Effects of Alcoholism on the Family

Your culture, religion, family and work influence many of your behaviours, including drinking. Repetitive behaviour like this can make you more vulnerable to developing alcohol addiction. For some, drinking to socialise is part of their positive life balance. Individuals that have AUD, instead use alcohol to cope with their issues.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notes that families that are affected by alcohol problems have high levels of confusion and stress. This can make children who grow up in such environments more susceptible to substance use and other mental health problems. It can often be helpful for family members to learn more about alcohol use disorders and explore ways to improve their responses during interactions with someone who has a drinking problem. This may mean setting ground rules and joining a support group such as Al-Anon, designed specifically to meet the needs of families of people with alcohol use issues.

More Addiction in the Family

Greater self-reflection of the underlying biases that drive our perceptions may help us to make wiser decisions and to avoid the risks of problematic drinking and the increasing tendency to self-medicate. Individual therapy is the first line of defense for someone trying to find help as the family member of an addict. It’s simple to seek out therapy if no one else in the family wants to look for help. Individual therapy focuses on you, your goals, and the things that keep you from achieving them. Certain substances may lead to drowsiness and slow breathing, while others may cause insomnia, paranoia, or hallucinations. Chronic substance use has links to cardiovascular, kidney, and liver disease.

See our treatment programs here and help your loved one beat their addiction. You can help your loved one find a safe, effective rehab or treatment service that focuses on rebuilding connection and love, helping them start a happy, new, sober life. Many family members and friends may see their loved ones deal with harsh side effects of drugs or become angry or violent when under the influence.

How Addiction Affects The Family

The enabler is likely to deny the reality of drug use and will keep making excuses for them rather than urging them to treat their substance abuse problem. Even if the addicted person is a fully grown adult, addiction can still impact their parents. https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/boredom-drinking-and-how-to-stop-it/ No matter the age, the effects of drug addiction reach the entire family. When a parent is spending money on drugs or alcohol rather than the food and clothing their child needs, it can lead to an undereducated or malnourished child.

• It helps to moderate the emotional responses generated in older parts of the brain.
• Key concepts in both theories are feedback, homeostasis and boundaries that are defined and operationalized in this section.
• Substance use can sometimes lead to serious health consequences, including overdose and death.
• This sets the child up for a potential lifetime of inability to set healthy boundaries in relationships and make the important triad connections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
• Addiction fosters severe mistrust since many people with an addiction lie about their habits and whereabouts to their closest loved ones.

General systems theory focuses on how the parts of a system interact with one another. In general systems theory an individual cell is one example of a system, and in family systems theory the family is essentially its own system. Key concepts in both theories are feedback, homeostasis and boundaries that are defined and operationalized in this section. Out of this theory multiple models of family therapy developed including but not limited to strategic, structural, experiential, and more recently the multisystemic family systems therapy (MFT) model. Individuals who present in our clinical settings can be seen as “symptomatic,” and their pathology can be viewed as an attempt adapt to their family system so as to maintain homeostasis. Individuals with addiction issues believe they are only impacting their own lives and cannot see the outside effects of their actions.

It Impacts the Addicts Children

About two thirds of incest perpetrators report using alcohol directly before the offending incident (USDHHS, 1996). Of all the family members impacted by a loved one’s substance abuse disorder, children suffer the most damaging effects. Children who live in how does alcohol affect relationships a home with addicted individuals are especially susceptible to this kind of harm. Codependency can be between two people abusing substances, family members or spouses of people misusing substances, or children of individuals struggling with substance abuse.

• Some use to the point that their spouse or the state declare them incapable of caring for their children.
• In other instances, other family members may be abusive towards the person suffering from addiction.
• In Al-Anon and Nar-Anon they receive support from other family members and learn they did not cause the SUD, nor can they control it or cure it.
• When there’s someone suffering with an addiction, there must also be a caretaker.

As the AACAP explains, children are in a unique position in relation to a parent or caregiver who is addicted to alcohol. It can lead to a lack of parental support, and by extension, the absence of a parental figure. Early exposure to an alcohol abuser can also increase the child’s propensity to have a problematic relationship with alcohol. Research has found that children of individuals who abuse alcohol are four times more likely to abuse alcohol themselves. Although a person who is physically dependent (i.e., has an increased tolerance among other side effects) is not necessarily addicted, ongoing drinking is a slippery slope that can lead to addiction. Chronic alcohol use alters brain chemistry and can result in mental illness.

If they have children as well, the cycle has a strong chance of continuing. If your family falls into this category, our domestic violence and addiction treatment may be able to help. Alcoholism and drug addiction have obvious and well-documented effects on chronic substance abusers. Prolonged abuse of drugs and/or alcohol will deteriorate a person’s physical health, impair their mental functioning, and damage their overall spirit.