Have you heard the phrase, addiction is a family disease? The ripple effects of someone’s struggles with a substance use disorder (SUD) reach every member of the immediate family, which can include biological and chosen family. Loving someone who has an addiction is painful and challenging for many reasons. It is easy to feel trapped in patterns of communication and interaction without knowing how to change things.
Addiction affects the whole family, but The Right Step Houston offers family therapy that can help everyone—both the individual with a substance use disorder and their loved ones—heal and move forward together.
Addiction and family: what’s the damage?
If you suffer from the disease of addiction, you are hurting. If you are a family member, you are hurting too. There isn’t a world where everyone in this scenario is fine. Research shows that families must be considered to understand the development of addiction.1
The whole family benefits when there is early intervention and treatment for the individual with the substance use disorder. What does addiction do to a family?
Effects on children
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), approximately one out of eight children lives in a home with a parent struggling with a substance use disorder. That’s over eight and a half million children.2 These children experience:
- An unstable environment
- Loss of concentration and poor academic performance
- Mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression
- Increased likelihood of developing an SUD
- Becoming their parent’s caretaker
- Isolation from friends due to stigma or shame
- Lasting trauma
Effects on a spouse
Spouses and co-parents pick up a lot of slack due to a partner’s addiction. Spouses of people with an SUD experience:
- High levels of stress and added responsibility
- Emotional and psychological distress
- Mental and physical health challenges
- Isolation and loneliness exacerbated by the loss of connection with their spouse
- Financial instability due to a partner’s job loss or spending on their addiction
- Possible marriage dissolution
Close friends and other family members also experience harm in these situations. One of the most damaging consequences to all parties of living with or being in close relationship with someone who has an SUD is codependency.
What is codependency?
In a healthy relationship, people share with and support one another in a reciprocal, caring relationship between equals. This is called interdependence. In a codependent relationship, one or both people give up aspects of themselves to cater to the needs and desires of the other, whether that person has openly asked for this sacrifice or not. In this kind of relationship, you may be afraid or incapable of ending the codependency because you don’t think the other person will be okay if you do. You have taken on a burden that doesn’t serve either of you.
In a family with addiction, family therapy is one of the most effective ways to approach codependency. It is possible to change the family and partner dynamic first by understanding and accepting it, then working through emotional wounds and regaining a healthy balance. It is also a good idea for both parties to engage in individual therapy to unpack the reasons and underlying conditions of your codependency. A therapist can help you uncover why your emotions and sense of worth have become so inextricably connected to someone else and learn to live with confidence.
Signs of codependency
Codependency often develops in relationships affected by addiction, where one person’s sense of identity or well-being becomes overly tied to another’s behavior or needs. Signs of codependency may include unresolved abandonment issues, blurred personal boundaries, a tendency to take on blame, a fear of offering criticism, and lingering feelings of resentment.
Abandonment wounds
These leave you in constant fear that you will be left. To prevent this, you devote yourself to the other person, including lying, denying the truth, and doing anything to support them.
Merged identities
In many cases, a codependent person loses sight of who they are, being so focused on the other person’s preferences, needs, and struggles. This leads to high self-doubt, and you no longer trust yourself to make choices or decisions.
Taking the blame
If you are codependent, you may accept blame in disagreements to make things pleasant and avoid conflict. Still, you may also take responsibility for the other person’s actions outside the relationship to help them avoid consequences.
Fear of criticizing
You might be so worried that you’ll lose the other person or that they’ll no longer need or love you that you refuse, are unable to see their flaws, or believe that they have caused harm.
Resentment
Although you are devoted and even merged with the other person, an unspoken resentment often festers damagingly below the surface. You may believe you cannot live without them and that they certainly could not survive without you, yet deep down, you feel the effects of the inequities in the relationship.
There are many warning signs that you are in a codependent relationship. If you suspect that you are trapped in a cycle of codependency with an addicted partner, friend, or family member, seek professional help and consider how you might open the conversation. You and the whole family would benefit from evidence-based treatment and the support of peers experiencing the same challenges.
Reach out today to The Right Step Houston and begin family therapy
When you think about addiction and family, you are likely to find memories of potentially codependent behaviors that, at the time, you did not recognize for what they were. It is possible to heal yourself and your relationship, but you can’t do it alone. In partnership with a loved one in recovery and with the help of a professional, you can confidently make shifts that will last.
Call 1.844.768.0169 or submit our online form to connect with one of our staff.
Footnotes: