• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

FHE Health - Addiction & Mental Health Care Homepage

Drug, Alcohol and Mental Health Treatment

ContactCareers

Call for Immediate Help (833) 596-3502

MENUMENU
  • About
        • About FHE Rehab
          • About FHE Health
          • Our Staff
          • Locations We Serve
          • Testimonials
        • Our Campus
          • Gallery
          • Our Videos
          • The Health and Wellness Center at FHE Health
        • Our Locations
          • Alcohol Rehab
          • Detox Center
          • Drug Rehab
          • Mental Health Center
          • Outpatient Rehab
        • Careers at FHE Health
          • Employment Opportunities
        • Our Expertise
          • Accreditations
          • Educational Opportunities
          • Community Impact Award
          • First Responder Families Podcast
          • First Responder Paws
          • Education Scholarship
  • Addiction
        • Treatment Programs
          • Treatment Program Overview
          • Alcohol Addiction
          • Drug Addiction Treatment
          • Behavioral Addiction
        • Levels of Care
          • Continuum of Care
          • Addiction Detox
          • Inpatient Addiction Treatment
          • Outpatient Addiction Treatment
        • What We Treat
          • Alcoholism
          • Amphetamines
          • Benzodiazepines
          • Cocaine
          • Heroin
          • Opioids
          • Sedative
  • Mental Health
        • Mental Health Rehab
          • Mental Health Rehab
          • Onsite Psychiatric Care
          • Dual Diagnosis
        • Levels of Care
          • Residential Mental Health Care
          • Outpatient Mental Health Care
        • What We Treat
          • ADD & ADHD
          • Anxiety Disorders
          • Bipolar Disorder
          • Depression
          • Eating Disorders
          • Personality Disorders
          • PTSD
          • Schizophrenia
          • Substance Use Disorder
          • Trauma
  • Programs
        • FHE Programs
          • Specialty Program Overview
          • Restore (Mental Health)
          • Empower! (Women's Program)
          • Shatterproof FHE Health(First Responders)
          • Compass Program
        • Support Programs
          • Alumni
          • Family Support
        • Therapies
          • Acupuncture
          • Breathwork Therapy
          • CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
          • DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)
          • EMDR Therapy
          • Expressive Arts Therapy
          • Individual Therapy
          • Group Therapy
          • Gambling Therapy
          • Massage
        • Medical Care
          • Medical Integration
          • Ketamine Infusion
          • IV Vitamin
          • Fitness & Nutrition
          • Medication-Assisted Treatment
          • Medication Management
        • NeuroRehab Services
          • Neuro Rehabilitation
          • Neurofeedback Training
          • Neurostimulation Therapy
          • EEG Brain Mapping
          • Insomnia Treatment for PTSD
  • Resources
        • FHE Guides
          • Understanding Drug Abuse
          • Signs of Addiction
          • The Disease of Addiction
          • Confronting Addiction
          • Staging an Intervention
          • Rehab Success Rate – Does It Really Work?
          • Withdrawal Timelines
          • Life After Rehab
          • LGBTQ+ Community Resources
          • Veteran Resources
          • FHE Podcasts
          • Remote Resources Toolkit
        • Learning Center
          • Help for You
          • Help For Loved Ones
          • Help For Alcoholism
          • Help With Substance Abuse
          • Behavioral & Mental Health
          • Life in Recovery
          • Rehab Explained
          • Addiction Statistics
          • Our Research Articles
          • View All Articles
        • The Experience Blog
          • Addiction News
          • Alumni
          • Community Events
          • Expert Opinions
          • FHE Commentary
          • FHE News
          • Treatment Legislation
          • View All Articles
  • Admissions
        • Insurance
          • Blue Cross Insurance
          • Beacon Health / Value Options Insurance
          • Cigna Insurance
          • Humana Insurance
          • TRICARE Insurance
        • Admissions
          • Steps to Addiction Help
          • Will Insurance Cover Behavioral Treatment?
          • Self-Pay Rehab
        • FAQ
          • Keeping Your Job in Rehab
          • Example Day in Rehab
        • Contact Admissions
          • Contact Us
          • Secure Payment Form
  • Contact
  •  
Home > Featured for Drug Addiction > How Does Addiction Affect Relationships?

