Oh, they are indisposable. Humans resonate better with love than all other emotions. A sympathetic father or a mother or even a sister would do wonders to the confidence of an addict and help hasten the recovery process. Most of the times, family members don't give adequate support unable to put up with the nuisance posed by an addict. However, a considerate approach gives an addict or a former addict a sense of belonging and makes him stay sober.
These days - my friends are amazing. Back in the depths of addiction, I had to get rid of my friends, because they were the ones enabling, encouraging, and allowing the addiction to persist. It made me really re-define what a friend was to me, and what I wanted from friendships. As hard as it is looking back to the (so called) friends I had to cut out of my life, it's like any hard time in life -- there is some lesson there if you search for it hard enough. These days I feel like my new friends are as much family as my blood relatives are.
I think for anybody that is going through, or has been through any form of addiction and recovery, they will all say that they couldn't have done it on their own, and they needed people around to help and support them. Sometimes it might not even be a family member, just a friend, but I think it makes everything a lot easier than going through it alone.
I think family and friends are really important for everyone of us, whether you are an addict or not. Our loved ones are our source of motivation and inspiration in life. They are the reason why we are doing our very best in everything that we do because we don't want to disappoint or fail them. Whenever we are down, they are the first people who would support and encourage us to get back up and move forward in life.
I think it is very difficult to get through recovery without support from friends or family. You also need to know that once it is over you have somewhere to go, a reason for going on. No-one wants to be alone, especially an addict. We all need someone to care about our well being.
I think this would vary from person to person. Sure it's great to get support from friends or family but what if you aren't the only addict in your family? What if many of your friends aren't any better than you? No one was there for me. Only the friends I met online offered some support and the encouragement which I needed to keep fighting. Should an addict feel that they aren't getting support fro their family or friends then they should find the right support groups and the new friends will be a better substitute.
My friends and relatives can only be important to me when in the process of my recovery if they were already important before I even became a drug addict. Those who loved and cared for me before I became an addict became a source of strength and fortress to me in the time of my recovery. My important friends and relatives are those who stayed with me in the good times and the bad times
When my brother was into drugs, it seemed like he had the world only for himself. When he had recovered, he admitted that to us. And now that he has fully recovered - his addiction days happened a long time ago - he would sometimes profess his gratitude to us for our attempts in helping him get out of his addiction.