Beyond blame: Family dynamics 101 (with John Varsam)
About the Episode
At some point, most of us have been blamed for something, have taken on more responsibility than we can handle or cracked a joke to avoid an awkward moment. For families where there’s addiction, these experiences are often heightened and can ignite intense feelings like fear, guilt and shame.
This episode dives into the complicated family dynamics at play and how siblings often find themselves in unexpected roles, like the “hero”, “golden child”, the “scapegoat” or others. John Varsam, a licensed psychotherapist specializing in treating substance use and family issues, helps unpack how these roles emerge, how they impact how family members talk to each other, and how to start breaking free. Join us as we explore what to expect as roles shift within the family, and hear personal experiences on what has and hasn’t worked for John and Dominique when navigating their siblings’ substance misuse and their family dynamics.
Guest: John Varsam, licensed LCSW and sibling
John is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who specializes in treating substance use, personality disorders, family issues, trauma, anxiety, depression, gambling and gaming use. He began working in the clinical field in 2016 at a world-renowned behavioral and addiction treatment facility specializing in the treatment of individuals and families struggling with addiction and co-occurring disorders.
This episode will help you:
Understand what the roles in a dysfunctional family often are
Identify the roles in your family
Feel empowered to make a change
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Episode Links
🎙JOHN VARSAM
About: https://jvpsychotherapy.com/about/
⚠️ KARPMAN’S DRAMA TRIANGLE, EXPLAINED:
Check it out: https://www.bringthedonuts.com/essays/the-drama-triangle/
(This essay breaks down the Drama Triangle in a super digestible way, and is designed for business coaching, but the analysis still applies)
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John: A lot of families are really shameful of addiction and don't talk about it. Especially as parents, it's like we made a mistake, we messed up somewhere. And they won't talk about it or try to sweep it under the rug. That's really dangerous for not only the family members but the system as a whole because then who do you lean on for support?
Dominique: Welcome to FLOR, For Love of Recovery. I'm your host, Dominique Dajer. During each episode, we'll empower you to better navigate your loved one's substance use with personal stories that offer a sense of connection and dive deep with experts for a fresh perspective.
Ever wonder how your family dynamic might impact someone's substance use?
You might be noticing patterns of behavior like blaming, taking control, or isolating them or yourself. John Varsam, a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in treating substance use, family issues, and other challenges has seen a breadth of families navigate these experiences. In this episode, he'll help us unpack family roles like what it means to be a scapegoat, caretaker, or lost child and offer tools for change.
Dominique: John, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm excited for this episode because you and I both have brothers who have battled substance use, but we've experienced and responded to them in various different ways-- in part because of how our own family dynamics have shaped us individually.
John: Thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk a little bit more about it and uh, share my experience with you. So just to give you background, again, my name's John Varsam, and I'm a licensed clinical social worker down here in Florida.
And I specialize in substance abuse and family dynamics.
Dominique: And it's interesting because you'll be able to bring some of that personal and professional lens. Before we jump into the meat of the conversation, I'd love for you to break down what some of the typical roles are that manifest in families and why these roles are created in the first place.
John: There's the scapegoat. There's the hero, the lost child. The mascot, but we're kind of looking at how all the different family members wrap around the identified patient for lack of a better term, or the addict, right? And so the system itself, it's interesting. They struggle to kind of adapt once the act is out of the family role too.
What we're trying to see is how is everyone adapting? How does everyone cope and deal with the level of chaos and unpredictability that comes with someone who struggles with substance abuse?
Dominique: There are so many different types of roles and depending on your own family dynamic there might be some roles that might be more apparent or might show up whereas in other families they might not.
What do you find to be some of the strengths and drawbacks of these individual roles or these collective roles?
John: The approach that I've always taken with families is looking at how these roles are defense mechanisms for everyone. It's how we've learned to survive and adapt and protect ourselves. In the midst of something that's chaotic and unpredictable.
And to give an example, someone who would identify as the hero. So the hero plays the role of needing to always achieve, needing to always be like the face of the family that things are doing well. Almost like the person who comes in and Saves the family in a sense from the chaos of, you know, what else is going on.
And so they're going to do really well in school. They're going to do really well at work. They're going to thrive in relationships and show up the way that they need to quote unquote. Some of the drawbacks of that would be some perfectionism, inability to take criticism, inability to handle failures, or when things aren't going well or there's some image concerns going on, they take it really to heart.
They are not allowed to talk about their own feelings, they're not allowed to talk about how they're struggling, because their role has always been, I need to be okay in order for the family to be okay. And so that's a little example of one of the particular roles in the, in the system.
Dominique: Yeah. It sounds like they're really highly influenced by the other roles that are prevalent in that family dynamic, right?
They're not just operating independently. They're really operating, like you said, as a system. So what happens when some of these family members stay in specific roles for so long or they're used to operating in a given way? Versus what does that look like when one person starts to move out of that role?
John: I think the best way I can explain that is when the one struggling with substance abuse goes to treatment and you know, things have gotten to a point where the family couldn't handle anymore and they said, okay, whether it's through an intervention or just a conversation and the person's like, yeah, you're right.
I need to go. They go off to treatment. And then the rest of the family is home to deal with like their own devices and the fallout of what the addiction had on the family. There's one of two ways that can usually go. The family has this immense sense of relief of like, oh my goodness, I don't have to worry about my loved one anymore.
