How Substance Abuse and Alcoholism Affects the Family – Reach Recovery
Substance Abuse Recovery in Greenville, NC can be found at http://reachrecovery.org.
There is a common misconception that substance abusers believe. They often think “I am only hurting myself.” This is not a true belief. In fact, dependency upon chemicals causes one to behave in ways that hurt the people closest to them. It:
1- Dominates the user’s thoughts and priorities.
2- Occupies the user’s time, money, and attention.
3- Deteriorates the user’s values and behavior.
All of these changes directly affect the whole family and has a negative impact on the family.
What impact does this behavior have on the family? It creates constant unpredictability. Family members struggle to adapt to the unstable ways of the user:
1- The non-user begins to develop emotional and physical problems.
2- Family member becomes filled with anger, guilt, shame, hurt, fear, and loneliness.
3- They can suffer from rejection, abandonment, and other forms of abuse.
What’s really at stake for the families of substance abuse or alcoholism? Unfortunately, this is a lose/lose situation for everyone. Healthy family relationships are lost.
1- Lack of trust — brief periods of sobriety do little to lesser tension since the family has learned not to rely upon the addicts promise.
2- Inability to communicate effectively — families have learned by trial and error not to talk about problems, and their experience with substance abusers and alcoholics have proven to lead to more fights and arguments.
3- Inappropriate coping skills — the family has lost the ability to deal with emotions in a healthy way. As addiction progresses, family tension & hopelessness increases. Love becomes confounded by feelings of hatred, eventually finding themselves unable to separate the person from the problem.
Can families take back what was lost?
Certainly, families can win in these situations, but it will take work and time. As we’ve talked about, the natural course for families in these situations is for families to revolve around the chemically addicted, giving them all the attention. The chemically addicted revolves their life around the chemical. The focus of both the user and non-user in the family is wrong. The family member has relinquished control of their lives to the user. In order to stop this cycle, the family members must regain control of their own lives!