Addiction in the family: What’s Love Got To Do With How a Family Engages a Loved One into a Recovery Journey?
There was no active addiction in my family of origin. However, there was in my extended family: with my mother’s father. There was also abuse between them. Mom never spoke about it directly. She believed that not talking about it, would be enough. It wasn’t.
Mom would get triggered about something. Everyone in the family responded by stopping whatever they were doing, focusing on her, orienting around her, and changing their behavior with the intention to make mom less triggered.
My dad appeased her. My sister avoided her. I became hypersensitive to her ups and downs. I became a chameleon; my change oriented around what I thought she needed from me.
I remember calling my role, “mom’s little solider” and believed that my good behavior would bring her out of a mood that resulted from her being triggered. This was how I initially learned about love.
I felt bad when my good behavior didn’t work to brighten her mood.
Love can be seen and felt differently in the same family
The way a family shows love starts with how parents show love to one another. Then trickles down to how parents express love, or the lack of it, to different family members. Both parents learned about love from their parents.
Each generation learns about love from what is modeled to them.
Familial love is defined differently and expressed differently in different families. Parents may express love to their children differently. One’s expression of love may not be interpreted as love by another.
Love is a feeling that is driven by thoughts and beliefs.
Children in the same family may have very different experiences of their parent’s love. Parents can express love like they experienced it when they were children, or the opposite.
Also, parents can learn and create something new. However, one can become triggered: old behaviors driven by old beliefs can take over.
What beliefs underly how love is expressed?
Because this is a huge question with numerous perspectives, I use a model created by Loyd de Mause. - a sociologist who studied cultures around the world. In every culture, he’d ask the same three research questions:
What is the parenting like?
What kind of adults does this parenting produce?
What kind of culture do these adults create?
The connection to addiction is multifaceted. Stay with me.
He identified a developmental model of worldview (from oldest to most recent):
Orientation around power
Orientation around rules and structure
Orientation around image
Orientation around something greater than self
From the perspective of “orienting around power” de Mause noticed love being expressed based on conditions of demanding or submitting.
Developmentally, the movement towards “orienting around something greater that self” increased empathy, impulse control, and love as unconditional.
Consider for a moment, love being conditional or unconditional. Ask yourself: How might this influence my success engaging my loved one into a recovery journey? As I hope you can see, either/or options (black/white thinking) limits your potential for success.
With the worldview of orienting around power, people who were bigger, stronger, and smarter could do whatever they wanted, to whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Abuse and violence were “normal” and thought of as rational thinking (agreement by a majority of people).
Power-over was a main criteria for how love was expressed.
The worldview that orients around rules and structure most closely relates to addiction recovery, and what a family can do to engage their loved one into a healing journey.
There’s a takeaway message: Regardless of what worldview or beliefs have guided ‘how a family did family’ in the past, when a family creates and emphasizes more rules and structure, this creates conditions that are inhospitable to active addiction (when supported by a majority of family).
New rules and new structure become foundational to engage a loved one.
Family change leads to individual change.
“Why would a family change anything when only one person is addicted?”
If you’re asking yourself this question, you are not alone!
The norm addiction recovery approach attempts to engage an addicted loved one into treatment using a type of power-over force, often masked in love. Even when successful, addiction traps the individual and the family in a power-over relationship (right/wrong, good/bad, black/white).
Research statistics with addiction recovery.
Become curious. Ask “why” questions.
I’ve learned that focusing on the problem alone, increases the problem.
Expanding our focus to include what is around the problem, and examining both, leads to:
Realizing our actions are not dependent on another’s behavior
Empowerment is based on taking action on things we can control
Black/white power-over dynamic no longer drive relationship
Potential solutions increase
Love can be redefined based on the context
Family change ripples out to impact everyone.
Hence, family change initiates individual change. This means genuine curiosity about family patterns, and being curious about where they’ve come from without blame Become curious about what you’d like to keep and what you’d like to change.
For people who insist they don’t have anything to change, consider that your loved one in addiction may have a similar resistance to change.
Right about now you may have an inner conflict. One part insisting, ‘I don’t need to change anything’ and another part - maybe even a slight ember - “well, I’ve always wondered about ___.”
Become curious about the giving and receiving of familial love. Does love enable old patterns that reinforce addiction, or enable a healthy new dynamic.
Lasting change is a process of learning and practicing
My story, at the beginning of this article, highlights my strategy to love my mother when she was triggered. I believed changing my behavior could help her feel better. I actually believed I had that much power; I didn’t.
The side benefit (unconscious strategy) would be me feeling loved.
Unbeknownst to me, this childhood training led to codependency.
Even after years of academic training, codependency was a negative, shaming label that I rejected for decades. I interpreted “codependency” as a feeling I’d done something wrong. I knew this wasn’t true.
Expanding my understanding to include the impact of centuries of mixed messages adding to confusion of addiction dynamics, which trickled down onto each generation of my ancestors, inspired my taking responsibility for my own codependency.
Stopping these patterns in this generation was empowering.
I acknowledged the culture took no responsibility for the mixed messages. However, it wasn’t until fully leaning into my own personal work that I’d realized how my distorted expression of love had been getting in my way. Defining, setting and maintaining boundaries has become an ongoing practice to continually strive for integrity.
Lasting change is a gradual process.
Codependency and shame are still prevalent today
The culture’s messaging about addiction has not been kind to families.
Shaming language about a family doing their best to express love for a family member struggling, increases the family’s resistance to change.
Becoming curious about trickledown factors in ones family - and knowing whatever dynamics you find did not start with you - is empowering.
Let me inspire your curiosity.
Later in May or early June of 2024, an online DIY education program will be completed: Family Addiction Engagement Training (FAET). Regular online coaching is included.
At your own pace, you access resources that take you on a journey - discover past patterns, present opportunities, and create future goals.
You’ll be invited and supported to make choices that empower you and your family to become part of the solution that inspires your loved one to consider a recovery journey.
Take a peek: https://thefamilyrecoverysolution.com/faet/