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There’s usually a sibling in these families who never causes any trouble. Grades are fine. Homework gets done. Nobody worries about them, because everyone else in the house has already run out of worry to spare. That sibling learns early to take up as little space as possible, because the household simply doesn’t have room for two children in crisis.
This is the story of siblings of addicts in India and it’s a story that rarely gets told, even within the family it’s happening in. Parents talk about their child’s addiction with doctors,
with counsellors, sometimes with each other late at night. The other child in the house, the one growing up in the shadow of it, is often never asked how any of this feel.
Addiction researchers have a specific term for this experience: siblings are frequently called the “forgotten victims” of a family’s addiction crisis, because parental attention almost always shifts, understandably, toward the child who is struggling. Clinical guidance on treating substance use disorders explicitly notes that neglected siblings often end up looking after themselves in ways that aren’t age-appropriate and some come to believe that acting out is the only way left to be noticed at all.
A useful clinical framework, developed decades ago by family therapist Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, describes the roles children in these households tend to fall into without ever choosing them. There’s the “hero,” the high-achieving child who works to bring the family a sense of normalcy and pride. There’s the “scapegoat,” who acts out and absorbs blame. There’s the “mascot,” who uses humour to defuse tension. And there’s the “lost child,” who avoids being any trouble at all and quietly disappears into the background. Most siblings of a person with addiction recognise themselves somewhere in this list, often as the hero or the lost child, both of which look like coping from the outside and both of which carry a real emotional cost.
Growing up with an addicted sibling in India often means growing up faster than you should have. Household stress research consistently shows that siblings in this situation take on adult-level responsibility early: managing younger children, absorbing a parent’s anxiety, learning to read a room before anyone speaks a word. This mirrors what researchers studying Indian households affected by a parent’s alcohol dependence have documented in children more broadly: a pattern called parentification, where children step into adult roles prematurely and learn to keep the family’s private struggles hidden out of loyalty and shame.
There’s also a harder truth in the data. A 2022 study found that adolescents with a parent or an older sibling with a history of substance use disorder face a significantly elevated risk of developing a substance use disorder themselves. This isn’t destiny and plenty of siblings in this situation never develop a substance problem of their own. But it’s a real enough pattern that it deserves honest acknowledgment rather than being left as an unspoken fear in the back of a sibling’s mind.
In India specifically, this experience is compounded by how tightly families guard their image from the outside world. The instinct to protect the family’s reputation, to avoid the questions of relatives and neighbours, often means a struggling sibling’s addiction stays inside the house and so does the other sibling’s pain about it. There’s frequently nobody outside the family who even knows there’s something to be upset about.
Sibling co-dependency isn’t always dramatic. It often looks like an adult in their thirties who still finds themselves checking their sibling’s phone for warning signs or who has never learned to ask for help themselves because they spent their whole childhood being the one who didn’t need any. It can look like guilt that surfaces the moment they do something for themselves rather than for the family. It can look like an inability to set a boundary with the sibling in addiction, even a small one, because doing so feels like abandoning them the way they feel they were once abandoned by their parents’ attention.
Left unaddressed, sibling co-dependency tends to follow people well into adulthood, shaping how they show up in marriages, friendships and their own parenting. Many adult siblings of a person with addiction describe becoming hyper-responsible, uncomfortable with rest and quick to override their own needs for someone else’s, patterns that were adaptive inside a chaotic childhood home but become exhausting once that household is no longer the only reality they’re living in.
Most family-oriented addiction treatment in India, when it exists at all, tends to focus on parents and the person with the addiction. Siblings are often left out entirely, treated as bystanders rather than people who were shaped by the same experience. This is a significant gap. Clinical guidance on treating substance use disorders specifically notes that siblings can be as influential in a person’s recovery as parents are and that excluding them from family-based treatment is a missed opportunity on multiple fronts, for the person in recovery and for the sibling’s own wellbeing.
Family therapy at Veda Rehabilitation and Wellness deliberately includes siblings which gives them something they’ve often never had: a space where their own experience is the subject of the conversation, not a footnote to someone else’s. It also gives families a structured way to redistribute attention more fairly, address old resentments honestly and interrupt the family role a sibling may have been carrying since childhood without ever being asked whether they wanted it.
For siblings themselves, a few things tend to make a real difference. Naming addiction clearly as an illness, not a character flaw and not something the sibling caused or could have prevented, helps loosen some of the guilt that builds up over years. Seeking individual support, whether therapy or a support group specifically for siblings, gives them somewhere to put feelings that never had room in the family home. And learning, often for the first time, that setting a boundary with an addicted brother or sister isn’t a betrayal, but a form of self-preservation that actually makes it more possible to stay present for the relationship long-term, tends to be one of the more freeing realisations a sibling can reach.
Families that build sibling inclusion into their treatment process from the start, rather than treating it as an afterthought once the person in addiction is stable, tend to come out of the recovery process with fewer hidden fractures. The sibling who never caused trouble deserves a seat at that table too.
Parental attention naturally shifts toward the child struggling with addiction, and Indian families often keep the situation private due to stigma, leaving siblings without space to express their own experience. Researchers refer to siblings in this position as the “forgotten victims” of a family’s addiction crisis.
Sibling co-dependency describes patterns like over-responsibility, difficulty setting boundaries, and suppressing personal needs, often developed while growing up with an addicted sibling. In adulthood, this can show up as chronic guilt, discomfort with rest, and struggles with boundaries in other relationships.
Research has found that adolescents with a parent or older sibling with a substance use disorder face a significantly elevated risk of developing one themselves. This isn’t inevitable, but it’s a real pattern worth acknowledging honestly rather than treating as an unspoken fear.
Yes. Clinical guidance notes that siblings can be as influential in a person’s recovery as parents, yet they’re frequently excluded from family-based treatment. Including siblings gives them a space to address their own experience and helps families rebalance attention more fairly.
A widely used clinical framework describes roles including the “hero” who overachieves to bring the family pride, the “lost child” who avoids being any trouble, the “scapegoat” who absorbs blame, and the “mascot” who uses humour to ease tension. Most siblings recognise themselves in one of these patterns.
Reframing addiction as an illness rather than a choice helps reduce guilt, and understanding that a boundary is a form of self-preservation rather than abandonment makes it easier to sustain the relationship long-term. Individual therapy or a sibling-specific support group can help build this understanding.
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