Growing up with an alcoholic parent can lead to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), with studies showing that 61 of adults have at least one ACE. Parents can have a significant impact on their children’s drinking, especially during the preteen and teenage years. Parental drinking is found to be statistically significantly associated with a child harm outcome measure in almost two out of every three published associations.
Having an alcoholic parent can take a psychological toll on children in both childhood and adulthood. The cognitive, behavioral, and emotional effects of having alcoholic parents are profound, and they may experience emotional distress, such as anxiety, depression, and guilt. Alcohol abuse can have many negative effects on the person living with it, but it can also be devastating to the people around them.
Children of alcoholics are more prone to experiencing psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems. They may experience rule-breaking, aggressiveness, and impulsivity in childhood, and they may also display rule-breaking, aggressiveness, and impulsivity in external behaviors. Understanding parental influence on children through conscious and unconscious efforts, as well as when and how to talk with children about alcohol, can help parents have more influence than they might think on.
📹 7 Ways Alcoholic Parents Affect their Children
New video! This video covers the effects that alcoholic parents can have on their children. If you are living with an alcoholic parent …
What are the five types of children of alcoholics?
The study explores the concept of personality subtypes in children of alcoholics (COAs) and their clinically-based taxonomies. Wegscheider proposed five personality styles, while Black added “The Placater”. However, empirical support for these taxonomies is weak. Rhodes and Blackham developed four scales to quantify characteristics of the Hero, Lost Child, Scapegoat, and Placater, but only emerged on the Scapegoat scale. Devine and Braithwaite found that the subtypes could discriminate COAs and non-COAs, but not exclusively linked to parental alcoholism.
Researchers have sought other personality subtypes among COAs, finding three subtypes among them: one showed elevations in sociability, self-acceptance, well-being, responsibility, self-control, achievement, and intellectual efficiency. Subtype two scored slightly below subtype one on all scales but maintained scores characteristic of a normal population. Subtype three produced low scores on all scales and was significantly associated with higher rates of parental death, sexual abuse, and physical abuse.
These findings suggest the possibility of personality subtypes, but they largely discriminate relatively healthy from disturbed individuals with more troubled histories compounding parental alcoholism.
To bridge the previously inconsistent findings on COA personality subtypes, two studies were conducted to identify personality subtypes of adolescent and adult COAs using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP). The study used Q-factor analysis on two separate samples, one of adolescents and the other of adults, to determine if personality subtypes are similar across two different age groups. No previous research has examined ACOA personality subtypes or compared personality subtypes of COAs across two age groups.
Can you get PTSD from having an alcoholic parent?
Living with an alcoholic family can lead to PTSD due to constant stress, fear, guilt, and lack of control. Common themes include living with fear, which is associated with aggressive behavior and domestic violence. Family members fear that their loved one’s anger will be directed at them, and that a few drinks can cause chaos. They also fear that the alcoholic will endanger their safety by driving while drunk or neglecting to provide necessities like food, shelter, and supervision. The fear is that the alcoholic will also put their own safety at risk. PTSD can have devastating effects on a person’s mental well-being and can be a result of alcoholism.
What happens to the baby when the mother is a alcoholic drinker?
Pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), a lifelong condition affecting learning, behavior, joints, bones, muscles, and organs. The risk increases with increased drinking. To avoid FASD, it may be easier for women to stop drinking during pregnancy, as many go off the taste of alcohol early. However, it is crucial to be aware of the potential risks and take necessary precautions.
What are the characteristics of a child of an alcoholic?
Alcoholic children often struggle with emotional and social needs, leading to traits like low self-esteem, rejection sensitivity, over-reactivity, and constant approval-seeking. This lack of emotional support during a crucial developmental time can hinder adult well-being. Additionally, if children cannot establish healthy attachments with caregivers or maintain stable interpersonal interactions, it may be difficult to develop trusting relationships with others later in life. Therefore, it is crucial for parents to provide emotional and social support to their children to ensure their emotional and social well-being.
What are the effects of being an adult child of an alcoholic?
Alcoholic children often grow up with lingering trauma, including fear, anxiety, anger, and self-hatred. These coping mechanisms may leak out in adulthood, such as people-pleasing, controlling behavior, approval-seeking, or judgment. Being an adult child of an alcoholic means navigating an emotional minefield in childhood and learning survival techniques that need to be unlearned as an adult. Al-Anon meetings, a support group for family members and friends of alcoholics, encourage individuals to enter their own recovery and learn the Three Cs of Al-Anon, which are to be self-care, self-care, and self-care.
