Alcohol Dependence Harms Family

[anthony]

The alcohol affected family is like most other families: its members work hard, strive to be happy, hope to love and be loved. Yet the family is often the breeding ground of despair, hidden beneath the deceptive face of denial.

Growing up in an alcoholic home is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is to be ignored or abused; to feel hurt and helpless, unloved and unworthy, different and ashamed; to feel alone, angry, and afraid… to feel guilty and confused by these feelings and to have no one to talk to about them.

The blessing is to feel proud to be responsible, strong, and competent; independent, productive, and in control; or to be funny, witty, and charming, the life of the party; or to be capable of making or keeping peace by being flexible, helpful, or invisible . . . never a problem to anyone.

Children of alcoholics are the survivors of a family disease that, according to the 1982 Gallup Poll, affects one third of all American families. While the vast majority of these children do survive, the price they pay is high. The very skills that enable them to endure, and that provide some measure of self-esteem in a chaotic, unpredictable, often hostile home, separate them from their real needs and feelings. The wider the gap between their outer mask and inner feelings, between the visible survivor and the invisible victim, the higher the price they pay.

Children who survive by taking on adult tasks at a tender age grow up with abnormally high expectations. They wind themselves up like clock springs, tighter and tighter, as they aim for perfection. As adults, their high level of anxiety may lead them to depend on tranquilizers and/or alcohol – as self medication. They rarely reach out, seeking help only when life threatens to go too far out of control.

In relationships, they also remain in control, often protecting themselves from the abandonment they fear by selecting a mate who is the child they never were, who needs them to continue to act responsibly. This reinforces their deep belief that they can lean on no one, no one except themselves.

Children who survive by being invisible often remain just that. They frequently spend their adult lives alone and, if they marry, they are perceived by themselves and others as the “lesser half.” They are attracted to people above themselves socially and/or intellectually, reinforcing feelings of worthlessness and despair. No matter how hard they try to please, they cannot measure up. Their needs come last – if at all. They may sleepwalk through lives of quiet desperation, or they may suffer from severe illness or acute depression, emotionally cut off from their real pain.

The life of the party is often a child in pain, in disguise. Keep laughing, keep it light, don’t feel, don’t think, have another drink. These child-adults continue to seek attention and to avoid stress. They tend to attract people who will take care of them, not as equal adults but as parent to child, top dog to under dog, thus reinforcing feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, and low self-esteem.

These are the survivors. What of the victims? What of the children who from their early years were seen as hostile, withdrawn, sullen, acting out? Surprisingly, they may be the real survivors, because there is only a small gap between the face they show to the world and the feelings (no matter how misdirected) they hold inside. They become delinquent, alcohol or drug dependent, pregnant – anything to call public attention to their pain. They have the best chance of getting help and of getting it while they are still young.

And the survivors? They remain invisible – innocent victims in schools and churches and youth groups. They are reinforced daily for being responsible, strong, kind, no trouble, funny, or cute. They carry the burden of the family secret in their hearts. And nobody knows their pain.

They are the counselors and school teachers, doctors and lawyers, wives and mothers, clergy and executives, bartenders and janitors, bankers and clerks, writers and artists, husbands and fathers. They are the one in every five people you meet. And nobody knows their pain.

These children, no matter their age, have a right to help, a right to hope.