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Effects of alcoholic parents on children
Effects of alcoholic parents on children
Effects of alcoholism on children
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Breaking Free Drug addiction, alcoholism, and self-identity issues have a seemingly direct relationship to growing up with an alcoholic parent. Children with at least one alcoholic parental figure should be provided with early intervention counseling. These children need help to develop their own identities, outside of the parent’s addiction, and receive proactive treatment against developing addictive and self-destructive behaviors. The unfortunate circumstance, however, is that alcoholics are driven to be self-centered and share a lack of concern for others. Alcoholic parents tend to withhold love and affection from their children. These are the cases that should receive early counseling but the alcoholic parent is generally unwilling to acknowledge this need and provide it to the child who desperately needs it. …show more content…
I lacked self-esteem, had feelings of isolation, was always fearful of abandonment, sought out (and stayed in) unhealthy relationships, was afraid to stand up for myself, and I have tendencies to always be the caretaker of others at the expense of myself. I am certain that these identity issues I struggle with stem from the fact that I had an alcoholic parent. I personally did not receive treatment and still struggle with these issues. Even though I was already aware of the struggles of growing up with an alcoholic parent, and I personally resolved to not become an addict myself, I still ended up in a relationship with an alcoholic. If I had this information back then I would have avoided any relationship with someone like my father. I loved him of course, but it never felt reciprocated. I assume that is the driver as to why I was always chasing affection and feared abandonment. Even at this cost I married an alcoholic and had children with him, sentencing them as well to the struggles of breaking free from someone else’s
Raising a family is never easy. However raising a family and being an alcoholic make things even harder. Having an alcohol addiction can be
I started drinking when I was 16 years old. The reason of my drinking started because the father I had left me when I was 12 years of age. I felt an emptiness as a father figure because my father left and I “filled” that emptiness with alcohol. Alcohol made me feel complete. I did not know the downsides of being intoxicated until I experienced it myself. It all started when my dad left my mother for a hooker he found in a bar. My father left his wife and 3 kids for a women he had just met. A physical problem was when my father invited me and my sibling to his other daughters baptism. Getting there the women my father was with and I felt so much anger, hatred and sadness. I had a couple drinks and everything went downhill. I ended up fighting my father’s girl and ending my relationship with my father. Under the alcohol intoxication I beat my father’s girl up really bad and my adrenalin did not make me stop. I beat her up so bad that there was blood on the floor. My emotional experience was that I always felt alone. I always felt sad. Even though I used alcohol to “fill in” my emptiness is wasn't enough. I would cry myself to sleep when my father didn’t help financially. My family problem because alcohol was because me and sibling were depending on my mother to take care of all the house necessities. Alcohol makes me an aggressive person and that leads to family problems. I’m in
In the article “Children of Alcoholics” produced by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the author explains the negative effect of parental alcoholism on their children’s emotional wellbeing, when he writes, “Children with alcoholic parents are more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and/or depression, antisocial behavior, relationship difficulties, behavioral problems, and/or alcohol abuse. One recent study finds that children of drug-abusing fathers have the worst mental health issues (Children of Alcoholics 1). Walls reflects upon her childhood experiences in which her father would become drunk and not be able to control his behavior, as she writes, “After working on the bottle for a while, Dad turned into an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up Mom or anyone else who got in his way. When he’d had his fill of cussing and hollering and smashing things up, he’d collapse” (Walls 23). The Walls children, who frequently encounter their father’s abusive behavior, are affected mentally in the same way that national studies have shown. Jeanette Walls describes how, after drinking, her father’s behavior becomes cruel and intolerable through his use of profanity, threats, and angry, even violent, actions. In a conventional family, a parent has the responsibility of being a role model to influence their children in a positive way as they develop. Unfortunately, in the Walls family and other families with alcoholic parents, children are often subject to abuse and violence, which places them at risk, not only physically, but mentally. Rex’s irrational behavior when he is drunk is detrimental to the children’s upbringing, causing them to lose trust in their parents, have significantly lower self-esteem and confidence, and feel insecure. Rex’s behavior contributes to Jeanette’s
There is a total of “970000 children(Children, Lambie-Sias)” under the age of 17 in the U.S. that are living with a parent or guardian who abuses alcohol.The guardian or parent put a lot of psychological hurt on these children, but typically it’s due to the fact that the parent has a coexisting psychiatric disorder. You can generally tell if the COAs (Children of Alcoholics) by certain indicators they show. They normally are always late, they don’t really care about their physical appearance, they could be really excited during the day but once it’s time to go home seem down in the dumps because they don’t want to return home to see their parent or guardian abuse alcohol. More psychological problems or indicators you can see are when the child has trouble controlling their mood and behavior, during the day they will show disobedient behavior, random outbreaks of their emotions, on normal day’s basis this child is known as the “class clown”. “Psychosomatic Responses(Children, Lambie-Sias)” this child will show during the school day are due to the emotional hurt they are feeling so they will confirm this by “physical symptomlogy (Children, Lambie-Sias)”, headaches and complaint of stomachs are usually what they will tell a teacher or nurse is wrong with them and these normally have unexplainable causes. The majority of the time these children, convey what
As a child, I did not know what alcoholism was, I just assumed that the Beefeater Gin stench coming from my relative was his cologne. However, as I grew older and was exposed to a greater variety of people and circumstances, I slowly became aware of alcoholism. I began to incorporate the new experiences I had in relation to alcohol use with a deeper understanding of my extended family. This new awareness was unsettling and painful to me.
