If one parent suffers from alcoholism, the mental health problems of the child cannot be avoided.
Alcoholism has consequences not only on medical and social levels, but also on the psychological. Children growing up and educated in families of alcoholics, have a long experience in adverse conditions that form a distorted perception of ourselves and the world in General. This writes the psychologist Alla Dashko in his blog.
The child of parents who drink, or even one parent is faced with a constant feeling of anxiety, of danger and unpredictability. It is characterized by abandonment, alienation he feels on guard or on the battlefield.
Alcoholism is a family disease that affects all family members, even sober, where everyone experiences their pain. An alcoholic to cope with it using alcohol, and the rest of the family without alcoholic anesthesia.
Grow in such an environment is very difficult and complicated. Alcoholic parents are characterized by irresponsibility, immaturity and inability to make decisions. The child automatically becomes an adult, understands and adapts to indeterminate problems. In other words he does not have a healthy childhood, he is deprived of love, attention and saturated with many toxic emotions.
Toxic emotions are guilt, shame, resentment, self-pity, anger, worry. Such emotions are a means of protection for humans, and they are like alcohol to an alcoholic.
Often children are ashamed of their own parents and family. Usually an alcoholic in the family is a big mystery. Not so much for others, but for the family system. The problem may not be recognized as a problem, children are growing up in a dysfunctional family, seeing it as the norm. But if the inherent elements of physical or moral violence, the degree of traumatization of the individual growing significantly and lays the deep scars in the soul and memory. Craving for a drink that equally takes the dependent and his family living together with him, your energy, your health. All involved in this issue and all need help.
Dependent children are themselves the bearers of codependency (a strong focus on the lives of others, to the detriment of their own). Codependent give more than they receive, they tend to save others, to respond and to care. The identity of the child in the family dependent parents is not visible or not supported. Children of alcoholics mostly do not know how to live their lives, they have blurred personal boundaries, self-esteem suffers, self-esteem, they find it difficult to Express their feelings. In the future, they tend to either isolate ourselves, or to engage in destructive relationship.
In alcoholic families has a negative cohesion, based on the criticism, rigidity, inadequacy, impermanence, and excessive stress. Survival becomes life. However, it is important to remember that the child has five essential characteristics: the child is valuable, vulnerable, imperfect, dependent and immature. Children from alcoholic families have to put on these characteristics in relation to itself and out of its own depression.
Helping children of alcoholics parents can begin with a discussion of the feelings that have experienced and are experiencing now.
It is important to recognize the problem of addiction and codependency, because this is the first step on the path to healing. In order that the whole family could function better treatment is necessary. Timely visit to a specialist can fix the situation and help the dependent and his children to live a full life.
