The negative effects addiction causes cannot be overstated. This is especially true when it comes to children, families, and addiction in the home. It is represented in the numbers. Two babies are born to addicted parents every second of every hour of every day. At least 43% of the US adult population has been exposed to alcoholism. There are currently 18 million children of alcoholics in the United States today. These children of alcoholics need our help and support, not just now but as they grow into adulthood as well.
Trauma Does Not Go Away Just Because We Grow Up
Colleen Perry is the adult child of an alcoholic who is now using her experience to help others like her heal and recover. She discovered that her story would be more impactful if she went online and began sharing it with others around the world. Colleen now runs the popular Instagram page “Impacted by Alcoholism,” which has over 18 thousand followers. She works closely with the National Association for Children of Addiction (NACoA) to expand her network.
Colleen understands that trauma does not just go away because we grow into adulthood. It does not simply dissipate because we are at an age where people expect us to “have it together” and “move on.” The negative effects addiction causes can be long-lasting because addiction in the home creates a lot of trauma that must be worked through in order to heal.
In a recent interview, Colleen gives an example of the expectations that people have regarding adult children of alcoholics and how they are sometimes expected to act in their relationship with their parents. She gives the example of how adult children of alcoholics are expected to approach “forgiveness.”
Colleen expounds, “People are like, you have to forgive…But first of all, not everyone forgives right away, and everyone’s at a different place in their journey; some people are still being actively hurt by their parents, and the funny thing is that I talk a lot about forgiveness because I have forgiven my mother… But I definitely want to hold space for people who are either not ready for that or they’re never going to be ready for that. So I feel like There’s this big push for forgiveness within the community, and it’s like you have to get to that point.”
The negative effects addiction causes do not simply go away as we get older and start families of our own. Traumatic experiences and family dynamics that happen in the home when we are younger must be addressed before any healing can truly begin.
Negative Effects Addiction Causes and Family Rules: What Happens to Families When There Is Addiction in the Home
Dr. Claudia Black is an authority on co-dependency, addiction, and how addictive disorders affect family systems. In her book, It Will Never Happen To Me, Dr. Black explains that there are three primary rules that happen when addiction overtakes a household. These rules are “don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel.”
If these rules and family dynamics are not worked through during childhood, they will likely carry over for children as they become adults and start their own families. Then, the cycle of “family rules” may start all over again. The cycle must be broken if there is to be any chance for a reprieve from the effects of addiction.
Don’t Talk
The first rule, “don’t talk,” is all about creating secrecy around addiction in the home. It often begins by making excuses for the addiction and the negative behaviors that are going on in the home. One of the biggest problems that arises from this is that it can “normalize” the addiction.
As the addiction becomes more severe (which it generally does without some form of professional intervention), silence starts to take over the family. There is a feeling that if the addiction is not discussed, then perhaps it will just go away.
Children in the home can take on this silence and begin to feel that they shouldn’t talk about what is going on in the home because it may hurt the family. They may also believe that they might not be believed. Also, without help and support, they may not know how to verbalize or express the traumas that they are experiencing in the home.
Don’t Trust
The following rule, “don’t trust,” is all about the breakdown of faith within the family. This is especially true with children within the family. In a family affected by addiction, a child may have trouble understanding the behaviors of their parents. One moment, their parent may be loving and present, and the next, they may be distant, distracted, and disoriented. This leaves a child feeling confused and experiencing trust issues.
“Don’t trust” can be particularly damaging because it also bleeds over into having trust issues with other people. This can get in the way of anyone who is trying to help a child struggling in the home. These trust issues can easily carry on into adulthood and adult children of alcoholics’ family dynamics.
Don’t Feel
The final rule, “don’t feel,” is directly correlated to the other two rules. When “don’t trust” and “don’t talk” are present, it makes it difficult for a child to communicate their feelings with anyone around them fully. This can lead to repression, which can also lead to negative coping skills such as avoiding certain situations or shutting down emotionally entirely.
These rules also relate closely to another concept discussed by Dr. Black, which has to do with the roles that families play in households affected by addiction. All of these rules and all of the roles can transfer into the homes of adult children of alcoholics, which is why family addiction is often referred to as “cyclical.”
Negative Effects Addiction Causes and Family Roles: What Happens With Family Dynamics When There Is Alcoholism in the Home
The family system is one that is wholly symbiotic. What one individual does, the others will be affected by it. This is commonly referred to as the “family systems model.” If addiction enters the home, this family systems model becomes corrupted.
When the family unit is affected by addiction in the home, children of alcoholics often attempt to navigate the situation by taking on certain roles that they would otherwise never do. Dr. Black breaks these roles down into four types; “the responsible child,” “the adjuster,” “the placater,” and “the act-out child.”
The responsible child role is one where the child steps up and tries to compensate for their alcoholic parent’s absence. Adjusters are those children who try to adapt to any situation that they feel is out of their control or that feels scary or chaotic. The placaters are the ones who try to take care of everyone else, even when it is at their own expense. Then, the “act-out” role is one where the child rails against any type of authority and aims to add to the chaos of the home because they feel helpless to control it.
Once taken on, these roles are not easily removed, and the longer that they are held, the harder that removal becomes. It is not uncommon for these roles to pervade adult children of alcoholics’ homes, regardless of whether the child of addiction struggles with alcohol use disorder (AUD) or substance use disorder (SUD) or not.
