{"id":4144,"date":"2024-04-02T00:11:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T21:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/what-to-do-if-there-is-an-addict-in-the-family\/"},"modified":"2024-04-02T00:32:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T21:32:02","slug":"what-to-do-if-there-is-an-addict-in-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/what-to-do-if-there-is-an-addict-in-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do if there is an addict in the family?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to world statistics, every second person has a close relative with addiction<\/a>. Every person whose life is affected by addiction becomes powerless over psychoactive substances and is exposed to the disease, suffers from its consequences, but most of all the consequences of the disease are reflected in the family members where the addicted person lives.<\/p>\n\n\n

Relatives cannot leave an addict with his problem; this would mean the complete collapse of his own life, as well as the betrayal of a loved one just at the moment when he needs help most. Because of this, the family adapts to the illness of a family member, to changes in behavior, mood, thereby exposing themselves to constant stress, isolating themselves from society, forming protective mechanisms through over-responsibility, over-involvement, seriousness, self-flagellation, manipulativeness, over-control of dust. <\/p>\n\n\n

But these mechanisms protect only the psychological state, help more or less function and maintain family relationships, but have a negative impact on the disease.<\/p>\n\n

A frequent cause of an addict\u2019s breakdown during alcoholism treatment<\/a> and drug addiction<\/a> is his close circle. A negative factor in the family’s influence on the recovery process is unhealthy relationships, that is, incorrect communication.<\/p>\n\n

Why does this happen? One of the main factors of the negative influence of the family on the process of treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction is unhealthy norms of communication in the family, that is, the usual rules by which it is customary to communicate in a dependent\/codependent family. I will give several such dependent norms and, accordingly, opposite norms of \u201chealthy\u201d communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tips<\/h2>\n\n\n

A common mistake in communicating with an addict is teaching or giving advice. For example, \u201cYou should do this…\u201d In response to emerging protest aggression, a person does \u201cthe opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

It is better to use a different wording, that is, to express an opinion. For example, \u201cI think it would be better if…\u201d, \u201cI had a similar situation, I solved this problem this way…\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n

Criticism<\/h2>\n\n\n

The addict\u2019s inner circle is characterized by an increased level of criticism and pointing out mistakes. For the addict, this causes shame, guilt and resentment, that is, such feelings that subsequently lead to a breakdown. The opposite rule to criticism is to indicate development zones, which means – that is, instead of giving instructions it\u2019s bad, to say what can be improved using the \u201c+\/-\/+\u201d rule. For example, after a cooked lunch, instead of \u201cWhy is the dish too salty, you still had to prepare a salad \u201d, you can say – \u201cThe dish is prepared well, pay attention to the salt, next time it would be smart to prepare a salad as well, in general I am very grateful to you for your help, you did a good job!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imposing an opinion\n\n\n<\/h2>

Another common mistake in families with an addict is not only providing advice, but imposing one\u2019s opinion and instructions when it is not asked for. The greater the imposition of one\u2019s point of view, the greater the effect of resistance. To avoid the opposite effect, it is necessary to ask the person if they need advice or feedback and not provide it if there is a refusal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impersonal (You, We) – statements<\/h2>\n\n\n

Dependents and codependents use the impersonal pronouns \u201cyou\u201d or \u201cwe\u201d when talking about themselves. For example, \u201cwe have been drinking for the second week\u201d or \u201cwe had a drinking binge,\u201d thus the person does not accept responsibility, and the codependent, in turn, takes responsibility for himself and does not pay attention to his own needs. For healthy communication, it is better to use the rule of personal statements (I-statements, I-messages). That is, when talking about yourself, it is necessary to use the pronouns I, Me, Me (instead of You) and the corresponding verb forms. And when you talk about your loved one, speak He (She), not We.<\/p>\n\n\n

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According to world statistics, every second person has a close relative with addiction. Every person whose life is affected by addiction becomes powerless over psychoactive substances and is exposed to the disease, suffers from its consequences, but most of all the consequences of the disease are reflected in the family members where the addicted person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-withdrawal-from-alcohol"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4152,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144\/revisions\/4152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tfc.clinic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}