Adult Child Syndromes Can Grow Into Substance Use Disorder

November 3, 2025

Author of the Month

Tim Lineaweaver, Author & Licensed Mental Health Counselor 

Tom O'Connor, Editor & Publisher

Author Tim Lineaweaver is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). Tim has been helping clients of all ages with addiction, trauma, anxiety, and depression for over 20 years. He is an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University and has written and lectured widely on substance use disorder, addiction, and mental health. He has applied his clinical expertise in treating substance use disorder (SUD) addiction across various residential, outpatient, and community-based settings. Tim has extensive experience in substance abuse and has contributed to addiction counseling through advocacy. He believes it is vital to build and maintain strong trust and advocacy with his patients while also holding them accountable on their recovery journey.

According to Tim Lineaweaver

My father's public drunkenness and private abusiveness caused a deep sense of shame, anger, and depression, conditions I also self-medicated for. I started at a young age and gradually worsened. Ultimately, at age twenty-eight, my life unraveled. My addictions led to my divorce, custody battles, and financial devastation.

All my close friends were addicts, too. I grew up in an alcoholic household and spent most of my time with other alcoholics, drug users, and dealers. I was immersed in an addictive culture that blurred my perspective. 

I recall one morning, at around 4 AM, I'd been up all night smoking cocaine when I realized I was due at work in just a few short hours. I knew as long as there was any cocaine left, there was no way I'd stop. I was going to call in sick yet again. Every time I'd bang out, co-workers would joke, "Timmy caught the cocaine flu again!" I'd feel guilty for putting everybody out, but not guilty enough to stop using and straighten out. 

Deep in the throes of my addiction to cocaine, I reflected on how deep my involvement was. I was dealing with the stuff, snorting it, smoking it, and at one point, I stayed up for four days straight doing nothing but hit after hit after hit. I'd do anything for the shit, and it was coming to define me. 

My Hijacked Value System

People describe addictions as a phenomenon that hijacks the brain. This is also true, as different substances alter the cellular structure of the central nervous system, leading to dependence. 

Another way to think about addiction is to consider the hijacked value system. Any person with a substance use disorder can testify chapter and verse to the truth of this. Once the body becomes dependent on the substance, the physical and psychological desire for the drug overwhelms reason and logic to the point of ruin. Our lives become reductive as external things —relationships, jobs, and even money — become less meaningful, while the substance retains absolute value. Once cocaine got its hooks into me, there was no telling where I'd end up.

I was raised to value honesty, have a good work ethic, and know that stealing and violence were considered immoral. These ideas were reinforced in school and in the broader community around me. I internalized these ethics as the right things to live by.

Hurt and Seeking Escape

But I was also a hurt kid. My father's alcoholism and my broken relationship with my father created a wellspring of sneering rage and constant verbal abuse. When hungover or angry, he'd be violent, and I was the usual receptacle of his rage: a face-numbing slap, a kick in the ass, or punches. I internalized his anger, felt ashamed of myself, and, in addition to struggling with depression and anxiety, my self-esteem was butchered. 

By the time I was a teenager, I was desperate to escape. My first buzz gave me that relief—and so much more. My early experiments with alcohol and weed ameliorated my emotional suffering. The first time I caught a buzz was with my buddy from down the street, Bobby Mathews. We both had distraught alcoholic fathers. Bobby had been helping his elderly neighbor with some house chores and had discovered a cellar full of wine, beer, and liquor. He liberated a six-pack and invited me to split it with him. Together, we'd stumbled upon a respite of peace and enchantment. I was grateful to him for including me. I finished my second beer, and I felt a pleasant warmth in my chest. 

By the time I finished my third beer, my face was smeared with a loopy grin. Bobby and I erupted in a deep belly laugh, two kids finding a momentary escape from the emotional poverty of our childhoods. For the moment, anyway, anger, fear, and self-loathing were banished — everything was alright.

Self Medication

What followed were years of self-medication, alcohol, and an assortment of various drugs to deal with the emotional pain of my trauma. In my early twenties, I started using cocaine to try to balance my increasingly sloppy, blackout drinking. Then, I made the single worst decision of my life to smoke cocaine. This created a ravenous, insatiable need for more. Suddenly, things that mattered didn't matter at all. Being a husband and a father, along with all the responsibilities associated with those roles, was relegated to a distant backseat alongside a pile of other neglected priorities. I would work sometimes, but only as long as it didn't get in the way of my smoking cocaine. I just had to have more. 

Money was just paper shit I traded in for cocaine. All its other uses, ones that are considered integral to most people, such as food, shelter, and diapers for my daughter, became secondary to my drug habit. The most important thing became getting more. Things that I prided myself on not doing became things that I did all the time: lying, stealing, using during the day, and using at work. Cocaine hijacked my beliefs and values and preoccupied my thoughts. People who loved me and whom I loved in return became chess pieces I manipulated to get more cocaine. 

More and Consequences be Damned!

Wanting more, having to have more, and putting it ahead of important things eventually means you end up in a shit pile. You can see it coming, but you lie to yourself, telling yourself that somehow you can manage, or maybe you tell yourself you'll worry about all that later, after you've finished doing more. I'll get high first and let my future self worry about the consequences. When the high and I'd crash, crushing guilt would follow. And then, one day, you realize that your life has become completely unglued, and all the things you ignored, took, lied about, and stole from are gone.

For me, this meant divorce, loss of custody for a time, health issues, bankrupting myself, and having the IRS come after me. I was overwhelmed by the consequences of my use. My life was scorched earth. I woke up one morning exhausted and hungover after having drunkenly lost my temper at a family gathering. I had to be restrained from going after my estranged wife. The shame was a hefty weight. I realized I had no answers for myself. Cocaine and alcohol had stripped me of my dignity and self-respect. It was time for a change.

Freedom

I made a few phone calls and got myself into treatment. Treatment wasn't easy; my body and mind still screamed for alcohol and cocaine, and I wasn't confident I could recover. But every day, I dug in and learned what I could. I started to face the emotions I'd been running from for years. When I completed the program, I came out and worked hard on my recovery. I rebuilt the values stolen from me by alcohol and cocaine: honesty, responsibility, family, loyalty, and work ethic. 

I got out of treatment and prioritized my recovery every day by going to meetings, therapy, and group therapy. I sought counsel from others who had years of recovery. My first year was a rock fight as I finally faced the consequences of my use. There was a lot of mess to clean up, but things gradually improved. Eventually, I could look at myself in the mirror and take pride in what I saw.

I stay sober today, knowing that recovery equals freedom. I never want alcohol and cocaine to retake control of my life. 

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Tim Lineaweaver is a subject matter expert and a member of the editorial advisory board. Can be reached at his website: https://www.timlineaweaver.com/.

We honor Tim as November's Author of the Month. 

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