Children who grow up with emotionally abusive alcoholic parents suffer life long consequences. Ideally, you should feel nurtured, safe, and happy in your home. When your parents consistently meet your needs, you feel valued and loved. This is not the case for children growing up with an alcoholic parent where their needs often get ignored. Alcoholic parents whether it is an alcoholic mother or father set the tone of the house (this may be true of an alcoholic dad as well) which is usually a tense and chaotic environment.
Often, there is verbal, physical, and emotional abuse. Think of how terrible it must be for a child to be called abusive names by a drunk mom (or dad). The child does not even know if his mom will show up at school or soccer to pick him up, or if he will see her passed out on the couch again when he gets home. Many times, the children in these environments learn to raise themselves (get meals, finish homework on their own, help take care of their mom etc.) or depend on older siblings who should not have to shoulder the level of responsibilities they do. Children growing up in alcoholic families are called adult children of alcoholics (acoa) when they are grown because they have so many issues from being raised in a chaotic environment.
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Here is a case I treated in my practice that illustrates this:
Amy is a 32 year-old stay at home mom with 2 kids (8, 11). She is an alcoholic. Her husband is a lawyer and is very busy with his practice. However, she goes out with her girlfriends for lunch every day and has 2 glasses of wine. When she comes home, she has another glass or two or three of wine and watches TV in her bedroom. She often calls a friend to pick her kids up from school since she is in no shape to drive. When her kids get home, their Mom is laying in her bed "out of it". Her 11 year -old daughter tells me she hates coming home and seeing her mom. If she puts on music, her mom yells at her, "What is wrong with you? Turn it off, it is giving me a headache". She said her mom is always in a bad mood and cries a lot.
She wonders why her mom does not care enough about her to quit drinking. Her older brother helps her with her homework. They make their own dinner because their dad comes home late. When their Dad gets home, there is often a blow up with a lot of angry words because his wife continues her irresponsible. Occasionally, their mom gets so angry, she pushes or slaps their dad. He never hits her back, but occasionally throws things. Both children have witnessed many of these fights. Sometimes they go run to another room and cover their ears.
Children who grow up with an alcoholic parent have to shoulder an inappropriate level of responsibility for their ages. They often end up helping the alcoholic parent in a reverse parent child role. They try to please others at the expense of their own needs. When they grow up, the risk of becoming an alcoholic or marrying an alcoholic is over 50%. They have anger and self- esteem issues as well. If you are a parent that drinks, it is imperative you seek help for your addiction. If you have an alcoholic spouse, you must take steps to get spouse help. Your children depend on you to keep them safe. You need to take care of yourself so your children do not suffer serious consequences because of your poor choices. Adult children of alcoholics (acoa) have life-long issues.
Alcoholic Mother - An Alcoholic Family Nightmare ALCOHOLIC
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