When a person has substance use disorder (SUD), the effects of their substance abuse rarely ever impact just them. Addiction is often termed “a family disease” because it leaves tremendous impacts on family members. Addiction is a family issue, as it disrupts relationships, trust, and emotional health within the family unit. Alcohol addiction, for example, can significantly affect family relationships and dynamics, leading to emotional and financial stress. Likewise, these impacts often stretch even beyond the family unit, affecting peers, friends, and other loved ones. Addiction affects families by creating a ripple effect that influences everyone connected to the individual.
It is more than likely that every person has been touched by the effects of addiction in some way. The impact of addiction extends to not just the individual, but to everyone around them. Addiction disrupts the entire family system, altering roles, communication, and emotional bonds. However, most people do not have the proper knowledge or awareness of addiction to cope with it. They cannot properly support a loved one struggling with it. Learning about addiction as a family disease can help individuals recognise the valuable role that they can play in a loved one’s recovery journey. Additionally, it can help family members and friends heal from the effects of their loved one’s addiction.
The Role of the Family on Developmental Processing
To understand addiction as a family disease, it is important to recognise the important role that the family unit plays in the development of its members. According to The Future of Children, play the primary role in promoting child health and development.” Parents and caregivers are children’s primary source of nurturing as they age. They are responsible for providing and allocating important resources to children, specifically adolescents. The family has a significant role in shaping behaviours, attitudes, and risk factors that can influence the likelihood of developing substance use disorders.
Unsurprisingly, the developmental processing of a child largely depends on the health status of their parents or caregivers. The article mentioned above explains, “Parental characteristics, including physical and mental health, education, and intellectual capacity, are also known to influence parenting behaviours and are thereby thought to affect children’s health.” Environmental factors, such as family dynamics, socio-economic status, and community influences, also play a crucial part in a child’s development and risk for addiction. One of the ways that individuals can understand the role that their parents have played in their development is through attachment styles.
Attachment styles are shaped by early interactions with caregivers and can impact emotional regulation and relationships later in life. The family system, including patterns of communication, boundaries, and roles, further influences how attachment styles develop and how individuals respond to stress or adversity.
When addiction is present in a family, all members are affected in some way. Family dysfunction, such as impaired communication, unresolved trauma, or unhealthy boundaries, can contribute to the development and perpetuation of substance abuse. Each member may experience and respond to addiction within the family differently, with unique impacts on their emotional wellbeing and coping strategies.
Attachment Styles
Every person develops a specific style of attachment to their caregivers during childhood, which remains constant throughout adulthood. Attachment is only one aspect of a parent-child relationship. Its purpose is to ensure that a child feels safe, secure, and protected. Each style of attachment is categorised by the quality of attachment, determined by how a parent or caregiver responds to a child’s needs.
The four types of attachment styles include:
Secure: Develops from trust, open communication, and empathy
Anxious: Develops from inconsistent parenting
Avoidant: Develops from unresponsive parenting
Disorganised: Develops from neglect, abuse, and fear
Every attachment style developed during childhood can have profound effects on an individual’s life throughout adulthood. Attachment styles also influence self awareness, as children who experience secure attachment are more likely to develop a clear understanding of their own emotions and boundaries, while those from chaotic environments may struggle to recognise and manage their feelings. Recognising the attachment styles that siblings, parents, and friends may have can allow individuals to better understand the attachment needs of their loved ones. It can also help to address whether or not a loved one is at risk of codependency, which can increase their risk of developing addiction in the future.
Children who develop insecure, avoidant, and/or disorganised attachment styles are at greater risk of experiencing psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, and trauma, later in life.
Additionally, it’s important to note that not every person in a family unit will develop the same attachment style. Their experience may vary based on the way parents treat each individual. Mental health problems can also arise as a result of these attachment disruptions, including specific mental health conditions such as anxiety disorders, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sibling Relationships and Influences
It is also essential to point out the influence that siblings and other loved ones can have on an individual’s developmental processing. According to the Journal of Marriage and the Family, “Siblings are a fixture in the family lives of children and adolescents, and a body of work documents their role in one another’s everyday experiences as companions, confidantes, combatants, and as the focus of social comparisons.”
Siblings are an important source of learning and growth, similar to caregivers and parents. Growing up with siblings can help individuals develop important conflict-resolution and problems solving skills. Moreover, siblings can foster empathy for one another to help them better understand the feelings of others. Siblings can become the first line of support for one another, especially during times of great stress or sorrow. Extended family members, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, can also play a significant role in providing support and stability when addiction affects the immediate family.
