If you have a mom or wife with an addiction, she may need your support in making the decision to go to rehab. Most addicts are unwilling to accept that their life has become unmanageable. They don’t recognize that they have become dependent on alcohol and/or drugs. Living with a drug addicted or alcoholic mom or wife can create such strain in your home life, it’s hard to cope with your life outside of it. In Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas, there is help for an addicted mom or wife. It may be you who has to take action to make sure she gets on the road to recovery. It may seem harsh or unkind in a way but ultimately, you’ll be improving her quality of life and potentially saving her life. You are going to be far more likely to know if your mom or wife has an addiction than she is. Still, you may be unsure or you don’t know how to address it. This informative article will help you figure out if your wife or mom has a problem and how you can help.
A Denver Mom Loses Her Children Due to Heroin Addiction
This is just one story of many where a drug addicted mom ends up losing everything, including her family. A woman named Lindsey had an addiction to heroin for six years. This mother of young children didn’t start off as a heroin junkie. It started with a Percocet dependency, which was prescribed to her to ease the pain she got from severe migraines. She began abusing them and then buying them off the street. Dealers let her know that it was easier to get heroin so she started using it. A big lesson here is that she didn’t even acknowledge her addiction for years. She did get sober by going through heroin rehab. She had a second child during this time but began using after soon after her little girl was born. Starting abuse of heroin again would be a grave mistake as a judge sent her to jail and required her to go through drug addiction treatment once again. While Lindsey has cleaned up her life after 13 months in drug treatment, she still has to repair the damage from the past. Children with drug addicted moms have often been neglected, abused, or have memories of an unstable mother. It takes work for a whole family to heal from addiction. 
Growing Up With an Alcoholic Mom
When you have a wife or mom who drinks a lot, there are various ways this can affect you negatively. Even if they’re nice and still function, seeing your mother falling down drunk can be concerning. If your mom can’t hold it together, it doesn’t feel like a safe environment. There are worse case scenarios where an alcoholic mom can become violent. Maybe she forgets what she’s done when she’s drunk. Growing up with an alcoholic mom can leave you feeling confused. Their actions can cause issues in your life. For example, one account of a daughter with an alcoholic mother said her mom would tell her not to eat too much because she was fat. Her mom would also tell her daughter she didn’t eat enough. The daughter spoke of accounts when her mother would beat her while she was drunk. The next day when it was brought up, the mother had no recollection and even went as far to say that she would never do that to her because she loved her so much. If any of these events ring true to you, you don’t have to live this way anymore. It may seem like some sort of betrayal to seek out professional help. Ultimately though, you are helping your alcoholic mom with a very serious disease. There are many addiction resources in Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas.
Signs that Your Mom/Wife is an Alcoholic
Perhaps you don’t know if your mom is an alcoholic. However, if you’re having concerns that she drinks too much, chances are, you’re right. Here are some of the tell tale signs your mom is an alcoholic:
- She is unable to stop drinking and can’t control how much she drinks in one sitting.
- She knows her relationships are suffering but this doesn’t stop her from drinking.
- If she tries to stop drinking, she can feel sick, get sweaty, shake uncontrollably, or get anxious.
- Her life will tend to revolve around drinking. She doesn’t do anything else but what is necessary and has given up on all other activities.
- She drinks more and more all the time (building up tolerance).
- You’ll likely find indications she has been drinking despite the fact she tries to hide it.
- You may find alcohol stashed in various parts of the house.
- You may smell alcohol on her during the day, even when driving.
The definition of a female alcoholic is she regularly has more than seven drinks in a week, or consistently has over three drinks in a session.
How to Help Your Alcoholic Mom
Even considering that your mom is an alcoholic may be hard to bear. If you’re having a hard time with it, imagine how she’ll feel when she’s confronted? There are a few things to consider when helping an alcoholic mom/wife. There is professional addiction help in Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas. They can help you help her. The first thing to be addressed is that she has a problem. This is not always an easy task as any addict is likely to shy away from this reality. If they haven’t asked for help, they are likely still in denial. Talking to a professional addiction professional can make all the difference. They can assist you in the best practices for staging an intervention. During an intervention, you’ll want to give her any of the solutions to problems you foresee. One of the tactics an alcoholic mom or wife will use is to find reasons it’s impossible to go to rehab. Before the conversation, make sure you’ve looked at some options for rehabs in Denver, CO and the surrounding area. Find out what her insurance is going to cover so everything is taken care of. Always stay calm and keep reminding her that you love her.
