A paper or lived experience narrative titled “A sibling’s narrative of recovery from addiction trauma and loss in the family” appeared in 2021 in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. The paper is important for what it adds to existing information about siblings who have or live with a brother or sister who drinks and also what it means for professionals treating sober siblings.

About the Authors

The sibling who tells the story is a Greek female. Her age is never given. She is considered “the first author,” and a psychiatrist is “a second author” who “contributed…insightful comments in the structure and content of the discussion section.” The sibling who drank to excess, a brother, was shown his sister’s narrative and responded in the paper.

How Female Siblings May Be Affected

Siblings in a family where others drink to excess “constitute a hidden population,” the paper begins, and “female siblings…are the least acknowledged, yet highly affected individuals in the family system,” the article posits. The paper adds that “the impact can be enhanced by social and self-stigmatizing processes related to the ‘code of silence.’ The anxiety-provoking secret may devour the ability to communicate and connect with other members of their family and community if selective revelation proves to be unsuccessful.”

The woman describes her family and her upbringing as happy. Briefly, they were refugees from Turkey and had banded together after the trauma they had endured. The bond helped her somewhat when she learned that her brother, her best friend in adolescence, started taking drugs, but not nearly enough. Her grades dropped, she was depressed, she became isolated, and it even made her question her self-worth.

The paper titles that section “Ambiguous Loss,” which is “a psychological loss, including a mental or emotional disappearance (like when someone’s personality has changed so much that they no longer seem like the person you once knew),” according to the Cleveland Clinic website. Or, as the paper more directly states, for its purposes, “Ambiguous loss can occur when one’s sibling abuses substances, as the sibling may be physically present yet be psychologically absent in terms of the co-sibling (and the family).”

It took the woman years to grow and develop a stronger self. Note what is likely the psychologist’s assessment of how sober siblings like her feel: “A sibling’s lived experience can be so extremely devastating that it can interfere with the development of his/her sense of self and adversely affect the very foundation of his/her personality.”

After reading her narrative, the woman’s brother responds that she had an idealized view of their childhood, but he didn’t offer his perspective. He also mentioned that he went to psychotherapy but offered nothing else about that, either. He did apologize for hurting her, however.

How Professionals Can Help

The paper concludes with the thought that “Understanding the experience of siblings may help health and social care professionals to develop compassion, patience and empathy towards family members of persons with addictions. Mental health nurses need to be aware of the devastating impact of addiction on all family members in order to validate their experiences and support them in recovering from trauma and loss in the family.”