During recovery, there will be any number of changes. Addiction is something that can warp someone’s perceptions of the world around them. Recovery, then, has to address a person’s entire worldview in order to allow the person to begin to heal.

Having to address each different aspect and person in someone’s life is exhausting and extraordinarily difficult. Having a safe space is important for exploring all of the different trials and difficulties that await someone through their recovery process. However, it is possible that the house someone lives in and the people there also need to be addressed in order for someone to feel safe at their own home.

While there are any number of aspects to be addressed during recovery, it is important to first and foremost create a safe space for a person to allow themselves to feel both vulnerable and supported at the same time. Those seeking recovery and their families and loved ones can work alongside each other to create a safe environment to help someone to begin a fruitful healing process.

Creating a Place to Start

Someone suffering from addiction may perceive situations differently than their family and loved ones. Before meaningful conversations can take place, each person needs to be on the same page about how things look or are going to look during recovery.

Just because something seems obvious to someone doesn’t mean that it is necessarily the case for all other people. Take a few minutes to discuss these perceptions and expectations when someone is starting out on their path to recovery.

People suffering from addiction may not be aware of some of the ways that their addiction has affected the family, and family members may also have made assumptions about what’s happening regarding someone’s addiction. This conversation will be difficult to have, but it is not a time for someone to begin to blame others for their addiction or actions. Rather, it is a time to begin constructing a shared starting point as well as shared goals for the future.

Keep Conversations Open and Honest

Feeling safe in one’s home relies on a large degree of trust between the people living there. That trust can be garnered by having time to simply have a conversation between people in an open and honest way. While this can take the form of talking about someone’s addiction and their recovery, it doesn’t necessarily always have to fall into that category.

Talking openly about one’s day and their feelings can all help someone feel more safe and comfortable at home. Not only do these conversations need to be wholly honest, but they also have to occur more than once or twice. Scheduling a time for a family gets together can help smooth over the process of each family member being open about their feelings, regardless of the subject at hand.

Addiction recovery is something that affects everyone on an emotional level, and harboring negative emotions or misconceptions can hinder anyone’s journey to long-term sobriety. Keeping these feelings and expectations transparent can help everyone begin to heal and create a unified front for addressing addiction.

Setting Boundaries and Reasons

Not only does someone have to trust the people around them enough to talk to them in an open and honest way, but they also have to be able to trust that there are boundaries in place for when someone wants to remove themselves from a situation for any reason.

Having a “safe space,” in this sense, is a misnomer. A safe space isn’t a single place–rather, it is a collection of places and people that all work together to accomplish a variety of common goals. However, boundaries are another aspect of one’s recovery that needs to be discussed.

It is important to discuss the reasons behind someone wanting to set boundaries for the other people in their home, and how the boundaries may affect recovery as a whole. Likewise, it is important for the family not to impose boundaries or rules without having a justifiable reason for which to discuss them.

Simply imposing a rule without reason may lead someone in recovery to feel unfairly treated despite their progress, and can lead to resentment that can quickly deteriorate trust. Creating a safe space takes effort. Honesty and transparency are necessary not just from the person in recovery, but also all of the other family members and loved ones.

While discussing how the safe space will shape up during recovery, it is important that all parties remember that there will have to be sacrifices. For those in recovery, it may be important enough to forfeit some freedoms during the more trying times of recovery in order to ensure their own safety, while family members may have to learn to trust that there is progress being made with their loved one and that their recovery is ultimately only in their own hands.

Recovery will look different for each person. No two journeys to sobriety are the same, and the professionals at The Kimberly Center are ready to help you personalize any of their programs in order to best fit your needs and resources. With programs ranging from inpatient and residential treatment to intensive outpatient and aftercare, there is always a way for you to reach out for the help you need. Creating a safe space for recovery is always important, and The Kimberly Center provides a professional space for anyone to address their addiction, its effects, as well as the options available for them and their loved ones. For more information on how The Kimberly Center can help you, call today at (855) 452-3683.