Addiction in the Family Business
a research paper by Michael Stern
The family has been widely acknowledged to have a significant role in the origin, maintaining, and treatment of drug addiction. A unique set of factors appear when the family structure involves family members working together in a family-owned business. In work as director of an outpatient treatment program, we had a significant population of patients who were sons working in family-owned businesses. It is tough for fathers and sons to be inAddiction in the Family Business
a research paper by Michael Stern
The family has been widely acknowledged to have a significant role in the origin, maintaining, and treatment of drug addiction. A unique set of factors appear when the family structure involves family members working together in a family-owned business. In work as director of an outpatient treatment program, we had a significant population of patients who were sons working in family-owned businesses. It is tough for fathers and sons to be in business together (Nelton, 1989). The son of the owner is subjected to stresses and difficulties unique to this circumstance. One possible consequence of this difficult life structure is the development of a drug addiction. This article will focus on family factors which appear to be of importance in the development, maintenance and treatment of addict who are also working in a family-owned business.
A. emotional constriction-delayed emotional development
Drug use has been described as an adolescent phenomenon--tied to this period of great vulnerability. Issues dealt with during this time are family loyalty, separation, individuation, development of a secure identity, and finding new ways of dealing with parents. These issues are often exacerbated in a child working in a family owned business. The child of the owner functions within a system which, at best, delays the resolution of these adolescent issues. In addition, there is great potential for significant impairment in the resolution of these issues. Separation, individuation, and development of a secure identity were not supported by the demands and constraints inherent in a family owned business system.
Emotional constriction and/or delayed emotional development are factors reported with some prevalence in addict populations. For example, some studies have reported 60% of drug addicts living with their family of origin (up to age 30). In my clinical sample, 100% of the unmarried patients were still living with their parents.
The role of the child in an family owned business tends to foster this type of phenomenon. The child functions in the shadow and under the direction of the parents. He/she does not have to deal with the difficulties that would be present if they were functioning independently in other settings. For example, car expenses, food, insurance, utilities, and medical expenses were typically provided by the parents. Establishment of independence and autonomy was discouraged. The patient was therefore functioning in an environment which tended to react to normal developmental progress (e.g. separation) as pathological.
B. low self esteem/low self efficacy
In the "typical family of the future addict" there is an absence of positive reinforcement, praise, nurturing, validation. As children, the addicts are faced by a high achievement standard and achievement orientations. They abuse drugs to avoid responsibilities for their behaviors. They are often faced by highly successful sibs. The children of the owner found themselves functioning in families similar to those described above. Coming into the family business, they continued a pattern in which they experienced very limited praise, nurturing, and validation.
For the child of the owner, their entry into the family owned business is in contrast to the more successful sibs who developed independent means for achievement. Their difficulty in differentiating from this high achievement" family exacts a toll in diminished self esteem.
 | CLINICAL EXAMPLE: F., a college drop out, had an elder sister with several masters degrees who had been on full scholarship at Columbia. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: R., a 35 year old undiagnosed dyslexic, had not graduated from high school. His older brother was a CPA. R. was brought into the family business at age 16 due to doubts about his ability to achieve elsewhere. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: D. was succeeded in the business by his two more successful brothers, who relegated him to a non-critical supervisory role |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: J. was in a multi-office family owned business. His brother worked in the main office with the father, while the patient found himself in a less significant role in the branch facility. |
The addict children of the owner have experienced feelings of diminished self-esteem and diminished self-efficacy. One contributing factor is their having been "To the Manor Born". The child in the family owned business frequently is brought into a successful business. The pattern predominant in the patients was that the father was a "self-made man", frequently an immigrant or from a strongly ethnic background. The child comes into this successful lifestyle. The father has demonstrated his own capability by achieving the development of a successful business. The children of the owner are precluded from demonstrating their own capability because they are already endowed with the success generated by his father. As was once stated about George Bush's financial and career success "Waking up on third base doesn't mean you hit a triple". The disparity between the son's success and the father's success tends to have a negative impact on the son's self-esteem.
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: F. was the son of a highly successful wholesaler who had landed in America with nothing more than the clothes on his back. As the son assumed responsibility for the multi-million dollar business, he always dealt with the psychological legacy of his father's "up from nothing" success. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: S was the son of a genius father who had built a publicly traded company on the strength of his inventions. The son, though president of the successful company, was incapable of replicating or surpassing his father's inventive genius. |
C. difficulties in peer relationships and roles
A predisposing factor for drug addiction is a feeling of alienation from peers and social isolation. As the child of the owner, the patients were placed in a special role and relationship in the business environment. Their unique status in the workplace tended to isolate them from coworkers. For this age cohort, coworkers generally function as a major source of peer relationships. However, as "the bosses kid", he/she actually had no true peers in the work setting. In addition, career and work choices are different for this group than many of their peers. The specialized type of work setting tends to isolate them from peers who are in other work settings.
An additional factor enhancing the isolation and alienation was that these patients frequently were afforded assets and privileges in excess of those available to their peers. Higher pay, more authority, more work flexibility, and more "toys" were the hallmarks of these patients. In their own internalized comparisons with peers, they experienced guilt regarding their apparently unearned advantage. The envy experienced by their peers combined with their own guilt to generate feelings of social isolation and alienation.
