Understanding the secondhand drinking | drugging – codependency connection offers an opportunity to reframe a confusing subject. In this reframing, we find opportunities to better help those coping with a loved one’s drinking | drugging behaviors.

Secondhand Drinking | Drugging – Codependency Connection Explained

The term “codependent” is often used in the world of addiction treatment and recovery. In this world, “codependent” is used to describe the family member or close friend, along with other terms, such as “enabler” or “co-addict.”

The original concept of codependency was developed to describe the responses and behaviors a person (spouse, parent or sibling) develops from living with an alcoholic or drug addict.  The idea is that just as the alcoholic/addict is focused (dependent) on their finding, seeking, using, recovering from their substance, so too are friends and family members focused (dependent) on trying to get the alcoholic/addict to stop or change their substance use patterns. They have become co-dependent with the addict/alcoholic on his/her addiction, and in the process, the family member/friend (codependent) adapts to the unacceptable substance misuse behaviors in order to cope (and in some cases, survive).  These coping behaviors – adaptations – are called “codependency.” (1)

Subsequent study found that people living with a chronically physically or mentally ill person also developed similar kinds of emotional responses and behaviors.  Today, the term codependent has been broadened to describe a person who grew up and/or lives in a dysfunctional family. (2) A dysfunctional family is defined as one where one or more of the following underlying problems existed (or exists):

• An addiction [or abusive/excessive use] by a family member to [of] drugs, alcohol, relationships, work, food, sex or gambling.
• The existence of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
• The presence of a family member suffering from a chronic mental or physical illness. (3)

It is important to understand that the mere presence of one of these underlying problems is not what makes a family dysfunctional. What makes it dysfunctional is when a family member’s confusion, sadness, fear, anger, pain or shame for the underlying problem is ignored, ridiculed, minimized or denied. (4)

Understanding the Secondhand Drinking | Drugging – Codependency Connection can help parents, children, friends, co-workers, aunts, uncles and close friends who are coping with someone’s drinking | drugging behaviors.

For when a family does not openly and honestly acknowledge a problem exists, they most certainly don’t talk about it or confront it. Sure, they may yell and scream and rant and rave but not ‘talk’ in a way that leads to change. This leaves each family member to:

• interpret what they think is going on
• obey, at all costs, the family rules – especially the two primary rules:
  • Rule #1 – “Dad’s (or Mom’s or your sibling’s) drinking (or fill in the blank with the name of the problem in your household ________________ ) is not the issue”
  • Rule #2  – “do not talk to anyone (not family, not friends) about Dad’s (or Mom’s or your sibling’s) drinking (or fill in the blank with the name of the issue in your household ________________), and above all, attack, minimize or discredit any family member who does”

• adopt coping skills to suppress their emotions so they don’t spill over and break one of the family rules (which in time multiply and are ever changing) or to unwittingly attempt to make the feeling caused by the emotion go away

• assume their needs and wants are not worthy of attention since everyone’s focus must be on the needs and demands of the family member who is ill or addicted or abusing drugs or alcohol and that to ask for or expect attention is selfish or petty.

And while the concept and intent of the term “codependency” is vital, it’s a term most cannot identify with so they don’t see the relevancy of learning about the concept and the implications it has for them in terms of their own health and ongoing happiness. Nor does it even touch the millions whose lives are impacted by a person’s drinking or drugging – drinking or drugging that may or may not be addiction.

Thus, presenting the impacts of what occurs in a dysfunctional family in broader terms anyone can understand, as well as what occurs simply as a consequence of dealing with someone’s drinking or drugging behaviors, is the purpose of the term, Secondhand Drinking | Drugging (SHD).

SHD refers to the impacts on the person who is on the receiving end of another person’s drinking | drugging behaviors – behaviors a person engages in as a result of excessive alcohol or drugs changing brain function. These brain function changes are caused by a variety of drinking patterns ranging from binge drinking to heavy social drinking to alcohol abuse to alcoholism. They are caused by a variety of drugging patterns ranging from taking someone else’s prescribed medications to not taking one’s own pain medications as prescribed to using illegal drugs to drug addiction. These drinking | drugging behaviors include:

• Fighting with friends or family about the drinking | drugging; saying or doing things you don’t remember or regret.
• Driving while under the influence; getting a DUI (DWI); riding in a car driven by someone who has been drinking or drugging.
• Experiencing blackouts – fragmentary or complete; vomiting; passing out – not remembering what was said or while under the
  influence.
• Doing poorly at work or school because of the drinking or recovering from the effects of drinking | drugging.
• Having unplanned unwanted or unprotected sex; committing date rape.
• Being admitted to the emergency room with a high Blood Alcohol Content (BAC), in addition to the “real” reason (e.g., broken arm, feel down the stairs, auto accident).
• Physical fights; domestic violence.
  

When coping with secondhand drinking | drugging is ongoing, it can change a person’s brain, which in turn can change the very quality of their life, as explained next.

