This paper describes part of a narcotic treatment system, including the clients, their families, and the staff members at clinics involved in their treatment. It suggests that addiction can be understood as maintained, in part, by the often conflictual institutions and individuals treating it. These function in such a way that a social system is created that replicates core aspects of addicts' family structure at a number of levels (20). Addiction can be understood to be a part of, and an adaptation to, this context, which it helps to maintain. Treatment implications are suggested at this level.Addiction, although traditionally assumed to be an intrapsychic and/or physiological problem, has recently been redefined as part of an interpersonal process, especially family interaction. As has been described in the literature (7,20,31), there are several characteristics that seem to be particularly important in understanding the relationship between the addict's experience of his or her family, and those behaviors and experiences that are collectively the manifestations of the addicts' "addiction." As stated in an earlier paper (19), the family structure and the core problems seem remarkably similar irrespective of the ethnic group and socioeconomic status.In this study, a majority of the addicts were male so they will collectively be referred to as "he" in the text. A majority of the "overinvolved" parents were their mothers, so they will collectively be referred to as "she" in the text. The genders of the overinvolved parent and the addict occurs in all combinations, however.In the addict's family, there is a pervasive long-standing conflict between the parents, especially concerning one parent's chemical abuse, and a mutual lack of appropriate separation from the parents' own families-of-origin. This results in either a conflictual relationship between the parents, or a distant,