For decades we've been treating families as an afterthought, an add-on service for those who want to be involved in their loved one's recovery. The presumption, fuelled by old, worn out stigma, is that a person suffering from substance use disorder should be thrown into an institution, ejected from their community, and somehow magically transformed by a miracle treatment cure back into a warm, caring human being again. When they stop being destructive to themselves and others, then they can be let back into society again.

It's like a hospital telling someone with a broken arm, "You broke it, get away from here and go fix it, THEN come back and see us."

What if it is actually the other way around?