The Family Restored Support Group

Please download our Welcome Packet for more information and resources.

Please note: beginning the week of September 13th, we will consolidate our Southern Maine in-person meetings to The Point Community Center in South Portland on Wednesdays from 6:00–7:30 p.m. The final Falmouth meeting will be Tuesday, September 8th and the final Portland meeting will be Thursday, September 10th.

Meetings

Frequently Asked Questions

Al-Anon meetings can be very helpful for families seeking support in dealing with a loved one’s addiction. Just like Alcoholics Anonymous are meetings of alcoholics helping other alcoholics, Al-Anon is strictly families helping families. At The Family Restored Support Group, we take a unique approach where people in recovery facilitate the meeting and use their personal experience to help educate and support families. It makes sense to get information and help from someone who has experienced addiction first-hand and overcome it. Our meetings are solution based and provide insight into the mind and behaviors of people struggling with addiction, and what eventually worked in helping them recover.

There is no requirement to speak at the support meetings. You share as little or as much as you need or desire. At The Family Restored Support Group meetings families are encouraged, not mandated, to speak freely about their situation and struggles.  All issues discussed in the meeting are confidential.

Addiction is a family disease and even the best of families can find themselves completely submerged in their loved ones addiction. This is often most apparent in the family’s desperate desire to control their loved one’s behaviors, emotions, and recovery. Families are known to become obsessed with their loved one causing them to enable, spy and live in constant fear, often neglecting other family members or their own lives and responsibilities. Although most family members may never stop worrying, it is possible to separate yourself from your loved one and love them from a distance. Family members who are well, will realize they have little control over their loved one’s addiction and will stop engaging in paranoid, enabling behavior. They will be able to set better and healthier boundaries both for themselves and their loved one.

The Family Restored Support Group is a closed meeting for families and friends who have a loved one suffering from addiction. We encourage loved ones who are seeking recovery to attend 12-Step meetings.

  • “I went to my first Family Support Group and immediately I felt the power of the meeting. I was struck by the honesty of the people in recovery and the incredible compassionate support of the parents and relatives of addicts actively using. I felt like I was not going through this experience alone. There were parents who had been through it before and had great advice for those of us who were flailing in the dark. I felt like there were people who knew exactly what we were going through. A cloud lifted when we found people who could give us advice that was valuable. It was my first glimmer of hope!”
  • “When I finally came to a place where I realized my daughter had a problem with drugs and alcohol, my husband and I had tried everything. And I remember just having this sense of gloom and doom every day because I just didn’t know what to do for her and I didn’t’ have any hope. When I was introduced to The Family Restored, I finally found the hope that I was looking for. From there, I started to feel stronger and more hopeful than I had been in many many years.“
  • “Attending TFR family support groups provided us with a safe place to share our fears and worries without any judgement as well as knowing that everyone present could relate to our story. Beyond that we learned how to take care of ourselves, that we couldn’t control our loved one’s behavior and most importantly, how to set boundaries and separate ourselves from their chaos. Nothing about it was easy but there was support every step of the way.”