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From Dysfunction to Resilience: A Good Road to Travel © Tom Ersin 2023. This is the current installment from the serialized publication of this distinctive self-help book.
Chapter 2: The Big 5 Shared Symptoms of Principals and Family Members
Perpetuators of substance use disorder, emotional/physical abuse, or other repressive behavior develop identifiable, harmful psychological (and often physical) effects. These same characteristics frequently also develop in family members, even children who aren’t consciously aware of the problems. This is the foundation of codependency. As with the chronic disease of chemical dependency, the negative effects of living with the dependent increase over time until and unless there is an intervention that prompts treatment and lifestyle changes.
Families can get help even if the principal does not. Through education, support, and treatment, the family can learn how better to deal with a chemically dependent, emotionally abusive, or mentally ill member.
The Big 5 Shared Symptoms 2-1
- Denial (of family problems)
- Repressed feelings
- Compulsive behavior
- Low self-esteem
- Medical problems (often due to chronic stress)
Denial
Dependent: Principals develop mental gymnastics and intricate excuses to deny the extent of their damaging activities, to themselves and others, for one simple reason: They don’t want to stop. They don’t want to stop because 1) they think it’s OK, 2) they don’t feel emotionally well without it, and 3) in those with chemical dependency, they may have progressed to feeling physically ill without their substances. They deny the frequency and intensity of their damaging activities and the troubles caused by them.
Co-dependent: Family members deny that the dependent has a problem, especially to the outside world. Embarrassment often drives this denial and covering-up. Unfortunately, hiding it turns into hiding the hurt, anger, shame, and disappointment caused by the destructive actions. The family denies the problem, which leads to denying the negative feelings caused by it. They often isolate from the outside world due to embarrassment and shame. They lose track of what normal is — or rather their “normal” changes to harmful dysfunction.
Repressed Feelings
Dependent: Principals learn to repress painful feelings. Embarrassment, shame, depression, fear, resentment, and anger all are a result of their damaging activities. Some of these are caused by behavior; some are caused by changing brain chemistry. Either way, they’re uncomfortable, and the principal habitually pushes them down, largely with the help of more poor conduct. A major component of recovery (after detoxing for chemical users) is learning to recognize, face, and process past and present feelings. Much work is necessary to address the accumulated backlog.
Co-dependent: Family members become skilled at denying and hiding the problems caused by the dependent. Embarrassment and shame are strong motivators. One parent/guardian hides the other’s drinking or abuse from the kids (to protect them); the kids hide the other parent/guardian’s broken promises (to minimize worry); and everyone hides the entire mess from neighbors, teachers, relatives, bosses, and the rest of the outside world. They create an illusion of normalcy by hiding the painful feelings as well as the principal’s behavior. This leads to psychological harm from repressing all feelings, good and bad. It also contributes to smooth sailing for the dependent to keep abusing (chemicals and/or people).
Compulsive Behavior
Dependent: Dependents display their primary (dysfunctional) compulsive behavior: They’re compelled to perpetuate it despite physical, psychological, or other life troubles caused or exacerbated by it. For people who are chemically dependent, this includes all the activities required to obtain and recover from the use of their chemicals. Principals also are compelled to deny the extent of their harmful activities and accompanying troubles to themselves and others.
Co-dependent: Family members develop compulsions directly related to the damaging conduct. At times, their entire focus seems to be on the principal. The snap of a beer can opening in the next room might automatically prompt despair and fear. Spouses/partners can be in a state of constant vigilance to prevent circumstances they believe cause the drinking or abuse. Members can be in a constant state of alert, ready to deny their principal’s (and therefore their family’s) problem to the outside world. They’re compelled to keep the secret. This requires hiding negative, fearful feelings, which leads to suppressing all feelings, good and bad.
Low Self-Esteem
Dependent: Principals develop low self-esteem directly from the remorse they feel related to their poor behavior. This often includes years of guilt and pain that may have been repressed but never eliminated or resolved. They often secretly dislike themselves for their inability to control themselves. They might not want to drink or abuse, but they’ve lost the ability to stop. And the guilt-producing conduct continues.