What are the 5 types of children with alcoholic parents?
The study explores the concept of personality subtypes in children of alcoholics (COAs) and their clinically-based taxonomies. Wegscheider proposed five personality styles, while Black added “The Placater”. However, empirical support for these taxonomies is weak. Rhodes and Blackham developed four scales to quantify characteristics of the Hero, Lost Child, Scapegoat, and Placater, but only emerged on the Scapegoat scale. Devine and Braithwaite found that the subtypes could discriminate COAs and non-COAs, but not exclusively linked to parental alcoholism.
Researchers have sought other personality subtypes among COAs, finding three subtypes among them: one showed elevations in sociability, self-acceptance, well-being, responsibility, self-control, achievement, and intellectual efficiency. Subtype two scored slightly below subtype one on all scales but maintained scores characteristic of a normal population. Subtype three produced low scores on all scales and was significantly associated with higher rates of parental death, sexual abuse, and physical abuse.
These findings suggest the possibility of personality subtypes, but they largely discriminate relatively healthy from disturbed individuals with more troubled histories compounding parental alcoholism.
To bridge the previously inconsistent findings on COA personality subtypes, two studies were conducted to identify personality subtypes of adolescent and adult COAs using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP). The study used Q-factor analysis on two separate samples, one of adolescents and the other of adults, to determine if personality subtypes are similar across two different age groups. No previous research has examined ACOA personality subtypes or compared personality subtypes of COAs across two age groups.
Do adult children of alcoholics become narcissists?
Adult children of alcoholics may develop narcissistic traits due to low self-esteem and a need for control. However, not all adult children of alcoholics will develop these traits. Additionally, daughters of alcoholic fathers may be more likely to marry men struggling with alcoholism, but this is a complex issue and not necessarily the case. Many daughters of alcoholic parents go on to have healthy, successful marriages.
How does an alcoholic parent affect a child?
An unpredictable and unreliable environment can lead to a child feeling unsafe in their home, trapped by their parent’s alcohol addiction. This can cause feelings of shame, unworthiness, and increased difficulties in academic and social settings. Children in households with alcohol addiction may mature at an accelerated pace, taking on caregiving roles for their parents or siblings. This can be a pressure, but positive character traits like resilience, empathy, responsibility, and determination can develop.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common in adult children of alcoholic parents, with 61 of adults having at least one ACE and one out of six having at least four. Children affected by AUDs reported having an average of 2. 1 ACEs, increasing the risk of smoking, obesity, depression, and substance use disorder.
What psychological problems do children of alcoholics have?
Children of alcoholic parents often experience anxiety, mood swings, anger, resentment, and difficulty in forming healthy relationships. These children are four times more likely to develop an Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) than other children. Growing up with an alcoholic parent can lead to cognitive, behavioral, psychosocial, and emotional consequences, including chaos, uncertainty, neglect, and marital issues. Children may also exhibit anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior, relationship difficulties, and behavioral issues.
Although 1 in 5 adults in the U. S. lived with an alcoholic relative during their childhood, children react differently to these circumstances. Some may develop severe or persistent effects, while others may experience minimal lasting effects. These struggles can also lead to the development of healthy coping mechanisms that help children better respond to challenges throughout their lives.
Are children of alcoholics narcissists?
Adult children of alcoholics may develop narcissistic traits due to low self-esteem and a need for control. However, not all adult children of alcoholics will develop these traits. Additionally, daughters of alcoholic fathers may be more likely to marry men struggling with alcoholism, but this is a complex issue and not necessarily the case. Many daughters of alcoholic parents go on to have healthy, successful marriages.
How to deal with an alcoholic mum?
If your alcoholic parent insists they don’t need help, it’s advisable to detach from them and focus on seeking support. You are not responsible for their alcoholism or their recovery. If they don’t want recovery, you can seek help for yourself. Support is available for children of alcoholic parents, regardless of age, and there are resources available to help them navigate their situation.
📹 10 Effects of Growing Up with an Alcoholic or Addict Parent
Let’s talk about growing up with an addict or alcoholic parent or guardian and how this affects us now. There are many effects that …
I realised how toxic and horrible my father was because of his alcoholism so I cut him out and haven’t taked to him in 3 years. This upset my whole family badly and I was told I had no right to do so because he was my father and I should accpt him the way he is. I stood my ground and accepted that my family is poorly educated about mental health. The first year was hard and the result of his alcoholism is becoming more aparent but I didn’t regret it once. Never accept anyone with such horrible affects to your life and just because they are family doesn’t justify it. If anything it makes matters worse.