The Health Consequences of Codependency – Secondhand Drinking | Drugging

Because there is no open, honest recognition and/or statement of the problem – the behavioral changes caused by an individual’s drinking | drugging – one family member may try to reason with the alcoholic/addict or alcohol/drug abuser, while another may learn to “read” their behavior in order to assess what’s about to happen (how bad is it going to be?). That family member may then modify her own behavior or try to manipulate another’s behavior in order to pacify the alcoholic/addict or to defuse the situation. A third family member may take it upon him/herself to pick up the pieces and cover up after the alcoholic/addict’s or alcohol/drug abuser’s binge, while another may try convince their loved one to stop entirely. One may plead, scream, yell, cry or perfect the silent treatment. Another may work as the peacekeeper between the alcoholic/ alcohol abuser and the other family members. And, still another may decide it’s all too crazy and leave altogether.

When a person places other people’s health, welfare and safety before their own in this manner, they can lose contact with their own needs, desires and sense of self.  If chronic, SHD (codependency) can cause brain changes for family members and close friends as they wire in coping skills to respond to the drinking | drugging behaviors or the lifetime outcomes of those behaviors (being the victim of drunk driving accident, for example). Coping skills examples include: retreating inside one’s mind or physically exiting the room when confronted with abusive or scary drinking behaviors; carrying pent-up, explosive rage that spills out in other situations because it cannot be expressed to the person abusively drinking/drugging for safety reasons; attempts to be especially “good” to make up for or “fix” the problem; excusing or accommodating unacceptable behaviors as somehow acceptable and carrying that behavior into other relationships, as well.

These brain changes are caused by the repetitive activation of the brain’s fight-or-flight stress response system, a system that engages when confronted with stress – danger – fear – anxiety. As a result of these brain and physical changes, family members and close friends repeatedly exposed to SHD often suffer anxiety, depression, stomach ailments, skin problems, obesity, sleep difficulties, migraines and a whole host of other conditions. They experience quality-of-life changes that are beyond a “healthy” person’s comprehension.  Not only this but the consequential physical and emotional impairments a person repeatedly exposed to SHD experiences changes them in ways that extends SHD impacts to those within their sphere of influence. This can include their co-workers, fellow students and relatives of family members. For more on this, check out this post, “The Health Consequences of Secondhand Drinking.”

Bottom Line…

It’s a complicated dynamic to be sure. But in the world of addiction treatment and recovery, reframing codependency as secondhand drinking | drugging helps family members and friends appreciate that the experts in that world understand the horrific experiences they’ve undergone as a result of coping with their loved one’s addiction. This, in turn, will help them appreciate the importance of doing what’s necessary to change those unhealthy coping patterns for their own health and life enjoyment, as well as for the ongoing recovery of their loved one.

In the world of society as a whole, introducing the term SHD gets to the broader issue. Namely that a person’s drinking | drugging behaviors have an impact on the lives of others and that these behaviors are the result of brain changes caused by alcohol or drug misuse. This, in turn, will help friends and family members and co-workers take a stand and say, “What you said to me last night is not okay nor is being drunk a justification;” “It’s not safe or okay that you show up hungover, unable to concentrate and do your share of the work;” “It’s not an excuse that you smashed her face because she provoked you (while you’d been drinking);” or “Being drunk is not justification for sexually assaulting that girl.” In every one of these scenarios, the outcome c/would have been avoided had consuming more alcohol than the liver can process not been involved. In other words, had consuming alcohol not changed brain function.

I like to think of all this in terms of the secondhand smoke campaign. Once we stopped going after the smoker to stop smoking and instead to raising awareness about the impacts of secondhand smoke on the health of those in the sphere of the smoker, we had a sea change. No longer did we tolerate smoking in our homes or cars or public places.

Once we stop going after the drinker or drug abuser, the addict or alcoholic, and instead focus on raising awareness about the impacts of drinking | drugging behaviors on the health and lives of those in the sphere of the drinker | drug user, we can create a sea change. SHD is not about prohibition. It’s about not condoning or excusing or rationalizing drinking | drugging behaviors. People who don’t misuse drugs or alcohol don’t experience drinking | drugging behaviors. People who don’t misuse drugs or alcohol don’t cause secondhand drinking | drugging.

So, now what! Consider browsing through related posts found in the Secondhand Drinking |Help for Families blog category, check out my books and feel free to call me at 650-362-3026 or email me at lisaf@BreakingTheCycles.com. There is no charge for inquiry calls.

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©2008-2010 Lisa Frederiksen

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(1), (2), (3), (4)  “Codependency,” Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association),  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/codependency

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Lisa Frederiksen

Author | Speaker | Consultant | Founder at BreakingTheCycles.com

Lisa Frederiksen is the author of hundreds of articles and 12 books, including her latest, "10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much,” and "Loved One In Treatment? Now What!” She is a national keynote speaker with over 30 years speaking experience, consultant and founder of BreakingTheCycles.com. Lisa has spent the last 19+ years studying and simplifying breakthrough research on the brain, substance use and other mental health disorders, secondhand drinking, toxic stress, trauma/ACEs and related topics.

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