Co-dependent: Family members spend a lot of energy hiding their secret dependent from the outside world. They’re embarrassed. They may feel some (false) responsibility for the poor conduct. Indeed, the principal commonly encourages this sentiment. For all the reasons stated so far, members feel hurt, anger, shame, and disappointment. And they feel powerless to change any of it. These feelings, combined with a false sense of responsibility, produce low self-esteem.
Medical Problems
Dependent: Principals often develop a variety of medical health issues. A big one caused directly by chemical use could be cirrhosis of the liver, a deviated septum, or sores on the body from excessive substance use over time. A small one could be drinking alcohol or getting high while sick with a cold, which exacerbates and prolongs the respiratory effects. Other medical problems could be a raspy voice from inhaling drugs or a broken arm from falling while drunk.
Co-dependent: Living in a home with a principal is stressful — very stressful. Family members often develop related medical problems. Long-term (chronic) stress lowers the body’s ability to fight off infection. It weakens the immune system. It exacerbates existing disorders such as heart disease, asthma, diabetes, headaches, gastrointestinal complications, and others. Living with high-anxiety conditions also can lead to impaired concentration resulting in small and serious accidents.
Finally, chronic stress can lead to damaging activities such as increased alcohol use, smoking, and other harmful habits. With the weight of the world on your shoulders, the last thing that seems important is cutting out the several drinks at the end of a tough day or the cigarette after each argument or broken promise. Most smokers in these situations know they should quit. But tobacco/nicotine cessation is difficult enough without being in the midst of a chronically stressful long-term relationship, wondering when the next crisis or rage episode is going to occur.
ESSAY: So — You’re Still Smoking?
“Don’t forget, you’re smoking for two.”
This is the old wry twist on the exhortation of pregnant women to remember they’re eating for two. “Eating for two” is a reminder to the expectant mother that she now is making monumental choices — about what she puts or doesn’t put into her body — that will affect an innocent, vulnerable second party for its entire lifetime.
In Australia, the caption “Don’t forget, you’re smoking for two” might be accompanied by photos of mother and fetus with matching hypopharyngeal tongue cancer, emphysemic lung tissue, or gangrenous feet.
Australia Ahead of Its Time
Too gross? OK, we’ll just focus on the mother (and anyone else who smokes). But as of 2012, Australia has not only gone big on graphic effects-of-tobacco-use photos in ads and on packaging, they’ve banned all branding text, colors, and logos from every pack of cancer sticks sold. Australia was at the vanguard of finally out-messaging the previously all-powerful tobacco lobby, and we applaud the other nations that have followed. With the World Health Organization’s blessing, every country should do it.
Australia passed the world’s first so-called plain-packaging regulations in 2011 and implemented them the following year. By law, the government established a collection of 14 rotating images that must be used on all cigarette packages. These images include the aforementioned tongue cancer, blackened lung, and foot with gangrene as well as “a toilet stained with bloody urine and a skeletal man named Bryan who is dying of lung cancer.” This material must cover 75% of the package’s face. Trademarks, decorative styling, embossing, and any other unique design are banned. 2-2
To add insult to opprobrium, equally ferocious warnings must be posted on one side of the package (the other side reserved for barcode and company address) and overlay 90% of the back — not one percentage point less. 2-3
The bottom quarter of front-of-package real estate is reserved for the brand name in uniform Lucida Sans font against a color fill — also legally decreed — of “drab dark brown” Pantone 448C. (The government originally characterized the backdrop color as “olive green” until the Australian Olive Association complained that it gave their product a bad name.) Over a comprehensive course of seven studies comprising 1,000 smokers, researchers concluded that Pantone 448C had the lowest appeal and implied the lowest quality and maximum harm in a cigarette. Survey participants commonly described this color as “‘death,’ ‘dirty,’ or ‘tar’ without any positive adjectives.” 2-4 2-5
What’s It Gonna Take?
