How can I cope?

• Stages of coping
• Setting and keeping boundaries
• Coping with conflict

Stages of coping

It is normal to feel helpless, frustrated, worried and upset by someone’s substance use. Drug and alcohol users can have very erratic behavior, and it can be difficult to know how to act around them. Their substance use encourages them to act in very distressing ways. They may become aggressive, angry and violent, or distant and cold. They might commit crimes and go to prison.

Each family copes with substance use in their own unique way. However, there are recognized stages that families tend to go thorough when there is serious use:

• Denying

  - ignoring the problem, hoping it will go away

• Enabling

  - inadvertently enabling drug/alcohol use to continue by paying debts, lying to cover up for the user, tolerating very difficult behavior, buying drugs/alcohol for the user, etc

• Controlling

  – taking control of the user’s life and drug/alcohol use in an attempt to make them stop using

• Apathy

  – withdrawing, casting the user out of the family home, giving up

Note that a family doesn’t have to go through all these stages if it gets the right help and support. It is also important to remember that each family member might be at a different stage to each other.

Finding out about the problems faced in each stage will help families to cope with them as they come along. It also helps to recognize the difficult and painful feelings that are typically generated by such situations

Every substance is different, so it can help a family to know about the substance the user takes. For example the way someone’s behavior is affected by using it; the risks of using it; ways to reduce those risks; etc

If a user’s behavior becomes serious, do not be afraid to look for help – especially if the behavior is dangerous. There are experienced professionals there to explain the issues, provide support and ways to cope.

Drugs and alcohol can put a strain on family relationships. Feelings of disapproval and of being let down are usual, as is worry about the effects a substance may be having on someone. It is therefore normal to feel the situation is hopeless.



Below are two ways to cope with a user’s behavior that other people have found helpful:

Setting and keeping boundaries

Families are encouraged to cope with the difficult behavior of a dependent drug/alcohol user by setting and keeping boundaries. All relationships have boundaries, but when drugs/alcohol are involved it can be difficult to see where they should be and it can be difficult to maintain them.

• A boundary is a limit on acceptable behavior. Effective boundaries are the foundation of all relationships, helping to develop trust, stability and respect.
• Boundaries invite the user to take responsibility for the choices they make and their behavior.
• They help to reduce the impact of the user’s behavior on the family.
• An example of a boundary could be ‘stealing from other family members is not acceptable’. Another could be that ‘the family won’t buy drugs/alcohol for the person who uses’.
• Boundaries can be hard to set and then to keep
• Boundaries have to be backed up with appropriate consequences if they are broken. Before setting a boundary make sure that you are ready to impose the consequences you say will happen. Follow through on the consequences if the boundary is broken. If you don’t, it then becomes harder to set other boundaries in the future.
• If setting and keeping boundaries proves to be too difficult then get help from your local drug/alcohol agency, a family support group, a counselor, etc.

Coping with conflict

Substance use often causes turmoil within families, including conflict between the user and other family members, but also between non-using family members as well. Coping with conflict is usually very difficult.

Consider the following:

1. When substance use is involved, different members of the family often take up the same familiar role they always adopt, such as persecuting, being a victim or rescuing others. These ‘roles’ may keep the family locked into damaging patterns of behavior.
2. Drug/alcohol users typically become very skilled at knowing how to play one family member off against another to get what they want.
3. See if you can talk with family members about the conflicts you have at a time when there is calm. Explore together how conflict is created – usually everyone plays a part – no matter how unintended their part may be. Experiment with other ways to deal with the source of conflict. If you talk to the person who uses then do so when they aren’t actually influenced by drugs/alcohol or craving to use them.
4. If conflict becomes unmanageable get help from a local drug/alcohol agency, family support group, a counselor, etc.

The source of above information is with the permission of ADFAM. For the direct link to the source of this page click on: http://www.adfam.org.uk/index.php?content=family_help4&include=no