Addiction and family issues

The insidious process of addiction in families creates a conspiracy of silence and denial coupled with unpredictable, unavoidable stress, trauma, and deprivation. It is a complex interplay of isolation, inhumane treatment, inconsistency, and indoctrination in these families that results in a process similar to brainwashing in which members gradually relinquish their own identity and develop robotlike patterns of adaptive behaviors. Interactive relationships are replaced with survival role performances, which allow the individual to participate in the family while avoiding and hiding the painful reality of what is happening. Adaptive survival behaviors continue to operate even after the individual leaves home and the survival maneuvers of an innocent child become the automatic behaviors of a dysfunctional adult. Understanding addictive family processes and the consequent adaptation of family members provides a basis for understanding the development of associated disorders and opens the way for effective treatment approaches.