support group

tonight i had a class with my mr at his drug rehab. facility.  the class is called families in recovery and this is my second class.  it's kinda weird.  we talk about drugs.  we learn about drugs.  the weird part is at least half of the participants are druggies... so, i just think that's weird. 
but anyway, the point of the class is to prove that it's not just the addict that needs recovery, it's the whole family.  tonight was alright.  we didn't dig as deep into drugs as last class (or it seems next class will be), but we spent a lot of the time talking about trust. 
trust.  breaking trust.  regaining trust.  etc.
after a nice discussion we watched a movie about family recovery.  there are four stages. 

1. the starting of abstinence.
2. the beginning of recovery (different than the abstinence)
3. relapsing.
4. changing the life from a lie to the truth.

it's interesting to learn about recovery.  these four stages apply to the whole family.  i thought the most interesting part of the lesson was stage 3.  when the addict relapses, the family relapses too.  that's why it's important for the family to go through recovery too. 
if YOU'RE struggling with living with an addict, i encourage you to find a path to recovery.  whether the struggle is your spouse, your child, your brother, your niece, your friend or co-worker even!  whoever it may be... recovery needs to happen.  i encourage you to find an al-anon meeting of some sort to attend.  also would like to maybe be the first to encourage you to actually visit an open AA meeting.  it's amazing how eye-opening those meetings are!  they can really help you start your recovery process. 
al-anon is also helpful.  i'll post on my experience with al-anon later...  in the meantime, find a meeting and attend.  really.  do it.