We're okay. We can live our lives. We can kind of go about our day. The reverse of it is that now everyone has to look at their own role because they can't focus on the identified patient anymore, right? And so what that could look like is if mom and dad and the system have some underlying relationship issues, the identified patient happened to be a great distraction for them.
Where they don't have to look at my old stuff or my role in my relationship because we're so concerned with our loved one. Yeah, so now that the Loved one is out of the house parents have to look at their role in their relationship. Like oh my goodness. We've neglected ourselves for however many years this is going on.
I don't even know where we're at anymore or if there's another sibling that has struggled but their problems weren't as bad or you know, they were kind of doing their own thing They were having fun, but you know, maybe not failing classes, but not doing as well. Now that the identified patient is not in the house, the parents are like, “Okay, we don't have to worry about them anymore. What's going on with you over here?”
Dominique: Right. Their attention just moves from one person to the next.
John: Hold on, wait.
Dominique: Yeah.
John: Exactly. Right. It's like, hold on, wait, I don't want this attention. Go back to doing what you were doing earlier. It was fine over here. I don't want you to. Look at me, you know, and what, what's going on here.
Dominique: Yeah, I know it's something that I feel like I've personally and probably most people have battled with that. They're experiencing substance use in their family, whether it's a sibling or a parent or whoever. And like, I know that always worries me, is like each time my brother has gone to treatment or has gone to a hospital. I've always thought, okay, if he's working on himself. Now, what is everyone else going to do? Because if and when that person completes treatment, then you're always worried about like, what are they going to come back to if they come back to that family dynamic? And it's all the same, right? Like that just releases like a whole like mother load of triggers for them to just have to deal with again.
How did your family dynamics coupled with your siblings’ substance use impact, you know, your story and your means of growing up?
John: Sure. I think it's This will help answer some more around how family dynamics shift when the siblings go to treatment, or even come back into the system. So, I'm the youngest of four, and my brothers are four, six, and eight years older than me.
And my two middle brothers had gone through treatment. So at the time, I think I was sixteen, seventeen. And so, my brothers From about the time that I, I would say probably starting, I don't know exactly when things got rough for them, but I remember conflict in my family, really starting around when I was 10 or 11.
So it was probably about six or, yeah, six or seven years—ballpark. And so my role in the system, I would probably most identify with being the lost child. And I remember looking at like this list of, you know, criteria back when I first started, you know, working in social work. And I was like, I don't really know, I don't check the box on all of these, but some of them.
And a supervisor of mine at the time was like, well, you don't have to have all the criteria for cancer to have cancer. I'm like, okay, fair point. It's a little, you know, a little bit different, but I hear you. I hear what you're trying to say. But the few parts that I really related to is I isolated. I didn't try to cause any other rifts.
So, I did really well in school for the most part. I didn't, like, fail any grades. I didn't put much attention or stress, in my opinion, on my family at that time because I was watching my parents have to work and work really hard on managing my brothers. There was also a lot of fighting in the household.
So, you know, being the younger brother I was just kind of like, I don't want to be involved. So, in high school particularly, I remember spending as much time out of my house. I spent as much time at my girlfriend's house as possible. I would be at track late as possible, and if I was home, I was in my room playing video games.
And those were some of the criteria that I remember seeing, I'm like, oh, okay, this makes sense. When my brothers finally went to treatment, I was still in high school. So, I remember there being a shift of, now that they're out of the house, And I'm the only brother, because my oldest brother had moved out, noticing how my parents, like, were now, they only had to worry and focus about me, at least physically.
Like, they still very much were involved in my brother's treatments. It was a huge family program they were a part of. And then, so they had their hand in that, but I was the only physical son in the house. I remember having the thought of, like, as the younger sibling, people always said, like, Oh, you must be able to get away with everything.
And I remember having the thought of, well, I don't think so. I think because my brother's head, like, messed up, there was more of like a shift from my parents of, okay, now we have to double down and make sure that doesn't happen a third time. Like, we have to make
sure that he's more okay. They may have a different perspective of that, but that's kind of the feeling reflecting back on them.
Like, I don't really think I got away with, you know, a lot, at least compared to my friends. Right. That's how I baselined. Like, I didn't party, I didn't go out, I didn't drink in high school. And so it was like, okay, I just kind of go home and sit in my room. And I had my friends, but it wasn't to the extent that like my high school cohort I guess was doing.
And so that was the baseline that I operated from. I think that by the time my, my brothers had moved to Florida, both of them, permanently. And so I didn't really see the reintegration of like, how is it going to be when they come back home? Because they very much, and part of their treatment was, you're not going back home.
There's nothing for you at home. That's a death sentence, for lack of a better term, to go home. And so they both stayed in Florida. It wasn't until like a few years later, after I had completed college, and moved down to Florida myself, that there was the reintegration. And by that time, there was definitely some time it healed some of the wounds for sure.
Dominique: There's a lot that goes on, like when you said you were at track or you would come home and play video games. It sounds almost like a self isolation, like where you're just trying to survive and just want to be involved as little as possible.
John: Without a doubt, I remember having, this has been a consistent theme of mine and I can't wait to grow up.
I wanted to be out of the house as much as possible. I can't wait to be an adult, which I may, I may be backtracking on that a little bit now that I'm there, but it was very much, I can't wait to do things on my own. And because I had been at least emotionally, I would say, and that was very much like the, the, the important piece here is physically I needed, obviously my parents to support me and to help me.
