Feature By: Harriette Rovner Ferguson, LCSW-R with HR – John Collins, MA Counselor
Addiction is affecting families at epidemic proportions. On Long Island alone, we read about kids dying everyday. The teens that aren’t dead yet, are in and out of rehabs if they are lucky because many are in jail or living on the streets. Their parents are scared, angry and most times consumed with the fear that their kid will be the next statistic or that the long awaited recovery will be lost in a moment of stress and bad judgment.
But what about the other kids in the families? The non-addicted siblings who stand back and watch the horrendous scenario? Take Kelsey for example. She’s only 13 and her brother Ryan is 17. They had a great relationship when they were young. He introduced her to the music she loves and let her hang out with him and his friends, quietly sitting with them, dreaming about what it would be like to be a teenager and have a boyfriend and go to middle school. But….
Kelsey sits in her room alone now. Her brother is never home. She doesn’t want to be with friends because they keep telling her she seems sad and not fun anymore. At home, she doesn’t want to hear the commotion. She sometimes puts the pillow over her head so she doesn’t have to hear her parents arguing about whether or not they should take Ryan’s phone away or demand that he get better grades.
“Are they kidding me???” she asks us. “Are they for real? They are worried about his grades?? Give me a break. My parents are so dumb. I know that Ryan gets high every day. He hardly is ever here but when he does comes home and knocks on my door and wants to talk, I tell him to go away I can’t stand him anymore. He stinks of weed and liquor and I don’t know what else. He’s so changed, I can’t believe my parents won’t t do something about it.”
When a person’s brother or sister is addicted to drugs, his or her emotional needs often fall through the cracks because everyone’s focused on helping the parents and the addict, said Dr. Joseph Lee, a child psychiatrist and medical director of youth services at Hazelden, a national addiction treatment center with a location in Chicago. (from a blog on facebook) Some kids become the caretaker of the sibling, others enable them by keeping secrets and others just disappear and become the good kid not making any trouble for their parents.
What can we do to help the often silent victim of addiction?
There are centers that offer help for Families and Siblings of Addicts, in addition to the traditional groups of NARANON and ALANON, etc.
Some of these resources can be found at sites such as:
- Shatterproof.org
- Help for the Family: Families And Addiction
- SHARC – Sibling Support
- Family Disease – NCADD
For our part in Smithtown, Transformations Counseling Group, is offering a Siblings of Addiction Support Group. This is a supportive service for siblings affected by addiction designed to engage others with similar challenges and the emotional roller coaster that often goes with being a sibling of someone battling addiction. The group will focus on the emotional needs of the siblings of addicts and identify support systems and coping skills they can utilize to take back their identities and own needs.