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The Effect of Drugs and Alcohol on the Family

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Submitted By Bcutemarie81
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Running head: ADDICTION AND FAMILIES 1

The Effect of Drug and Alcohol Addicts on the Family
Brandy M. Foster
Wilmington University

Introduction Many families have one or more family members that are struggling with and/or overcame an addiction, whether it is drugs or alcohol. There are many programs that are established to help addicts, but there are very few programs that actually assess the effects that a family member’s addiction has on the family. The purpose of this paper is to identify how family members of drug and/or alcohol addicts are affected by the actions of those drug and/or alcohol addicted members. I’m interested in this topic, because I have family members who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and I want to see what ways I may have been affected by the actions of my addicted family members. My father was a drug addict for majority of his life and died as a result of it. All of my life, my father has been in and out of jail because of drug related charges and my immediate family and I experienced him getting high in our home and walking around hallucinating and being in a constant state of paranoia. He would walk around our house closing blinds, turning off lights, turning the volume all the way down on the television and constantly peeking out the windows. One time he and my uncle were in the hallway of our trailer supposedly fighting devils in the air that he saw by creating flames in the air using a certain spray and a lighter. I have three uncles who also struggle with addictions. Two out of the three uncles struggle with alcohol, while the other uncle struggles with drugs and alcohol. Two of them are functioning alcoholics, meaning they could be drunk but it would be hard for someone to tell because they act the same way they do if they were sober. The remaining uncle cannot function when intoxicated, which is

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