And they were present. They came to every track meet that they could. Most of them they did, right. But emotionally, I had kind of developed a pattern of take care of yourself. And it wasn't necessarily the most effective thing in the world, but it was My parents are busy. They have a lot on their plate. I can't, you know, I don't want to put more stress on them.
So I didn't, or tried not to.
John: So when I went to college, there was a joke between my mother and I that I'd call her every two weeks. And just to check in to say that I was alive. There's probably more calls in there here or there, but that was kind of the thing. It was a check in of like, I'm good. And in college I spent, I was only an hour away.
So I grew up in Flushing Queens and I went to school in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was an hour drive, 55 minutes, really. And I found every reason to stay in school. I worked through the summers. I was on track my first year. So I did winter training there for two weeks. And then from my sophomore year to senior year, I was an RA, a resident assistant.
So I was working and doing training all the time. Okay. I had my job over the summer as a moving crew. So it was as much as I could have been out, I was. And my brothers again, at that time were already down to Florida. It was just a residual dynamic. So I want to function on my own as much as I can.
Dominique: Again, like wanting to become an adult or like grow up a little bit faster. It’s like, you started to get some of that independence being away at school, right?
And once you get a taste of it, you don't necessarily want to go back. And it's always in hindsight, but knowing what you know now, like, what do you think your parents could have done differently to support you during that process? Whether it was, you know, in high school, once you got to college, it's always a little tricky because you never really know how things are going to pan out.
But what would you say would have been a little bit more support that you could have benefited from?
John: I don't know. It's tough because as a therapist today, my recommendation would be to try to understand what's happening for like the lost child in the system. Like getting to know their hobbies, try to see if you can connect to them in that way and be educated on what they like.
And right at that point, as I put myself back in my 14, 15 year old self, I didn't want to be connected or I guess involved because it was too difficult. Stressful and too chaotic. I think that what I would have probably needed at the time was just a stronger relationship with my parents, uh, and probably a little bit more understanding of what was going on.
I felt very much like in the dark on it, other than just the arguments and the fighting and picking up certain pieces of information here and there. Or just like knowing that my brothers were struggling, which I think at 17, I had done a family workshop through the treatment center for one of my brothers.
And I very much felt disconnected because there was so much information coming out that I didn't know or details or, or dynamics that I just wasn't aware of, which I think probably would have been beneficial for me. Would I have completely understood that at 14, 15, 16? Maybe, but it probably would have made me feel a little bit more connected to my parents.
Or try to understand what was going on, because I don't think they realized, or at least maybe they did, but I don't think they really realized how involved I was from a relationship standpoint with my brothers. Because I had seen them over and over and over again. Getting high and I didn't really know I just knew it was like they were high.
I didn't know the difference between high on weed and high on oxys or painkillers, you know, opiates, whatever, like heroin, whatever it is. I didn't know the difference. I just knew that they were off. I remember playing video games with one of my brothers and he was nodding out while playing FIFA.
And so I was just like, scoring him because he literally wasn't awake. But I remember like those memories of something's off, but no one's really talking to me about it. It probably just more education is what it felt like. Or at least that was my selfish desire. What could have I known to make it a little bit easier?
Because I wasn't educated on any. A lot of My analysis or interpretation of my family system came much later once I went through school and started hearing or learning or working in treatment and being like, Oh, this makes sense. That was from when I was 22. I started working down here, 22 in Florida, and now I'm 29, almost 30.
And so a lot of the experiences were years later. And so, As a teenager, my perception of things was going to be a little skewed or different or embellished in certain areas or downplayed in others. Different, like you said, the perception of my family. A lot of families are really shameful of addiction and don't talk about it.
Especially as parents, it's like we made a mistake, we messed up somewhere. And they won't talk about it or try to sweep it under the rug. That's really dangerous for not only the family members but the system as a whole because then who do you lean on for support? Unfortunately, you talk to some people in your life that maybe never experienced addiction, they don't know what to do, uh, or know what to say.
And that sometimes just is discouraging. And there, that's why AA exists, or Alcoholics Anonymous, and Al Anon, or Nar Anon, and those family support groups, not only for the person struggling with addiction, but the family themselves. And that's something that both treatment centers that I've worked at down here have really emphasized, family support.
Because they needed just as much, if not more, Then the attic sometimes and I say that because this kind of goes back to our our whole point of When the person struggling with substance abuse comes back into the system what work has the rest of the family done to prepare themselves for that or Cope with it And so like, I'll use myself as an example, if I happen to still be at home.
And this probably actually very much happened when I started reintegrating with my brothers down here is I remember feeling like, are we just going to forget about the last however many years of, Chaos that they had created for me and I didn't realize how much work my family had done or at least my parents I felt very much like isolated on an island with it because I went off to college and isolated myself I did it to myself trying to protect myself But not realizing everyone else was doing at least my parents and my two brothers were that were you know Struggling with addiction were doing I had been in and out of therapy a little bit here and there but not realizing exactly what was happening.
It wasn't until I was working in the field that where I was like, “I need to go get help. I need therapy on my own.” Yeah, because my whole system is like, in my opinion, like forgiving them. Yeah. For a lot of stuff that I never got to talk to them about. I
Dominique: Like it's, it's more of a reflective experience, right?
