Relationships

One in four children in the United States are exposed to alcoholism or drug addiction in the family. This means that in your apartment building, your neighbor hood or among your children's friends, one in four might be hiding their embarrassment, confusion, hurt or shame about what's going on at home. These kids who are affected by alcohol and drug abuse are at an increased risk for behavior problems, physical illness, emotional problems and lower education performance according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Visit the living room of the average family that is “living with”, or should I say “drowning in” addiction and you are likely to find a family that is functioning in emotional extremes. Where feelings can explode and get very big, very fast or implode and disappear into “nowhere”, with equal velocity. Where what doesn’t matter can get unusual focus while what does matter can be routinely swept under the rug. A family in which small, fairly insignificant behaviors can be blown way out of proportion while outrageous or even abusive ones can go entirely ignored and unidentified.

For most people, alcohol is used within the context of normal social behaviour. But some people have diffculty controlling their drinking and the harmful effects are more serious than a hangover. It can be diffcult to tell when normal social drinking becomes problem drinking, especially as the drinker may deny that they have a problem.

Those among us who have lived with addiction understand how it feels to live in a family that has lost its rudder. Like a boat in stormy waters, the addicted family system struggles to right itself in the midst of powerful currents that are constantly threatening to over turn it. The addicted family, rather than learning how to sail together as a team or live in the boat, winds up devoting its strength, ingenuity and energy to simply staying afloat.

Alcoholism in marriage and divorce - the modern dance that Gloria and Chuck are doing. There's one thing for sure that you can say about Gloria and her ex-husband Chuck, they both know how to keep the fight going long after the initial disagreement has been forgotten. It's not like the two of them became raging alcoholics over night.

Chances are, most of us will interact with an addict sometime in our lives. Regardless of our relationship - spouse, parent, sibling, friend, or employee - our mental health is not contingent on the addict or his/her changes. Nevertheless, as long as we seek serenity from external sources, we will be involved in controlling, manipulating, wishing, suffering, blaming, analysing, and avoiding - behaviours common to people who identify themselves with addicts.

Children growing up in a home where there is alcohol abuse by a parent live in a constant state of confusion and uncertainty.

Generally speaking, women who've grown up with a battering father often get into battering relationships, sort of like an addiction. Or sex becomes a preoccupation.

It is generally not seen as a healthy preoccupation with another individual. It's seen as sort of a mechanical, almost using, of the other to get a particular emotional experience inside.

Your family has gone through a roller coaster experience with you; ups and downs, back and forth; they have been involved through the sobriety and falling off the sobriety, and involvement in treatment and non-involvement in treatment, and your mood swings.