One in five adults can identify with growing up with an alcoholic relative and Twenty-eight million Americans have one parent abusing or dependent on alcoholic (Walker, & Lee, 1998). There are devastating and ubiquitous effects of alcoholism, which vary from psychological, social, or biological problems for families. Counselor’s treating this problem all agree that the relationships within a family, especially between a parent and a child is one of the most influential within a system, but what are the effects on the family when a parent is an alcoholic? Contemporary research has found there is a higher prevalence of problems in the family when alcohol is the organizing principle. In addition, there is copious research on the roles of individuals within the family becoming defined into specific categories, and evidently, the roles may become reversed between the parent and the child. This topic of functional roles in alcoholic families will be analyzed and investigated further. Family therapy has had substantial results in the treatment of an alcoholic parent. These results will be discussed more along, with the literature examining the existing research related, to specific interventions and treatments in family therapy with an alcoholic parent. Before research on the treatment is illuminated on distinctive therapies, it is crucial for counselors facilitating family therapy to comprehend the literature on the presenting problems commonly, associated with alcoholic parents and the effects this population has on their families. Furthermore, the adverse outcomes an alcoholic parent has on their children and spouses has been researched and reviewed.
...nding what is "normal" and what is not because of the unpredictable environment they were raised in. Often times alcoholic have a tendency to abuse their children and their spouse. Many times, alcoholics come from an abusive home and they have a history of alcoholism in the family already. In conclusion, alcohol affects every part of your life. It has irreversible affects on the body, including the liver and the brain. Alcohol also has detrimental affects on the mind, which leads to feeling inferior and unstoppable. Alcohol and alcoholism also affects family as well. There are many treatment programs and support groups that can help. However, most of the time the alcoholics refuse to admit they have a problem with their drinking, so it goes untreated. It is best to seek help, as living with an alcoholic parent is not only traumatizing, but taxing on the body and mind.
Earls, F., Reich, W., Jung, K. G., & Cloninger, C. R. (2006). Psychopathology in children of alcoholic and antisocial parents. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 12(4), 481 - 487.
Our family was highly dysfunctional. My mother was an alcoholic and my father left at an early age. I never dealt with what happened until a few years ago. I always thought I was fine until it finally surfaced. Unlike Ferree, I did not become a sexual addict but I was damaged. I was emotionally broken. Honestly, I believe I will have some level of difficulty counseling sexual addicts who have victimized a child. However, I believe that in order for me to successful help, I must remember that these individuals were often victims
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.
For example, the character Timber experienced a tragic event which left his beloved wife, Sylvan, with brain damage, causing her to forget who he was. Her love and support was the driving force in his. Timber says “she’d come home at night and find me there and we’d walk into the house which was our home” (Wagamese, 2009, p. 205). His choice of words convey that the house was only a home when Sylvan was there. When she was taken away from him, he was emotionally homeless. With his wife needing care in an expensive special facility, Timber resorted to selling their belongings and eventually their house, making him physically homeless as well. This, in association with the loss of his wife, caused him to leave his former life. This response is similar to the “fight or flight” response animals and humans have with the presence of stress (Davidson, 2015). Timber chose to flee from his problems as apposed to fight to rebuild his life. With this behaviour, it is not surprizing that he also took up a drinking problem. Similar to the aforementioned Digger, Timber used alcohol as a means to self-medicate. He says about drinking, “it’s all [he] could do because [he] didn’t want to surface to the blackness, the emptiness of [his] life” (Wagamese, 2009, p. 208). Timber’s poor mental health and substance abuse only further contributed to his
The scenario I picked is the first one, involving Mrs. W., who has traits of an alcoholic. Her mother is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Mrs. W.’s family has a history of alcoholism; Mrs. W’s husband is also an alcoholic. Mrs. W. has a history of struggling to control her drinking. This is not a good situation for their daughter, who is 6 years old. The daughter will see her parent’s out of control drinking, and it will mentally and emotionally affect her. I feel this family needs family therapy, along with individual therapy for both parents. Alcoholism effects the family as a unit, and every individual in the family. Per the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), “addiction has the power to destroy a family”
Getting your next drink is all you need to think about. Parents who drink a lot may treat their children badly. They might ignore them; they might abuse them physically and verbally. They may even make them feel as if they are not worth very much. A person who is abusing alcohol may become violent.
Alcoholism is not an individual’s disease. It is a family disease, because it causes dysfunction of the family. The family gets worse as the addiction worsens. It is the family’s responsibility to make efforts to restore the family back to normal. Everyone has to play their part if they are to be successful.
For all 17 years of my life alcoholism has affected my life and my families life too. My Grandpa Haringa, who is my mom’s dad, has been an alcoholic for a long time. The first thing that happened my mimi divorced him because he was such a negative influence and was too drunk to be able to have grandchildren. At the time of my birth he wasn’t really there to be with me. When I was growing up I saw him only once but that was within the confines of his front yard. It wasn’t that we didn’t have time to see him because we was close, He lives at the big brick house on our way to church. He wasn’t really there for me when I played sports like my first baseball game or even those games that I play to this day. His brother Herman is more like a Grandpa to me than my real grandpa was. So people just really think that alcohol is the life for them even some people thinking it is more important than their kids and their kids. I remember the first time he talked to me, that I remember, was only a year ago at church on February 9 2014. I remember thinking that who is this dude, because I was ushering that month and he said these words “Can you had me a bulletin”. So then I said sure and after I handed him the Bulletin, My dad started to talk to him and then they didn’t hug or anything and then he walked away. My dad then started to ask me “do you know who that was”. I said I had no clue, so then he started to tell me that was my grandpa. I started to question my dad by saying like are you sure that was him, he said yeah. I went to the restroom and then started to check myself in the mirror because I wanted to make sure that I looked good in front of him. Now my other Grandpa, Tim Laidlaw, who was my dad’s step-dad. He has had a huge problem with alcoholism, I have never seen him or even talked to him, that I remember. He has had health problem with his heart because of his addiction and continues to have health issues. Which proves that families