So — you’re still smoking? What’s it gonna take? A selfie of you in a Pantone 448C-colored coffin emblazoned on your favorite brand of smokes?
In 1965 — a year after then-Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry averred that smoking causes cancer and most likely heart disease — 42% of Americans, including the good doctor, smoked cigarettes.
A five-decade messaging war has been waged since then between Mad Men-style marketing geniuses (backed by Big Tobacco law firms) and U.S. government regulators. The government initially was near-impotent in fighting this war, but over the past half-century it has made significant progress. Ultimately we learned that habitual smoking (“Is there another kind?” — thanks to Col. Nathan R. Jessup, aka Jack Nicholson) 2-6 severely harms most bodily systems and causes numerous torturous diseases. And the smoking rate for Americans fell to 15% by 2015. 2-7 The number dropped further to 12.5% by 2020, per the CDC.
But why isn’t that rate at zero? Sure, it’s extremely painful to quit smoking. So is a root canal, but you do it to save your tooth (which is a far cry from your life). The drop in the smoking rate over the past two or three generations has occurred largely through convincing young people not to start. And that’s where Australia has been trying to make real gains.
The cigarette pack has been the tobacco companies’ last best source of advertising potential. They were kicked off television and radio. Their ads are all but gone from magazines, newspapers, and internet sites. But they still were able to draw your attention with their flashy packaging — at least until December 2012 in Australia.
And 2017 in France and the U.K. And 2018 in New Zealand, Norway, and Ireland. And by 2023 in another dozen countries. Based upon legislative enlightenment and progress in Australia, these governments have followed Oz and found the courage to stand up to Big Tobacco. 2-8 2-9 It’s called standardized (or “standardised”) cigarette packaging, and the percentage of the pack devoted to disturbing images and warnings is slightly less in some countries. But the theme is the same: Force smokers to view and think about the real, obscene effects of smoking on the human body.
Gross Is Good
Do Australia’s gross-out cigarette packaging laws work? Not surprisingly, tobacco companies say “no.” The data still is being gathered, but most signs point to a modest “yes,” with strong potential for expanded effectiveness. In 2015 a series of comprehensive studies was published. It found that standardized packaging reduced the allure of cigarettes, encouraged smokers to quit, and more effectively emphasized the health warnings. In the three years after plain-packaging laws were implemented, it’s estimated they accounted for a quarter of Australia’s 2.2% drop in smoking from the previous three-year period. (The remainder of the drop was attributed to increased tobacco taxes, other advertising bans, and smoking area restrictions.) 2-10 2-11
So far, public smoking aversion therapy has had modestly significant (Now there’s an oxymoronic modifier) positive effects. Since plain-packaging laws are only several years old in most national markets that have them, public health professionals are optimistic about future increased efficacy, especially in preventing young people from lighting up that first fag.
Clearly, the small, unobtrusive warnings on U.S. cigarette packages do not get the attention that graphic images and messages covering most of the pack do. Maybe Congress will grow a backbone. Until then, it remains invertebrate — unwilling to stand up to American tobacco lobby money.
For those partially motivated potential quitters in the states who need a little more impetus, start your collection of voluntary cigarette package cozies today. Get a jump on the U.S. government and collect all 14 in the Greatest Hits series of headlines and photos, including such timeless classics as “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer,” “Smoking Causes Peripheral Vascular Disease,” “Smoking Damages Your Gums and Teeth,” “Smoking Harms Unborn Babies,” and many more.
Whether you’re smoking for one or two, the time to quit is now. Help is available (CDC quit line: 1-800-QUIT-NOW).
And if nothing else matters to you: Smoking makes your face look older.■
[Tom Ersin holds degrees in communications and counseling. He’s examined long-term dysfunction from both sides of the counselor-client relationship and from within his own nuclear and extended families.] Click here to purchase book. Please leave a rating.
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