SINGLE-PARENT
FAMILIES
In many addicts' families of origin one parent
(usually the father) is
absent. In such cases, one would think that a
triadic model (as above)
would not apply, and that a dyadic framework (e.g.,
one encom‑ passing mother and son) would be more fitting. It
would also appear to be more parsimonious and less complicated.
Nonetheless, we have
found that when the matter is pursued closely, a
third important member generally pops up as an active participant
in the interaction. Usually the triadic system is of a less obvious form, such
as a covert disagreement between mother and grandmother, or mother and ex-husband.
This is consonant with a point made emphatically by
Haley that at least two adults are usually involved in an offspring's problem and that clinicians should
look for a triangle consisting of an over-involved parent-child dyad and a more
peripheral parent or grand-parent.`“ 61 Thus it has been our
experience that in addition to the addict and his overinvolved parent, the triad may include the
parent's paramour, an estranged parent, a
grandparent, or some other relative. These
alternative systems appear to exhibit patterns and cycles simi-lar to those in which both parents are present and,
again, revolve around interruption
by the addict of conflicts between adult members. However, achieving separation and independence is
even more of an issue in single-parent families, since the parent may be left
alone with few psychological resources
if the addict departs.
THE MARITAL-PARENTAL SYSTEM
INTERFACE
Earlier we noted how events in the marital system,
while symptom-maintaining in themselves, were also being modulated by the addict's relation to the parental
system. If the addict has not "checked in- at the home recently or the
parents have some other reason to fear they are -losing- him, a crisis
may occur in their home—often a fight between them—and he will be
alerted to it. At this point he is apt to start a fight with his
wife—a move that serves two purposes. It shows the parents that they have
not lost him to marital bliss, and it gives
him an excuse to return home to help, since he
has -no place else to go.- He will usually succeed in diverting attention from the problem in the parental home and once again function to
reduce conflicts between adults.
At other times the precipitating event(s) will be
less obvious and
he and his wife will fall into a cycle of periodic
altercations. Their temporal regularity may seem almost
servocontrolled.* These appear to be maintenance cycles. They may not result in
his moving out, but instead he will show up with some regularity at his
parents' home to
complain about connubial
problems. He seems to be saying, just dropped by to let you know
that things aren't going well and you haven't lost me.- (In one
case, every time the addict's mother called him, he would tell her he had
just had a fight with his wife, even if this was not true—a rather
ingenious way of keeping both systems simultaneously intact and
pacified.) Marital battles thus become a functional part of the
intergenerational homeostatic system, pos-sessing both adaptive and
sacrificial qualities. There are ways, how-ever, in which the cycle can
be broken. One of these is for the addict to substitute another person
for himself, such as by giving his parents a newborn or other child to raise as
a replacement (such as in the case in Chapter 10). If
this alternative is acceptable, the child becomes a member of the key triad and
the addict is released to his family of procreation.19 In other words, issues
between spouses, while real, cannot be viewed apart from the relationship between
the addict and his
parents—the two subsystems are often highly interdependent
