Substance Abuse and Relationships
Drug abuse and alcoholism destroy relationships by placing incredible burdens on those around us. The burden and stress we put on our loved ones as a result of our disease causes family roles to become warped or reversed, as in a child putting a drunken father to bed, or a daughter hiding her mothers pills so she can’t use again. On the other hand, drug addiction may make someone isolate entirely from the world and have no relationships to speak of. These are the type who hide away in their living rooms always wondering why no one ever comes to see them anymore.
We recovering addicts and alcoholics find that the relationships in our lives take the longest to fix, often requiring years of hard work, cooperation, and therapy. When familial relationships are left to fester throughout an alcoholic or addict’s life, it creates a cycle of addiction, because the children learn faulty social behavior and coping mechanisms, often becoming substance abusers themselves later in life. For example, the son of an alcoholic father is four-times more likely to develop alcoholism than the national average.
