For families
For the person sitting across the kitchen table. What the process looks like from where you are standing, and what actually helps.
The part nobody prepares you for
What I hear the most, and what I experienced the most in my own family, is that while they’re away at treatment, you’re stuck holding the bag. The house, the kids, and the finances are all yours now, and the finances will typically include a lack of incoming finances.
They’re getting a strict schedule, meals at set times, and a team of people focused on them. You’re getting everything else. You’re not having a good time either.
Why the phone calls feel wrong
Here’s the thing that surprises spouses the most. After the initial shock wears off, the person away at treatment may be actually enjoying parts of the experience: meeting people who are fun to talk to, doing yoga, going on a nature walk. So the call home is “I did this today, and I talked about this, and we went on a nature walk,” and you’ve got screaming kids and bills to pay.
So not every phone call home is going to be that great. That’s normal. It isn’t a sign the treatment is a vacation, and it isn’t a sign your marriage is in trouble. It’s the shape of this particular month.
The money lands on you first
Most treatment requires some kind of upfront payment, at least until insurance is confirmed, and the household income often drops at the same time. That combination arrives at your kitchen table before it arrives anywhere else.
What the numbers actually look like is a call-and-in-person topic, not a website topic. Ask about it directly and you will get a straight answer.
Family week is not what you fear
Most programs have some sort of family program: a few days where a spouse or significant other, and sometimes another close family member, comes to the treatment center. There’s a lot of explanation of what these problems are in general, and, depending on the program, a real focus on the part each person has played in the pattern.
Two things to know walking in. First, it is not a chance, over two or three or four days, of bashing them the whole time, and it’s not your chance to let the therapist know how bad they really are. It’s education and a learning opportunity, with some one-on-one sessions between you and a therapist.
Second, the language of the place will feel strange. They’ll have had weeks to get used to the therapy-speak by the time you arrive, and you’re walking in cold. Feeling uncomfortable in those rooms is normal, and it says nothing about how the week will go.
When they come home
They’ve been away for anywhere from one to three months, and your life kept moving the whole time. Coming home means they have to reintegrate with what’s actually been going on at your house, and that lands on both of you. The coming home page describes that stretch from their side.
What only your own family answers and this page can’t
Whether family programming is part of their treatment, and who’s invited. How long they’re away. What the money looks like in your case. And how much of all this you carry alone versus with help.
Those genuinely vary. The asymmetry of this month, and the fact that it’s hard on the person holding the bag, don’t vary much at all.