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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.
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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
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
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
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
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
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.
Raising a family is never easy. However raising a family and being an alcoholic make things even harder. Having an alcohol addiction can be
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.
“When I was 13, my dad started drinking more and more. Every day he would come home from work and have beer, lots of it. I didn’t think much of it at first, but then he started getting more angry and violent. He would shout at my mom and me. It was like my father had gone and been replaced with another guy” says an anonymous kid who lives with an alcoholic parent in “How my dad’s drinking problem almost destroyed my family”. The kid depicts that he is so confused, angry and upset especially when his father got fired for going to work drunk. This is one of many children’s voices who suffers having an alcoholic in their family. Most of them are depressed because alcohol has destroyed their family. This is an addiction that does
...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.
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”
Alcoholism is defined as a disease or disorder where an individual is physically and mentally dependent on alcohol (Aziz, Naz, 2016, p.680). This disorder affects not only behavior by preventing the fulfillment of basic social and occupational tasks, but it also harms aspects of the brain such as memory (Aziz, Naz, 2016, p.680). According to Aziz (2016), alcohol abuse is also linked to depression and anxiety. However, it is important to recognize that these effects of alcoholism go beyond the individual and also impact people around them (Park, Schepp, 2014, p. 1222). In a family setting, having an alcoholic parent can greatly impact children since they are the most vulnerable (Park, Schepp, 2014, p. 1222).
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