How the Family is Affected by Addiction
Addiction is a family disease. In the Utah rehab where I work as a therapist, we often have families bring in their addicted loved ones and expect us to return them healed, without any family involvement. Because the whole family is affected by addiction and the addict is so affected by the family, you cannot effectively treat the addict without addressing the family dynamics.
One of the key ways family members are affected by addiction is that they develop or increase codependent behaviors. Codependency is a set of behaviors involving one individual continually trying to rescue, fix, or change another individual, usually someone who is struggling with a major problem like addiction.
Family members, with the intent of helping and supporting, will often sacrifice finances, health, and other resources in an attempt to save the addict. The addict may have a myriad of excuses why they can’t come up with grocery money, a car payment, the gas bill, etc. And, in kindness, a codependent family member will try to help by paying part or all of the expense.
This, in turn, enables the addict to stay in addiction. So, the addict continues to worsen and the codependent becomes more fearful and tries even harder to help. Thus the addict and codependent continue to feed off of each other in this way, cycling downward in a very unhealthy spiral.
Being a family member of an addict has some serious health consequences. The more emotionally engaged you are with the addict, the more severe the health problems. Working with family members of addicts on a regular basis, I have seen people who have been so affected that they have suffered recent strokes and heart attacks and are fighting to stave off the next.
Family members of addicts can suffer from depression, anxiety, and chronic severe stress as well as struggle with problems at work and in other relationships. For this reason, it is very important that family members of the addict receive treatment for their own struggles, whether or not the addict seeks treatment as well.
For more information contact a Utah Drug Rehab center near you. Utah Drug Rehab centers are great at answering questions and helping those who might be struggling with any form of drug abuse.
3 Comments
Dean Toscano / 12 Apr 2011 / 5:52 pm
Haywood Rochin / 10 May 2011 / 6:36 pm
Williams Feusier / 19 May 2011 / 5:42 pm