Sometimes when you're living it day to day, sometimes you have like your blinders on your weren't like that tunnel vision. And then once you take a step back from the situation, you might have had a moment to breathe or maybe years have gone by and you can see a little bit more holistically rather than just living and breathing what's going on and you know, at home or with your parents or your family, whatever.
And it is usually like later down the line. Like once you've. seen some of that trial and error play out, then you can be like, aha, like that's why X, Y, and Z was occurring, right? At the moment it's hard to identify it.
John: Yeah, without a doubt. And it's because I was in the chaos, the cortisol levels were really high.
I was in the fight or flight constantly. And it never really came down until I was able to see it from a different perspective. That happened to have taken probably a few years, because no one, not only was no one really talking to me about it, I wasn't listening. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to have a conversation about my brothers or what had happened.
I didn't want to acknowledge it. Maybe some people were trying to talk to me. I actually remember when I had come down for the family workshop, one of the family therapists that was in the room at the time ended up being a supervisor of mine later, and I remember having a conversation with him about it.
And he was like, well, John, it was that it wasn't that we weren't trying to talk to you, it's that you didn't want to listen. You were very much, I don't want to be here because this is pissing me off. This is upsetting me. And it was only until years later. I'm like,
Oh, Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah.
That makes sense.
Like that checks out. I didn't want to be there. I remember zoning out, staring at the ceiling. Like I don't connect to this family right now because my experience was so different than. Theirs.
Dominique: Yeah. You know, when you're a teenager, it's like the whole world revolves around your problems. I felt like what mattered to you was like what you can see.
And if you couldn't see it, it kind of didn't matter to a degree. I felt like all the problems in my life were very apparent. And that was all I could see rather than like the other way around.
John: You're talking about egocentrism. So the world revolves around us, our ego, ourselves. For, for children and adolescents, or I guess for children in particular, toddlers, all the way to like maybe 10 or 11, where we start to like to develop.
I don't know the exact age that our frontal cortex starts to develop, but we have a little bit more awareness of all that going on. But we very much think that the world needs to revolve around us. So Uncle Tom, for me, does not, I don't see him as a husband, or I don't see him as a father. I see him as Uncle Tom to me.
Not that he fits other roles. And so mom and dad to me is mom and dad, not husband, wife, or whatnot. It's very much, how is the world gonna impact me? So if we think about it from a trauma-informed perspective, if something bad happens around us, it must be something that I did or I'm connected somehow.
Take that to adolescence or adulthood when we're in a self preservation mode or, you know, again, the fight or flight, we're trying to protect ourselves. It's like, I need to say, I need to stay safe. I need to be okay. I need to, you know, make sure that I don't get hurt. And so that's what you're talking about.
How is the world impacting me or revolving around me? It's not self-centeredness. I look at it as, again, self preservation.
Dominique: That's a great point. And like, you talked about a little bit about your role as this child that either wasn't seen or didn't have any, you know, quote, major issues.
Your parents were more supportive in that sense, where they felt like they didn't have to be on top of you, or they just felt like, you know, because they were there. They were supporting you in their own way. What are some other roles that you think inhabited your family? Whether it was like your parents, your other brothers, and how did your relationship with those other roles continue to impact you into adulthood or shift once your brothers did enter recovery?
John: It's interesting because I had two brothers that struggled with addiction. I think they swapped or flip flop between being like the identified patient and the scapegoat. I think that depending on the day, one or the other was put into the scapegoat role of ‘“This is your fault” or “This is your problem” or “This is what you're doing wrong,” even though the other person may have been causing more of those problems, the other brother.
People can swap and change and depending on the circumstance, fit into it. I don't think that, you know, trying to think, I don't really know if we had a, a mascot or not. Which would be someone who really, like, cracked jokes, or diffuse situations with humor, or tried to distract that way, I think. You know, the person that, again, my perception of it was my mother was definitely the rescuer who would change the subject or try to navigate the conversation somewhere else or try to like soften the blows and, you know, relieve the tension in some capacity to try to, you know, get through dinner in any way possible.
Dominique: Surviving, surviving that dinner.
John: Survival. Yeah, just get through the dinner.
Dominique: Yeah.
John: And again, this is all my perception. Right. My parents and I have definitely talked about it since then, but being the youngest by four years, it was more like me putting my head down. Let me eat and get the heck out of here.
I definitely saw it most in romantic relationships where I struggled dealing with my own problems and not really talking about it and not being vulnerable. I was very open. I could talk to people about my problems or my history and my life and the things that have happened to me, but being vulnerable was very different.
Talking to someone about, like, the emotional pain that I went through, rather than just the details or the facts of a situation, I didn't see as effective. It was not even like I was uncomfortable about it, it was, why would I bring them to you if I've already solved the problem in my head? Like, I've already fixed it and resolved it and made sure I was okay before I even had the awareness to bring it to you in conversation.
The issue with that is, is that my partners or relationships never really had any depth to them because they were super surface level. And getting to a place of vulnerability without me even realizing it was really uncomfortable. Yeah. I didn't want to. It's like, I don't want you to get close to me because if you do, then that's going to hurt or there's a risk of losing you.
Or that means that there's, you know, a lot of finality to a relationship if I get close, Which was definitely a pattern of my lost child's behavior of, keep you at an arm's distance. And I don't realize it, but that's what I'm doing. If you get closer, that's scary.
