106: When The Solution Becomes The Problem: How Families Are Fueling Addictions, Not Fixing Them | Dr. Michael Barnes

Families of people struggling with addiction often do everything out of love: bailing them out, paying the rent, trying harder and harder to fix it. After four decades of working with addiction, Dr. Michael Barnes has reached a difficult conclusion: those loving solutions can become part of the problem.

Dr. Barnes is a licensed marriage and family therapist, author of "When the Solution Becomes the Problem," and a former professor at the University of Colorado Denver. Over 40 years in the field, he has worked with families at every stage of addiction, from those facing it for the first time to those who have organized their entire lives around it for generations.

In this conversation, we explore the part of addiction that rarely gets talked about: what it does to everyone around the person who is using. We look at why "just stop enabling" feels shaming when no one teaches families how, how transgenerational trauma shapes what feels "normal" at home, and why many people who started using young need habilitation, not rehabilitation. Along the way, Zach shares his own experience with alcoholism, rehab, and the guilt and shame that fuel the cycle.

Those lessons now shape Dr. Barnes' trauma-integrated approach to family programming, where the whole family heals together: learning to manage fear, rebuild boundaries, and move from codependency to prodependency.

00:00 Podcast Intro

01:26 Meet Dr. Michael Barnes

06:24 What Is Transgenerational Trauma?

11:36 How Families Organize Around Addiction

13:50 Why "Just Stop Enabling" Feels Like "Just Say No"

19:28 The Family Mobile: How Addiction Affects Siblings

25:33 Rehabilitation vs. Habilitation

33:44 Sober, But Emotionally 15

38:15 Addiction as a Chronic Disease

40:50 What Is a "Family in Recovery"?

48:39 The Two-Second Test

54:27 Codependency vs. Prodependency

58:16 The Basketball & Tennis Ball Analogy

1:03:26 There Is No Such Thing as an Unmotivated Family

1:04:40 When Dr. Barnes' Son Was Hit by a Car

1:15:31 How Addiction Treatment Has Changed in 40 Years

1:24:43 Where to Find Dr. Barnes

Learn more about Dr. Barnes and his work: https://www.drmikebarnes.com/

Want To Know More About Zach

Website: zachtidwell.com

X: @ZachCTidwell Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-in-blind-with-zach-tidwell/id1787306128

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