How Can I Promote Well Being This Summer After My Child Graduates Treatment?

It’s a familiar feeling of treachery for most parents school is out. Summer is upon them. Their kids are left with nothing to do. What kind of trouble will they get into? How much will parents have to worry when they know their kids aren’t in school 8 hours or more a day? When children become adults, parents have to worry less. Most often their children have jobs which keep them occupied and well scheduled for the rest of the day. Some parents don’t have the luxury of relying on a job or a schedule to keep their concerns at bay. Many parents are facing a different kind of summer stress because their adult child is addicted to drugs and alcohol. As summer approaches, their child hasn’t been in school, but they have been in treatment for many months. Now that they are graduating and summer is here, parents find that old familiar fear returning.

Parents can help their adult children find motivation to practice all of the tools and techniques they learned for staying sober after they graduate treatment. Mental can be a family effort , shared by everybody. Sobriety and recovery might belong to the addicted adult child, but recovery is a family effort. Addiction is often referred to as a family disease. Everyone in an addict’s life is affected by the addict’s addiction. When the addict chooses to recover, everyone gets a chance at recovery.

Summertime is a great time to encourage the family to embrace the recovery lifestyle. The truth is, the recovery lifestyle is no different from a normal lifestyle, except there are precautions taken for relapse prevention. Summer is usually a season for living it up, making memories, and having adventures. That is what early recovery is all about! Instead of feeling awkward with nothing to do and feeling like recovery is a boring life, sobriety in the summertime helps your adult child realize recovery is really worth it. Here are some ideas:

• Sightseeing: Have you ever played tourist in your own town? It can be fun to go sightseeing and get to know more about what makes your town so special. Returning home can be triggering because it is full of old routines and behaviors. Help your child make home anew by discovering new parts about it together.

• Live Music: Most live music events will be accompanied by a bar or a beer garden. If your child is still unsteady in their recovery, it might be difficult to be around alcohol. However, learning to manage situations where alcohol is present and still have a lot of fun is a transformative experience in recovery.

• Cooking: Summer is a season full of delicious fruits and vegetables. Go to local farmer’s markets for shopping instead of grocery stores where there are aisles full of alcohol. Get to know local providers and help your child expand their idea of community. Explore cooking with fresh ingredients. Cooking is an important part of recovery as maintaining balanced diet and nutrition is key.

Design For Change is showing clients how to change their lives one step at a time. If you are a parent and your adult child is struggling with addiction, there is help available. We offer family therapy and parenting groups so you and your whole family can find freedom in recovery. For information on our residential treatment programs and full continuum of care, call us today: (877) 267-3646