Dominique: And then sometimes it feels like not being vulnerable.
And this perception of you being like this strong person is actually a positive thing, right? Like to show like, Oh, like I don't really have anything that I need to unpack. Like, this is a strength of mine. I look like I don't have any issues when you realize like when you do go to therapy or you do tend to, you know, sit with yourself for a minute and you realize like, Oh crap, like there's actually.
A whole layer like an onion of things that I need to address or talk about or when you take a step back outside of that role that you might have played for so long in your own family. It's like, Oh, this is why I behaved and did so. And so
John: Yeah, I think a big part of it that's coming up for me as you're talking is that it wouldn't be a burden either, which was very much the lost child in me of I'm fixing it on my own, and I don't want you to have to worry about it, because you already have so much going on, you have your own stuff, and I just want to make sure you're okay, kind of thing, and so, you know, example of that would be me coming home from work, having a stressful day, but, you know, my partner asks me, uh, how was your day, and I'm like, it was good, or like, you know, I'm tired, it was a long day, And that's it.
You know, that's the depth of the conversation. I'm not really opening the door for a further conversation. Because I don't want to. It's been a long day. Or I don't want to burden you with the problems of the day. There's ways to communicate that within my needs in a relationship, which takes effort and time and awareness.
I know for sure that I am not the person that can talk about my day right when I get home. I need some time. I need to take a few minutes, decompress, like, change clothes, get out of the work completely, like, just put sweats on and feel better about, you know, just How I'm feeling, take my shoes off, take my socks off, which is an incredibly relieving experience.
And then, then I can talk about it. Then I'm like, okay, yeah, you know, it was stressful because I was back to back to back. I ate lunch late. It was a little bit harder than, you know, unforeseen circumstances popped up that I wasn't prepared for. So trying to navigate that and, you know, work on my time management, you know, that was challenging at that moment.
That gives a little bit more depth to a conversation and a relationship. Yep. Rather than just saying like, it sucked, you know, which has been something that I've had to practice because, uh, I would normally just internalize and deal with it and move on. But again, that, that, that doesn't, it's a boring conversation.
Dominique: Yeah. Sometimes a little bit of that is like doing the work to have that conversation. And, you know, like, like you said, like noticing that going back to like the roles that we play with our siblings and with our family, my brother and I were about 10 years apart and I've always operated as the golden child where I don't bring any issues to the table.
I'm responsible. My parents were able to rely on me when they needed to. You know, maybe they needed someone to pick up my brother from school or, you know, helping with, you know, whatever it might have been. And I mean, outside of the realm of chores, but I really mean like taking on sometimes responsibilities for my brother or doing things and more of a motherly role.
I feel like I stepped into that at a younger age, like in my teens, and I think, you know, going into my adulthood. It was harder for me to step out of that role of like a third parent or that role of caretaker. And depending on who I'm engaging with or what the situation might be, I'm really balancing different roles with different people.
What does it look like? Or what really happens for someone when they are balancing different roles? If they want to step away from that, what can they do?
John: I think awareness is probably the first thing that comes to mind. It's difficult when you don't know what's happening. Where you don't know that you have to constantly switch hats between, you know, Okay, you are his sister.
And yet you're put into this motherly role based on expectations or even your own interpretation of what needs to be happening. Or need to be, you know, taken care of in the system. And finding that fine balance is hard. I think it's understanding what the payoff is. And I think that's how I would kind of approach trying to navigate what's happening.
So there's a benefit that you get from being in the motherly role of your brother. Okay, what's the payoff? Well, even if it's simply you don't, you just get relief knowing that the system's going to be better off. That's the payoff is like, okay, things will be a little bit easier. Even though there's like this plethora of negative consequences that come from it of your own self care, that you're not his mother, so it's a confusing position.
It's, you know, it gets a little muddy, watered down, but if the initial response is going to provide some relief, we typically only respond to that. We'll deal with the consequences later. I just want to feel relief. And then add on the role of a sister, the role of a daughter, the role of a girlfriend, and all those other things that I can play.
Or even just friends with other people. How do you keep that in check? You go into a friend group, and you notice certain behaviors in friends that need to be managed in a way. You fall into this motherly role because your instinct is, this is uncomfortable, I'm scared, or I'm worried, um, or I'm, I'm, you know, anxious even, if it's just a small little feeling, I go into that motherly role.
Problem is, they're not gonna respond to you that well. Because they're not familiar with that role of yours, and they're like, you're my friend, stop treating me like a kid. And you're like, wait, hold on. What's
happening here? This usually works. This usually goes well in my system over here. Why isn't it working over here?
Well, because it's not meant to be that way. You're supposed to be a friend at that moment. And trying to take that hat off is hard when you're used to it being your protective measure.
Dominique: Right. It's like a different dynamic too. It's like picking up a person in one role, right? And moving them to a totally different system.
And expecting them to operate the same way, you know, one, it's not fair, but two, it just usually is not going to work, right? Because that new system hasn't really operated in that way before. And it's like a whole new character being thrown in there.
John: I saw it happen to me in college with one of my best friends still to this day.
