According to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, an estimated 26 million children in the United States live in alcoholic homes, with the majority of these children being under 18 years of age. The impact on a child living in an alcoholic home is astounding and results in a higher likelihood of the child becoming an adult alcoholic, engaging in violent or disruptive behavior and developing mental health disturbances. In addition to the risk of developing an alcohol related disorder, children suffer emotionally, which impacts relationships and their future feelings toward themselves.
Role Confusion
In a family, each member plays a role no matter if it is a traditional two parent home or single parent home. Children of alcoholics tend to become confused in what role they play in the family, which later impacts how the adult child of an alcoholic will connect in his relationships. The University of Illinois notes four different roles the child may take on. The hero is the child who tries to maintain peace in the chaotic household while ensuring that the family appears normal to outsiders. The adjuster tends to cope with family chaos through being invisible or avoiding conflict. The placater takes responsibility in soothing family distress, nurturing the other members while neglecting her own needs for comfort. The scapegoat serves to create disruptions as a means of expressing distress; however, the scapegoat tends to only express one emotion, which is anger.
Normal Redefined
Children who grow up in a home of altered perception tend to have an altered view of what normal is when they go out into the world. According to Janet Woititz, author of "Adult Children of Alcoholics," children of alcoholics guess at what normal is. Essentially, this means expecting unpredictability from other people, assumptions that all families act the same and that using alcohol is acceptable. Alcohol Answers online says it is important to note that children in alcoholic homes define alcoholism by the belief that the parent drinks too much and that definition may not be the same as the clinical definition of alcoholism.
Health Problems
Children of alcoholics are prone to increased anxiety, depression and physical ailments. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics notes that children have lower self-esteem in adolescence and exhibit anxiety symptoms such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding or phobias. Gastrointestinal disorders are common in children from alcoholic homes, which is associated with increased anxiety. Children of alcoholic mothers may also have the risk of prenatal exposure to alcohol, further leading to complications associated with fetal alcohol syndrome, cognitive disturbances and behavioral difficulties.
Adult Children
Although children grow up and get away from the alcoholic parent, this does not insure that the impact of living in a home with alcoholism disappears. Additional considerations for the adult child of alcoholics includes the difficulties of seeking constant approval, yet never gaining a sense of acceptance, acting overly responsible or consistently irresponsible and sabotaging possible healthy relationships due to the altered perception of what is normal. Children and adult children of alcoholics benefit from ongoing support, such as counseling or groups such as Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, to learn skills to overcome the deficits created from living in a home of alcoholism.
References
- National Association for Children of Alcoholics: Important Facts
- Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Inc: The Problem
- Adult Children of Alcoholics: Janet Woititz 1983, Health Communications, Inc.
- Alcohol Answers: Effects on Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents
- State University of New York at Buffalo: Adult Children of Alcoholics
