How to Prepare Your Kids When You Go to Rehab
If you’re heading to rehab, you’re far from alone. In 2019, some 18.5 million Americans struggled with a substance use disorder. Of those, more than 11% went to substance use treatment services. Hundreds of thousands of American go to drug treatment every single year. Yet, most of us still don’t know how to talk about, how to share it with family, or how to share it in a positive way.
Yet, drug addiction is a mental health disorder. Getting treatment for drug and alcohol addiction is an achievement, not something to be ashamed of.
If you have kids, it’s important to talk about addiction, to talk about rehab, and to prepare them for you leaving, and for you coming back. This is important, because addiction impacts your kids, likely more permanently than it affects you. Taking the steps to be honest, communicative, and helpful gives you the first step towards repairing your relationship and building your kids back up.
Take Time to Learn
If you have time, it’s always a good idea to take it. The more you know about addiction and the more vocabulary you have around addiction, the more easily you can communicate about it in a meaningful way. That may involve learning together. For example, taking your kids to Al-Anon or AlaTeen can be a great way to learn about addiction. You might also want to read a few articles about how addiction works and why, so you’re better equipped to answer the questions your kids will certainly ask. If you’ve already done this, you can always skip – but the more you know, the more prepared you are to have a real discussion.
Telling Your Kids The Truth
No matter what age your kids are, it’s important to tell them the truth. How much that involves will depend on age. But, kids are always perceptive. Even if you think you’ve done a good job of hiding you have a problem, they know. They might not know what it is or why, but they know. Be honest with them, talk to them about choices, about the fact that addiction is a disorder, and about the fact that it’s a mental health problem.
Of course, it’s also a good idea to use factors like age, your own behavior, where you use, how much your kids are likely to know, whether or not your kids use themselves, how much they know about substances, etc., to guide your discussion.
For example, starting with phrases like, “I have a problem”, or “I’ve been sick”, are easy enough. From there, you’ll have to follow up with:
- What happened, “I got sick, I am addicted, I have a problem, I have trouble with X substance”
- Why? “I made choices that got out of control, I stopped having control over my own actions, Addiction is complicated and there are reasons – some of them are my fault, some aren’t”
- What are you going to do about it? “I’m going to work hard to get better and that means asking other people for help”
- What would you like to change? “When I get back, I’ll work hard to resolve X and Y problems, I’ll work hard to stay clean”
- This is not your fault: “none of this is your fault, and none of this will ever be your fault”
- “I made mistakes and they have hurt all of us, I want to change and I want things to be better”
Validating Your Children’s Emotions
Being told that your loved one has a problem is difficult news. That’s even more true when that person is someone you look up to. Kids will be hurt, even if it’s just by the thought of you going away. Reacting with kindness, patience, understanding, and humility are key.
The language used in the examples is obviously geared towards younger children. If you have a pre-teen or a teen, you’ll want to do more research and use more adult language. You can also be very direct. Children can take it.
- “I’ve been using heroin for the last 5 years. I have a dependency known as an addiction. If you’d like we can learn about that together. The important thing is, I know how this negatively affects me and how I interact with you, with the world around me. I want to quit. I need to ask for help for that and that means going to treatment.
- “My addiction has affected my ability to be a good parent. I am so sorry.
It’s important to express ownership of your disorder, ownership of your decisions, and recognition that your substance use disorder has likely hurt your relationship. Why? Exposure to early childhood trauma, like a parent struggling with an addiction, can permanently harm your kids development. Kids raised in these types of environments are highly likely to blame themselves when parents do things wrong or withdraw from them. It’s crucial to make it as clear as possible that this is your problem and your responsibility to move past it. Without that honest, you will always struggle to rebuild your relationship with them.
- Talk about addiction as a disorder. Reinforce that it’s not anyone’s fault but that you have to take responsibility for it, because your choices made you more vulnerable to it. You can use an analogy if your kids are very young. For example: “you walk by the coffee table and your coat catches a glass. It falls and breaks. You didn’t do it on purpose, but you still did it. You should take responsibility and tell an adult to get help cleaning it up”.
- Talk about how your kids can see you, visit you, or when you’ll be back.
And, of course, talking to your children should be done in private, when they don’t have responsibilities, and when they have time to ask questions and talk. Treat your child in a mature and respectful fashion, because chances are, they’ll understand a lot more than you think.
Discuss Rehab Openly
It’s important to talk to your kids about what’s actually happening while you’re gone. You want to openly commit to change in front of them. That means:
- Discussing where you’ll be
- Going over the program with them
- Discussing who is caring for them
- Discussing when you’ll be back
- Creating follow-up plans to attend group therapy and ongoing treatment when you get back. Al-Anon, Because I Love You, SMART Recovery, and other groups all offer good family support.
In generally, you want to answer any questions they might have. You might not know all the answers, but you can be honest about that.
Eventually, it’s also a good idea to ask your kids if they’d be interested in attending family therapy with you when you get back. Or, in some cases, visiting you to go to therapy during treatment. That may be important, especially if the substance use disorder has been ongoing, if it’s greatly affected your relationship, or if it resulted in you blacking out, becoming aggressive, or withdrawing from your kids. Substance abuse is harmful to children and to relationships and seeking out family therapy together can help you to break those patterns of negative behavior and mistrust and rebuild new, positive behaviors.
Eventually, seeking out treatment is a thing that you do for yourself and for your family. You likely have complex motivation for wanting treatment. Your kids might not be old enough to understand that. But, chances are, no matter how young, they’ll get the gist of it. Being honest, answering questions, and deciding what to say based on what kids ask can be a good rule of thumb.
Good luck with your conversation and good luck with rehab.
If you have any questions about going into rehab and how to discuss it with your children, contact us today to speak in complete confidence with one of our experienced and caring addiction treatment team.
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