I thought they were, again, I was 19, 20, maybe 21 at this time. I don't remember the year, but I remember telling him, like, I think you're drinking too much. I think you're alcoholically drinking. And it caused a lot of conflict between us because I tried to play a role that was inappropriate. Not because I was expressing my concern for him, it's that I remember my intention.
Part of it is being selfish—I'm uncomfortable here, I'm worried, I'm scared, and I think I was being like a little bit of a martyr by trying to bring it up and say like, I'm doing the right thing by confronting you. Without realizing that like, he probably, like, he was okay. Right. I embellished his drinking to an extent and made it more about, you know, I need to be the person that tells you this.
Rather than, am I really concerned for you? There's probably a little bit of both. But reflecting back on it, I definitely there was a piece of me that thought I was you know, on a high horse of I know what addiction is and this is what it looks like and you need to do something about it. Which is not the role that I should have played.
Not as a peer, right? Not as my friend. I approached it ineffectively. There was definitely a better way to express my concern. But I didn't have the skills at the time to do that.
Dominique: Yeah, it's true, like, sometimes, like, these roles kind of bring out different traits in us that can be positive or negative depending on the scenario.
But what are some ways that you think that maybe, being in, like, a caretaking role, or being the lost child, like, what are some of those, for lack of a better word, strengths that you feel like can actually be applied to different scenarios, if any?
John: Hmm. I think it's…awareness, is what I'll come back to. The general theme of these things can be used to your advantage if you are aware that they're happening.
And understanding what the negative consequences are. So, I think that my ability as a lost child to know how to manage my own emotional health is really helpful in learning how to communicate effectively what my needs are. At least that's how I feel, of like, learning the language, learning how to at least adapt to a situation that can get stressful.
And so when I notice that I'm trying, I'm starting to recede or isolate, leaning into it. And being like, no, I don't want that to be the pattern. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to allow myself to fall back into that, you know, that ineffective coping mechanism because my goal is to build a relationship, to build intimacy, to go stronger or close to this person, not the opposite.
I think that the strength for me in particular is I notice lost children easier. Like, I notice the person who sits in the corner of a group room or tries to hide or tries to avoid questions or doesn't get, you know, vulnerable. And I think I have the ability to talk to them and empathize with where they're at, meet them where they're at, where they feel comfortable enough.
to talk to me about what's going on. My skill set has allowed me to kind of navigate other roles too, but that one I know comes instinctually. Right. That one I see right away. So in my profession, it's very clear how it benefits me. If we were to kind of talk about the mascot, someone who uses humor to diffuse situations can be really good at conflict resolution.
If they don't allow it to just be the end all be all all the time, I'm comforting myself. Or I'm just trying to avoid the conversation, or, you know, deflect with humor, or be self deprecating rather than have to sit with the vulnerability. I think there's a way that that builds relationships, and builds community, and builds a sense of comfort with the people around you if you can use that humor to that advantage.
Rather than, I don't want to talk about what hurts me. I don't want to talk about what makes me feel uncomfortable, so I'm going to make fun of myself instead. That would be the reverse side of it. It's funny to watch it in group therapy play out. You'll see people who will try to derail uncomfortable conversations with humor or with anger even sometimes.
Like, well what's happening? We just went off the tracks for a second, let's get back on. Where did we try to go there for a moment? But in family systems, it's harder to confront. Because no one wants to, it's like so much tension anyway, you know, therapy setting where the whole point of it is to challenge it and to blow it up and to say, no, no, no, no, we're not repeating these patterns.
That's not helpful.
Dominique: I remember. The first time my family and I had gone to our first family therapy session, and I have to say it was our first and our last. And it was a couple of years ago when my brother, I think, I don't know, he must have been late middle school, early high school, so let's say 14 or so.
And it was my parents, my brother and I, all in this room, and it just felt like everybody was pointing the finger at everyone. everyone became the scapegoat. Everyone became like the victim at the same time. Like everyone just felt like, you know, their point mattered more or they weren't responsible for their action because it was really someone else's fault.
Right? And I'm sure there were certain situations where one person was right. One person was in the wrong or someone was responsible for a given action. But it just felt like no one was actually listening to what anybody else was saying in that room. There were just fingers being pointed and I don't think we've ever gone back.
But what I would want to know from you is like, is that like a normal part of the process? Like what should people expect to see in family therapy? And like, when do those roles really come to light?
John: All the time is the short answer. If it's never addressed or talked about, it doesn't matter. See, the family dynamics will play out immediately.
My two thoughts came up for me. One was my own experience. And we did it again, a family workshop over two or three days of pretty intense groups. And I remember thinking that my point was the most important point, that exact thought of, I want to be heard because I haven't been heard. Problem was I didn't have nearly all the information.
And so my opinion probably actually didn't matter. At all and I ended up feeling that and my ego was like, I don't like this. I'm not happy about it. I feel unheard even though I had my own resistances involved. So the other thing that your story reminded me of was recently in a family session that I was running, we were talking about what we call the Cartman triangle or the drama triangle.
And this is different from the family roles you talked about, but it's, you know, the talk about a victim as in the, yes, the poor me, not the person who's been, you know, harmed the poor me, I can't do it. You know, the world is against me, the persecutor. Which operates from, the victim operates from a place of fear, the persecutor operates from a place of blame, so blaming others or themself, and the rescuer operates from a place of being right, or things needing to be right, like, I need to rescue you because I can't tolerate my own uncomfortable feelings, I need to protect you from the persecutor, or I need to pick the persecutor because they're being self deprecating and blaming themselves for everything, right?