Okay, here goes my story. So I’m 15 years old and my mum has far too much alcohol. I’m not sure if I class her as an alcaholic though. Through the day she is fine but later on at about 7 o’clock she turns to alcohol. She has 3 bottles of wine every night. This is when I know to stay out of her way because she shouts at everyone for no reason and tries to cause unnecessary arguments. She has went to hit me a few times but I got out her way in time. This has been goinf on for a long time now, probably about 4 or 5 years. But it’s only recently I’ve discovered what is actually wrong with her. I have a 9 year old brother who isn’t fully aware why she’s like this. But we are not close at all, if I had a problem I could never ever talk to her about it. I once was having panick attacks and feeling down all the time and I finally told her, she just said “its just a phase, you’ll get over it” it became so bad that my nana took me to the doctors and I had anxiety. I was close to depression but I got out of it in time. I’m scared to talk to any of my friends about it imcase they judge me. I relate to all these in one way or another. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this💖💖
I’m 14. I have an alcoholic father who also smokes. He just yelled at me for getting ready in the bathroom for 10 minutes when he needed to use it. He couldn’t even wait 10 minutes. I also have AuDHD so I get ready for the day quite slowly. He also yells at my mother a lot. He has been like this since I can remember.
Thanks to my father I developed a strong dislike of alcohol. I have this deep psichological thing that makes me unable to enjoy it even when I know a little does no harm so I’m unable to consume alcholic beverages. I can force myself to drink a very small amount for certain special occasions but that is my limit and even then I feel disgust.
The pain is deep! My heart shatters into thousands of pieces every single day. I smile… I smile a lot but i am not happy… I wish I was never born in such a family! No one literally no one is good in our family…. My grandparents r just greed for money… It’s feels bad to say such a thing about elders specially grandparents but the truth is always bitter… My father is an alcoholic… He drinks and drinks a lot…He never thinks about his children for a single sec. All he wishes is to have alcohol! My only hope is my mom… She loves me a lot… I really feel so bad about her…her entire life has been spoiled living with such a shameful man… My life and future now depends on thy mercy God… Hope you give me the strength to face all my problems!
This is oddly relevant not to me but someone I know. In my class there’s a boy whose dad is an alcoholic and parents are abusive. The thing I’ve most recognized is his social behaviors. His parents keep him in the house as they are very controlling. He’ll be going on a trip to Washington D.C and his dad ripped off the info to the kids schedule in order to know where he is going to be at. He asked our teacher if she’s could make an excuse so he didn’t have to call them. He’s constantly saying things to our teacher like “your better than my Mom” and while he doesn’t say it as much he used to say things like “I’ll see you tomorrow as long as I’m not dead” and ” it was nice knowing you all” it may seem a little dramatic but then you have to remember the situation he’s in. His father when picking him up looks at him with disgust, he’s run away twice and had to refuse foster care so he could protect his little brother. Back to social behaviors he’s almost always jumpy more so than most. If you get to close he flinches and he’ll jump if you touch him. He also has problems relating to people when we’re taking about things that happened when we were younger and just the nonsense of life. To completely normal things he’ll be confused and he genuinely doesn’t understand some of the simplest phrases. I’m just glad he finds joy in his poetry even if it’s rarely happy and that he found a girl he likes. I just wish I could do more.
I’m going to be 25 this August and I never realized just how bad things were in out family. My Grandfather was an abusive alcoholic, and my Dad’s right there behind him. I’m stuck in this house taking care of my Grandma (who’s addicted to opioids) while my Mom’s in the hospital and when Dad comes home from work and has days off…I get nervous as hell. I’m at a crossroads where my life is already a quarter of the way over, yet I have no direction or identity in who I am or what I want to be. I’ve always wanted to pursue my passion for music, but felt like nobody would be willing to listen, and considering it’s “not a real job,” then I’ve essentially caged myself in fear and anger, but always wanting to feel…cared about. I don’t consider myself an attention-seeker, I just…need validation to feel better. If I do something wrong, I blame myself. When someone else is in pain, I blame myself. My self-doubt, self-hatred, and fear of conflict from living with an alcoholic family hurts more than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. And the worst part is, I’ve told my father what he’s done to me while he’s drunk, and he still continues to drink and take his anger out on me anyways. I don’t know, maybe I’m just putting this here because I don’t know where else to go or who else to talk to, but if you’ve read this far, then I can already say that you’ve shown more love and care for a stranger than I could have ever asked for, and that means a lot to me.
