The Glass Castle: The Effects Of Alcoholism And Child Abuse

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While both alcoholism and child abuse are prevalent issues in today's society, alcohol is a more prevalent issue at hand. The Glass Castle clearly illustrates the reality of the effects when we as adult abuse our children, and the everlasting effects it has upon our children’s children; domino effect if one must, or vicious cycle that is difficult to break free from. Whatever the case maybe alcoholism and child abuse go hand in hand like fuel and fire, when both combined and united, both are extremely combustible, and deadly. Thus, as we go into depth into the effects of alcoholism and child abuse, we will analyze how people’s lives are impacted from a social, emotional, physical, psychological, and economical standpoint by relating our personal effects to successfully analyze a controversial topic.
Rex Walls, father of Jeanette, was rational to the core when it came to logic, an inventor, and quite an intelligent being but lacked the capability to sustain an economic stance to provide for his family. His mother, Erma Ruth, sexually abused him as a child, which later on in life led to alcohol abuse, because he questioned his masculinity and confidence. Clearly his mother’s actions psychologically affected him for life, leaving him to cope with such shame through the only ways of numbing his pain through alcohol. However, to what extent did this man loose the true sight that his problem was not the molestation as a child, but his own personal needs, as an alcoholic became the real issue at hand? Never did he seek out therapy to sober up, which in return affected his family. “A couple of months after Dad lost his job, he came home with a bag of groceries” (pg. 68), through his alcoholism, he was unable to sustain a stable job which ...

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...to the very end of his early sixties. For this I respect Rex’s decisions as he led life, and Jeannette though she Glass Castle was an illusion, it was an illusion that he tried his hardest to make true, and by all means what counts in the end is that we gave it our best effort, and that’s what Rex did for his family!

Primary source: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls pages (68, 112, 280, 180-181, 225, 212-213)
Secondary sources:
- The Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society by Louisiana State Medical Society

- Interactive journaling as a brief intervention for Level-II DUI and DWI offenders by
Amy Mary Scheck, Norman G. Hoffmann, Steven L. Proctor and Ryan J. Couillou
- Commentary: gabapentin for alcohol use disorder by Jon O. Ebbert
Socio-emotional factors in alcohol dependence by
- Deyashini Tikka, Daya Ram, Indu Dubey and Sai Tikka

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