So, in this family session, I was going through this drama triangle with my family. Parents, mom and a dad, and their loved one, the person, the person that was in treatment. And as we were talking about the drama triangle, you could see the roles play out, like conflict happened between the, you know, identified patient and mom, where they were arguing back and forth and blaming and pointing the finger.
And then dad would jump in and try to explain things away. And it was very interesting to watch like, okay, timeout guys. Dad, what were you feeling? He was like, I just felt like there was a misunderstanding that they weren't hearing and I wanted to, you know, explain it. And then I was like, okay, what were you feeling?
He's like, I was uncomfortable. Exactly. Right. The uncomfortable feeling that you're having was I can't tolerate the conflict, so I need to try to do whatever I can to fix it. As we had just talked about the triangle and him being the rescuer, it played out. Right. Right. Right. And then between, you know, the loved one and mom, we talked about the difference between how they swap between victim and persecutor and how they will fit the role, depending on the situation of, I don't like the way that you're operating or treating me, vice versa.
They were both in the same boat saying the same thing and really came down to how do we break those roles? How do we learn how to move out and break the drama? Cycle is really empathy, is what we came down to. It's wanting to be heard, wanting to feel like we're understood. We may not like it. Acceptance isn't saying that I have to like something.
Acceptance is understanding that you may not like something, and you still have to acknowledge that it occurred. And so empathy is very similar. It's like, I don't have to like where you're coming from, but if I'm expecting empathy from you, I need to also give. It cannot be a one way street. If I want you to know how I feel, I have to understand where you're coming from.
But it takes a lot of work and a lot of acknowledgement from an outside unbiased party to say, this isn't working. You're, you're being selfish. I'm being blunt with you, but that's what we're doing. It's exactly that family system, the family therapy. If I want to be heard, it's your problem. It's an unwillingness to actually want to hear the other person.
And to understand where they're coming from because you just feel so vindicated in saying you're wrong, you've hurt me. Like, if I, I could do that with my brothers forever, but what purpose does it serve? I mean, again, things that happened years ago. My relationship with my brothers, thank goodness, is much better now. But things that happened years ago, I could probably sit on top of my high horse and say, I don't want a relationship with you because of something you did 10, 15 years ago.
Okay, but what has he done since then? Only showing up effectively, appropriately, healthy, trying to put effort in, but my resentment is saying, I don't want to hear you.
Dominique: It's like sometimes we get so focused on wanting our own voices to be heard that we're not actually listening. We're not asking questions.
I think that's where we learn the importance of what it means to actively listen. It is like sometimes having a conversation means not necessarily inserting your opinion or talking about it. It's just about creating somewhat of a safe space for the other person to. Share what they might be feeling
John: one of my mantras is always as a therapist is to be curious And so I can sometimes get stuck in sessions of like I don't know where to go with this I don't know what to say.
I don't know what to do I need to be curious about the other person and where they're coming from and empathy is truly trying to put myself in someone else's shoes I will never understand exactly what they're coming from but I sure as heck can try my best to understand And get to a place of like as close as possible.
And the only way I'm going to be able to do that is to truly be curious about their life and their experience and their perspective. When we have so much anger and resentment, especially as siblings, sometimes it's really hard to want to do that. Because then we won't be vindicated anymore in our anger.
We won't be able to hold on to that anger that has protected us for so long. And so we actually have a responsibility as siblings to look at that ourselves and say, is it worth it anymore? Is it worth the risk of losing a friendship or a family member or loved one or all the other relationships?
Because I remember having to have that thought. Oh, yeah. Why the heck are my parents forgiving my brothers for the things that they've done? And I had to take a step back and like, okay, I have a choice here. I can ostracize myself from the whole family because everyone else is on the same page. Or get on the boat.
Right, and then say like, okay, is it really, do I really want to hold on to my resentment? And I've said this, this is something I say in therapy so often, is that resentment is an expectation of someone else that they cannot meet. Even if my brothers changed completely and apologized completely for all the things that they did, it wouldn't fix the wound, because the wound happened when I was younger.
Dominique: That's so valid.
John: 10, 15 years deep, and I don't want to let go of it, so it's not going to make it any better if and if they do change, which they did. They did change, right? I need to do the work. I need to say, “How willing am I to let go of this because it's no longer serving me?” It's only serving as a false protection against family members who have proven to change and do better and want to do better and put effort into it.
It's only my own distortion and way of like, it's my lack of trust and like, you've hurt me in the past and you're gonna hurt me again. Yes, every relationship is like that. No one will be 100 percent trustworthy. It would be weird if you trusted someone blindly 100%, even if it's mom or dad.
Dominique: Absolutely.
John: Or your husband or wife or best friend.
It would, I don't expect it. Welcome to being human. Right. But sometimes we feel so justified in our anger that we don't want to let it go.
Dominique: And I think like many listeners, myself included right now, they're probably either having a light bulb moment around their own family dynamic, or you might be reinforcing what was suspected for them all along.
What do you think parents should know about raising children in a home where there's substance use and they might be Starting to have some of that awareness around the role they're playing, or they're worried about the impact in adulthood if they don't address these dynamics now.
John: Go to individual therapy yourself.
