5 Things to Know About Secondhand Drinking | Drugging

When parents are understandably wrought with fear, concern, confusion and frustration over a child’s substance misuse (whether that be alcohol, illegal drugs or prescription medications), they may not realize the Secondhand Drinking | Drugging (SHD) impacts they and other children in their family are experiencing.

SHD is what happens to the person who must cope with someone’s drinking | drugging behaviors. These behaviors are caused by the brain changes associated with the alcohol or drug abuse. When a person, especially a young person, does not understand drinking behaviors as a consequence of brain changes (and in the case of addiction, a brain disease) caused by the substance abuse, they think “it” (the behavior) is their loved one. Thus, they think their loved one’s behaviors are something they have to accommodate or thwart or believe, because, after all, it is their loved one!  

SHD can cause brain changes for family members as they wire in these kinds of coping skills. Examples include retreating inside one’s mind or physically exiting the room when confronted with abusive or scary drinking behaviors; carrying pent up, explosive rage that spills out in other situations because it cannot be expressed to the person abusively drinking/drugging for safety reasons; attempts to be especially “good” to make up for or “fix” the problem, as a few examples. The tension and fear that develops as each family member develops their own way of coping become something you can cut with a knife. Typically there is the pall of impending doom because doom is usually pending. Mind space and conversations are generally consumed with shares or tirades about what someone else was or was not doing or the good times we’d have when so and so or such and such got fixed or did this or that.

Repeatedly engaging in these kinds of coping skills repeatedly activates the fight-or-flight stress response system. This can cause emotional and physical ailments, such as depression, anxiety, migraines, stomach ailments, skin problems sleep difficulties, obesity and so much more.

So what can parents do to minimize the impacts of Secondhand Drinking | Drugging and better help their child wrest control of a drug or alcohol abuse problem? Consider these five suggestions:

1.  Learn as much as you can about the brain disease of addiction.  It is a developmental disease that always begins with substance abuse and typically begins in adolescence. Check out The Addiction Project’s website.

2.  Find out more about SHD and its impacts. Visit The Health Consequences of Secondhand Drinking.

3. Let go of the old notion of control. Substance abuse, addiction and secondhand drinking | drugging cause brain changes. Because no one can control another person’s brain, no one can control another person’s brain when it’s impaired by drugs or alcohol or the chronic stress associated with SHD.  Consider reading this post, Detach. Detach With Love. You’ve Got to be Kidding!

4.  Do what you can to improve your diet, get regular exercise and get enough sleep. It’s remarkable what science is now proving about the role nutrition, exercise and sleep play in a person’s BRAIN health. And to heal oneself from an addiction or the brain changes associated with chronic stress caused by SHD is to heal one’s brain. Check out Dr. John J. Ratey’s book, SPARK, the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

5.  Try to engage in what’s called mindfulness. This is the practice of focusing on a thought, activity or conversation to the exclusion of all else. It’s the idea of re-routing thoughts away from the constant worry to being present with the current activity, which in turn actually changes the brain. For more on this, check out this video, Mindfulness and the Brain or this article, How Mindfulness Meditation Alters the Brain.

Now I grant you, these suggestions aren’t the end all, be all answers, but they will get you started. Healing oneself from an addiction, substance abuse or the chronic stress of living with it — is all about healing the brain — rewiring it.   Just know — it really, really does get better. All you have to do is start.

Lisa Frederiksen is one of three Bay Area moms writing Parent to Parent ~ a blog sharing concerns about substance abuse. Cathy Taughinbaugh, Parent Recovery and Life Coach and Founder of Treatment Talk, and Shelley Richanbach, Certified Addictions Specialist, Peer Facilitator and Founder of Next Steps for Women, round out the Parent to Parent team. Check back periodically as one of these moms will share their expertise and personal experiences with substance use, abuse, addiction and recovery.