Addiction can affect your family in many ways, but the emotional toll that it takes can lead to lifetime anxieties and mistrust. Addiction affects everybody in your family, whether you realize it or not. Even young children are acutely aware when one parent is struggling or causing the other anxiety. Watching a family member struggle with addiction can increase mistrust and anxiety in family members. It can also make them feel very isolated because of the social stigma around addiction. And finally, many addictive substances are expensive, so a drug or alcohol habit can quickly run a family into debt. If you are struggling with substance abuse, finding recovery support can allow you to release your family from the stress of watching them battle your addiction.
How Addiction Can Affect Your Family: The Emotional Toll
Mistrust
One of the ways that addiction can affect your family is that it often breeds mistrust. Addicts typically try to hide their behavior from their families for as long as possible. Especially if they are in rehab and relapse. This can often lead to lies or being evasive about the truth. Because of this, family members often have resulting trust issues.
Anxiety
Rising anxiety is another way that addiction affects your family. Substance abuse can be a stressful habit, especially if you are using illegal drugs. In addition, it’s incredibly dangerous. Your family likely has high anxiety about the medical risks that you are taking with your addiction.
Isolation
Addiction affects your family in many ways because there is still a social stigma around addiction. Because it is not very well understood, people are often embarrassed to admit it when they have a problem. Similarly, the families of addicts can feel isolated because they don’t want to share their struggles with the outside world for fear of being stigmatized.
Financial Worry
Finally, one last way that addiction affects your family is financial. A drug or alcohol habit can get very expensive. Especially if the substances you use are illegal. This can create a lot of financial stress on the family. Not to mention the high costs of medical care from the negative effects of alcohol or drugs.
Addiction affects your family in many ways and can end up causing resentment. Your family might experience trust issues if you often try to hide your addiction. They might also suffer from high anxiety over worrying about the medical risks of drinking or using drugs. Addiction can be very isolating for the people dealing with it as well. And finally, they might struggle financially because of the cost of addiction. All of these reasons will hopefully make you want to get the help you need to get clean. Build a support network and find resources. Look into treatment facilities and programs in your area. There are twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous in almost every city. Hopefully, you can begin your journey to recovery and allow yourself and your family to begin healing.
