Alcoholism: causes, effects, and treatment approaches

Alcoholism: Children of Alcoholic Parents

Alcoholism is a serious problem that affects millions of American families in unthinkable ways. More importantly is the effect on the children of problem drinkers, who often suffer from emotional and psychological problems as a result of parental alcohol abuse. Research on this topic has often revealed that children of alcoholic parents stand a greater chance of becoming alcoholics themselves. The manner in which a young person responds to a parent's drinking depends on such factors as the young person's personality, external support systems and family environment. The national Family and Parenting Institute Chief Executive, Mary McLeod, states "For most families where parents misuse alcohol, the drinking and its devastating effects are a secret, putting help out of reach. (Alcohol Concern, 2004)."

Alcohol Concern reports an estimated 920,000 children are currently living in a home where one or both parents misuse alcohol, with and 6.2% of adults having had grown up in a family where one or both of their parents drank excessively (Alcohol Concern, 2004). It is also reported by Alcohol Concern that parental alcohol abuse is a "factor in 23% of child neglect cases, 13% calls regarding emotional abuse, 10% of calls about physical abuse, and 5% of calls involving sexual abuse (Alcohol Concern, 2004). With such negative statistics as these, one can only assume that the children of alcoholic parents strongly face the dangers of becoming an alcoholic parent themselves.

Drinking problems are not often discussed in the family setting, and the social ramifications as a result are detrimental. Children and young people that grow up in these families learn to feel that drinking is a normal part of their lives and ultimately miss the seriousness of future problems caused by alcoholism. The psychological impact on these children often leads to the development of alcohol problems in their adult lives. Children of problem drinkers have been shown to have higher levels of behavioral difficulty and school-related problems. An estimated 6.6 million children under the age of 18 years live in households with at least one alcoholic parent (Russell, 1984). In addition, genetic studies indicate that alcoholism tends to run in families and that a genetic vulnerability for alcoholism exists (Cloninger, 1981). The family environment also may affect transmission of alcoholism to children of alcoholic parents.

Children of alcoholics are three to four times more likely to become alcoholic than the general population. Research reports that 50% of children of alcoholics marry an alcoholic; 70% develop a pattern of compulsive behavior as an adult, including alcoholism, drug abuse, and overeating (Balding, 2002). Furthermore, no statistic can measure the psychological pain that children of alcoholics grow up with and often carry into adulthood. Until recently, children of alcoholics weren't even considered all that different from other kids with problems. Often, they were ignored by treatment programs, which focused on the alcoholic parent. In an alcoholic family, a child's need for love, support, and emotional nurturing is often minimized or forgotten altogether in the endless tug-of-war between the family and alcoholism.

Children of alcoholic parents often have few role models for demonstrating how emotions can be expressed positively, the child adapts to chaos in order to survive. The constant hurt and confusion of the alcoholic household often reveals itself in children protecting themselves by lying, suppressing feelings, and withdrawing from close relationships. Having learned these defenses in adolescence, children of alcoholics tend to repeat them in adulthood, usually without realizing the connection (Buddy, 2005). For those children that do not later become alcoholics themselves, they often marry an alcoholic, or into a family with alcohol related issues, thus repeating the familial cycle that they grew up in (Buddy, 2005).

However, it is also important to note that many studies of children of alcoholics have methodological problems, such as the composition of the sample chosen for a study. Some samples seem biased due to the fact that the study sample is based on children in treatment or in trouble, which can affect the study results significantly. In addition, studies often are conducted without the benefit of matched control groups. This absence of control groups makes it difficult to generalize results from treatment samples to non-treatment populations (Russell, 1984). All of these limitations can affect the outcome of the study.

Although the research findings discussed above suggest that some children suffer negative consequences due to parental alcoholism, a larger proportion of children of alcoholic parents function well and do not develop serious drinking problems. Studies comparing children of alcoholic parents and non-alcoholic parents have suggested that differences in cognitive performance are observed most frequently. Cognitive function in children of alcoholic parents has been examined by many researchers because it is an important element needed for adaptation at all stages of development; it can be measured uniformly across developmental stages; and it often is associated with the symptoms of alcoholism.

It is no surprise that school-aged children of alcoholic parents often have academic problems. Academic performance may be a better measure than IQ of the effect of living with an alcoholic parent. School records indicate that children of alcoholic parents experience such academic difficulties as repeating grades, failing to graduate from high school, and requiring referrals to school psychologists. Although cognitive deficits in children of alcoholic parents may account, in part, for their poor academic performance, motivational difficulties or the stress of the home environment also may contribute to their problems in school.