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: P. worked alongside the other workers in the family construction business. However as the bosses son, he was frequently criticized and ridiculed by other workers for the quality and quantity of his work. He experienced frequent temper outbursts before retreating to fantasies of being able to fire his tormentors once he achieved control of the company. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: In the clinic treatment group, the family owned business subgroup could be differentiated by the "parking lot survey". The children of the owner drove the newest and most expensive cars. On one occasion, a young patient appeared in a Ferrari. When an awestruck treatment group member asked to take a look at the engine, the driver sheepishly admitted he didn't know how to open the hood. His access to the concomitants of achievement was clearly inappropriate to his own level of maturity and responsibility. In addition the automobile serves as a component of self-esteem and social status in this group. The greater privileges of the child of the owner, in this area, contributed to distancing in peer relationships. D. enabling |
In a number of cases seen, family members were quite concerned about concealing the newly discovered problem from employees and business associates. Another portion of this "enabling" is a phenomenon termed "The Prince's New Clothes." Because of the status and power of the child in an family owned business, other employees are considerably more reluctant to report difficulties in performance problems to the parents than might happen in a non-family business environment. The sentiment of the employee was expressed by one as, "no way am I going to piss off this kid that is going to be my boss someday."
E. ethnicity
The ethnicity issues in a family owned business also often serve to reinforce and support the "enabling." This was attributed to several factors: l) a strong family orientation and one in which it is the expectation that children, especially sons, will enter into the family business; 2) there is a strong feeling that problems and difficulties should be taken care of within the family or ethnic environment and not divulged to strangers. This is an issue present in certain ethnic groups' utilization of mental health resources. Thus, the family system is more prone to engage in denial as the problem develops.
An additional influencing factor is the fact that work-related steps cannot be taken without publicity revealing within the business problems which are occurring in the family. Thus, there is strong resistance to, for example, inpatient treatment rather than outpatient because the child's absence in the business for a thirty day rehab would present a fairly public statement of the difficulties.
IV. treatment issues
A. Family Involvement
It is of critical importance to involve the family in treatment. The clinical impression of professionals working with family-owned businesses is that the founding generation is often a workaholic entrepreneur. Successor generations demonstrate other addictions: drugs, alcohol, gambling, and sex. For these families, their limited prior chemical dependency experience, relatively "high bottom", ongoing enabling behaviors, and belief in moral weakness issues serve as inhibiting factors for treatment. The more critical role of families of children of the owner in causing and maintaining the addiction increases the importance of their involvement in the treatment process. Family members are also in need of therapeutic and support services to deal with their own issues around feelings of anger, blame,guilt, etc.
B. closed system
The addict working in an family owned business functions in a much more tightly controlled and regulated closed system than found in other settings. This has several implications in terms of treatment. It is more often a family pressure or intervention that brings the patient into treatment. In treatment involvement, there is often virtually a 24-hour supervision of the patient once treatment contracts are established. Although this provides a higher level of supervision and feedback than available with other patients, it also limits the patients access to other support systems. The patients are encouraged to form supportive therapeutic relationships with individuals outside the family and business circle. To assist family members in understanding the advantages and liabilities of the closed nature of the system, it is especially important to involve family members in an education and treatment component.
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: F. had very limited outlets for the frustrations of working in the family owned business. He was unable to complain about his father or business problems to other family members or employees. The senior employees were very loyal to their long-standing relationship with his father. Certainly, he was unable to discuss his drug problem. Overwhelmed with frustration, on one occasion the patient vented this frustration by shooting out a toilet in a company building. C. individuation and achieving independence |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: D. left the family business after being taken over by 2 brothers. Having spent many years working in a rather specialized area, he was threatened with various sanctions should he go to work for a competitor. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: F. assumed a greater role in the business as his recovery progressed. However, his father's long time employees continued to feed his father information. Thus, although the "prince" had taken over the running of the kingdom, the "king" still had his loyal and trusted officers in the palace guard. D. abstinence |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: P. accompanied his father as the broke ground on the personal residence of a long-time business associate. The traditional bottle of Champaign was opened. The patient's polite refusal to partake caused some tension with the customer and family. |
| CLINICAL EXAMPLE: J. sat with his father at the head table for the company's annual party. A toast was proposed as an employee filled J's glass (he had been a highly visible "partier" on previous occasions). E. make all members responsible for problem and solution |
F. support groups
The family of the addict is similar, in many respects, to other types of "traumatized" families. The family owned business issues serve to increase the trauma of the addiction, in that the family is more vulnerable in many areas than other families. The tightly emeshed family is more significantly affected by a dysfunctional member. In addition, co-dependency issues are a legitimate treatment focus. In this respect, families are involved in ongoing family support groups. This would include both 12-step and professionally led groups.
The family is often more resistant than most to 12-step groups. The possibility of public exposure, denial of co-dependency issues, etc. support this resistance. It is very important that this group of family members and patients be involved in a support system. For the addicts, the support groups provide a needed and helpful resource for meeting their needs for social support systems outside the family. This group is able to form some peer relationships based on recovery and a common problem--an important resource.
copyright 1999--not to be reproduced without permission
