Understanding addiction in families can be frustrating and confusing.
Addiction isn’t just about substances. Addiction permeates families in surprising forms, affecting relationships and shaping generations. As a Certified Addiction Recovery Coach, I work with people who grapple with the fallout of addictive behaviors in their families. If you or someone you love is grappling with addiction—or patterns like workaholism, codependency, or people-pleasing, here is a primer on what addiction is, how it affects the family system, and how we can heal it.
What is Addiction, Really?
Broad Definition:
Let’s begin with a broad, inclusive definition from various perspectives.
I love this all-encompassing definition that Tommy Rosen, Founder of Recovery 2.0, uses:
Addiction is any behavior we continue to do that has negative consequences on our lives.
This goes beyond substances. Yes—drugs and alcohol are included—but addiction lives wherever we use something to escape discomfort, numb our feelings, or avoid reality.
Addiction is less about what we do and more about why we do it, especially when it’s causing harm and we feel powerless to stop.
Addiction feeds on the calculus of power – the power of hunger and the pursuit of its appetites. It comes in many forms, yet its energy is unmistakable. Craving and more craving. A well that has no bottom. This is the state of things when we lose our authentic connection to ourselves, to others, and to our soul. And it is this disconnection and the profound loss we experience because of it that provides the momentum of want, wanting more. And no matter how much we seem to get from the external world – attention from fame, money, and its power, prestige, stimulation – addiction has us chasing. Chasing for its own sake. This is the suffering of addiction.
As Dr. Gabor Mate, a physician and leader in the fields of trauma and addiction, reminds us, “Don’t ask why the addiction. Ask why the pain.”
So the root of addiction is that it is a coping mechanism we use to help us manage our lives when we are suffering from unresolved trauma.
And we have plenty of ways to distract ourselves from our pain…
The Six Main Addictions and The Five Aggravations
Addictions show up in many forms. I like to separate them into The Main Six Addictions and The Five Aggravations.
The Main Six Addictions:
- Alcohol
- Drugs
- People – Co-dependency, sex, and love addiction
- Money – Gambling, overspending, scarcity-fueled hoarding
- Food – Restriction (anorexia), binging (bulimia), and other disordered eating
- Technology – scrolling, gaming, social media addiction
Then we have The Five Aggravations*—these are internal habits that fuel stress and dysfunction:
- Self-doubt
- Procrastination
- Negative Thinking
- Resentment
- Judgment
- Tommy Rosen is the source for The Four Aggravations, as detailed in his book, Recovery 2.0: Move Beyond Addiction and Upgrade Your Life. I added a fifth aggravation: judgment.
These are the patterns that run under the Main Six Addictions as deeper maladaptive mechanisms to cope with pain.
And, let’s be clear here – we are talking about any pain, whether physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual; they all send the same signal to the brain: “It hurts.” The brain cannot tell the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart.
What Addiction Looks Like and Understanding Addiction in Families
In a person, addiction often looks like:
- Secrecy, hiding, or aloofness
- Mood swings
- Anxiety or numbness
- Guilt, shame, and defensiveness
- Being separate from the rest of the family
- Selfishness
- Manipulation
- Low Self-Esteem
But addiction doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Addiction is relational.
The Ripple Effect in Families
In families, addiction activates roles and dynamics that are often unconscious.
Addiction in families often reveals itself through emotional, behavioral, and relational patterns that repeat across time, even when the original addiction is no longer present. Here are the primary ways addiction shows up in families, along with the signs to look for.
- Addiction brings secrecy, shame, mood swings, and disconnection to families.
- Families impacted by addiction often unconsciously adopt roles to cope with chaos, shame, and instability. These roles can persist even in families where the addiction is no longer active.
Common Roles:
- The Addict – Central figure whose behavior dominates the system.
- The Enabler – Protects the addict from consequences; often co-dependent.
- The Hero – Tries to “fix” the family by being perfect and overachieving.
- The Scapegoat – Acts out or rebels; often blamed for the family’s problems.
- The Lost Child – Withdraws emotionally; flies under the radar.
- The Mascot – Uses humor to deflect tension and distract from pain.
These roles often form in childhood and carry into adult relationships, careers, and self-perception.
The Drama Triangle
The Drama Triangle, also known as the Karpman Drama Triangle, named after Stephen B. Karpman, who developed this model, is a key sign of dysfunction. Here are the family roles that show up in The Drama Triangle.
- Victim: “Poor me”—feels helpless and overwhelmed.
