Recovery and Quality of Life of Family Members of Persons with a Substance Use Disorder

Family members of persons with a substance use disorder (SUD) are heavily impacted by the challenges related to the substance use of their relative, making them go through a process of family recovery. The concept of family recovery is used to indicate that each family member confronted with a substance use disorder of a relative experiences a unique recovery process. This process is influenced by different factors: the relationship towards one’s relative, one’s own well-being and quality of life, the support network, the access to and willingness to receive support and one’s individual resiliency. Additionally, the process of family recovery is characterized by similar principles (e.g. hope and coping skills) that are also supportive in an individual recovery process of persons with substance use disorders. But, family recovery is a complex and multi-layered concept, for which it is important to not only look at the recovery process an individual family member is going through, but also at the family recovery of the family system as a whole. In this chapter, attention will be paid to the complexity of the family recovery concept, focusing first on the individual family member recovery process and second on the family recovery process of the family system. Finally, a discussion on the concept of individual family member recovery and family recovery will be elaborated with attention for the impact it has on the family quality of life and the relational processes between a person with a SUD, the family and the society.