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Addiction and the Family

RANDOLPH P HOLMES MD FASAM FAAFP

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The Modern Family

• 48% of households have a married couple

• 20% of households have married couple with children

• 27% of households are a single person living alone

• 10% of households are headed by a single parent

• Blended families are increasingly common

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Add Addiction into the picture

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Substance Abusers and Families Suffer Together

• Every single member of a substance abuser’s family is affected in some way.

• Addiction impacts a family’s finances, physical health and psychological wellbeing.

• Each addict’s situation is different which means each family’s situation is different.

• Families become distorted and out of balance as a result of dealing with addiction.

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Roles

• The enabler- usually the spouse.

• The hero- older child who overachieves.

• The scapegoat- younger child who is defiant and misbehaves.

• The mascot- uses humor as a coping mechanism to achieve peace at home.

• The lost child- isolated from other family members and has trouble in social situations.

Roles

• When these roles are established during childhood, they become behavioral patterns that continue to play out and evolve throughout adulthood.

• The late development of an addiction (when adult children are present) creates another set of issues and parent/child lines are blurred.

• Friends can take on these same roles.

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Children

• 1 in 5 Americans lived with an alcoholic relative at some point during their childhood.

• The affects of parental alcoholism/addiction can be felt long after childhood and well into adulthood.

• Children can have poor self image, guilt, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness.

• They are at high risk of substance abuse themselves as the grow up.

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Rules In Alcoholic Families

• Don’t talk

• Don’t trust

• Don’t feel

• Don’t ask

• Don’t think

• Don’t make a mistake

• Don’t play

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What Do You Do?

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Things you can do for the addict

• Behave as you would if your loved one had a serious illness

• Educate yourself on addiction

• Do not enable, provide excuses, or cover up for the addict

• Do not protect the addict from the consequences of their behavior

• Set boundaries

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Things you can do for yourself

• Take care of yourself

• Avoid self blame

• Do not work harder than the addict for their recovery

• Ask for help, talk with a professional

• Do not discuss things with the addict if they are under the influence

• Detach from the disease not the person

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Intervention

• Alcoholics, addicts, and their families often believe that they can stop whenever things get out of control

• Most alcoholics and addicts are in denial, believing the problem to be anything but themselves

• Interventions deal with selfish, self absorbed people who take no accountability for their actions and blame their problems on everyone else

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Reason for Intervention

• Bring the problem into focus and get the alcoholic/addict to a crisis point, i.e.. “Bring the bottom to the alcoholic/addict”

• Should be led and organized by someone skilled in intervention

• Involves family and friends who are closest to the alcoholic/addict

• Should have treatment options offered to the alcoholic/addict to begin recovery

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Helpful Links

• Al-Anon (al-anon.org)

• Nar-Anon (nar-anon.org)

• Gam-Anon (gam-anon.org)

• CODA (coda.org)

• Adult children (adultchildren.org)

• Families (familiesanonymous.org)

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