It was just two years ago that Ethan was lying on a bed in the Arrow Health Rehabilitation Centre wondering if he will ever see his girls again. Today, as he picks them up from school, he smiles proudly at how well his daughters have been performing at school in the last term. His wife, Mia, feels prouder about her husband because of how far he has come in the last few years.
Mia recollects how the addiction to alcohol had started affecting Ethan and their entire family. “He would spend the money we had kept aside for paying our bills on alcohol and eventually he started lying when I asked him about our increased expenditure,” she says. At first, Ethan started forgetting little tasks like the groceries that I had asked him to pick up or walk the dog when it was his turn. Eventually, the symptoms became more glaring when he started missing his work deadlines and he almost stopped turning up for any family events. Even the neighbours and relatives started noticing the changes that appeared in Ethan. Mrs Smith, the old lady next door, is very close to the family and has been a huge emotional support for Mia and the girls during Ethan’s recovery. “I started noticing how his eyes were mostly red every other evening and how he was mostly broody during the mornings. This was very different than the jovial person I knew,” she claims.
Ethan himself confesses about how he realized that this was a serious issue. “I would miss work more than often and my mornings would be spent in enduring the terrible hangovers,” he admits. As the end of another night approached, the urge to buy some more alcohol and get down to the usual business was impossible to ignore. Ethan tried different methods to divert himself but no matter what he did, he would always end up in front of the store and pick up a bottle. He would also get more irritated with fellow workers or with people on the road while he was driving. Getting into fights was a completely unimaginable act for him before but since the addiction it was a more common act in his everyday life.
Mia points out that the one good thing was that Ethan was never abusive towards her or their girls. They did get into a lot of fights because of Ethan’s changed behaviour and extremely high expenditure on alcohol, but he never attempted to abuse her. The drinking problem is a major factor which can disrupt a family life because of the financial instability and the change in roles that it creates. Unlike a lot of people suffering from alcohol addiction, Ethan was early in accepting that he had a problem and he knew his family was the only hope he had of recovering.
The decision to get admitted to a rehabilitation centre did not happen in a day. Ethan and Mia were equally confused about whether the long time that Ethan had to spend in the centre would actually be effective or simply increase Ethan’s distance from his family. Also, rehab sounded like an overreaction and for some time the couple believed that Ethan could just get over the addiction himself if he really tried. In the month of May in 2016, Ethan knew that the matter was completely out of his hand when he ended up spending the money for her daughter’s medicine on alcohol and completely forgot about buying the required medicines required for treating her flu. “He came and broke down in front of me. I realized this was beyond his control and that we needed external help,” Mia recollects. She soon researched on the available resources for treating alcohol addiction available near them and they reached on a mutual agreement that Arrow Health would be the ideal choice.
The rehabilitation centre Arrow Health has been funded by the Lawrence family since the year 2013 and they run this centre because of an extremely personal issue. One son in this family himself struggled with addiction for twelve years inspiring the family to help others like them. The Lawrence family believes that for people like Ethan who are passionate about recovering from their addiction, there should be no deficiency of resources. If an individual is determined about getting rid of their addiction, lack of resources should not be an obstacle. The Lawrence family wants others to have the kind of medical treatment and psychological support which they could not find for their own son. Based on their medical knowledge and their own experience of loss and disappointment the family has come up with a program which is operated effectively through their centre. This program not only leads the way for effective addiction treatment in Australia but also focuses equally on the individual and the family of the people who are suffering.
Dr Williams, who has been working with the centre since a long time, discusses the different ways individuals receive help there. “There are different stages that a drug addict goes through,” she states. It starts from the stage where they are not aware of the problem and they might not be ready for a change. In this case, the doctors are supposed to make them aware how substance abuse can be harmful for their lives and the lives of their dear ones and how a change could be beneficial for them. In the next stage, the individual is aware of their problem and the doctor’s duty is to make the patient aware of the different ways that they will be assisted in bringing this change. The individual will be also given targets like a period of six months or a year according to their conditions and they would eventually attempt to get rid of their addiction within the given goal. This was the stage that Ethan was received in by the caretakers and doctors at the centre. During the phase in which the patient is recovering from substance abuse, they are convinced to implement a healthier lifestyle. The treatment phase may also make it mandatory for the patient to attend 12 step meetings, counselling sessions and actively participating in treatment programs. The centre has proper resources to assist these individuals including a list of qualified dieticians and counsellors.
More than the recovery, the maintenance stage is harder and more important. A number of people relapse into drug abuse or alcohol addiction even after they have led a substance free lifestyle for some time. Dr Williams states how important it is for the family to support the patient during this stage. Maintaining a lifestyle free of substance abuse can be hard for these individuals and family support can be very effective during these times. During extremely stressful situations, an individual might end up into a situation of relapse. “Even if they do relapse, it is important that they are not pressurized with the guilt of being unable to continue the process,” Dr William asserts. The family members are supposed to make the patients realize that they had come a long way and they had successfully made positive changes to their life. The patients must be made to believe that if they have done it once, they can do it once again. Ethan, on the other hand, has shown no sign of relapse since he has reached the end of his treatment and he has been leading a healthy lifestyle.
In Australia, alcohol is the most common form of addiction and the majority of the people who end up in drug rehabilitation systems seek treatment for alcohol abuse. Three years later, Ethan and Mia are both glad that they made the correct choice. The support of a family can not only provide an emotional support system but also provide a sense of purpose for the individual who is working through the recovery process. Doctors at the centre are extremely impressed with Ethan’s steady progress and admits that his family played an exemplary role in his recovery.
Ethan and Mia are extremely grateful to the counsellors and the treatment programs at the Arrow Health centre for their assistance and Ethan admits that the recovery would have been impossible without these resources. “Asking for help is never a matter of shame,” he openly declares, and he earnestly hopes that sharing this experience would inspire other people with the same problem and push them towards accepting help. Today, they can be a completely functional family and as a couple they can look forward to the bright future that awaits their girls “It has been a rough phase, but I am glad we could overcome it as a family,” Mia smiles with content while Ethan goes on to drive the girls to their swimming class.
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