family Dynamics of Addiction - family Systems Can Work For Or Against Your saving
Alcoholics/addicts do not commonly live in a circle made up exclusively of alcoholics and addicts. Most people suffering from addictions have a multitude of people in their lives who are affected by the addiction. Even alcoholics and addicts that are estranged from their requisite others, either spouses or parents, or siblings, of their children, impact the lives of those who love them. When there is addiction in your family, it is vital to get help, even if you are not the addict.
family Dynamics of Addiction - family Systems Can Work For Or Against Your saving
One of the reasons that it is requisite for whole household to secure retain and services is the systemic nature of families. In a system, each part affects and is affected by all the parts. Changes in one part (person) of a principles affects the whole principles in a host of ways.
When teaching about family dynamics of addiction and salvage and explaining how a family principles can control to help or hinder the salvage of the alcoholic/addict, I will use a movable to illustrate. Imagine if you will, a movable with two grandparent generation figures on the top, two parents on the second tier, and three children on the third tier, then a dog and cat on the bottom tier. This movable is hanging from the ceiling. It has a natural equilibrium, or balance, to it.
Now Imagine a weight gradually being applied to one of the parent figures (it does not matter which one). As the strain is applied, all figures on the movable adjust and adjust to adapt the turn in the altered parent. It flops colse to a bit as the weight is applied. As it settles in, the movable has adapted a new equilibrium or balance.
Imagine now, that the parent shape with the weight (or addiction) suddenly has the weight removed. All parts of that principles will be flopping colse to trying to re-establish an equilibrium. This is what happens in an addicted family system. Each part of that principles affects every other part-even in recovery. As the relatives of an addict turn their own behavior to adapt the addict's changes, each family member tends to fabricate maladaptive characteristics and traits.
In the policy of survival, the essence of relationships in the middle of family members changes. The non-addicted spouse often takes on more and more responsibilities and roles within the family. A marriage that was once a association in the middle of equals may turn to one of caretaking or "parenting" the other. Power in the association shifts.
As the addiction progresses in the addict, so do the family dynamics of addiction. The policy of those changes is predictable. The rules within the principles changes as the members eventually reorganize without the addict. The alcoholic/addict may still be physically present, but may come to be emotionally absent and withdrawn from the family. requisite others often quit trying to re-engage the addict, and begins to carry on with life without him/her. These behavioral adjustments turn the organization and functioning of the system, in the same process that addiction changes the system.
When the alcoholic/addict sobers up, this signals an additional one turn in the system. family members may not know what to do with this change. As the alcoholic/addict tries to secure full functioning in the distinct areas of their lives, family members who have changed to adjust to the addiction may resist the association changes that salvage needs. The "parenting" spouse may resist giving up the need to parent the other spouse. They may oppose the notion of the alcoholic taking back responsibilities abandoned in the addiction or may still comprehend the addict as "incompetent" and "untrustworthy". And, indeed, trust is a association attribute that takes a long time to return.
The spouse who has taken on more and more of the responsibilities as the addict has abandoned them, may be deeply invested in being "the responsible one", or "the good parent", and may need an "incompetent one" or "the bad parent", to counterbalance their role in the system. Families can resist the salvage changes in the addict in many ways. Spouses (and children) may even say "I liked you better stoned/drunk."
Often, loved ones like the alcoholic/addict just the way they are, with exception to the inappropriate, unpredictable behavior and the usual negative consequences of their addiction. They may share the alcoholic/addict's notions that all they need is to lose the addiction and all else in their lives will be fine. Alcoholics/addicts and their family members may hold on to the notion that they will be able to learn to drink without the natural negative consequences related with it.
Family systems typically include more than one alcoholic/addict. In fact, there are commonly layers of addiction in families. Frequently, there are two alcoholic spouses. Sometimes the addiction has progressed so much additional in one of the spouses that it is more apparent that this spouse has addiction, when the addiction of the other partner is not so obvious. With many addicts in a family, there would be manifold family structures, roles, and rules that would tend to promote the persisting use of alcohol or other drugs. A typical example would be family celebrations that continue to involve alcohol.
On the other hand, family members often have the hidden prospect that a sober alcoholic will turn into the man that the family member all the time wanted them to be. It is very base that family members have identified many of the addict's undesirable personality characteristics or behavior as "the addiction" and believe that with the absence of the chemical, the addict's true self will emerge. Although many family members see a preview of the extraordinary changes in the addict in the honeymoon period of recovery, sustained personality and behavioral changes occur over time.
Thus, the recovering addict is subject to the hidden expectations of his/her family members, regardless of either the family expect him/her to miraculously be the man they all the time wanted now that the chemical is absent from their lives, or either they expect the addict to stay the same, but without the drugs. The recovering addict often has a hard time trying to shape out where they fit in the family, how they feel about other family members, and how to stay clean and sober amidst conflicting expectations. It is however, all the time helpful for everyone to remember that each recovering man is responsible for their own recovery.
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