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ALCOHOLISM AND FAMILY SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE In a family if one or even both the parents are into drinking of alcohol, the major impact is on the children. Alcoholism becomes the integral, inseparable part of the entire family and that family’s social network. Alcoholism may even be regarded as a discrete “member of the family” as it generates family dynamics and influences family functioning through its interaction with and impact on each family member. The entire family resolves around the alcoholic’s behaviors. Alcoholism affects the entire family. The family living with a person addicted to alcohol contributes a lot of stress to other family members. Not every family takes this stress in the same manner. But the family becomes dysfunctional; …show more content…
Within a family, an individual tries to understand the characteristics of other family members. It is a process to understand the dynamics of family interactions and relationship with family members. The properties of a family are unique in its own way. Assumptions of the Family Systems Perspective The family systems perspectives have two fundamental assumptions. First, a family must be understood as a whole. A family cannot be understood by an individual’s functioning only but as a whole, which includes all the other members’ contribution too. This means that a family member’s behavior is interconnected with each other as the family has circularity pattern; things are conveyed to each other in a circular manner and everyone’s view and perspectives are heard. Second, family systems are assumed to have the ability to be self-reflexive. That means the family have the potential ability to examine their systems, to increase their self-awareness, set goals, and organize goal-directed behavior. Communication among family members facilitates the family’s ability to be
According to “Three Ways Alcoholism Affects the Whole Family”, an alcohol addiction blog, “Alcohol is expensive and alcoholism is doubly so”. Alcohol places major financial burdens on the family.
Alcohol abuse can potentially lead to major health risks, “It can cause damage to the liver, brain, and other organs” (Medline Plus). Alcoholism is an issue that affects a great number of people. According to Medline Plus, “…about 18 million adult Americans have an alcohol use disorder (AUD)” (Medline Plus). When considering these figures only represent the adult population as well as only including the adults in the US, it is apparent that the issue is widespread. Not only does it affect the person but also those around them. Unfortunately many times it affects other members of their family the most. According to American Addiction Centers, “As a general rule, these people have a greater likelihood of having emotional troubles compared to children who grew up in sober homes”. This suggests that the children of the people who suffer from alcoholism are affected to a great extent on an emotional level. As stated by American Addiction Centers, “In general, children of individuals who abuse alcohol are four times more likely to abuse alcohol themselves”, which would then only further the cycle of alcohol
throughout her childhood with an alcoholic father and a selfish mother who cared more about her art and happiness than that of her children’s. Alcohol misuse can affect all aspects of family functioning: social life, finances, good communication, relationships between family members, parenting capability, employment and health issues , It also has a strong correlation with conflicts, disputes and domestic violence which can leave a damaging effect on children. Alcohol misuse often times change the roles played by family member...
Alcoholism is an increasing problem, which has many objectionable consequences. "Excessive drinking involved in 70 percent of deaths from falls, 69 percent of drownings, 83 percent of fatal fire accidents, 40 percent of accidental deaths in the job, 50 percent of highway fatalities, 52 percent of spouse beatings, and 38 percent of child abuse." (Allan Luks, 13) So alcoholism causes many troubles. It can destroy a person's life: relationship with family and relatives, and even one's attitude toward life.
In the United States alone, there are 28 million children of alcoholics - seven million of these children are under the age of eighteen. Every day, these children experience the horrors of living with an alcoholic parent. 40%-50% of children of alcoholics grow up and become alcoholics themselves. Others develop eating disorders or become workaholics. Children of alcoholics receive mixed messages, inconsistency, upredictability, betrayal, and sometimes physical and sexual abuse from their parents. They are made to grow up too fast because they must help keep the family structure together by doing housework and taking care of siblings since the alcoholic is not doing his or her part. Children form roles that they play to help disguise the disease. The roles help distract people from seeing the real problem and serve to protect the family so it can continue to function. There are five roles that the family members will take on-- the enabler, the hero, the scapegoat, the lost child, and the mascot.
An adage goes by “show me your friends and I will tell you who you are” but in family system theory, it more like show me/tell me about a family member, and I will tell and interpret the family as a whole. Family system theory work hand in hand with the definition of family because, based on how the family defines itself, you can tell more about the family in terms of their communication and coexistence in general.
Alcoholism is a complex disease, as it affects more than just the person living with it. In the article “Coping with an Alcoholic Parent” we explore why people drink too much, how it affects families, and the ramifications it has on the children in the household. The focus of this article was on children in the household, and the ways in which they can deal with having a parent who is considered an alcoholic. The next article, “Alcoholism and the Effect on the Family” deals with what alcoholism does to a person, breaking it down into three sections: Physiological effects such as tremors or blackouts, psychological effects such as the obsessive desire to drink, and the behavioral problems that disrupt home life and work. Once the article discusses the effects of alcoholism, it looks deeper into what the effects on the family are, especially from the child’s perspective. The “High School Dropout Statistics” were updated on the first of 2014. They show when kids dropout of school, what demographic they belong to, the rate of drop...
As the result of being raised in a home where one or both parents were addicted, children of alcoholics generally have certain common characteristics that continue to affect them as adults. Members of a dysfunctional family tend to build up defenses to deal with the problems of the addicted family member. Common problems include lack of communication, mistrust, and low self-esteem. Adult children of alcoholics often become isolated, are afraid of authority figures, have difficulty distinguishing between normal and abnormal behavior, and judge themselves harshly. This often leads to enduring feelings of guilt and problems with intimate relationships. In many cases, adult children of alcoholics develop an over-developed sense of responsibility, and respond poorly to criticism. They may feel different from other people, fear failure but tend to sabotage success, and fall in love with people they can pity and rescue. Fortunately, there are a number of support groups designed to help adult children of alcoholics identify their problems, and start resolving them.
