When you struggle with addiction, all of your relationships are impacted. This includes those relationships most precious to you: your connection with your children. While it is normal to want to reach out and connect with your children directly, it is important to first seek treatment, even if you have tried treatment before. Through addiction treatment, reclaiming your relationships with your children is possible. As you heal, you will learn how you can improve your own life, your communication, and your connection to others. Therefore, you will learn how to reconnect with your children in a manner that is healthy for both them and you.
Impact of Addiction on Children
As a parent, your actions and behaviors have a lasting impact on your children. When you are struggling with addiction, your choices and behaviors are primarily driven by your physical and emotional dependence on a substance. Addiction often creates impaired attachment and emotional distress for children. As a result, your choices can cause challenges for your children. Fortunately, you can heal your relationship with your children and help them heal from the wounds of addiction as well.
Impaired Attachment
One of the challenges that children in a house where addiction is present tend to have is impaired attachment. The family remains the primary attachment point for children. This means that, as their mother, your children’s attachment to you affects how your children will connect with others.
When you are struggling with addiction, it is challenging to have true relationships with others. This is due to the changes that occur in the brain that prioritize substance use over emotional attachments. Consequently, your children will have issues with their emotional attachment to you, which can have lasting impacts on them.
Emotional Distress
When you are struggling with addiction, your life begins to revolve around obtaining and using substances. You likely find yourself thinking about it, planning for it, and making sacrifices to ensure that it happens. This means that your life is not focused on how you are impacting others around you or yourself. It is important to remember that this is part of the disease of addiction and that it is not your fault. Rather, it is a reaction that comes from a rewired brain.
However, when your focus is not on how you are impacting others, it causes distress. This is especially true for children. Children have many needs and rely on their caregivers to meet these needs. Some of these needs are physical like food or shelter. However, other needs are emotional. These may look like talking about their day, helping them process challenges, and making sure they are heard and seen. When these needs are not met, children experience distress. Therefore, addiction often causes distress for children.
Reclaiming Your Relationship With Your Children
Knowing that your addiction is impacting your children is very difficult and can bring up deep negative emotions. However, knowing that they are impacted can also play a role in your desire to change. You can take steps that help you in reclaiming your relationships with your children. For you to do so, you will need to take serious steps toward healing your addiction through treatment and learning tools that will help you build a new and stronger bond with your children.
Healing You First
Addiction is a treatable disease. Effective treatment at New Creation Recovery includes detox, which helps you to heal physically. However, it also includes psychotherapy and other therapeutic modalities that help you to change your life for the better. Taking these steps to get help for addiction is necessary for healing your relationships with your children.
When you heal first, you regain your capacity for close, healthy relationships. This is because your mind and body transform in treatment. You learn to share, listen, and cultivate tools to manage cravings in recovery. As a result, you can have true and effective relationships after treatment. However, without treatment, your mind and body are not in a place where you can work through challenges in your relationships and create new and healthy bonds with your children.
Getting Support in Reclaiming Your Relationship
When you are struggling with addiction and a lack of healthy relationships, it is normal to feel downtrodden. The road to recovery can feel daunting and impossible. However, with support, you can move forward. Treatment at New Creation Recovery offers you support on the path to reclaiming your relationships with your children. You can receive guidance through difficult times, learning how you can make changes that truly make a difference in your life. In addition, this support goes beyond you – it helps you to build healthy and positive relationships with your children, regardless of their age or the challenges that you have gone through.
If you are a woman struggling with addiction, it is normal and common to have difficult relationships with your children. You likely know that your addiction has impacted these relationships. At New Creation Recovery, we can help. We offer treatment specifically for women working through addiction issues and can help you rebuild your life and your relationships. You do not have to go forward alone. We believe that treatment is essential in making true changes that help you effectively recover from addiction and reclaim your relationships. To learn more about our treatment programs, and how we can help you to take steps toward a new and better life, call us today at (877) 868-5730.
