Because alcoholics often have families who have learned to enable their alcoholism and struggle to change family dynamic, the question arises – can you break the cycle of alcohol addiction in families? Fortunately, the answer seems to be yes.
The key becomes addressing the family unit as it surrounds the alcoholic, and educating the family member on how the family dynamic needs to change to support the sobriety of the family member with alcohol addiction. It is often called a family disease because alcoholism affects every member of the family, to some degree. In many cases, all the other family members become enablers because it’s easier than confronting the drinker with the consequences of the drinking, no matter how severe or how spread across the family those consequences may be. But with the denial that there is a problem within the family, all those family members become complicit in permitting the destructive behavior to continue.
This is the cycle of alcohol addiction within a family: there is an alcoholic, there are the all the supporters of the alcoholic’s drinking behavior, and then there is no one who wants to upset the status quo. Sadly, that status quo is often unhealthy and unpleasant for all the members of the family. It is only when one or more family members are willing to change the way things have always been that you can break the cycle of alcohol addiction in families.
