Understanding Alcoholism Within Families

Alcoholism and drug addiction devastate family systems. Anyone reading this is probably in a place where they don’t know where to turn, and when somebody in a family is using substances, what ends up happening is you look at the family. And if I were to ask all of you who is the problem, you’d all point to the alcoholic—and rightfully so. From a family systems theory perspective, and through ongoing counseling and our S.A.F.E.® Intervention & Family Recovery Coaching, you will learn that your resentments and your anger were not solely with the alcoholic. They were actually with the other family members—and here’s why.

When you have an alcoholic or a drug addict in a family system, their job is to create chaos and drama. The family’s job is to acquire and react to maladaptive family roles, starting with the primary enabler. And when that primary enabler starts to divert more attention—and much of their attention—to the alcoholic, other people in the family suffer because they lose a piece of that person. And they adapt by taking on family roles. Now, those family roles do not define who you are. They’re temporary. They will go away. They’re not a diagnosis. They’re not saying that you’re damaged. It’s just what you do as a human. We would all do it—nobody specifically.

And then the family starts to dismantle. What ends up happening is that everybody starts to get on a different page, has a different viewpoint and perspective, and thinks of a different solution for addressing the alcoholic. That’s why when we schedule interventions, we leave most families out of it, and we just focus on the decision makers and bring the family in. If we get the whole family in simultaneously, you’ll have too many people fighting the process because they’ll cling to the role they’ve adopted.

So, within a family system, an alcoholic will rip a family apart. And what ends up happening is that the more logic, thought, and ideas that come in, the less likely a family is to form logic and come up with a solution. And then their fears turn to anxieties. And then you start asking us, like, “What if our loved one says no?” And then my question to you is, “Why aren’t you saying yes to this?” And this is why you’re not. So your family system becomes dismantled.

The one part that I do want to focus on, though, is children. You know, our whole lives, most of us hear, “Oh, don’t worry, they’re only three or four or two. They’ll never remember.” And that is the biggest lie ever told. Children are sponges. Brain development starts in the mother’s womb. Trauma and stress affect brain development. And when you have an adult in a household with minor children, the impact on the children’s brains, even when they won’t physically remember the events, is catastrophic to their development.

Those become what we call high-risk youths in prevention. They are more likely to act out behaviorally and develop developmental disorders. They’re far more likely to develop substance use disorders. There is a massive increase in their ability and/or the probability that they will commit crimes. It will change the way that they love and who they love. It’ll change the way that they treat people. And it’ll change the way that they raise their children.

You know, people ask me all the time, they say, “Mike, why do you do this?” And you know, it’s to help people. It’s to rewrite the script for the family of origin. Because what alcoholism is—it’s generational dysfunction. A lot of people talk about the disease model of addiction, and nobody’s ever proven that theory. However, the one theory that has been proven in the trauma model by Dr. Gabor Maté—at least I believe it’s been proven anyway—is the trauma model. And that is passing on generational dysfunction, thoughts, and ideas. And an alcoholic within a family system will tear it apart, and it will devastate children.

There’s something called implicit memory. It’s memory without the recall. There are a lot of people who have trauma, and they don’t even recall where or why it came from. And that comes from their childhood. You know, when your loved one has alcoholism, they are ripping through the family system. One of the taglines on our website, in the paperwork we send you, even says, “We look forward to the day where the healing of the family is at least as important as the healing of the substance user.” Because we forget what happens to a family when an alcoholic is present, and it tears it apart.

So the next time you hear that the children aren’t affected, that is untrue. And if you can’t bring yourself to do this intervention for your loved one because of your fears and your anxiety, I understand—I mean, I don’t, but I do. But if there are children present, you need to drop the excuses. Because every day that you’re allowing this to continue, you are devastating those children, and you’re allowing them to play out that dysfunction that they’re living in on a day-to-day basis.