Addiction
Addiction in Families
Addiction in Family: Impact on Children // Part 1 of 3
CJ Liu talks to Claudia Black, author of “It Will Never Happen to Me: Growing Up with Addiction as Youngsters, Adolescents, and Adult“. Claudia shares the different kinds of shame and fear that kids who grow up with parents who have addictions experience. It’s common for children to feel like “I am not good enough,” and “there is something wrong with me,” when they grow up with addiction in the household.
These children are often in a chronic state of the fear of the unknown caused by the unpredictability in the household. To emotionally disconnect, these kids might use some kind of addictive substance to numb out. This disconnection can affect their relationships. They might not have the ability to bond, connect or to be of support to each other. They often believe that they are unlovable, therefore they say to themselves, “I can’t get very close to you or you’re going to see that I’m not okay. I’m defective, damaged, or ugly. You will see what I’m trying to hide from both myself and you.”
Different Personas Children Adopt
• Heroes: This is the highly responsible hero type. They become parents to themselves, parents, and siblings. This is most common in older children.
• Caretaker or Placater: These are the family social workers who take care of the emotional needs of the family. If Dad does something to disappoint you, I will do whatever I need to do to take that disappointment away.
• Lost Child: This child finds that the best way for themselves to survive the family is to just disappear into the woodwork. They learn not to draw any attention to themselves no matter what’s going on.
• Jester: This is the clown in the family and they provide some comic relief to the family.
• Rebel: These are kids that are full of rage. They’re walking through life with their fists clinched trying to tell you that there’s something very wrong in my life and darn well you will notice.
These coping skills then translate to strengths. There are protective factors that can help children who grow up with addiction. The key is to have a sense of belonging outside the home, something that is positive in their lives such as recreational activities, sports, etc. Another other protective factor is having healthy rituals such as family meal times and bedtime rituals. These rituals provide meaning in the context of family. Last, children can develop positive adult relationships outside of their family. For example, it may be the guy down at the corner who’s working on cars and your child hangs around in his garage, or a therapist.
A therapist is particularly helpful when you see your child withdrawing, lacking impulse control, or starting to engage in self-harm. A therapist can help the child create healthy boundaries and provide healthy messages.
At the conclusion of the interview, Claudia talks about adopted kids with birth parents that had addictions. While there are many families that have no issues, Claudia shares that has a lot to do with the adopted child’s age and the amount of disruption of attachment. Attachment disruption results in a child that lacks in the capacity to bond with somebody else due to perhaps the neglect that took place in utero with a child. This disruption can result in a child acting out to prove that they’re not lovable. The child tries to prove that they deserve to be rejected and that there is something wrong, which is why they had to be given up. These children will push their adopted parents away and test parents over and over again. Parents can benefit from therapy to help guide them, and reinforce healthy parenting in the face of this rejection, and to process their own anger.
Emotional Abandonment and Neglect (Addictions) // Part 2 of 3
Claudia shares her own experience growing up with father who was an alcoholic and the fear and shame that children who grow up with addiction feel about themselves. She explains that everyone in the family (kids, spouses, etc.) are affected by emotional abandonment that is commonly caused with addiction. However, she explains later in the interview that this can also be cultural and is generalized to whenever there is emotional abandonment.
In these cases, everyone is subjected to this abandonment. It can become a family legacy with several generations of addictions due to perhaps a genetic predisposition coupled with some kind of psychological injury. While one out of every four children in an addicted family are more apt to become addicted, Claudia explains that it’s the emotional pain part of that addictive system that causes addiction to continue generation to generation.
The emotional pain is about the shame and fear coupled with common belief statements such as “I don’t have value,” “I’m not okay,” or “I’m not worthy.” These beliefs often relate to embarrassment, humiliation, loneliness, sadness, and learning how to disconnect emotionally. This often leads to numbing yourself out through drugs, gaming, gambling, alcohol, pot, or sex. Anything that is a great fix in the moment and it provides an escape. It’s a form of anesthetizing. Children who experience this at home are often set up for victimization. On the flip side, children who feel they are not good enough focus on perfectionism.
Claudia explains that this situation is not unique to addiction and is generalized into dysfunctional families where there is emotional abandonment. Emotional abandonment is for children who are not supported really in a healthy way emotionally. These children grow up with a sense of emotional loss since the child has to hide a part of who they are in order to be acceptable. These children learn that it’s not okay to make a mistake and that they needed to be perfect. Feelings are not okay (e.g.- sadness) or only certain feelings (e.g.-happiness) can be shown in this family. Other examples include placing unrealistic expectations on your child.
Addiction and Relationships // Part 3 of 3
Claudia explains that people sometimes don’t understand that being addicted isn’t about willpower and it’s not about self-control. An addicts need to use blocks their ability to really think about how their behavior is impacting others. If they did they would be abhorred. There’s a psychological drive and pull to keep going back to whatever that behavior is. For example, when people get sober or clean, the self-hate can become so great because for the first time they can see how that behavior has impacted others. They may know see the child that doesn’t want to have a relationship with them, their spouse is afraid of them, or how everybody’s walking on eggshells.
The personal shame is very hard and the addict must finally confront their negative self beliefs. They must come to terms with their harmful behaviors and the impact on their loved ones. While many family members minimize the pain because loved ones don’t want the addict to feel bad and return to their substance. Despite these good intentions, the whole family needs to be able to own their truth, in their own reality, in the right timing, with the help of a good therapist and counselor.
Claudia explains that it’s not only the addict parent that can guilt and shame, but the non-addictive parent too. For example, she explains that a wife of an addict may feel that if they had been a better wife, that things might have been different. As a result they might compensate for that shame with anger and rage, being rigid and controlling, or finding a way to anesthetize themselves by allowing her children to become her best buddies and giving up my parental role. As a result, some kids feel more connected and attached to the addicted parent and maybe very angry with the other parent.
Sadly, addicts generally pick spouses that enable them to re-do the whole pattern. For example, an addict would pick a spouse that’s already learned how to tolerate inappropriate behavior, such as discounting his or her perceptions. This may come in form of a spouse who’s learned how to look cheerful even when he or she is hurting, or a spouse that has learned that it’s not been safe to ask for help. Another common trait is a spouse that is fearful of conflict so does not raise their voice, backs down, or learn to deny, minimize, discount, rationalize, and pretend things are different than how they really are.
More on Claudia Black
Claudia Black, PhD is a world-renowned expert on addiction and codependency, best-selling author, and trainer internationally recognized for her pioneering and contemporary work with family systems and addictive disorders. Since the 1970s, Dr. Black’s work has encompassed the impact of addiction on young and adult children. Her writings and teachings have become a standard in the fi eld of addictions. She is the Clinical Architect of the Claudia Black Center for Young Adults and a Senior Fellow at The Meadows Treatment Center in Arizona. She is one of the original founders and serves on the advisory board for the National Association of Children of Addiction, and the advisory council of the Eluna Foundation and its development of Camp Mariposa, a camp for children impacted by addiction.
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