The 6 Family Roles in Addiction: Understanding Dysfunctional Dynamics

Thousands of households across America have one or more family members struggling with addiction. This affliction affects the entire dynamic, not just the addict. The pressure exerted on the relationships between parents, kids, and siblings in this situation can tear the unit apart, leaving the family as a shell, devoid of trust, support, and most importantly, love.

As the family member, or members, fall further into the grip of addiction, it becomes noticeable to everyone else around them. What starts as subtle changes in behavior, eventually spirals out of control, bringing strife, pain, and hardship to everyone in the family.

Addicts don’t intend to hurt their family members emotionally, or physically—it just happens. It’s part of the cycle and their substance of choice eventually ends up creating huge changes to their personality, character, and behavior.

If you have a family member struggling with addiction, you’ve probably noticed that as more time passes and they become more deeply addicted, they seem like a totally different person—and that’s because they are.

How should you respond to this situation? Is it even possible to help the family member restore their sobriety and end their addiction?

Let’s look into it.

How Addiction Affects the Family Dynamic

The story of family addiction always plays out the same way—It strains relationships, shatters trust, breeds resentment, and ends in disaster. The reality is that not every story of family addiction has a happy ending—most of these cases end up as tragic tales.

While every family has a unique dynamic that defines the relationships between parents, kids, and siblings, addiction seems to always destroy it, no matter how supportive the members are. Unless the addicted family member can find their way into recovery, the family will never be the same again.

Even if the addict does manage to enter recovery and make a go of living a sober lifestyle, the past trauma of the scenario may continue to cast haunting shadows into the future, and the family will never really be the same again.

Addiction in the family unit can happen to any one of the members. Kids could experiment with friends and end up in a cycle of addiction they didn’t expect. Parents could use drugs or alcohol as a stress coping mechanism and fall prey to drug or alcohol dependency.

Let’s briefly look into the effects of addiction on children and parents in the family unit and how it affects the dynamic.

How Children Deal with Addicted Family Members

It’s a somber statistic, but one in eight children live with a parent dealing with a substance use disorder. The trauma endured by the children of addicted parents affects them in different ways and largely depends on the family dynamic.

If a child or children live with a single parent who’s struggling with addiction, they have no one to talk to about and there’s no support to help them deal with the trauma they endure. The same applies to children living in two-parent households where both parents have a substance use disorder.

If only one of the parents has a problem, the other might not see it in their behavior initially, but they’ll eventually catch on, and at least one of the parents can step in to control the situation.

Parenting and Child Addiction

Addiction seems to affect more single-parent households, and their kids are at higher risk of the kids growing up to embrace delinquent behavior, such as experimenting with drugs. There’s a better chance of one of the parents noticing erratic or aberrant behavior in their kids that stems from drug abuse.

Single parents might not be around their kids enough to pick up the changes in their kids before they’re deep into their addiction. Similarly, parents who are addicted to substances will rarely be able to keep their behavior hidden and their kids will eventually figure it out for themselves.

Depending on the child and their living situation, their parents’ substance abuse could either turn them off drugs and alcohol, or it might push them into it.

Addiction and Sibling Relationships

You’ve probably heard the siblings of parent addicts referred to as “invisible victims.” If kids develop an addiction problem, they might be able to hide it from their parents for months or even years, depending on the family dynamic.

If one sibling has an addiction and the others are clean, they may fear telling their parents about their brother or sisters’ problem out of fear of how the parents will react. This scenario is common in households when the parents have an authoritarian or permissive approach to their parenting style.

Some siblings may eventually crack and tell their parents, ruining the trust relationship with their brother or sister. Then there’s the issue of the parent’s focusing more attention on the addicted child and their siblings might feel neglected and resentful of their sibling for this result.

The Six Dysfunctional Codependency Roles in Family Addiction

The family dynamic goes through changes when one of the members develops an addiction. The impact it has on the family is unique in almost every case, but every family member deals with it in a different way.

Addiction and codependency specialist Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse identified the six different roles family members take on when a parent, child, or sibling becomes addicted to substances. Sharon outlined these roles in her best-selling book, “Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family”.

The six identified roles observe how family members deal with addicted loved ones. In larger family’s there might be a member for every role. In smaller families, a member might adopt several different roles. In some cases, some family members might not develop any of the roles.

Regardless of the roles they take on, they aren’t healthy methods of working though the family’s problems, but given the circumstances, it’s easy to see why it occurs. Let’s look at each of the six roles in greater detail.