March 11, 2024 By Kristina Robb-Dover

How Does Addiction Affect Relationships?

The Impact of Addiction in Relationships - FHE Health

Substance use disorders can be damaging in multiple and complex ways. As a chronic and frequently progressive condition, an addiction can cause a person’s physical and mental health to decline. It also can unravel a person’s career and financial well-being, land them in legal jeopardy, and affect their most important relationships.

In the last case, a person’s relationships are a barometer of their well-being. When a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, they often say or do things that damage their relationships. Even when they are not technically “under the influence,” they are often acting in deleterious ways that affect a spouse or close loved one. Whether they’re secretly doctor shopping to obtain more of a prescription or taking their anger at not being able to get their drug of choice out on their partner, their thoughts and actions are compelled by their drinking or drug use.

Let’s speak plainly. A person addicted to drugs and alcohol has a life that is out of control. Order has turned to chaos, and those close to that individual are very likely going to be caught up in that chaos, too. Whether it’s the chaos of worrying where mortgage money went, strange phone calls, late appearances, slurred speech, mistrust—whatever the case may be, addiction affects relationships negatively, sometimes beyond repair. In some cases, family members actually allow themselves to be caught up in the chaos for longer than they should. They might even enable it.

The Detrimental Impact of Addiction on Relationships

Active Addiction in Relationships

A person who has an addiction to drugs or alcohol can harm their loved ones without intending to. Many people try to keep their addiction secret in order to protect it and in the hope that they can control it. Unfortunately, keeping something like drug or alcohol abuse secret can damage the trust within relationships; it’s also often impossible to hide the fact that there’s a problem.

A person with a substance use disorder can’t hide the effects of their addiction forever. There will be signs that they can’t control, such as mood swings, fatigue, loss of coordination, or slurred speech. The psychological and physical effects are nearly impossible to keep hidden.

Some family members may look the other way, unsure of how to address the issue. Others may try to intervene, which can cause friction. The truth is that addiction affects relationships, and many people don’t understand how to help a loved one who is suffering from it. They may offer all the wrong types of support—like making excuses when their loved one doesn’t show up for a social obligation or offering money when they have some sense of where it could go.

Need Help?

Treatment can begin quickly and discreetly, get started now

Contact Us

How to Know When Your Substance Use Is Harming a Relationship

If you begin with the premise that substance abuse will harm a relationship, you are well ahead of the crowd. Many people don’t think about how addiction affects their relationships when they abuse drugs or alcohol. In fact, it may be relationships (bad ones) that are among their triggers to use. Stress from work, relationships–anywhere–can be a chief motivation to abuse drugs and alcohol.

Every relationship is different. You may learn that your drug or alcohol use has harmed your relationship when your spouse or another member of your family tells you so. In some cases, you might know that you’ve hurt a spouse before they know: If you’ve used rent money to pay for cocaine, if you’ve forged a prescription to get an opioid at a local pharmacy, if you’ve engaged in unprotected sex while under the influence, you’ve hurt your relationship.

Not every person who uses drugs or alcohol has cheated or forged prescriptions, but engaging in reckless or high-risk behaviors is indicative of substance use disorders. For some dealing with addiction in a relationship, a simple lie–saying you haven’t used when you have–is enough to damage the relationship and hurt loved ones.

Fixing Your Relationships Begins with Fixing Yourself

Understanding the Root of Addiction

This isn’t an attempt to guilt anyone suffering from a substance use disorder to stop hurting their loved ones. A person is unlikely to stop hurting them until they can stop hurting themselves with their continued abuse. Something is broken somewhere. It might be an unresolved childhood trauma. It might be a struggle to manage anger. Dysfunction fuels the road to addiction. 

Treatment doesn’t just address the physical dependence; to be successful, it must address the factors that drove the person to abuse drugs or alcohol in the first place.

Seek Treatment Before Repairing Your Relationship

Before you can repair your relationship, it’s important to understand that treatment is crucial. Substance use disorders change the chemistry of the brain. One can’t simply turn off the condition. 

During addiction treatment, individuals can identify their triggers and develop strategies to manage them successfully. Only when they’ve achieved some measure of control again and are able to maintain abstinence can they then begin to work on rebuilding a positive relationship with their spouse or other family members.

