Help for Families Struggling with Substance Use Disorder
Finally! Help for families struggling with substance use disorder is now in legislative form before Congress — H.R. 5572 in the House and S. 3179 in the Senate. 
This legislation is called the Family Support Services for Addiction Act. And its existence is huge! Why?
It means the message is finally getting through that FAMILIES — not just the person with the substance use disorder, but their FAMILIES — need help, too.
What Will the Family Support Services for Addiction Act Do
According to the Center on Addiction and Partnership for Drug-Free Kids’ advocacy letter, the Family Support Services for Addiction Act will…
…fill a gaping hole that exists at the federal level for addiction resources by providing family programs with support and funding for their critical services.
Too often, when families are struggling with substance use disorder, they are told to kick their loved one out of the house and let them hit “rock bottom.” … Rather than being told to wait passively for the illusive “rock bottom” moment, families need to be supported and empowered with tools so that they can be part of the solution.
Family support services include family training and education, family therapy, systems navigation to help families locate or access resources, crisis and/or loss and grief support. The evidence is strong, that when family members are involved in their loved one’s treatment, outcomes are better.
Why Should There Be Help for Families Struggling With Addiction
Because the kind of help the family needs is far beyond “attend a 12-step program for families.”
Families Struggling With Substance Use Disorders Need Specialized Help
As I wrote in my post, “Secondhand Drinking and Why We Must Prevent It,”
Newly published research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (1) estimates roughly 53 million adults experience “secondhand harms” caused by someone else’s drinking. These secondhand harms, now being referred to as secondhand drinking, include being harassed, feeling threatened or afraid, being physically harmed, or having family or marriage difficulties. These kinds of harms occur when a person drinks more alcohol than their liver can metabolize, causing the excess ethyl alcohol chemicals to change normal brain functioning. These brain functioning changes result in drinking behaviors like those just described.
Taking into account the children and others also affected but not included in the study, this figure rises to almost 80 million. These nearly 80 million Americans are the wives, husbands, moms, dads, children, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, boyfriends, girlfriends, and close friends who are affected by secondhand drinking.
While I applaud the fact this kind of study has been done, it only measures the obvious manifestations – namely the drinking behaviors. As horrifying as these are, the problem of secondhand drinking goes far, far deeper. This deeper problem is toxic stress.
[Note: the concept of secondhand drinking applies to those who are affected by a loved one’s other drug use behaviors — i.e., secondhand drugging.]
Toxic stress is what happens when our fight-or-flight stress response is repeatedly triggered trying to cope with a loved one’s drinking or other drug use behaviors. It causes a host of physical and emotional health consequences like migraines, stomach problems, muscle aches, and sleep difficulties. Toxic stress also causes headaches, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, racing heartbeat, and skin problems.
Beyond the physical and emotional health toxic stress consequences are the mapped “fight-flight-freeze” stress reactions and coping behaviors a person develops in order to deal with and protect themselves from the drinking or other drug use behaviors. These reactions and coping behaviors, in turn, affect a person’s personal, work, school, social, family, and community interactions in ways that are little understood and too complex to explain in this post.
Click here to read the this post in full.
What Can You Do
Sign the letter urging your Congressman/woman or Senator to support this legislation. The Center on Addiction and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids have made this easy to do.
For additional information on the Family Support Services for Addiction Act, please click here.
Lisa Frederiksen
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