The Addict

The addict is the focal point in the family and all the other roles the members take on orbit around them. The addict becomes the source of resentment and eventual conflict in the home due to their behavior and the family’s inability to properly cope with the changes occurring in their physical and mental health, and their behavior. Family’s aren’t trained in how to correctly deal with the situation, so they default to the other five roles in the family addiction dynamic to help them deal with the situation.

The Caretaker

The “caretaker” assumes the role of enabling the addict’s behavior. They don’t know how to confront the addict, and they choose to do their best to act like nothing is wrong. They sweep the problem under the rug and hope that the addict can pull themselves right without any help. The constant enabling of the addict’s behavior not only deepens their addiction but also widens the chasm of communication between the family members, resulting in wedges in communication between all family members as the dynamic shifts and starts to change, teetering on the brink of disaster.

The Mascot

The “Mascot” chooses to see the lighter side of the problem and alleviate the pain and suffering experienced by the family through humor or constant interactions and communication. The Mascot has a good connection and working relationship with all family members, even the addict, and they’re constantly trying to make the other family members feel good to avoid rifts developing in the family dynamic. This role is nothing short of exhausting for them and develops trauma because they know they’re doing everything they can to keep things together, but regardless of their efforts, things continue to fall apart.

The Hero

The “Hero” takes the opposite role of the Caretaker. Instead of enabling the addict, they offer no support whatsoever. Their primary goal is to keep the family together to maintain the appearance that there’s nothing wrong with the family and they’re just a normal part of society. They do their best to keep the family together behind closed doors and are usually the eldest child, known as the “Golden Child,” and they’re self-sufficient, responsible, and somewhat of a perfectionist in everything they do. As with the Mascot, the Hero might put on a strong outward appearance, but they’re slowly succumbing to the mental health wounds left behind by the trauma of dealing with the situation.

The Scapegoat

The “Scapegoat” is often the problem child in the family and they may resent one or more of the other family members. They prefer to deal with the situation by creating a hostile environment that draws the attention away from the addict to them. For instance, they might get in trouble with the authorities or commit crimes or acts of vandalism to keep the parent’s attention focused on them.

The Lost Child

The quiet sibling in the family is known as the “Lost Child.” They generally keep to themselves and prefer to be left out of the arguments and deep discussions regarding the addict. They are highly sensitive to the trauma involved in the situation and prefer to “stick their head in the sand,” rather than take an active role in helping the addict. The Lost Child is usually the youngest sibling in the family, and they let their older siblings take the lead.

In Closing—The Risks and Complications to the Family Dynamic Presented by Addiction

Addiction tears families apart from the inside out and presents a unique set of risks and complications to the family dynamic.

A Legacy of Addiction

Children love their parents and often emulate their behavior—after all, that’s the role of the parent in the family dynamic—to provide guidance. Sometimes the parent might give guidance through verbal instruction, but a lot of their influence on the kids comes from the children watching their actions.

Kids who grow up in households where one or both parents struggle with addiction are more likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol. That’s where we get the saying that “addiction runs in the family.” Addicts pass their genes onto their children, and this perpetuates the cycle of addiction in the family dynamic, turning it into a legacy of misery.

The Potential for Physical and Emotional Abuse

When one or both of the parents are addicted to substances their behavior changes and becomes unpredictable. People are more inclined to act out feelings of violence and hatred to their family members when they’re intoxicated on their substance of choice, increasing the risk for physical, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.

A Broken Family

While we wish we could say that every story of family addiction has a happy ending, that’s usually not the case at all. SUD and AUD rip the family dynamic to shreds over time. Addicted parents may abandon their families and children may run away from home.

Addiction breeds resentment between family members. The addict may resent their family because they feel they don’t understand their situation and how they feel. Siblings of addicts may run away for a range of reasons, from their sibling abusing them or their parents neglecting them. They’re unable to cope with the changes to the family dynamic and they choose to separate themselves from the situation.

Some family members make cut ties with the addict because they can’t handle their behavior and the toll it takes on the other family members. They may stop talking to the addict or the Caretaker because they feel that its just enabling their behavior.

Children of addicts might end up in state homes because their parents are no longer able to care for them properly. They end up feeling a deep sense of betrayal, furthering the trauma they endure from the situation.

Financial and Social Hardships

Addicts will steal from family members when they can no longer financially support their habit. They have a hard time keeping their job as their addiction spirals out of control, and they’ll beg family members for money, using some form of excuse to justify their need for money.

Typically, they’ll prey on the Caretakers natural proclivity to enable them, and this behavior may end up costing the family financially. The family might support the addict financially when they get in legal trouble, or they might pay for the costs of rehab.

Regardless, the addict becomes a money pit for the family and eventually the entire family unit experiences financial hardship.