Family Members

familiesMost people in our legal profession know that the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program, Inc. (JLAP) provides confidential assistance to lawyers and judges. However, many people do not know that JLAP’s assistance is available to family members who may themselves be suffering, either directly or indirectly, from chemical dependency, including illnesses such as alcoholism and drug addiction.

The devastating effects of chemical dependency seriously impact the whole family unit, not just the individual beset with alcoholism or drug addiction. When it comes to treating those illnesses, everyone in the family will play a part in either supporting treatment and recovery or impeding those efforts.

It is paramount to understand that help is available from JLAP to all family members regardless of whether the chemically dependent person ever admits a problem or accepts help. Family members can learn new tools to break the cycle of family dysfunction and restore their own emotional health. JLAP encourages all families in our legal profession to take full advantage of JLAP’s confidential assistance in chemical dependency cases.

JLAP stands ready to discretely refer family members to clinicians who can guide the entire family toward better health and happiness while also greatly increasing the family’s ability to provide effective help and support to the alcoholic/addict in their midst.

Structured Family Recovery®

The Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program encourages and works with participants and families to utilize Structured Family Recovery®  (SFR) as a part of their recovery program. Structured Family Recovery® is a weekly program that moves family and friends beyond enabling and frustration, and makes everyone part of a recovery team. Working together creates transparency and accountability in a way that prevents the disease from regaining control.

Treatment stabilizes the addict, but it doesn’t keep them clean and sober. That requires an ongoing program of recovery. Addiction is a chronic disease. Without proper management, the addict will relapse.

Using Structured Family Recovery®, families don’t have to leave success to chance. They can have a guided path to lasting sobriety.

Based on the ground-breaking book by Debra Jay, It Takes a Family, this program brings families back together, prevents relapse and lays a foundation for real recovery.

Excerpt from It Takes a Family:

“Up until now, families have been mostly left out of the recovery equation, which surely contributes to the ubiquitous nature of relapse. Structured Family Recovery starts with a family and ends with a family recovery team. We support sobriety by bringing together family and addict in a way that creates unity and mutual triumphs. Turning to social science, we learn what really creates change — challenging the things we’ve been taught. We apply discoveries of how the workings of the brain affect how we make real-time choices in life. We put it all together to create a family recovery program that is simple and smart.”

After all, the addict and the family share the same goal: happiness.

We used to stand outside the recovery circle and judge my mother. Now we’ve all stepped inside the circle, holding hands and doing recovery together. –27-year-old son describing his experience with Structured Family Recovery ®