Similarly, the development of one sibling directly affects the development of another. When a sibling experiences hardship, parents and siblings will each respond to it in their own way. Parents may intervene, offering kindness and compassion for the child struggling. However, some siblings may be too young to understand the hardship of their brother or sister, causing them to isolate or blame themselves.
All in all, the family unit is an important source of learning, nurturing, growth, and support throughout a child’s life, well into adulthood. When one member struggles, all members are affected in some way. Other family members, including those not living in the same household, can also experience emotional distress, broken trust, and changes in family dynamics due to addiction. Other adults, such as teachers, family friends, or community members, may notice changes in a child’s behaviour or emotional wellbeing when a family is impacted by addiction. Understanding these basic roles of the family unit is vital for recognising the impact that substance abuse can have on the whole family.
The Impact of Addiction on the Family Unit
When one family member is struggling with addiction, all members are affected in some way. An article by Social Work in Public Health explains:
Each family and each family member is uniquely affected by the individual using substances including but not limited to having unmet developmental needs, impaired attachment, economic hardship, legal problems, emotional distress, and sometimes violence being perpetrated against him or her. For children there is also an increased risk of developing an SUD themselves.
Addiction often leads to negative consequences for the entire family, including family dysfunction, emotional and behavioral issues in children, and breakdowns in relationships.
As mentioned above, each member of the family is uniquely affected by substance abuse. This means that no two family members will respond the same way when learning about their loved one’s substance abuse or diagnosis of addiction. The emotional impact of a loved one’s addiction can be profound, causing distress, anxiety, and uncertainty for everyone involved. Some factors that may influence how an individual responds include:
Age
Personal knowledge and education about addiction
A family history of and/or exposure to substance abuse
The severity of the family member’s substance abuse
Any preexisting relationship with the family member with an addiction
Family responsibilities may shift as addiction progresses, with other members often taking on additional roles or compensating for the person struggling with substance use.
The entire family unit is affected by addiction, not just the individual. When the person returns to the family home, the household environment can play a crucial role in either supporting or hindering recovery. In many cases, family addiction becomes a shared issue, impacting emotional, relational, and financial stability for everyone.
When learning about a loved one’s substance abuse, each family member may experience a range of emotions, from shock to denial. The loved one’s addiction can create emotional turmoil, leading to feelings of helplessness, fear, and sadness.
Each family member will have a unique response to the situation. Addiction can also create emotional distance within relationships, breaking down trust and closeness among family members.
Children in particular may blame themselves for the addiction in the family. These children often experience conflicting emotions such as guilt, sadness, anger, and confusion, which can affect their emotional development.
Children who grow up in families affected by addiction are at increased risk for developing substance use disorders themselves. They also face a greater risk of mental health problems, trauma, and future substance misuse due to the dysfunctional environment.
It is estimated that over a million children in the UK are affected by parental substance misuse. Many children are impacted, highlighting the widespread and significant effects on their emotional, social, and developmental well-being.
Potential Effects of Parental Substance Abuse
It may be helpful to offer specific examples of how each member’s substance abuse can uniquely impact the family. First, let’s consider parental substance abuse. England’s Childhood Local Data on Risks and Needs (CHLDRN) for childhood vulnerability found that from 2019 to 2020, nearly 478,000 children were living with a parent with alcohol or drug problems. This is a rate of 40 per 1,000 children. When considering all of Great Britain or the United Kingdom, understand that this number is much larger. Parental addiction is a significant issue that disrupts family life and child development.
Parental substance abuse can directly affect parenting abilities, causing dysfunction in the development of a proper childhood attachment style. Referring to the attachment styles section mentioned above, children with parents who abuse substances are more likely to experience unresponsive or inconsistent parenting. As a result, insecure, avoidant, and/or disorganised attachment styles become much more common. Parental addiction impacts children by increasing the likelihood of emotional, behavioural, and developmental challenges. These styles can lead to an array of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and failure to thrive. Children exposed to such environments are also at higher risk of developing post traumatic stress disorder due to ongoing trauma and instability. In addition, these children are more likely to experience diagnosable mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and behavioural disorders.
The aforementioned article titled Social Work in Public Health highlights additional negative impacts of parental substance abuse on the family, including, but not limited to, disruptions in:
Roles
Rituals
Routines
Communication
Social Life
Finances
Children in households with parents with SUD also experience an increased risk of the following:
A home environment of secrecy
Interpersonal conflict
Violence or abuse
Emotional chaos
Role reversal
Fear and distress
Substance abuse and the development of SUD
There is also an increased risk of sexual abuse in families where parental substance abuse is present, further compounding trauma and long-term harm.
