Our aim is to address substance abuse issues that impact individuals and families. Through our ongoing therapy support, we can help you rebuild relationships during recovery. Everyone is impacted differently in a marriage affected by addiction, especially for couples with children. The nature of the disease of substance use disorder causes people suffering from addiction to behave in ways that prioritize substance misuse above all else, including those they love. Unfortunately, some actions and damage cannot be repaired even with intense therapy and counseling. In cases of physical, emotional, and financial abuse, the spouse of someone with substance use disorder feels betrayed and unable to return to the relationship for their own health and safety.
- This can throw a wrench into the recovery works, especially when you consider research indicating that rates of substance abuse are higher among divorced people than they are among married people.
- Your spouse will participate in individual and group therapy sessions during their treatment.
- Most often, though, a relationship can’t survive, or at least function well, during addiction.
- Many factors impact the relationship between marital instability and alcohol consumption.
- While addiction is a significant factor, financial strain tends to top the list of reasons why couples decide to call it quits.
Defining Addiction for Spouses and Partners
She typically works with people interested in taking a holistic approach to treating their addictions. This will include healthy eating, movement, meditation, mindfulness and spirituality. Outside of work, she’s a devotee of Krishna, and her friends call her Karunya Shakti, which means compassionate energy. She enjoys singing and dancing in kirtan and reading ancient Vedic literature like the Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam. If she weren’t so damn good at her job, she says she would probably be an electrical engineer.
- Patients visit the treatment center for individual and group therapy sessions, medication management, and life skills education for ten or more hours each week.
- Among reasons for ending a marriage, addiction ranks as the third most common for women and the eighth for men.
- Many spouses who abuse substances will go to great lengths to buy their substance of choice, sometimes spending money set aside for a necessary expense.
- Specializing in diverse mental health challenges, including depression, addiction, and trauma, Christy embraces a person-centered approach.
- While some individuals may succumb to recreational drugs, others may find themselves addicted and abusing drugs their physician legally prescribed them.
The non-addict partner
In the United States, roughly 3% of marriages that end in divorce cite substance abuse as the primary cause. Around 6% of divorces list addiction as a reason behind the separation. Family members develop unhealthy coping mechanisms when faced with the chaos that is common in a home where a parent is addicted. A spouse and children of an addicted individual often have extra duties at home to compensate for the spouse or parent’s neglect of responsibilities.
Find a Support System
This kind of behavior can become a catalyst for divorce as loved ones find it increasingly hard to tolerate the chaos addiction brings into a household. Through awareness, effective support systems, and comprehensive therapeutic interventions, families can find pathways to healing and strength. Partners of individuals struggling with addiction often grapple with severe emotional and psychological stress. The continuous cycle of relapses, broken promises, and emotional abuse erodes the emotional connection and trust in the relationship. The high-profile marriage of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown was fraught with public battles and emotional upheavals, underscoring the debilitating emotional impact of addiction on marriages.
You can expect missed milestones, lies, obfuscations, and disappointments. When someone in the family is misusing alcohol, it impacts the entire family system. Similarly, in romantic relationships, dangerous drinking behaviors negatively impact relationship quality. A study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) finds that a successful relationship (among college students) can be a catalyst for change. Data from the study offer hope that a good relationship can provide incentives to seek treatment. Additionally, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ raising awareness can lead to policy changes, ensuring better access to mental health services, substance abuse programs, and family support mechanisms.
- Megan’s therapeutic approach is multifaceted, drawing from narrative, feminist, and existential therapy modalities.
- Increased stress between spouses and between parents and their children is commonplace.
- Through awareness, effective support systems, and comprehensive therapeutic interventions, families can find pathways to healing and strength.
- Drinking alcohol and the resulting impact on a relationship and family life commonly feature as examples of such behaviour.
- Seeking treatment may provide your family with a way to avoid divorce.
How Can I Stop My Spouse’s Substance Abuse?
As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge. However, these are extreme cases, and the reality is, particularly as it is such a common feature in marriage breakdown, alcohol is highly unlikely to impact of the division of the assets. Change is hard, and we’ve all been through the mill in the past few years. It might be tempting to put off getting help for yourself or your spouse, hoping for the best. You might make excuses, minimize problems, and think about Oxford House how to improve things.
Does alcohol impact the outcome of divorce?
Whether that addiction is to gambling, alcohol, or drugs, addiction and divorce is a serious matter. Divorce cases often deal with “money issues” as divorce rates after sobriety the primary reason for marriage termination. Many spouses who abuse substances will go to great lengths to buy their substance of choice, sometimes spending money set aside for a necessary expense. It is also not uncommon for an addicted spouse to go into debt or sell possessions to get more money. For individuals struggling with addiction to alcohol and drugs, Harris House helps people achieve sobriety and become healthy and productive individuals.