The Negative Effects Addiction Causes: Understanding the Cycle of Addiction
There is a common misconception that “the cycle of addiction” only refers to the cycle of alcohol and substance abuse. Yes, that is a big component at times, but it is not the entirety of what “the cycle” refers to. The cycle encompasses all of the behaviors and traumas that are incurred while a child experiences their parent’s addiction in the home. This includes the “family rules” and the “family roles” that affect the entire family.
The best way to break this cycle of addiction is to address it in a preventative fashion rather than in a reactive one. Colleen Perry discussed this in her recent interview. It is one of the goals of her initiative to help children and adult children of alcoholics recover and heal.
Colleen explains, “I definitely want to see more education around having those compassionate conversations, not just when an educator or a school guidance counselor identifies a kid that may have a substance abuse problem within their home. I feel like a lot of times, we are reactive instead of being proactive. Proactive education and larger groups in classrooms and assemblies [can be important because] I feel like if you wait till there, you see a problem [an opportunity has been missed]. A lot of times, they’re so conditioned not to talk about it, and then… those walls go up.”
The fact of the matter is that addiction in the home is not always caught so early. That is simply an unrealistic expectation. However, that does not mean that the cycle of addiction cannot be broken. There are many ways to make that happen.
The 7 Cs and ACEs: Helping Adult Children of Alcoholics Overcome the Negative Effects Addiction Causes
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are the experiences that children have that form the trauma that can affect them for the rest of their lives. That is if it goes untreated. There are many ways that these ACEs can be addressed, one of which is utilizing a concept that is foundational for us at NACoA. This concept is the “7 Cs.”
The 7 Cs are “I didn’t CAUSE it; I can’t CONTROL it; I can’t CURE it; I can help take CARE of myself by COMMUNICATING my feelings, making healthy CHOICES, and CELEBRATING me.” This seven-part message is one that can help adult children of alcoholics start to understand where their traumas may have manifested, as well as help them see where there is potential for trauma in their own households.
I Didn’t Cause It
The negative effects addiction causes include the feeling that adult children of alcoholics have that they may have still had something to do with their parent’s addiction. They must be helped to understand that there was nothing they could do, and any “responsibility role” that they may have taken on was a natural reaction to addiction in the home, not the result of something that they did to cause it.
I Can’t Control It
Adult children of addiction can still try to control their parent’s addiction well after they have left the home and started families of their own. This is why it is important to teach adult children of alcoholics to set safe and secure boundaries so that their past issues don’t affect their family’s future progress. It is also important when it comes to the idea that a child can somehow cure their parent of addiction.
I Can’t Cure It
Addiction can take everything that a family throws at it and still come away unscathed. This is because addiction is not something that an individual chooses, but it is something that the individual must choose to recover from. We cannot “cure” someone of their addiction. It is a personal choice, no matter how hard it may be to accept.
I Can Help Take Care of Myself by Communicating My Feelings
Boundary setting is key for breaking the cycle of addiction. If the remnants of a parent’s addiction start to impede on a new home, it is important to set boundaries that create a safe space and some distance from any potential new forms of trauma. Communicating this may be challenging, but strong communication early can break the potential for the “don’t talk” rule to establish itself into a new home.
Making Healthy Choices and Celebrating Me
Colleen Perry has learned what it means to make healthy choices and celebrate her journey, and she has done so in a way that now helps tens of thousands of people every day. She discusses the rewards of this in her interview.
Colleen tells us, “One of the really interesting things that has happened to me over the last four years is sharing my stories of how a lot of people from my childhood, my childhood community, and people that I know reach out to me and said I saw your post and I just want you to know it resonated with me because my dad is an alcoholic. My brother is struggling with drug addiction. And, it’s like people that I have never guessed would have [been affected by the work that I was doing].”
Colleen is an excellent example of what helping children and adult children of addiction looks like. She exemplifies the mission that NACoA has taken on: to help and support those who also want to help and support children.
The Negative Effects Addiction Causes: How NACoA Helps Professionals Support Adult Children of Alcoholics
Psychologist, self-help author, and authority on trauma, addiction, and recovery Patricia O’Gorman writes in her book, The Lowdown on Families Who Get High, “’Breaking the cycle of addiction in your life will help you see the strengths of the past generations of your family.” It is how our life’s journey can be reframed to show that what we once thought was our greatest problem can become our most valuable asset.
This is what is happening with the work of Colleen Perry as she teams up with NACoA to tell her story and help others like her heal. At NACoA, we are here to help people like Colleen thrive in their mission to help others. We have the tools and resources to help professionals (and anyone who wants to support children and adult children of addiction who need and deserve help) break the cycle of addiction in the home.
Many adult children of alcoholics find their past traumas affecting their own families. These negative effects must be addressed if the generational cycle of addiction in the home is to stop. There must be a paradigm shift in the way that adult children of alcoholics are treated. Adult children of alcoholics must be shown that they can overcome their loss of childhood, and there are many tools to help them move forward and get past any adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). For more information on how NACoA can help children and adult children of alcoholics get to the root causes of their problems and heal at the cellular level, please call us today at (301) 468-0985.