Young children who may not understand the effects of alcohol and other drugs may grow up blaming themselves for their parent’s disorderly behaviour. Social withdrawal is a common behavioural change in these children, who may isolate themselves from peers and family due to emotional distress. They may wonder why their parent chooses to spend more time alone than spending time with them. Teenagers may feel disconnected from their families or take on caregiving roles for their younger siblings. They may also learn from observation of their parents that alcohol and other drugs can be used to self-medicate distress, increasing curiosity and potential experimentation at earlier ages.
Each child will respond differently to their parent with addiction. Still, it is more likely than not that their parent’s substance abuse will have a lasting, negative impact on their ability to grow, develop, and persevere throughout life.
Potential Effects of Children's Substance Abuse
Next, individuals must be aware of the potential effects of child and teen substance abuse on the family. Children who abuse substances experience increased risks of various physical, mental, emotional, academic, legal, and social problems. It is important to note that adolescents are exposed to even greater risks of substance abuse than adults, as their brains are in the primal stages of development. As such, adolescents can also be uniquely vulnerable to alcohol and drug use. When a family is coping with an addicted loved, the impact is felt by every member, not just the individual struggling with substance abuse.
One of the most concerning effects of a child’s substance abuse on the family is the development of enabling behaviours. As it is the role of parents and caregivers to protect family members, it is common for them to take on roles to protect their children from the consequences of their substance abuse. Enabling behaviours include:
Making excuses
Giving them money
Covering for them
Ignoring their problem with alcohol and other drugs to avoid conflict
Enabling behaviours are actions taken by family members that, while often well-intentioned, shield the addicted loved from the natural consequences of their actions and can unintentionally support continued substance use.
Parents develop enabling behaviours when their adolescent family member is using substances and also when an adult child is struggling with substance abuse. While the intention of parents using enabling behaviours is inevitably positive, it can perpetuate their child’s use of alcohol and other drugs. In this case, it is vital to avoid enabling behaviours and to, in turn, allow children to experience the consequences of their substance abuse. This can help them to recognise the severity of their problem. The consequences can encourage them to participate in treatment.
For example, parents may cover for their child at school or with other family members to hide the substance use. However, this can prevent the child from facing the reality of his or her behaviour and delay the process of seeking help.
Substance abuse can involve a range of substances, including alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescription medications. Pain pills are a common example of prescription drugs that can be misused within the family system, often leading to secretive behaviors and disrupted family boundaries. In addition, addictive behaviours such as compulsive drug-seeking or repeated substance use are driven by the need to relieve emotional or psychological distress, further impacting the family dynamic.
Additional effects of children’s substance abuse on the family can include:
Parental blame
Increased disconnection with caregivers
Potential of being outcast from the family as a consequence
Financial problems
Less attention available for adolescent siblings
Healing From Addiction as a Family
Families often place a great load of pressure on a loved one to pursue recovery when they have an addiction. However, due to the impact of substance abuse on everyone in a family unit, all family members can benefit from pursuing help. Many addiction and mental health treatment facilities offer family services to promote this process. These services are often part of structured treatment programs that address both individual and family needs. Some examples may include group therapy, family therapy, and support groups.
Family therapy is a key component, providing a space for open communication and addressing underlying issues. Addiction treatment often includes family-based interventions, support services, and educational resources to help the entire family system recover.
Support groups such as Al-Anon and Nar-Anon are available for family members. By attending these groups, family members can receive support from others in similar situations, gaining emotional help and practical guidance.
If a family is not yet ready to pursue treatment and recovery together, that is okay. Often, it takes time and education for family members to understand the supportive role that they can have in fostering lasting recovery for their loved one with addiction. Family involvement is critical, as it can improve treatment outcomes and help address the ripple effects of addiction within the family system.
Education is an important step for families. Family training, such as Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), provides structured learning opportunities to help families understand substance use disorders and improve communication.
In addition to utilising family services, there are many things that families can do to heal together. Community reinforcement interventions can further support families by encouraging positive behavior change and increasing treatment engagement. Healing together as a family is a journey, and starting the healing process collectively helps address dysfunctional dynamics and supports lasting recovery. Setting healthy boundaries is also essential, as it maintains stability, protects individual well-being, and fosters a balanced environment for recovery.
Consider some of the following examples:
Become Educated About Addiction
Contrary to what many people believe, addiction is not a result of moral weakness or lack of willpower. According to the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug addiction is characterised by compulsive, uncontrollable drug-seeking and drug-using behaviour. These actions continue despite the consequences on an individual’s life. Substance use and abuse cause lasting impairments to an individual’s brain structure and functioning, which is why it is referred to as a brain disease.
