Family with an alcohol problem. Functioning of a co-addicted person

Abstract

In recent years, a family has been increasingly recognized as a system. A system approach treats the family as a whole, a community, as one body. In this recognized family, its structure is analyzed as an entity made up of its members and relationships that occur between them, and this analysis seeks to describe the borders, which are methods of exchange between persons in the family system, as well as between the family and the environment. A properly functioning family has flexible boundaries to protect the autonomy of the individuals that form the family unit; these boundaries differentiate this coherent family circle from those who surround the family. Thus, there are limits governing the number and type of contacts of family members with others. When the family does not properly fulfill its functions, it becomes a dysfunctional family. A family with alcohol problem is a family, in which someone drinks in an excessive, destructive or uncontrolled way. Such a family is be recognized as a dysfunctional inside-family system, a distorted scheme in which the drinking of one member is an integral part of this system. Alcoholism of the addicted person becomes a reference point for the experiences, attitudes, behaviours, and processes occurring in this family. The drinking person in the family creates life, financial, and emotional problems for other family members in a devastating manner, so that the whole family suffers from a wider „alcohol problem”. It is often assumed that co-addiction it is a multidimensional (physical, mental and spiritual) condition, which manifests itself by the disturbance of normal functioning caused by concentration on the needs and behaviours of others. It develops from the abandonment of responsibility for managing one’s own life and happiness to focusing instead on someone else’s. Co-addiction to an addict is treated as a specific form of dependence on both this person and on the problem of alcohol abuse. This condition is characterized by a concentration of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours focused on the addict, feeling a sense of necessity to monitor his or her behaviour, holding hope of maintaining safe quantities of drinking, as well as the development of more inflexible behaviours and reactions in regard to the drinking.