Family Ties – Part II

February 8th, 2010
By Darren Haber, MFT, Addictions & Compulsions Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Darren and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

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First I want to thank those of you who took time to comment on my last article. I love getting feedback, so keep it coming.

Last time I discussed what happens when members of alcoholic families, who are alcoholic themselves, get sober. The members of these families tend to fall into certain behavioral patterns, or “roles”, which classically include: the hero, the scapegoat (or identified patient), the mascot, the “lost child” and the caretaker. I wanted to explore further the patterns I have observed in my clinical experience with literally hundreds of clients and their families, both in my private practice and at Promises Treatment Center, where I am a therapist in their 30-day residential program.

What’s interesting to observe is how the entire family dynamic changes once their loved one gets sober. I never cease to wonder at how the client’s stabilization in treatment leads inevitably to an increase in their family’s anxiety. Thus, as soon as the client completes detox and starts showing signs of improvement, the parent or sibling or spouse of the client will call the staff in a more anxious state than ever. This, of course, is a sign that the family’s homeostasis is changing, which is terrifying to a dysfunctional system (which tends to reject change) – another reminder that, to paraphrase James Masterson, clients often come to therapy or treatment to feel better, not necessarily to get better (Masterson & Lieberman, 2004).

What happens when a family “mascot” enters the treatment process for alcoholism or addiction? The mascot is someone who lessens family anxiety by providing distraction and deflection, often via humor and comic relief. Here is the “class clown” who can break tension by cracking wise at precisely the right time.

Keep in mind that family members may play more than one role simultaneously; for instance, I once had a client who was a recovering alcoholic – and a stand-up comedian. Quite a good one, in fact. Fortunately, he was able to provide insight and painful emotional truth, along with the laughs. The good news with such a person is that humor is often a filter for truth, so if he/she can step out of the spotlight and get in touch with the pain of addiction, without deflecting it with humor – or to enhance rather than distract from truth – then recovery can begin.

The problem is when the person tries to re-enter the family system. Family members are inevitably going to find themselves unsettled, antsy, perhaps even critical of the clown who sheds the mask. Very often you will hear people say of a recovering mascot, “She used to be so funny, now she’s kind of boring” or “He’s so serious now that he’s sober, what happened to the exciting guy I used to know?” What often happens when a mascot (or any such family member) gets sober, is that the other members (or even close friends and co-workers, etc) are now left with an absence of deflection, or distraction, which creates a void – filled, inevitably, with each persons’ unexamined problems. Now the sibling, parent or spouse of the mascot no longer has the luxury of distraction, and that anxiety must be contained and processed by a system that is inherently uncomfortable with “owning” or processing anxiety healthily.

Thus the mascot may be left with feelings of guilt, shame, self-criticism – the usual feelings that come with early sobriety, magnified by a dysfunctional family system which gives lip service to sobriety but, in fact, isn’t exactly sure how to deal with it. This person may feel they are “causing” the anxiety in a family, when it’s been there all along: in subterranean form. This speaks again to the importance of viewing alcoholism as a “family disease” in which each person is required to look at his/her “stuff” without passing the buck any longer (i.e. shaming/blaming, etc). For each member, this process will at first feel very uncomfortable. But getting better does not guarantee, at least in the beginning, feeling better. Paradoxically, the constant laughter and tension-breaking shenanigans of the mascot, within an actively-addicted family system, has drowned the pain that must now be dealt with head on, if the system is to truly have a shot at health.

This, sadly, did not happen with the sober comedian I mentioned earlier. With sobriety came anger on the part of his spouse, much of which was justified, given the destructive way he behaved in his addiction. However, she refused to acknowledge the fresh start his sobriety provided, declined to get help via al-anon or counseling; in turn, he blamed her for his feelings of guilt, shame and (eventually) rage. Neither took responsibility, or found healthy support, and word has it that he is now drinking and using with abandon while his wife is hurt, angry, and seeking divorce.

References:

1) Masterson, J. & Lieberman, A. (2004), A Therapist’s Guide To The Personality Disorders. Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen.

 

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©Copyright 2010 by Darren Haber, MA, MFT, therapist in Los Angeles, CA. All Rights Reserved.

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