INTERVENTION

I watched an intense show on A & E last night called "Intervention," which is a reality show in which an addicted person is filmed in the depths of their pathology, along with interviews with their significant others, and then followed through into an intervention, with a helping professional guiding the way, to get them into rehab. It's a very powerful show, but what was so clear to me, though only an incidental focus of the show, was how the "identified patient" - the addict - was bearing the brunt of their family's dysfunction, and in some ways was the least disturbed member of the family circle.
It's well-know in family therapy models that dysfunctional families tend to orbit around one person in the system who is seen as "the problem." While everyone bemoans this person's disorder and purports to be invested in his or her recovery, the reality is that "enablers" are often more addicted to their role than the addict is addicted to their substance. In fact, you could see in the show, as I have seen in working with such families, that the addicted person is often more open to rehab and treatment than the family is, once the process begins. And very often, once the addict has recovered, he or she turns out to be the strongest member of the family.
Check it out.