When Sharon and Carl’s son began struggling with substance use disorder, they didn’t realize how deeply it was affecting their own well-being. They felt lost and isolated. “We didn’t know what was happening to us as a family,” said Carl. “We felt alone.”
Their experience is more common than many health workers realize. According to a recent survey, 48.4 million Americans age 12 and older were affected by a substance use disorder in 2024. Yet recovery support services often overlook the families navigating a loved one’s addiction alongside them.
To better understand how health workers can support families, Public Good News spoke with Sharon and Carl—who asked to be identified by first names only and lead a family recovery course at Be a Part of the Conversation—and with the organization’s executive director, Kim Porter.
Here’s what they said.
[Editor’s note: The contents of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.]
PGN: What does recovery look like for a parent impacted by a child’s substance use disorder?
Carl: Sharon and I lead the family recovery course at Be a Part of the Conversation. And I participate in the parent partnership group weekly. It’s the foundation of my recovery journey. We were affected by substance use disorder with our son many years ago. We decided to get some help.
Our therapist said, ‘Go to this meeting. You need to be there.’ We had faith in this family therapist, and so we went.
We didn’t know what was happening to us as a family, and we felt alone. Then when we went into the parent partnership meeting, you realize that you’re not alone in this journey, that there are other people. And while each case is individual and each situation is uniquely different, there is an overarching similarity that is uncanny, that we all go through very similar things, and there is a lot we can learn from others.
Sharon: I don’t think you can completely understand substance use disorder without it touching your own life. And once it does, and once you really peel back the onion and get an education and learn, it completely changes, at least it has for me, my perspective of human nature, of the struggles people go through.
In my own recovery, it’s a matter of learning how to set boundaries for your life, find your own joy and separate your joy, happiness, and life from that of your child.
I mean, we often hear you’re only as happy as your least happy child, and that’s a phrase that we’ve come to sort of resent, because as a parent in recovery, you know, I have my own life, and I’m responsible for my own happiness, not my child.
Kim Porter: When we say family recovery, we’re not talking about abstinence from alcohol and drugs.
This is about when we’re impacted by our child’s drug addiction, alcohol use process, addictions, like gambling, that kind of thing. It’s pathologically progressing and getting worse and having lots of unwanted consequences with it.
But for the rest of us who don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol, we get so sick, not in substance use, but in codependency and financial insecurity. You know, ‘I’ve lost all my savings because I paid for so many treatment programs or hired lawyers,’ or ‘I’m now going to get fired for my job because I can’t stop taking the phone calls.’
It really and truly impacts us with trauma and all sorts of things. One of our favorite phrases in the family recovery course is to disengage from the chaos. That’s recovery.
PGN: For health workers what are signs that families may be struggling?
Sharon: I think denial. I think a lot of parents, at least in my life, feel like their child’s success is a reflection of their parenting. So I think the shame, the guilt, the uncertainty and the lack of understanding what substance use disorder looks like, and the help that’s required, stand in the way of a lot of parents getting help, and allowing their kids to feel the consequences of their decisions.
K.P.: Many times I’ve heard parents finally show up at parent partnership meetings, or take the course, or connect with us in some way, who, at some point, say, ‘I’ve gone years in isolation with this,’ because they figured, ‘I’m the parent. I’ve got to be able to handle this. Nobody’s going to love them the way that I do,’ and so they try to DIY it, you know?
And it’s just not something any of us, even if we had credentials and had a background in psychology or treatment and all that sort of thing, can navigate objectively because it’s our child. That really hijacks our brain and circumvents any kind of healthy decisions that we can make about how to best support our child.
When we take care of ourselves, we’re much better equipped to support a child in an appropriate way.
It is a brave, brave parent who raises their hand and says, ‘I need help. My child is misusing drugs and alcohol.’
PGN: What does joy look like in recovery for families?
Carl: The best outcome is when there is joy within the family. That takes a long time sometimes to get to. It took us many years to find joy as a unit again.
And then the other side of that is, where as a parent, you can have joy. You can find happiness, even when your child is really struggling.
The reality of it is you don’t have to be limited to the happiness of your least happy child.
This article was supported by Life Unites Us, a health campaign that receives funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. Public Good News retains full editorial control over its reporting.