- Rescuer: “Let me fix it”—overfunctions for others.
- Persecutor: “It’s your fault”—blames and controls.
Family members often rotate roles. This creates cycles of guilt, resentment, and emotional volatility. Families cycle through these roles unconsciously. And they’re not bad people—they’re hurting people. Everyone is trying to find some form of control, connection, or survival.
Belief Systems and Coping Mechanisms
Addiction doesn’t just affect behavior—it distorts what we believe is normal:
- “We don’t talk about our problems.”
- “I have to do everything myself.”
- “Love means sacrifice.”
- “If I just try harder, they’ll change.”
These beliefs can fuel hyper-independence, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and chronic self-doubt.
Communication Breakdowns
In understanding addiction in families, we need to look at the ways that communication breaks down in the family system. These include:
- Passive-aggressiveness or stonewalling
- Secrets and lies (to “protect” others)
- Walking on eggshells
- Avoidance of honest conversations
- Over- or under-sharing, depending on role
Silence often replaces communication, reinforcing shame and disconnection.
Generational Patterns of Dysfunction
Intergenerational trauma—unresolved pain from our ancestors—can live in our nervous systems, our belief systems, and even our genes, expressing epigenetically.
Even if no one in the current generation is “actively addicted,” patterns of dysfunction can persist:
- Emotional suppression
- Control issues
- Chronic stress and anxiety
- Estrangement or enmeshment
- Poor boundaries and blurred responsibilities
We may carry coping mechanisms that were once tools of survival, but they don’t serve us anymore.
This is where working with the imprints of intergenerational trauma and ancestral clearing becomes important. Many families unknowingly repeat the pain of previous generations until someone becomes conscious enough to stop the cycle.
The Core Wound of Addiction: Disconnection
At the heart of all addiction is disconnection—from ourselves, from others, including the family, and from something greater.
Disconnection from:
- Our true feelings
- Our body’s signals
- Our spirit
- Each other
Often, this is not just about what’s happening in this generation, but what’s been passed down from those before us.
Breaking the Addictive Cycle: Steps Toward Healing Addiction in Families
So now, the big question: What can we do about it?
- Acknowledge It
The first step is simply telling the truth. Not blaming. Not excusing. Just recognizing what’s happening and how it’s impacting you or your family.
- Break the Silence and end the stigma
Secrets and shame thrive in the dark. Healing begins when we bring truth into the light—with a therapist, a sponsor, or a trusted community.
- Get into a supportive recovery community
- Educate yourself and your family about the dynamics of addiction and proven ways to end the suffering.
- Understand the Nervous System
Addiction is not a moral failing—it’s a dysregulated nervous system seeking relief. Practices like breathwork, sleep hygiene, nutrition, mantra, and ancestral clearing help regulate and restore balance.
- Connection and Safe Relationships
In understanding addiction in families, we need to realize that:
We are traumatized in unsafe relationships. We heal in safe relationships.
Recovery is not just about abstaining from a substance or behavior—it’s about reconnecting:
- To our authentic self
- To others through honest relationships
- To spirit—however we define that
Sometimes the most powerful question we can ask ourselves or a loved one is:
“Where does it hurt? And how can we be with that pain together?”
We are all addicted to something…
“We’re all addicted to something.
It may not be a substance.
It may be a certain attitude or approach to life, or a way of seeing ourselves.
We’re addicted to something.
We’re locked into something that defined us at some point, or that helped us to feel okay about ourselves at some point.
And we realize at some point that whatever that was that served, comforted, held, gave us strength, gave us some meaning at some level – at some point, those things became like shackles, like a vice that’s around us.
These layers of protection we put around ourselves that helped us get through the night are choking out the day. When you start to see that – that it is getting in your way, then somehow it helps to make a decision that I want to do something different.”
Three Wishes for Parents in Understanding Addiction in Families
Here are my heartfelt wishes for families facing addiction:
- Addiction Is NOT a Moral Failing: Addiction is a survival response, not a lack of character.
- Children Need Help Learning Emotions: Below the age of seven, kids can’t regulate themselves—they need grounded, emotionally intelligent adults.
- Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help: Support systems ARE available. Reaching out is a strength, not a weakness.
For Those Ready to Heal:
Elizabeth encourages reaching out—whether it’s with a therapist, an addiction recovery family specialist, like Kate Duffy of Tipping Point Recovery, whom I highly recommend, a support group, or a trusted friend.
For more information, feel free to connect with me here.