Imagine not being able to go and do anything like after school events. And when you did it was because a friend’s parent offered to drive you THERE and BACK. Because I’m not sure about everyone else- but I was never allowed to go to things after school because my parents would drink and couldn’t drive me places. I feel like I missed out on so many cool opportunities.
my dad has a beer in his hand every single minute of the day and as soon as he finishes one, he opens up another one, if there are none left, he goes to the store immediately, even if it’s late at night… the only way he can be nice to others (including my mom, my brother and myself) is by being drunk, when he’s not drunk he won’t stop saying bad words to everyone, blaming his problems on everyone, screaming at everyone, saying mean things… and i hate the fact that the only times i can have a good relationship with him and not fight is when he’s drunk
I survived two abusive parents, one was an alcoholic and the other I have no clue if they were on drugs or possibly drinking every night. It is okay to let them go! Don’t let anyone try to guilt you into thinking you can’t write them out of your life because “X person doesn’t have their parent, they died”. Just because someone has it worse off than you doesn’t make your problems less valid!!! Don’t feel obligated to “fix” them or find them help, because ultimately it is their choice to find help (this goes with all types of abusive, mental disorder, or addicted people). They may say “they can’t find the help on their own anymore”, but I’m telling you it will eventually come to that point in their lives where they have to make a choice to live or die. If you’ve gotten this far into my giant novel of a comment, I hope this helps you and thank you for listening! You don’t have to end up like your parents, that I can promise you. We still have free will, regardless of epigenetics.
I am growing up with alcoholic parents and I’m 14, I have been yelled at for my mother has yelled at me my whole life but my dad doesn’t get angry because he takes drugs but the drugs can only do so much, my parents are divorced so that has also affected me and the way I think, I now suffer from depression, anxiety and other stress related problems, and I was also born with a heart mermer which is when my heart can skip a beat almost every minute or less, and it has slowly gotten worse up to the point where I can’t full sprent for 20 seconds without almost having a heart attack. I have noticed that I am slowly becoming a father figure to my youngest sister and my cousin that is a year older then me looks up too me aswell, everything is going out of control and I don’t know what to do so I started to stay home from school and I haven’t been there in five months now, and if I don’t go I will be taken away and forced to put on a smile and act like everything is alright. Going back to the topic of the article, my father has came put to my house when I was feeling depressed to take me to school but I wouldn’t go or even answer because I didn’t have enough strength to try, but when I didn’t say anything my father lashed out and said I’m worthless and pathetic along with no one loves me and no one ever will. I stand my ground and let no one in because I don’t think I can take anymore punches because I have had two mental breakdowns. One was when I was alone, and one was when rage took over and I screamed at my mother for an hour about how I cut myself and how everyone puts me down and how horrible she makes me feel.
It make me want to cry so bad seeing how relatable it is. My story goes back when I was 4. My dad was never a good father. He would always go drink and during those time me and my family would always have to move house to house. And during those years were torture. Seeing my mom and dad fight and sometimes see my dad try to hurt my mom honestly traumatize me even to this day. I would cry out to my dad telling him “no papa please stop” and he would continue. It was the same every where we go. Until I was seven that when it all change, that day my dad was very drunk and he and my mom were fighting, then he physical punch her in her head and made her bleed and that when we called the cops and he was arrest. I felt useless when I seen my mom with the bruises. Now my father isn’t in my life. We had to move on from that life and move forward. Now I’m too insecure, shy and I do terrible in school. I’m 14 year old about to be 15 in a month. But this is my story and I hope everyone else who took their time to read have a good life and don’t end up like my mom and dad was but I’m glad my mom work hard for me and my siblings. (Girl btw) thank you 👧🏻
Here’s my story it’s not that tragic My dad was an alcoholic but he wasn’t an abusive one ( I don’t remember him ever being abusive towards me.) The alcohol really made him weak (he slept a lot) which can be followed by him not eating. He always preferred drinking instead of eating. He wasn’t abusive he actually went to work everyday even though he was drunk he still went to work. He tried his best to take care of me my mom even said he spoiled me when I was younger. I recently found out it was due to his grandpa passing away because he was a father figure to him. His problem got so bad he went to the hospital and we found out he had pneumonia ( I didn’t know what it was because at the time I was 10.) he was in the hospital for 2 month until they sent him to a further one. The same week he arrived we found out he passed away. His death did affect me a bit but it really hasn’t hit me yet (if that makes sense) idk if it’s because I was 10 but now I just turned 14 it’s going to be 4 years since he’s gone and it’s starting to hit a little more. Thank you for reading my story.