That's the best thing I can say. In treatment, the focus is so often put on the identified patient, and they neglect their own work. And their identity is associated with being a parent. And so if you don't have your own space to work through your own things, your whole, your life worth of experiences and traumas, and because no one goes through life, whether you think that you had a great childhood or not, everyone has their own stuff that impacted who they are and how they relate to other people.
That's my biggest advice to parents is whether it's couples therapy or individual therapy, go do your own work. Because you have to be able to manage through the crisis and be able to see things and get an objective perspective because when you're in it, you don't see it for what it really is. And that's only going to help you show up better for your loved one.
Especially through Al Anon too, like boundaries are hard. The healthiest boundaries are the hardest ones to put and sometimes boundaries may feel like you're letting your loved one out to dry. Because you were so used to protecting, rescuing, and enabling things, either your loved one, that it's hard to be able to step away from that.
Because now you have to deal with your own anxiety around what's going to happen to them when I'm not playing puppeteer, essentially. Even though you're really not, it's a distortion. You think you're playing puppeteer, you think that you're controlling this narrative, but in reality, you're not. Like, your loved one is going to do whatever they want.
With or without your influence. Yeah. If anything, they're just going to try to find a way to get what they want and unfortunately, that's what addiction is. The priority is not family. The priority is not partners or a job or friends. It's “How do I get my next high?”—specially when we're in the deepest part of addiction.
And so family members sometimes think otherwise.
John: It's hard to see it that way when you're not in the middle of it or have experience with addiction. And that's why so many family members or loved ones, or like outside influences, such as aunts, uncles, close friends, struggle to give advice on it or suggestions because they're not in it as well.
They don't know.
Dominique: Yeah, that makes sense. Like that dynamic is so unique to what roles are being played in that specific family, right? And the role of siblings is going to be so different from family to family. And I'd love to close out with getting your perspective around what it really means to be a sibling and in this context of substance use, not enabling them, but still being supportive for them.
John: It's a tough question. Like you said, because it changes in so many different dynamics. And like my relationship with my brothers. And it's really interesting to see, like watching my girlfriend interact with her sister and the dynamic that they have versus the dynamic I have with my brothers is, you know, I, Again, for the most part, because I'm four years younger than my closest brother, we had different friends, different, we were never in school together, other than grade school, but again, very different paths, essentially.
Whereas my two middle brothers were only two years apart, they had very similar friends. And so my relationship with my siblings is a little bit more, it's very cordial. It's very nice. I enjoy talking to my brothers. But I didn't realize how drastically different it was from other systems until I was watching my girlfriend interact with her sister.
They were 15 months apart and very close. Same friend group, same dynamic, and they talked to each other very differently. Then I would my brothers, I'm like, what is going on here? Like watching them interact. So actually my girlfriend's sister is also in recovery. We had similar experiences. She's the older sibling and I was the youngest, but I think that the role of a sibling really comes down to how much of a family member do you want to be and how close you want to be because your biological family is very different than your family of choice, family of origin, family of origin is very different to your family of choice.
Um, you can't change your family of origin. You can't really choose your family of choice, other than the name, right? But I think there's an inherent intimacy that happens with family members that you can't get rid of. And that doesn't mean that you have to settle or roll over essentially for like unhealthy behaviors or someone who tries to take advantage of you because it definitely happens a lot.
But I think there's, for me, an emphasis on wanting to have healthier boundaries and A dynamic with people that I know are going to be in my life forever. There's obviously a lot of weight to that, at least people that I want in my life forever. And so as a sibling, it's trying to reconnect on things that I maybe felt like I lost when I was younger with them.
Connecting on hobbies or, you know, games or working out together or, you know, similar, uh, interests or even for me with my oldest brother who has, or I have a nephew and, uh, two nieces with him, wanting to have a really close relationship with them because I want to be involved in my niece's and nephew's life.
Right. That's for me what comes out as being a sibling of like, okay, what do I want for my future? What are my goals as a family man or as a brother or son still? What are my expectations of me and actually actively strive towards that even though maybe my instinct is to say I've always been isolated and I want to be by myself.
Sometimes that gets kicked up still. Yeah. Sometimes that happens. It's my responsibility to challenge that. I think a lot of the work I've done over the last few years is what's my goal? How do I achieve it? Okay, my goal is being closer to my family. What am I doing today? We're like even working my way back.
Um, from that goal of what steps do I need to take in order to achieve that? And what have I been doing to walk away from that goal? Not calling or not talking or not trying to connect is my responsibility. And that's obviously not going to make me get closer to them or have a better relationship.
Dominique: And I think it's okay to want something totally different today than you might have wanted five years ago versus what you wanted when you were a teenager.
And what you might want, you know, as we get older, if we have families, is that those roles are going to continue to change. But I think being aware of what those roles are. So that way we can take the next step forward is what's going to be important. Like I always say, there's no black or white manual on being a parent, but there's no manual on what it means to be a sibling.
John: Yeah, I would agree with you 100%. I think there's, if there was anything written on being a parent, there's less of how to be a sibling.
Dominique: Well, I would love to thank you, John, for coming onto the show today and really sharing, you know, your personal experiences as it relates to your parents, your brothers and their recovery.
But also what that journey meant for you into adulthood. So thank you again.
John: Thank you for having me. It was awesome. Hopefully someone gets something out of it. So I appreciate you having me on.
Dominique:
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