Dependencies and Family Dynamics: Understanding the Impact
Key Takeaways:
Dependencies reshape family dynamics, pushing other relationships aside
Modern understanding sees dependencies as a response to pain, not a moral failing
Our fundamental need to bond can lead to healthy or harmful connections
Recovery is more likely with strong social connections and support
In a family with dependencies, life revolves around the one with the dependencies.
Their life revolves around their dependency.
As their relationship with their substance or process grows, all other relationships shrink.
There is no room for children.
Moving Beyond Punishment
In recent years, there has been a shift away from the idea of those with dependencies being weak and deficient in some way; deserving punishment for their deficiency. It’s taken 100 years of making drugs illegal and punishing people who are dependent on those to discover that this won’t stop them from using the substance or process in a way that is harmful.
One way of thinking about this is that those who are dependent on substances or processes are opting out, because they cannot cope with their unbearable pain.
Multiple Factors Behind Dependency
This is simplified of course, because there are many factors that ‘cause’ dependencies. Katie McBride writes (please note that this was written before our current usage of the words substance abuse):
Certain people are more vulnerable to addiction than others; many people can use any array of drug without becoming addicted. In reality, there are many factors that lead to addiction, including environment, stress, genetics, life-circumstances, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It is not uncommon for people with addictions to have any combination of the above factors, nor is it an exhaustive list. These factors also have different effects on different individuals. For example, people who suffer from a mental illness are twice as likely to struggle with addiction.
The Rat Park Experiment: Connection vs. Addiction
If punishment doesn't work, can rehabilitation succeed? Is it possible to identify what people with dependencies are seeking and fill that void?
Professor Bruce Alexander's fascinating experiments in the late 1970s in Canada offer some insight. You may have heard of Rat park.
The Original Experiment
In earlier addiction research, a single rat lived in an empty cage, containing only two water bottles - one plain, one laced with morphine. The rats consistently chose the morphine water, seeming to prove morphine's addictive nature.
Alexander's Innovation
Professor Alexander questioned whether living conditions, not the drug itself, might cause addiction. He created "Rat Park"—a paradise for rats with:
16-20 rats of both sexes living together
Toys and balls to play with
Abundant food
Social interaction and mating opportunities
The same two water bottles—plain and morphine-laced
The results? The rats overwhelmingly preferred plain water to morphine water. Additional studies with mice supported this finding.
The Revealing Follow-Up
When researchers removed rats from Rat Park and isolated them again with both water options, they returned to choosing morphine.
Isolation = morphine. Connection = water.
The Power of Environment
What can we learn from this study? Environment significantly influences how we cope with the world. When the rats could connect with each other and engage in meaningful activities, they didn't need to escape their reality.
The Imperative to Bond
Professor Peter Cohen extends this theory, describing dependency as a "bond." We all have an imperative to connect with something—without bonds, we're adrift. Isolation is not our natural state.
The problem arises when we bond to one thing at the expense of everything else.
We all know people who have bonded intensely with a religion, sport, food, person, exercise, sex, or hobby. They become consumed by it—it's all they talk about and do. They tie their identity to it, often labeling themselves accordingly: yogi, climber, gamer.
Once a strong bond forms with a substance or process, there's little room for other connections. The dependency crowds out everything else.
Breaking Bonds Is Universally Difficult
Breaking a bond with a dependency is as difficult as breaking any deep bond. Think of your first heartbreak—the world seemed to end. Or the loss of a beloved pet—phantom sounds of their presence lingering. In these cases, society offers sympathy and rituals to mark the loss.
Recovery Through Connection
Recovering from a broken bond is easier with support. Without it, recovery becomes nearly impossible. Maia Szalavitz, author of Unbroken Brain, confirms:
People are actually more likely to recover when they still have jobs, family, and greater ties to mainstream society, not less. Indeed, the more "social capital" someone has—friends, education, employment, job contacts, and other knowledge that promotes links to the conventional world—the more likely recovery is. As soon as you think about it critically, it's easy to see why if you had to bet on whether a homeless, unemployed person or a successful physician is more likely to recover, your money would be safer on the doctor than on the guy on skid row.
Understanding Without Excusing
When we view dependency as a bonding issue, we gain insight into our own upbringing or loved ones currently bonded to harmful substances or behaviors.
This perspective doesn't excuse harmful behavior, but it helps us understand it. Understanding may eventually lead to forgiveness—or it may not. Either way, understanding is valuable on its own.
Does this resonate with you?
If it did, my book "Surviving their Struggles: Reclaiming my Life From Trauma" explores these concepts in much greater depth, providing practical tools and guidance for your path to healing. Discover all five elements of trauma recovery and learn how to apply them at your own pace. Click the pic to find out more.