When family members are not properly educated on addiction and its effects, they will most likely stigmatise their family member with addiction. However, it is imperative to understand that the stigma of addiction has developed through years of misunderstanding.
To explain further, consider these three myths and how they are dispelled:
#1. “Addiction is a choice.” For an individual with an addiction, repeated substance abuse is not a choice. It is a compulsive brain disease that requires professional treatment to overcome.
#2. “Addiction only affects vulnerable populations.” It may come as a shock to know that everyone is vulnerable to developing an addiction. Although there are specific risk factors that can make an individual more vulnerable to substance abuse, addiction knows no bounds. Children and family members living in households affected by addiction are at greater risk of experiencing negative emotional, behavioural, and developmental outcomes, including a higher likelihood of future substance use disorders.
#3. “Addiction can’t be treated.” Though recovery often poses many challenges, addiction is treatable. Addiction treatment includes a range of interventions, such as therapy, medication, and family-based approaches, designed to support long-term recovery. For effective recovery, individuals must utilise long-term treatment services and peer support. There are also structured treatment programs available, including residential rehab, outpatient services, and family support options, to address the needs of both individuals and their families.
There are endless things to be learned about addiction and its effects. Everyone can benefit from becoming educated about these topics, not only those with a family member with addiction. Consider researching additional topics, including:
Warning signs of substance abuse in a loved one
How to talk to family members about addiction
Risk factors for alcohol and drug abuse
Why co-occurring mental health disorders often occur with addiction
Effective treatment interventions for addiction. Motivational interviewing is a client-centered therapeutic approach that helps build rapport, increase motivation for change, and reduce resistance during addiction treatment.
Substance addictions vs. behavioural addictions
For further expert insights and statistics about addiction’s impact on children and families, resources such as Psychology Today provide valuable information on the psychological perspective of addiction as a family disease.
Have Open Conversations About Mental Health
Another important thing that families can do to heal from the effects of addiction is to have open conversations about mental health and substance use. Starting these conversations early can help to prevent alcohol and drug use in children, especially when the potential consequences of substance use are discussed upfront. Many individuals turn to substances or addictive behaviours seeking temporary relief from stress or negative emotions caused by trauma or family dysfunction, but this relief is often short-lived and can lead to repeated use.
Families can incorporate daily or weekly mental health check-ins. Check-ins would involve sitting down together as a family (or for long-distance members, sitting in on group phone calls) to discuss any concerns, hardships, or accomplishments that each family member may be experiencing. Family members may experience conflicting emotions such as guilt, sadness, anger, and confusion, especially in households affected by addiction, which can impact their emotional development and coping mechanisms. This can teach younger adolescents important social and conflict-resolution skills. It can also enable all members to feel supported throughout their busy weeks.
For families with a member with addictive addiction, it is also important to discuss what the treatment and recovery process may look like for the entire family. Pointing out and limiting enabling behaviours is something that the entire family can benefit from. Additionally, for the member with an addiction, making peace with each family member is an instrumental part of the recovery process. Each member can benefit from freely discussing concerns, effects, and the progress of the family member’s addiction recovery journey.
Hold Each Other Accountable
Accountability is an important general skill to have in life. However, it is especially important when working to recover from addiction and its effects. Family members can do their part in their loved one’s recovery journey by holding each other accountable. In addition to limiting enabling behaviours, family accountability in recovery also includes taking personal responsibility for any harm that has been done to each other. This is because the family system is interconnected, and each member’s actions can influence the overall health and functioning of the group.
Although it may be obvious, this includes seeking forgiveness for any harm that resulted from a loved one’s substance abuse. The impact of a loved one’s substance use can deeply affect the emotional well-being, trust, and relationships within the family. However, family members can also hold themselves accountable for any discriminatory or judgmental behaviour that they may have had toward their loved one with the addiction. Accountability is a skill that must be strengthened over time. If the entire family is involved in a loved one’s recovery, accountability can flourish quickly for all family members. When the entire family system participates in the recovery process, it supports collective healing and long-term change.
Addiction is often termed a family disease because of the way substance abuse impacts all family members in a unit. The family unit is the prime source of learning, nurturing, and development for a child. When a member develops an addiction, each family member experiences an increased risk of various complications and consequences as a result of their loved one’s substance abuse. The Perry Clayman Project (PCP) understands how the effects of addiction stretch through the family unit and beyond. We offer a number of rehab clinics across the UK for individuals seeking recovery from substance addictions as well as behavioural addictions. We also provide resources and services to families in need of healing. Call today.
