How Does a Loved One’s Addiction Impact the Entire Family?
The chronic disease of addiction is an unfortunate reality for millions of Americans, but it’s not just the people who are addicted who suffer from this disease. Chronic misuse of drugs or alcohol has far-reaching effects, impacting many others, like friends, partners, spouses, family members, and loved ones, who also experience great suffering and loss due to this problem. If you want to know how to help a loved one with addiction, you first should understand how addiction affects families and what you can do about it.
Table of contents
» How Does Addiction Create Stress and Anxiety Within the Home?
» How Does Addiction Affect Spouses and Partners?
» Can Family Members Experience Trauma From a Loved One’s Addiction?
» Why Is Family Therapy Important in Addiction Recovery?
» Key Takeaways on How Addiction Affects Families
» Resources
How Does Addiction Create Stress and Anxiety Within the Home?
There are many ways that addiction can lead to high stress and anxiety within the home and that applies to everyone who lives there, not just the person who is using drugs or drinking. Someone who is struggling with substance addiction will often display unpredictable behaviors, mood swings, and periods of energetic highs followed by crushing lows and total fatigue. This can lead to the feeling of living on a rollercoaster for those around them, with everyone constantly worried about what might happen next or when a good mood will take a shift for the worse.
People can start to feel burnt out as they keep dreading the moment that a relapse will happen, someone will do something too much and get arrested, or lose their job, or that awful moment when years of substance misuse catch up to them in the form of serious health problems. It can also become very stressful for family members at home who have to start thinking through some serious conversations, including how to stage an intervention for an alcoholic or how to address their loved one’s growing drug problem.
One study that was published in 2019 looked at the impact of addiction on the mental health of family members due to their feelings of things like:
- Guilt
- Embarrassment
- Anger
- Fear
- Anxiety
- Concern or abandonment
The study looked at 114 people who were family members of someone misusing substances, as well as 114 people who didn’t have a family member with substance use disorder. Ultimately, it found that nearly 30 percent of those with an addicted family member were suspected to have a mental health disorder, compared to 16 percent of those who didn’t have an addicted family member.
Other research has found that families with substance misuse typically have signs of things like:
- Lack of flexibility
- High distress and dysfunction
- Poor family expressiveness or agreement
- “Reciprocal causality,” meaning the substance use causes dysfunction in the family, and that dysfunction and related stress also affect the substance use.
How Does Addiction Affect Spouses and Partners?
To understand how addiction affects families, it’s important to understand the many ways it can take an especially hard toll on spouses and partners. There’s no denying that this can cause incredible stress on a romantic relationship, leading to all kinds of hurt feelings and a growing number of problems at home.
The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy says there are many possible warning signs that the harm to a relationship has become so severe that professional help could be required, including:
- They argue about drinking or using drugs frequently.
- Someone feels like they need to cover up their partner’s substance use, such as making excuses for their behavior or calling their boss to say they’re sick and won’t be at work.
- The spouse has started drinking or using drugs to deal with stress from these home arguments about substance use.
- The only thing the two like to do together is use substances.
- Domestic violence
- Isolating from friends and family members to hide how bad the problems have become.
When things reach this point, both partners can start to have their own substance misuse problems, and that’s when they might need to both get professional treatment for addiction as well as intensive therapy to begin to rebuild trust in one another and repair the damage to their relationship.
Can Family Members Experience Trauma From a Loved One’s Addiction?
If you’re still wondering how addiction affects families, loved ones can actually experience severe trauma from the substance use disorder that is playing out around them or at home. For example, children who grow up in a household with one or both parents struggling with addiction are at a much higher risk of developing a substance use disorder themselves at some point.
As of 2010, it was estimated that more than 8 million kids under the age of 18 were living with at least one adult with a substance use disorder – adding up to more than 1 in 10 children in the country, with many of these under the age of 5. Research has found that if even just one person in a household is struggling with addiction, everyone around them will also change their behaviors as a response – and this can add up to severe changes in the family dynamic that can lead to years or decades of hurt feelings, guilt, shame, despair, and suffering.
Kids, in particular, are especially affected by being around someone struggling with a substance use disorder while they’re young. Often, people who grow up in this manner will struggle with maintaining healthy boundaries in relationships, poor communication, anger, anxiety, stress, and unhealthy attachment styles. Without professional therapy and help, many people will continue to struggle with the things they learned while growing up, even as adults. All of this is a sign of just how severe this trauma can be from someone else’s drinking or drug use.
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Why Is Family Therapy Important in Addiction Recovery?
Family therapy is a crucial component of addiction recovery for many people, both for the patient and their loved ones. You can visit someone in drug rehab, and that can be an essential motivator for the patient to continue therapy and treatment. With family therapy, the incredible hurt and anger that many loved ones will harbor after years of watching their relative struggle with substance use can start to be healed, helping everyone achieve acceptance and forgiveness while looking forward to a better future together.
Key Takeaways on How Addiction Affects Families
- Addiction affects millions of Americans, but it also significantly impacts their loved ones.
- Spouses and partners can struggle with their romantic partner’s substance use, leading to severe relationship problems.
- Kids who grow up in a household with at least one adult who is abusing drugs are at a much higher risk of eventually developing a substance use disorder.
- The lingering effects of trauma from growing up in a household like this can continue for years or decades.
- Family therapy can help to heal these strained relationships and address the past pain that the addiction has caused.
How addiction affects families is well-researched, and it’s clear that it can cause serious harm and pain. The good news is that professional treatment at a top drug and alcohol rehab center like WhiteSands Alcohol and Drug Treatment can help the person and their family members address this pain and work together toward long-lasting recovery. Call us at 877-855-3470 today to learn how to get started toward a better future together.
Resources
- National Library of Medicine – The Impact of Substance Use Disorders on Families and Children: From Theory to Practice
- National Library of Medicine – The Impact of Addiction on Family Members’ Mental Health Status
- National Library of Medicine – Influence of Substance Misuse on Families
- American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – Substance Abuse and Intimate Relationships
If you or a loved one needs help with abuse and/or treatment, please call the WhiteSands Treatment at (877) 855-3470. Our addiction specialists can assess your recovery needs and help you get the addiction treatment that provides the best chance for your long-term recovery.
About the Author
Jackie has been involved in the substance abuse and addiction treatment sector for over five years and this is something that she is truly eager about. She has a passion for writing and continuously works to create informative pieces that not only educate and inform the public about the disease of addiction but also provide solutions for those who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse.