Alcoholism is an addiction to the consumption of alcohol or the noetic illness and compulsive demeanor resulting from alcohol dependency. Heavy drinking causes considerable damage to the body including cancer, heart problems, and liver disease. Alcoholics have deep rooted problems associated with alcohol abuse such as trying to keep families together as well as personal relationships. Alcoholics have a tendency to lie about their addiction and are mostly in denial as they cannot acknowledge or recognize that their is a problem with their alcohol consumption. In the event of people that depend on liquor to capacity or feel physically constrained to drink they are considered an alcoholic. Alcohol abuse is the most extreme manifestation of issue drinking. Substance masters make a refinement alcohol and alcohol abuse (likewise called alcohol reliance). Not at all like heavy drinkers, liquor abusers capacity as far as possible on their drinking habits. In any case their liquor utilization upset toward oneself and hazardous to themselves or others. Regularly, relatives and close companions feel committed to blanket for the individual with the drinking issue. So friends tend to tackle the load of cleaning up wreckage, heaps, lying or working more to make a decent living. Imagining that nothing isn't right and concealing without end the sum of their apprehensions and feelings of disdain can take a huge toll. Kids are particularly touchy and can endure significant trauma when a guardian is a heavy drinker or overwhelming consumer. It also makes families totally resent and hate being accompanied by the person with the alcohol problem. (www.helpguid.org 1).
...s such as identification with or imitation of the alcoholic parent. It may also happen because of the social and family conditions that are thought to be associated with the development of alcoholism. These include family conflict, job insecurity, divorce, and social stigma. Being diagnosed with alcoholism has a major effect on the person personally. It cause them to change there way of thinking collectively. It changes their view of life and the things going on around them. In the alcoholics personal obstacles they usually have history and a pattern of use. They probably have gone through relapse and other associated problems. If the alcoholic started drinking in there secondary education(college) they may obtain deficits in their education. They may even obtain a learning disability or something of that nature. Because of this persons deficit they may not have the proper education or skills to obtain a high paying job. If the alcoholic is already in the workforce they tend to be in high paying positions that cause them to be over worked and highly stressed. They also they may choose to ignore the problem, do nothing, and hope it will either rectify itself or at least not worsen.
In fact, it may be proven that the risk for alcoholism is likely to be inherited if a family member has struggled with alcoholism, “Research shows that the risk for developing alcoholism does indeed run in families.” (Mitchell, par. 4), genetics ultimately explain the high risk of alcoholism in families. It is important to note that it may be a risk for alcoholism to be passed on in families, “genetics make up 50% of the risk for alcohol and drug dependence, not all people who use alcohol and drugs will become addicted” (Wilcox, par. 6), addiction is impacted by many different factors. In addition, lifestyle can play a major role in the inheritance of alcoholism. For example, the amount of stress that may occur in an addict’s life may raise an alcoholic to start drinking, “the amount of stress in your life- may increase your risk for alcoholism” (‘Alcoholism Is”, par. 7), risk is an important risk factor that can be managed. Considering that lifestyle plays a role, it is urgent that families pay attention to what they do around their children because it may affect what their children’s future actions. Genetics may be one of the greatest influential factors of alcoholism, the inheritance of alcoholism is quite complex, but it is clear that alcoholism runs in
Alcoholism is a continuing stressor, not only for the alcoholic but also for the family members. Drinking and intoxication can also adversely affect intimate and family relations, and friendships. The researchers are of the opinion that alcoholics are not “weak” or “immoral”. They have the real disease or difficulty caused by the combination of factors including environmental influence, difficulties in emotion regulation, biological make up, stress, depression, and anxiety (Marks, 2014). When looking at alcoholism from a family systems perspective, it is considered an important aspect of family life that must be addressed in order for the family to survive the effects of alcoholism. The hope is that if one member of the
According to Robert J Ackerman: alcoholism will influence the whole family and will also cause massive problems for the family, some of them are:
Alcohol has been known to tear apart families, because in some cases, a dad has had too many drinks and abuses someone in the family. Whether it be a kid, or a spouse, if they were not intoxicated with alcohol this event could likely be avoided. Alcohol makes the user make rash decisions and decide to do things they would not normally do. For example, a less violent father. A father typically would not beat his children unless they disobeyed him and he would discipline them. But when alcohol is thrown into the mix then the father might take out all of his anger and stress out on his family members who did nothing against him to provoke him. Alcohol takes away someone’s control and ability to make smart decisions, for this exact reason alcohol can affect families in more than one negative way. One way that alcohol affects the family is neglect of responsibilities (American Addiction Center ). If an adult is drunk all of the time this will restrict their thinking and actions. Being drunk most of the time, often results in a lot more problems for the family itself. Drinking too much alcohol will more than likely result in a hangover. Hangover’s will cause an adult to not do their job fully, or they would call out and not go to work because the hangover was so bad. Which in turn calling out of work and not showing up to work leads to them either getting fired or quitting a job. Then the parent cannot provide for his or her family, basically, neglecting their family for alcohol and prioritizing alcohol over their own flesh and blood. Alcohol can tear apart a family very easily, just by bringing out the abusive side of a parent and eventually leading to the kid or kids getting taken away or beaten to death. The sad truth is in some cases the abusive parent does not mean to hurt the child, and when they sober up they finally realize the big mistake that they have made. Alcohol affects teenagers when they start
Alcoholism in a family affects every single member in a negative manner. Today my cousin lives with me and my family because there came a time when her father tried to kill her when he was drunk. And now after many hard years my cousin is learning how to stand on her own two feet. She goes to college and has a part time job. I just wish she had the same opportunities I had when I growing up. Even when I did get into trouble with her over the past years I still had my parents support and they helped me in each and every way. When alcohol is abused in a family, all members are effected, especially the children.