Why you need “communication” with someone in addiction: your child as a regulator of your anxiety

Why the question “how do I establish communication” is rhetorical

The meeting begins with the most frequent question from relatives: how to set up communication with a loved one in addiction. Many people don’t like Viacheslav’s answer: over years of work he has seen that people get a chance at an independent life precisely where they can be taken out from under total parental control. Even a marriage that formed during active use usually falls apart once the person reaches recovery: the person grows, and the old relationship pulls him back.

According to him, the most a parent can realistically do is honestly acknowledge their share of responsibility, choose a good rehab center, find a way to pay for treatment — and at that point “close the door.” After that, an adult who has received the tools must live on his own. Most people find this answer cruel — and that, Viacheslav believes, shows how deeply old stereotypes are rooted. Letting go doesn’t mean abandoning: you can call each other now and then, but stop running someone else’s life.

Unhealthy closeness: anxiety, control, guilt, rescuing

We often call “normal” not what is truly healthy but what the psyche has got used to. If a person has lived for years in a relationship where love was tied up with anxiety, control, guilt, guessing someone else’s mood and constant rescuing, this model starts to feel natural — “that’s how it should be.”

Viacheslav goes through parents’ habitual phrases. Behind “I’m just worried” there are usually hundreds of calls, checking the phone, controlling money and attempts to find out where the person is and with whom. Behind “I just want to help” — paying off loans, making excuses to the employer, interfering in an adult child’s personal life, covering for him in front of other family members. And the wish to “avoid conflict” leads to endless concessions until the built-up tension bursts out in an explosion.

The child as a tool for regulating anxiety

The main idea of the meeting: codependency is a stable system of regulating anxiety through another person. As long as the person with addiction is in sight, the parent can control their own anxiety. It becomes a habitual state — almost like the substance for the person with addiction — and without it things feel uncomfortable. That’s why, Viacheslav says, the parent needs communication not so much with the child as with their own anxiety — and the child becomes the tool used to regulate it.

This is easy to see when the person leaves for rehab. For the first week the family feels relief, and then the “storm” begins: a void has formed, and there’s nothing left to regulate the anxiety with. Right away comes the urge to call, find out how he’s doing, find something to pick on — and the familiar cycle starts again. Viacheslav compares this to detox: you also have to “wean yourself off” habitual anxiety, and that has to be learned.

A boundary is a rule for yourself, not a ban for him

Healthy communication, in Viacheslav’s words, is separateness: I am me, you are you. I can love you, but not run your life. I can worry, but I’m not obliged to fix the consequences of your decisions. I can tell you I don’t like your behavior, but I can’t make you change. You have the right to choose, and I have the right to decide whether I will be there for the consequences of that choice.

That’s why a boundary is not “you no longer have the right to use” (that’s an attempt to control another person), but a rule for your own behavior: I don’t give money, I don’t lie or make up stories for you, I don’t pay your debts, I talk to you when you’re sober. He illustrates it with a simple example: a child cries to get a cartoon put on, the parent gives in “for the last time” — and twenty years later the same mechanism kicks in when an adult son asks for money that may go to substances. You can’t grasp this in one meeting — it takes constant practice.

The spiral of guilt and temporary relief

Viacheslav breaks down how anxiety and guilt work. A parent doesn’t know where their son is and imagines the worst, then in the morning the phone rings — and relief comes. But it’s temporary, like for a person who has used again: until next time. The same goes for guilt: a mom feels guilty, her son asks for “a thousand until payday,” she gives more than he asked for — and calms down for a while. The requests repeat, the money runs out, and within a few days guilt turns into anger, then into hatred and harsh words on both sides.

In his observation, when an adult child has no reason to get something, there are fewer calls — and that’s normal. People with addiction turn to their family first of all in hard moments, following the familiar pattern “mom will help.” If boundaries are in place from the start, this spiral can be avoided.

Stepping “outside the box”: experience from the other side

There are two ways out, Viacheslav jokes: long work in therapy groups or a “magic pill,” which doesn’t exist. A chance at separation appears for those who are ready to call things by their names and admit that their loved one is ill and that this illness feeds their own anxiety. An example that it’s possible: one mom, to pay for her son’s treatment, got additional education, found a second job and significantly raised her income — and after her son’s rehab her life stayed different. Not only her child changed, but she did too.

In the second part, a group participant who is herself in recovery takes the floor. She compares attempts to restore her former relationship with her parents to gluing a broken plate back together: it will never look the way it did. While the cycle of toxic relationships went on, she was “comfortable” in it, despite the use and her difficult condition, and she had no incentive to change. Viacheslav adds: a person with addiction always has something to gain from pushing through a boundary, but when there’s nothing to push through, the pressure stops, and the person is left to rely on his own strength.

He also disputes the idea that a person has to “hit rock bottom”: in his experience, you can work even with someone who initially didn’t want treatment — it just takes longer. And the key to the rehab of a person with addiction often lies with the relatives — if they are ready to work on themselves. When a participant asks what to do if a loved one flatly refuses to talk about treatment, Viacheslav replies that such a question can’t be solved in a minute: at this stage it’s worth stepping aside, and the situation itself should be worked through individually with a specialist.