David’s Talk #3 Addiction in the Family
David's TalkA series of talks on addiction treatment, recovery, solutions and more.
Talk #3 Addiction in the Family, it’s all about recovery
David Pavlus is the founder and former Executive Director of Last Door Recovery Society, with over 35 years of addiction treatment experience. David recently celebrated 36 years in recovery, these are his legacy talks, a series on addiction treatment and recovery.
What to do when you have addiction in the family?
Taking care of your self first is key, addiction is a family disease.
Being a family with an addict in recovery, in the beginning, is a bit of an identity crisis for a family. With over 35 years of experience in the addiction treatment industry David has seen many families tell their friends, “oh, our son? Or He’s in school in Connecticut.”
There still is so much stigma for addiction and the recovery process.
The shame, the guilt, the pain, the anger, the insanity.
For people in recovery, David remembers when he was going to rent an apartment and when he meets the landlord. Once the landlord was told that he was in recovery, he didn’t get the apartment.
When you say the word addict, there’s an idea of what goes with that.
What’s a healthy family look like when there is addiction?
Well, what’s a regular family? You have the TV version of it, which isn’t reality. There are versions of it where maybe there are some people that don’t have problems.
A healthy family can look like, people just sticking together to feel loved, to feel some satisfaction, to be able to eat and enjoy a meal,
Tips for families with addiction – Making family about recovery
- Bringing simplicity in the family to overcome addiction.
- Recovery helps rid boundaries
- Being able to sleep.
- Go to mutual family support groups
- Sharing
- Don’t live in someone else’s addiction
- Don’t do recovery for your son or daughter
- If you’re a parent with a kid in recovery, don’t beat yourself up that you’ve made some mistakes
- There are no easy answers
Everything might work, addiction treatment, meetings, spirituality, jail, that might work. This might work and this might not work. Parents feel responsible for everything sometimes. Parents compare, my kids in Harvard and your kid is on skid row. People stop relating to each other, and that becomes isolation, which is a key factor in addiction.
About these Videos
David P celebrated 36 years clean this year, is the founder of Last Door Recovery Society, an addiction treatment centre for youth, adults and families. Thousands have healed from the harms of addiction over 3 decades.
- David’s Talks are produced by Last Door Production, stay tuned for more in these series of talks.
- Produced by – Last Door Productions
- Editing Matthew Kalenuik
- Camera and Lighting Mike Morrison and Nitin Rathod
- Producer Giuseppe Ganci
