Addiction is a complex, devastating matter that requires special care in order to treat. More and more people are coming into an understanding that addiction is a disease rather than a character flaw and are gaining more understanding for how hard it is to defeat. There are a number of methods that are useful for beating addiction as well as other mental disorders, one of these being relationships. The relationships that an addict has in their lives can have a major impact on their recovery for better or worse. Once an addict has begun their journey of recovery, it is imperative that they make careful relationship choices to ensure the survival of their recovery.
Healthy relationships are a major key to addiction recovery. When an addict is blessed with family and lifelong friends who have good mental health, it is going to make their journey of recovery much easier and smoother. Some addicts do not have healthy relationships in their lives or in their pasts, and will have to take the initiative of finding and building healthy relationships for themselves. The reason this is so important is that everyone has a need to reach out for help in hard times. This is characteristic of mentally healthy people and mentally unhealthy people. When an addict reaches out to their healthy relationships for support, they are met with empathy, love, sound advice and availability.
On the other hand, if an addict has a support system of mentally unhealthy people and they do not find a better support system to belong to, their recovery is going to be much more difficult. Most cases of addiction are tied to relationship problems, particularly within the family unit. Often, if one person in the family is addicted, others are addicted and / or mentally unhealthy as well. When an addict reaches out for help by returning to these dysfunctional support systems, they will end up worse off than they were before and will be much more likely to relapse. It is hard for everyone to walk away from what they know, but addicts must be prepared to do what is best for themselves.