Family Disease Model Of Addiction Explained (A practical explanation)

I bet you've heard the statement before that addiction is a family disease. And if you're like me, you've probably thought, what does that really mean? And that's what we're going to talk about in today's video. If you're new here, welcome to Put the shovel down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and you're watching the YouTube channel dedicated to helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get back to living the life that you want to live. Okay, so back to our topic. Addiction is a family disease. We're going to talk about that, and then we're also going to talk a little bit about this sort of concept of codependency. Okay? So the very first thing that's kind of important to wrap your head around as far as this family disease codependency thing goes, is the idea that we are not these independent beings that we think that we are. You know, humans are made to connect to one another because humans don't survive on their own. You need other people to survive and live in this world. And so for that reason, our biology is wired up to make us connect to one another. So when you're dealing with a family system, I call it like a tribe or a community or even a tight friend group, you are more bonded to that group than you think that you are. And you may be a part of several groups. Maybe you're part of a work group and a family group and a friend group, but all of those groups of people are almost like its own living organism. And every person inside of that group performs a function. One way to think of it is like planets in a solar system, right? You can't move any one of those planets without disrupting the whole gravitational pull of the entire solar system. And if you did, the whole thing probably collapse and blow up. So every person in a system is connected to every other person. I know like in the United States, especially, we have this culture around independence and responsibility, and you're responsible for your own destiny. And I definitely believe in that to some degree. But we don't function quite as independently as we think. You do think and feel like the people that you put yourself around, you can't help it. You're made that way. You are wired up to the people that you put yourself in contact with on a daily basis. And so because each person in a system of people contributes a different part of making that system function, if one of those people malfunctions, as in develops an addiction, something goes wrong. They get really sick, something bad happens or you lose a loved one, that whole system will change. And that's what they're talking about when they say addiction is a family disease. You cannot change one of the parts without changing the whole system. So when you hear that, it doesn't mean that if there's an addict in the family, it's because the family caused it or something like that. What they're saying is if there's an addict in the family, that problem causes a systems issue. It can't not cause a systems issue. Think of it like this. If you hurt your left leg really bad and you're just one of these like super hard headed people and you refuse to go to the doctor and you just keep limping along on that left leg forever, guess what's going to happen? You're going to get hip problems. Your other leg is going to start develop problems, your other foot is going to have problems. You know why? Because you're going to be putting too much energy leaning over to the other side. You're going to be compensating, which is going to cause the breakdown of a whole bunch of other systems. That is what we're talking about when we say addiction is a family disease. When one person gets out of alignment, the whole system gets out of alignment. Essentially what happens is, is because the primary funct function of family systems and friend groups is to protect one another. That's why we bond together. And so if there is an issue and there's some kind of threat to that, to a person in that group or to the group as a whole, then the system will start trying to protect the system. That's what it does. It's just that different people protect in different ways. And this is happening like almost on this like subconscious level sometimes. So it's like if you feel like there is a threat to your family, you're gonna go into some kind of fight or flight response. You might go into this shielding response where you just start trying to shield all the bad things. And maybe you're protecting the family system by pretending it's not there or shielding from the external consequences or something like that. Maybe you protect your family system by bargaining and arguing and yelling and threatening and nagging and preaching. That's almost like a fight reflex. It's like I'm going to fight it out with you and try to get you back in align. It's a fight reflex within a family system. And so if that's you, that's what's going on with you. That's the way that you're trying to protect the system that you're in. And the other way that people try to protect the system is sometimes, and this is kind of like, I call it like a flight response is sometimes it's like they feel like if there's an injury, just cut it off. And these are the people that are just like, you know what? You messed up, you hurt this family, you're out, you're done. It's almost like you got green, green in your leg and you just cut it off and that was it. And you didn't even think about or trying to save it. So there are going to be people in the system that are going to be responding, trying to protect the family system in all of these different ways. And the thing I really want you to realize, and this is the practical piece of advice here, is even though everybody's responding in different ways, everybody's just trying to protect the family system. We're just going about it in different ways. It's the way that we grieve, it's the way that we protect. It's the way that we're managing our fear. And so if I can give you one piece of it advice as a family, that is to have empathy and flexibility and respect for the other family members and where they're at in this process. And the second huge key factor that you really need to walk away from this conversation with is the fact that because we're family systems, not only do we fall apart as a system, but we heal as a system, too. You cannot take that person, the addictive person, out of the family system, send them away for a year somewhere at some addiction boot camp, and then fix them and then put them back in that system and think that system is going to function properly. It's not going to work. You know, if they're just not healing as a family, they're not going to allow this person to come back in because they're still going to be so hurt and so rejected, or this person is not going to trust the family. So if you have a loved one who's struggling with an addiction, it is very, very, very important for you to get help as well. I know you feel like in your mind, like they're the one with the problem. They should be the one to. And if I'm honest with you, I do think that that's fair. I don't really have a problem with that on a moral level. I just think that it's ineffective. And this channel is all about using strategies that are effective. So, you know, if you're kind of person that struggles with enabling your addicted loved one, I just want you to know that is the way that you're trying to protect the family system. It's the way that you're dealing with this fear that you have. Now, that may not be the most productive thing to do, but it's an understandable thing to do. However, you gotta get out of that behavior. So up next, I've got a video here for you about how to get out of that enabling cycle that you're in.