Millions of Americans report having used cocaine in their lifetimes. While the number of people addicted to either cocaine or crack, a smokable form of cocaine, has gone down slightly since the early 2000s, this addiction still affects millions every year. Cocaine addiction damages the lives of cocaine abusers and their families. If you are worried about your use of cocaine and its damage to your relationships, please consider cocaine addiction treatment.
At Pennsylvania Adult & Teen Challenge (PAATC), we can help you with your cocaine addiction and provide you with the support you need to repair your relationships. Reach out today to learn more about how we can guide you onto a secure path to recovery. Use our online form or call 844.442.8673.
How Cocaine Damages Relationships
Cocaine addiction can be devastating to relationships. When the drug becomes the focal point of each waking hour, seeking, taking, and recovering from the drug consume the drug user. Behaviors that directly interfere with healthy relationships include:
- Financial extortion of family and friends to afford ever-increasing amounts of cocaine
- Manipulative behavior in search of enabling and support
- Secrecy and lies to hide the truth about the addiction and avoid consequences
- Physical aggression, especially when on a binge
- Verbal abuse resulting from anger, for example, if loved ones point out and express anger or unhappiness about the drug user’s behavior.
When a drug is prioritized over the people you love, becoming sober might be the only way to salvage or repair those relationships.
How Cocaine Treatment Can Help Your Relationships
In a cocaine addiction treatment center, there will be opportunities to learn how to repair damaged relationships and engage positively in future relationships. Some of the processes you will undertake in an evidence-based cocaine addiction treatment program to improve your relationships include:
- Participate in family therapy. While you are in rehab, family therapy is a highly effective way to begin the healing of the broken and strained ties between you and those closest to you. Family members will learn much more about the challenges you have been through with addiction. Conversely, you will understand the harm that your addiction did to them.
- Acquire new communications skills. Learning healthy communication methods both in family therapy and in other therapeutic sessions is often part of how you modify your behavior through practice and role play.
- Make amends for past actions. Both in therapy and in any group or 12-step settings, you will come to understand the power of making amends. It begins with reaching out to people you hurt, who broke off contact with you, or who are actively angry at you. Facing those you wronged can be painful and difficult. However, the act of making amends is incredibly healing for both parties.
- Take responsibility for your actions from now on. This part of the process of repairing relationships takes time. You can vow to the people in your life that from now on, you will take responsibility, own your choices and actions, and choose sobriety and relationships over cocaine. But the proof is established over time. As you continue on your path of recovery, your relationships will continue to heal and strengthen. Furthermore, any new relationships you enter into will be healthier right from the start.
Recover from Cocaine Addiction at Pennsylvania Adult and Teen Challenge
Sometimes relationships cannot be repaired, and accepting that is difficult. Relationship loss can be very painful and is a potential trigger for relapse, but you learn the value and power of acceptance in rehab. You will be able to call on the skill of acceptance when you face challenges. However, you don’t have to lose your peer support group when you leave your cocaine treatment program. Continue to seek out those allies with lived experience beyond rehab to help you process and accept the things you cannot change.
At PAATC, the support you will receive from both your peer group and the compassionate, experienced professionals on staff. This will sustain you through your cocaine treatment and beyond. Reach out today to learn more about our cocaine treatment programs by calling 844.442.8673.