Why Rehab for an Addicted Mom/Wife Is So Important
It’s important for you to understand that treatment is going to be extremely helpful for your loved one. She is getting the best opportunity to improve her life and allow the healing for the whole family to begin. She will have to confront the reasons she drinks because this will allow her to start dealing with the underlying issues that prompted addiction in the first place. Often, addiction will be entwined with anxiety or depression. If she is experiencing a mental health disorder on top of addiction, this will also be addressed. There are special treatments within a program to help with a co-occurring disorder.
Helping Your Wife With Addiction Recovery
Your wife will need you more than ever as she goes through the stages of recovery. When you know that there’s a problem but you say nothing, this is enabling the behavior to continue. It may seem supportive but the best thing to do is to intervene. This open communication may not seem like the right thing but know that truly it is. Once she’s going through addiction treatment, encourage her to seek out support groups in Denver, CO and surrounding areas. This is especially important if she is doing an outpatient rehab. She will need the support from you but also from others who are going through the same journey. To support her, you will want to make sure that your household is completely drug and alcohol free. Even when treatment is over, she is still recovering and there is a risk of relapse. Family is one of the major factors in how successful a person’s recovery will be. Your support is really important. Family therapy is recommended so you can all begin to communicate and heal. If you know what her triggers have been in the past, do what you can to remove them from her life. Of course, you can’t control everything but just by minimizing triggers in the home, you’re showing her support and giving her a safe space. 
Behaviors To Avoid
You may think you’re helping your partner when with certain behaviors. Many people will fall into the role of covering up for their addicted partner. You love them and want to avoid conflict. When we enable someone, it does come from a loving space but without realizing it, we keep the cycle of addiction going. Here are some things you should avoid doing for your alcoholic wife or mom:
- Assisting an addict by lying for them, giving them money, or taking on their responsibilities.
- Ignoring the problem and pretending that it isn’t a problem.
- Forgiving your addicted mom/wife too easily after they’ve hurt you with their words or behaviors.
- Creating an environment where your wife or mom can abuse substances easily. For example, if you’re having a dinner party, don’t serve alcohol.
It may seem like the hardest thing to do but you have to let them face the consequences of their behaviors and actions. It’s going to feel like you’re somehow deceiving them and not supporting them but it’s exactly the opposite. It’s the tough love that often needs to occur before someone can acknowledge their “rock bottom.” This is an act of love even though it doesn’t feel like it.
What You Can Do for Addicted Wives/Mothers
We know it’s hard to hold on to a relationship or not turn your back on a loved one with an addiction. They are almost unrecognizable compared to the woman you met or the mom who once made you feel safe. You may feel completely helpless but you are important to an addicts’ recovery. Here are some of things you can do to help: There are a lot of misconceptions about addiction. When you can understand that it’s a disease and what is happening to your loved ones mind and body, you may see things with greater compassion. When someone in your household has an addiction, everyone is affected. To know what is going on, learn as much about the disease of addiction as you can. You can also speak with an addiction specialist. They can give you a much better idea on what’s happening and how you can help. You may not realize it but you may be in a codependent relationship. You will be affected and changed by their addiction. The longer it goes on, the more your behaviors and patterns will change too. You may experience anxiety because your addicted wife is gone for long periods of time or misses out on work. You may become controlling because you are trying to keep her safe. Children may become extremely focused on trying to please their addicted mother, thinking somehow this will make her behavior stop. When you understand what codependency is, you can also start to make changes. This can help the addict in your life when you start to make changes also. It’s important for you to get support also. This allows you to understand what the addict in your life is going through. You also gain insight on how to help. You are not alone and when you join a support group, you will feel less isolated. This may sound cold but you need to take care of yourself. If you don’t, you can’t take care of anyone else. The only person you can truly expect to make changes is you. So take care of yourself and don’t go down with an addicted wife or mom. Work on your behaviors, stay healthy, and be mindful of your own actions. This can help your loved one too.
Addiction Help for Your Wife/Mom
If you’re in the Denver, Colorado and surrounding area, there is help for the loved one in your life. At Women’s Recovery, we have a facility in Denver as well as Dillon, Colorado. It is a gender specific outpatient program. Our all female staff is highly knowledgeable and offers compassion from the moment your wife or mom walks through our doors. Contact us to find out how we can help you with your loved one. Living with an addicted mom or wife is life altering and can cause many negative outcomes. It’s important to understand the disease and make sure you don’t become a part of the problem. There is help for your wife or mom as well as support for the family. You don’t have to try to do this alone. There are experienced addiction experts out there that can give her the right type of treatment. We’d love to hear from you so if you have anything to share, please leave a comment.
