We recently covered the topic “The Family Illness” during one of our Saturday Family Programs. The discussion that followed naturally brought up the question, “What, then, is Family Recovery?”

We reviewed roles in the addictive family, skewed by addiction — the Hero, the Lost Child, the Scapegoat, and others. We defined codependency as “a way of thinking and a set of behaviors that are painful.”

In codependency, we “forget” who we are. We lose our authenticity, our spontaneity and joy of living. Recovery, we said, is allowing ourselves to adapt to new, healthy patterns of living, which gradually appear in our lives by practicing the 12 Steps and the spiritual principles contained in them.

We don’t do this alone. In that group of 40-50 people on Saturday, we experienced something, in miniature, of what can happen when we give ourselves to this program of recovery.

Boundaries become unhealthy in an addictive family. Sometimes we lose our boundaries altogether. Sometimes they get too weak or too rigid. Sometimes we put walls instead — walls of silence, walls of anger.

That Saturday we practiced how to set healthy boundaries in small family groups, consisting of patients and their families. There were some bumps, of course. When you set a boundary with someone, it’s not comfortable, especially when you don’t know what their reaction will be. But you set it to draw a line between what is acceptable and not acceptable.

In short, you stop hiding and enabling, and start being direct and honest. Your loving the other person doesn’t have to change.

Before we departed, each participant shared what they got out of the program in our Sharing Circle. Patients and family members offered their insights and the renewed hope they gathered from either the speakers, the lecture, or what came out of their own small group work.

For some, it was facing codependency. For others, it was facing pent-up anger. And for some, it was admitting if you love others, you try your best to be honest, open and willing. Then change will happen.

The articles published in “Thoughts from the Field” are part of a series of blog posts written by the experienced professionals at Rogers Memorial Hospital. This article was written by Ron Houssaye, MA, LMFT, SAC-IT, AODA Family Therapist at The Herrington Recovery Center.