Partake in Couples Therapy

Ideally, couples can attend therapy together. Couples or family therapy with an addiction specialist helps both parties better understand addiction and how it affects aspects of their relationship. With addiction in relationships,  codependent behaviors often accompany addiction. 

Consider the following example. One spouse is irate because the pharmacy won’t refill their prescription a few days or a week early. The other spouse goes to the pharmacy in an attempt to persuade staff to fill the prescription early, making excuses for their loved one’s temper or why they need an early refill.

Why is that codependent? With addiction in relationships, one person, the addicted individual, is needy. They need the drug. The other individual needs to be needed. They may or may not realize their partner is demanding an addictive drug. They may or may not be aware that they are enabling negative behavior. However, they do it out of a sense of love, loyalty, or some need they struggle to understand even themself.

Setting Boundaries and Seeking Professional Guidance

In a non-codependent relationship, a spouse would not beg a pharmacist for an early refill. They would tell their loved one they need to enter rehab and that drug use has crossed a line. They have to get help. 

Of course, we’re making it sound easy. It’s not easy to face up to an irate partner. It’s not easy when you are in the throes of a chaotic situation, your finances are in upheaval, and you don’t know where to turn. A therapist can work with both parties to help them recognize where their relationship has gone off the rails and how to get it back on track.

Start Treatment Now

Treatment can begin quickly and discretely, get started now

Contact Us

Addiction Is a Family Disease

A substance use disorder affects the family of the individual who is addicted. Addiction affects family members in different ways. It can leave some family members feeling betrayed and angry. It can leave others anxious and panicky. These days, people are well aware of high overdose rates. Family members are often profoundly fearful for their loved one and their health. In other situations, the chaos of addiction can impact family members for life.

Children who grow up with a parent who is addicted are themselves, at greater risk for developing an addiction. They’re also at risk of being impacted by the trauma of the addiction–fears for the wellbeing of their family (they may hear parents fighting about where all the money went), fear of a parent’s temper when under the influence, or fear that their parent won’t come home or wake up. All family members can benefit from therapy that helps them cope in the aftermath of addiction. Recovery is absolutely possible for all.

Seek Addiction Treatment at FHE Health Today

If you are addicted to drugs or alcohol and it is affecting your relationships, the best way to protect your loved ones is to get help for your condition. In fact, it’s the only way to protect them. 

Contact FHE Health for an evaluation. We can recommend the ideal course of treatment for you, as well as family therapy. Freedom from drugs and alcohol is possible, starting today.

More Questions about Treatment?

We offer 100% confidential and individualized treatment

Contact Us

Filed Under: Featured for Drug Addiction, Drug Addiction

About Kristina Robb-Dover

Kristina Robb-Dover is a content manager and writer with extensive editing and writing experience... read more

Primary Sidebar

Learning Center

  • Help for You
  • Help For Loved Ones
  • Help For Alcoholism
  • Help With Substance Abuse
  • Behavioral & Mental Health
  • Life in Recovery
  • Rehab Explained
  • All Articles

Sign up for the Blog

Our Facilities

Take a look at our state of the art treatment center.

View Our Gallery

The Experience Blog

  • Addiction News
  • Alumni
  • Community Events
  • Expert Columns
  • FHE Commentary
  • FHE News
  • Treatment Legislation
  • All Articles

Footer

FHE Health

© 2025 FHE Health

505 S Federal Hwy #2,
Deerfield Beach, Florida 33441
1-833-596-3502
youtube facebook instagram linkedin twitter
  • Contact
  • Careers at FHE Health
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
A+ BBB and Top Places to Work - Sun Sentinel

Copyright © 2025 · FHE Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

The FHE Health team is committed to providing accurate information that adheres to the highest standards of writing. If one of our articles is marked with a ‘reviewed for accuracy and expertise’ badge, it indicates that one or more members of our team of doctors and clinicians have reviewed the article further to ensure accuracy. This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure FHE Health is trusted as a leader in mental health and addiction care.

If there are any concerns about content we have published, please reach out to us at marketing@fhehealth.com.

833-596-3502

Text/Call Me