions or support groups with you
Supporting family members in a loving, compassionate, and non-judgmental way
If done in such a manner, family support can offer you the strength needed to obtain and maintain sobriety.
Frequently Asked Questions:
• What are the Six Dimensions of Wellness that Chateau Recovery focuses on?
The Six Dimensions of Wellness are Daily Wellness, Relationship Wellness, Family Systems Wellness, Mental and Emotional Wellness, Physical Wellness, and Spiritual Wellness.
• How is the Family Systems Wellness dimension different from Relationship Wellness?
While similar, Family Systems Wellness focuses specifically on the unique relationships within a family—including spouses, parents, extended family, and children—whereas Relationship Wellness covers building healthy, nurturing, and supportive relationships in general.
• Why is understanding your family dynamics essential when healing from addiction?
Understanding your family dynamics is essential because addiction is a chronic disorder that affects the entire family, and healthy family relationships can either make or break a person's recovery.
• How can family members be involved in a loved one's recovery process?
Family members can be involved in recovery by learning more about addiction, treatment, and recovery, participating in the recovery process, attending family therapy sessions or support groups, and supporting their loved one in a loving, compassionate, and non-judgmental way.
• What is the purpose of a holistic approach to addiction treatment?
A holistic approach treats the whole person by looking at complicated underlying issues that fuel problematic behaviors. It helps the individual identify goals, skills, and motivators to overcome personal challenges across all six dimensions of wellness.
The information you've read about the Six Dimensions of Wellness and the power of the Family Systems Wellness approach is just the beginning of our journey together. We understand that taking the first step toward recovery for yourself or a loved one is a profoundly significant moment. At Chateau Health and Wellness, we are committed to our shared success, providing the holistic, tailored support you need to address these complex challenges. If you are ready to learn how we can help your entire family system heal and build a life of lasting recovery, we are here to answer your questions and guide you. Call us confidentially today at (435) 222-5225—let's start building your recovery, together.
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About The Author
Ben Pearson, LCSW - Clinical Director
With 19 years of experience, Ben Pearson specializes in adolescent and family therapy, de-escalation, and high-risk interventions. As a former Clinical Director of an intensive outpatient program, he played a key role in clinical interventions and group therapy. With 15+ years in wilderness treatment and over a decade as a clinician, Ben has helped countless individuals and families navigate mental health and recovery challenges.
