Families & Friends Of Addicts Support Group
Addiction affects more than just the individual. This community is dedicated to the families and friends of individuals suffering from any form of addiction. Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the addicted person with particular behavioral...
Hi -- I'm struck by a comment in another thread, about a parent's responsibility to his/her kids as opposed to taking on an addict's recovery path as their own.
Does addiction include a sort of regression? Dependence on a substance to escape, plus acting out to avoid accountability or to back-pedal or project the intolerable feelings that are inside?
That really clicks together to make some sense of my family situation, even with a brother "addicted" to enabling women who are in fact addicts. He resents the Hell out of my being responsible (for all the details of our Mom's deteriorating health, her eventual passing and all the details since) but he's put me in the position to take care of it all.
Your thoughts?
Does addiction include a sort of regression? Dependence on a substance to escape, plus acting out to avoid accountability or to back-pedal or project the intolerable feelings that are inside?
That really clicks together to make some sense of my family situation, even with a brother "addicted" to enabling women who are in fact addicts. He resents the Hell out of my being responsible (for all the details of our Mom's deteriorating health, her eventual passing and all the details since) but he's put me in the position to take care of it all.
Your thoughts?
I've heard that addicts stop growing emotionally when they start using drugs. So, my 22 year old had the emotional maturity of a 13 year old when he quit heroin. I can see that. I really felt like I was making a middle-school kid move out on his own and he was unprepared for the responsibility. He is maturing, but still isn't quite there. For example, he acts like a 13 year old with his money, as if it's an allowance instead of something that is supposed to be used for paying expenses.
On top of that issue, actively using does affect the brain. A person using drugs doesn't use the part of the brain that uses logic and reasoning and understands consequences. They think with their "lizard brain", which means they act instinctively and to a certain extent without a conscience. That's part of the reason why they manipulate and steal and lie.
Now it seems a survival tactic and the whole feeling of being with him can change over in an instant, with covering his own butt the only, desperate motivation he has. The lies and half truths, attempts to deflect, project, intimidate -- so sad. I miss the brother I had.
Thanks.