Wellness THE
ISSUE
Addiction:
A Family Disease BY ALICE R. O’BRIEN, MS, NCC, LPCMH
How is the term addiction defined? The old medical definition has two components. One is habituation — the need to use ever increasing amounts of the drug of choice to get the same effect. The other is withdrawal — what happens when the use of the drug stops. In the case of opiates it means dilated pupils, cramping abdominal pain, restlessness, and sweating. In the case of alcohol, it means symptoms that include nausea, headache, tremors, and possible seizures, while withdrawal from stimulants such as cocaine can result in difficulty concentrating, slowed thinking, vivid dreams, fatigue, and severe cravings. 26
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Educating yourself about the disease of addic tion is a kindness to both you and your chemically dependent loved one.
What can family members do to encourage their loved one to get help? Our first instincts are often counterproductive and informed by thoughts and feelings of denial, self doubt, anger, frustration, and a need to control or protect. Educating yourself about the disease of addiction is a kindness to both you and your chemically dependent loved one. Seek out a therapist who specializes in addiction for an initial consultation and further help if needed. Attend Al-Anon or Nar-Anon, the 12Step support groups for family members of alcoholics and drug addicts. Look for patterns of negative interaction between the chemically dependent loved one and you. When do episodes of drinking and drug abuse occur? How are you involved in the beginning, middle, and end of such episodes? Where do these episodes take place? How long are they and how often do they occur? Are you also under the influence when these episodes take place? Ask yourself what
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our eighteen-year-old son, a formerly funloving and athletic young man has become angry, surly, and isolated from his friends and other family members ever since his emergency knee surgery last Fall. When you question his need for continued use of pain medication his reaction is volatile. Your wife, in-house counsel at a big corporation who has always happily shared work and home responsibilities with you, is now far less willing to do so. She is calling in sick at least once a week. She stays up long after the kids are asleep and polishes off a bottle of wine nightly. Your mildmannered husband — a devoted spouse, dad, solo family law practitioner, and volunteer basketball coach — has recently become irritable, ill-tempered, and anxiety-ridden. He has lost his appetite and his nose is always red and runny. What do these folks have in common? The disease of addiction.
