Alcoholic Parents: Understanding the Impact on Children and How to Seek Help

However, this coping strategy can lead to difficulties in emotional regulation and interpersonal relationships later in life. Physical symptoms of PTSD can include sleep disturbances and somatic complaints. Children of alcoholic parents may experience nightmares, insomnia, or other sleep-related issues. They may also develop physical symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, or other unexplained pains that have no apparent medical cause. These physical manifestations of stress and trauma can further complicate their daily lives and overall well-being.

The Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) organization was created to help people who grew up with addicted parents or in dysfunctional homes. The group literature and meetings are meant to help adult children identify the problems that have arisen as a result of their upbringing and offer up a solution. Studies also suggest higher rates of children being removed from their homes with the presence of mothers who misuse alcohol or other substances. Having a parent with an SUD may also make an adult more likely to have sud counselor meaning a relationship with someone navigating a similar experience.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Alcoholic Parents, and Later Risk of Alcoholism and Depression

Alcoholism is one of these adverse childhood experiences, and it can disrupt the normal development of coping skills. Children growing up in an alcoholic home will experience in adulthood many adverse effects. In a study of more than 25,000 adults, those who had a parent with AUD remembered their childhoods as “difficult” and said they struggled with “bad memories” of their parent’s alcohol misuse. Some people experience this as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), like other people who had different traumatic childhood experiences. As painful as it is for someone to live with alcohol use disorder, they aren’t the only ones affected.

Internal and External Behavior Issues

Here’s a look at the psychological, emotional, interpersonal, and behavioral effects of being raised by parents who are struggling with alcohol use. Growing up with a parent with alcohol use disorder has real-life consequences for many adult children. Even long after leaving your parent’s home, you could still be dealing with the aftermath of their alcohol addiction. Children of alcoholics (COAs) experience numerous psychosocial challenges from infancy to adulthood. Research has shown the deep psychological impression of parental alcohol use over COAs. There are many different forms of trauma experienced by children of alcoholic parents, including the following.

1. The presence of secrecy, loss, and fear results in an unstable family system that hinders healthy development and bonding for children.
2. Chronic trauma can develop due to neglect, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
3. When you grow up in a home with one or more alcoholic parents, the impact of the dysfunction reverberates throughout your life.
4. A treatment center will attempt to verify your health insurance benefits and/or necessary authorizations on your behalf.
5. In 2019, around 14.5 million people ages 12 and older in the United States were living with this condition, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
6. Adults who have parents with alcohol use disorder are often called “Adult Children of Alcoholics,” aka ACoAs or ACAs.

In therapy, one might discover a great deal about oneself in overcoming the side-effects of growing up with an alcoholic parent. Just because a person grew up living under the effects of parental alcoholism does not mean they cannot thrive in adulthood. ACOAs can change their lives by beginning a new chapter in their life to experience hope, love, and joy. Some of the most common symptoms that adult children of alcoholics experience are as follows.

Recovery Coaching

Learning life skills will help accomplish much as you learn to live without unreasonable fear or disappointment with yourself. Because their world was chaotic and out of control growing up, ACOAs tend to want to control and hyper-focus on controlling their behavior and those around them. As you might imagine, being a control freak can lead to problems with intimate relationships. Individual therapy is a great place to start, says Michelle Dubey, LCSW, chief clinical officer for Landmark Recovery. The type of therapy you pursue may depend on the issues you’re most concerned about. Your therapist can help you determine a therapy approach that best fits your unique needs and concerns.

Broken promises of the past tell them that trusting someone will backfire on them in the future. If you’re unsure where to start, you can check out Psych Central’s hub on finding mental health support. These may have been practical (like paying the bills) or emotional (like comforting your siblings when Mom and Dad fought). Now you continue to take responsibility for other people’s feelings or for problems that you didn’t cause.

Addiction and Mental Health Resources

Because as a child life felt out of control and unpredictable, as an adult you try to control everyone and everything that feels out of control (which is a lot). You struggle to express yourself, subconsciously remembering how unsafe it was to speak up in your family. Forgiveness and acceptance play important roles in the healing process, though the journey to these states can be complex and deeply personal. For some, forgiveness of their alcoholic parent may be an important step in their healing journey, while for others, acceptance of their past experiences without forgiveness may be more appropriate.

Our hope is merely to capture the spirit of the fellowships, and to approach people with the language they commonly use to describe the disease of addiction. Please visit adultchildren.org to learn more about the problem and solution, or to find an ACA meeting near you. It can be tough to navigate life as a child or young adult when your guardian is navigating such a complex illness.