Article Directory :: Self-Improvement/Motivation Articles

How Family Members Change With Addiction in the Family

Copyright © 2012 Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D.

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 11Nov2009 Word count: 916 Viewed: 439 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

A question that I have received on more than one occasion for my column, "Ask Peggy", is about why the non-addicted family member ends up becoming someone that s/he doesn't even like. Family members are often confused about their own contribution to the family dynamics of addiction.

The answer is that alcoholism and other drug addiction is a disease that affects the entire family. Addiction takes a toll on each family member, not just the addict.

As the addict gets more and more involved in the addiction, the chemical comes to take center place in his or her life. In the process, the addict's life gets smaller and focused in on getting the drug, using it, and recovering from its use. Family members also find that their focus gets more and more narrowly tuned in on the addict and his/her substance abuse.

Just as the addiction takes a predictable course of progression, so do the development of the family dynamics. In the addiction the chemical is being applied as problem solving to a broader and broader range of issues and areas of a person's life. Use of the chemical increases. Tolerance usually develops and increases. Negative consequences of the drinking or using begin to occur. Some of the negative consequences include conflicts and arguments with family members over the chemical, arrests for DUI, DWI, public intoxication and other alcohol/drug related offenses, hangovers, blackouts, mental health problems, and relationship problems.

These consequences are not initially recognized by the addict as consequences of a drug altered brain and body. Their connection to drinking/drugging is denied, minimized, negated, or explained away in the process of denial. Defense mechanisms including denial serve allow the addict to continue to use while maintaining some level of emotional comfort in the midst of developing problems.

The evolving dynamics of addiction that develop as family members deal with the addiction and its negative consequences are also predictable. Family members initially believe the rationalizations, distortions, explanations, and justifications for inappropriate behavior. Long before the problem is correctly identified, the family is hard at work trying to solve the problem. They try reasonable, rational, problem solving techniques that do not work on addiction. Much of the time they have identified "the problem" as depression, ADD/ADHD, not having the right job, low self-esteem, etc. The things they do to solve the problems often serve as "enabling" rather than actual problem solving.

Eventually the spouse or parent discovers that the real problem is addiction and begins to try to modify the addict's drinking or using. They may feel compelled to take control in the obvious absence of the addict's control. These family members get quite creative (and manipulative) in their efforts to change the alcoholic. They get the addict to promise to quit. Family members regain some hope with each new promise, only to have it dashed with each broken promise and failed attempt to quit or stay quit.

In the process of struggling with the addict over the chemical, non-addicted spouses come to see the addict's behavior as something that they are deliberately doing to try to destroy themselves and the family. Eventually the addict and the family member get locked into a game of tug-of-war over the chemical that comes to characterize and define the relationship.

Everyone in the family feels hurt and afraid. The family system shifts to accommodate the illness of the addict, and eventually the ongoing struggle between spouses. Both spouses feel resentment and blame the other for his or her own behavior.

As the addict becomes more and more disabled by the addiction, the non-addicted spouse takes on most of the roles in the family. The children are often recruited to help. The family operates in survival mode most of the time.

The children take on stereotypical survival roles. These survival roles are chosen or assigned according to personality characteristics, birth order, and family structure. The roles tend to become entrenched in each child over time and can persist into adulthood. These survival roles serve several purposes in the family-- mostly to reduce the tension and pain in one way or another.

As the family system changes to accommodate the changes in the addict and in the family dyanmics, family members often find themselves engaging in behavior that is outside their value systems. Ultimately non-addicted family members also turn into someone they never wanted to be.

The pain, the conflict, and the walking around on eggshells usually persists for some time, often until the one or both of the two battling spouses decide to separate. This change often signals a crisis that is enough to motivate the addict to seek treatment, help, and recovery. The other family members may have already sought assistance, or they may have discovered that their efforts to make the addict change simply have not worked and are not likely to work in the future. When a family member internalizes this awareness s/he is able to "detach".

Family members operate under the belief that when the addict stops drinking or using that all the problems in the family will be solved. They believe that if the addict can just quit drinking or using, or at least quit having the negative consequences of his/her drinking and using, that everything will be alright. This is usually not the case.

The first year of recovery is often a very difficult time, not only for the recovering alcoholic/addict, but for the family as well.

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here

More articles by Peggy Ferguson

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy Now:

Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!
Click For Details