The Addicted Family

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Held hostage by addiction

Image via Wikipedia
When a friend or family member is battling addiction, the whole family becomes engulfed in the problem and in essence is held hostage. Trapped in the addicts world, you either succumb to their addiction by becoming an enabler, or you abandon the addict and withdraw waiting for that one phone call that says it is over.
Family members often become overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, shame, depression and a type of grief is experienced very similar to losing a loved one entirely. The addicts family often defines their happiness by the type of day the addict is having. This is a classic form of co-dependency.

Co-dependency as defined by Merriam Webster’s Dictionary is "a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another who is affected with a pathological condition (as an addiction to alcohol or heroin); broadly : dependence on the needs of or control by another".

Breaking the hold that the addict has over the family is a difficult task. The addict is driven by the urges taking place bio chemically in his body and uses many forms of manipulation to continue to gain support for his lifestyle. It is not beyond an addict to use psychological abuse, guilt, blame and threats to get their family and friends to succumb to their wishes. This is why so often the family is unsuccessful at "curing" or helping an addict on their own.

Finding help for an addict requires doing the one thing that probably many families have tried to avoid. Admitting to someone outside the family that there is a problem. Many families hide and protect the addict and their addiction and go to great lengths to keep it a closely guarded secret. There are many ways to discreetly find help and one resource is online. There are many support groups, and information on the particular addiction you are dealing with. For great resources and help, please visit: Guide for Living.

No comments:

Privacy Policy for The Addicted Family

Privacy Policy for The Addicted Family http://theaddictedfamily.blogspot.com/

The privacy of our visitors to http://theaddictedfamily.blogspot.com/ is important to us.

At http://theaddictedfamily.blogspot.com/, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit http://theaddictedfamily.blogspot.com/, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a pop up once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on http://theaddictedfamily.blogspot.com/ to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geo targeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

* Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site.

* Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet.

* Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

AdSense Privacy Policy Provided by JenSense

Disclaimer

Terms and Conditions

All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

This policy is subject to change at anytime.

Limit of Liability Disclaimer

The information contained in this product / on this site is for information purposes only, and may not apply to your situation. The author, publisher, distributor and provider provide no warranty about the content or accuracy of content enclosed. Information provided is subjective. Keep this in mind when reviewing this guide.

Neither the Publisher nor Author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages resulting from use of this guide. All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy, or any other implied or explicit purpose.