I love my father, but he smokes and drinks too much. He doesn’t get mad he usually just sits and talks nonsense. He hasn’t punished me nor anyone by hitting but he does annoy my mother a lot. If my mother goes to the store he gets angry at her my mother but my father thinks she goes out a lot when she doesn’t. I just hope things change because we still need him.
Sometimes i want my dad to just run away for good. He’s tried so many times…I can’t handle being abandoned…this is really on point. I remember one instant how I finally made a close friend, and EVERY FUCKING DAY, i would get so paranoid that he would abandon me…like it was really bad. It wasn’t like “oh he wont be my friend,” I thought he secretly hated me and manipulated me. Gosh…i sometimes cry when my friends just leave without telling me anything (even small things like going to the restroom)
Hi I’m from India. I’m experiencing every symptom mentioned in this article. I don’t know what a healthy family is like. I’m the School Mascot. The guy who makes everyone laugh with my comedic attitude. But no one knows how broken I am on the inside. My heart seeks for emotional bonding with someone, but I don’t want to get close with anyone becoz of my trust issues ( also cuz my 1st attempt at love failed). I TRUST NO ONE. I want to experience love and emotional intimacy but at the same time my mind tells me to run away from them. I feel like I’m being ripped apart. I don’t know if I can ever recover and have a family on my own. My only resort is Christ…
We recently established that my mother is an alcoholic.I always knew she had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol but didn’t realise how bad it was till I turned 13.We always argue whenever she drinks.She makes me feel like I am the one at fault and that I am exaggerating.I thought that we were so close that we would never lie to eachother.She kept on lying to me about her alcoholism.It makes me feel sad because she is the one I love the most in this world.If someone I love this bad hurts me the most,isn’t there something wrong?Is it my fault for not trying hard enough to help her stop drinking?I can’t help but cry..All I can do is watch unless she decides to get help.
It hurts seeing how I am not the only one that has gone through this as a child and the children commenting how they are experiencing it now. Even as an adult I still have to deal with my alcoholic father since I live with my parents rn. Every night he drowns himself in alcohol for years and it disgusts me. It also makes him have anger issues and being in a toxic environment with your parents arguing every day doesn’t help. It has definitely ruined our relationship and has made it hard for me to make friends, etc. My fiancé has definitely helped me and I am so glad I am not with someone like my father. In a few more months I’ll be married to the love of my life and away from this toxic, endless loop of alcoholism😔 I never want my future children to go through what I have.
My dad was an abusive drunk and drug user. I thought that’s how all families were until I lived with a friend and her family for 2 months. Nobody yelled or were under the influence of anything, they were just so nice to each other. I was 18 when I realized my whole childhood was toxic. I hope to never be put in that environment ever again.
I’m 17 and my father is an alcoholic. All I’ve seen is rage, physical violence, verbal abuse and constant fights and arguments between my mother and father. It’s like I’ve never get to know what a family is. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, i developed some toxic traits of both of them. I fear that one day I’ll become like my mother or my father. I go through anxiety, panic attacks and emotional instability everyday. I just don’t know what happens with me. I always have trouble expressing my feelings and emotions, I’m always running from somewhere or from someone. I don’t have friends, i don’t know how to build relationships, i don’t know how to form friendships. I always find it hard to socialize, the fear and insecurity never let me feel stable. Fighting for my mental health everyday, i hope that I left this house someday, hopefully soon and start a new life where I don’t hear the noises of someone beaten up, and screaming my name. And the slamming doors, the breaking things and the high pitch voices. I hope you understood this Papa.
Im 12 but I’ve been through so much, I know not to be anything like my mom when I’m older, she smokes, drinks, and I’m pretty sure cheats on my dad, but she tries to hide smoking but I found out a couple years ago. I know I am an independent person and I’m emotionless, I go to a therapist and I don’t have trust with my mom. I know not to be like her and to try to stay positive. Some think 12 is young to know all I know, but I know it’s life. But my friends have drifted off, and now they make fun of me while I have one or two friends to hang out with but only at school. If you are going through something bad or sad, IT WILL GET BETTER, think about what choice you can make later to make it better 🥰
Wow this hit home😟 I love your website, thank you for this article. My mom has been an alcoholic basically my whole life. She has problems that she would rather drown with alcohol. When she is drinking she turns into someone else, it’s like shes gone whenever she starts drinking. Alcoholism/ addiction runs on both sides of my family. I believe that since I grew up around this type of behavior that i have to be better, even if I’m doing a great job I still feel like it’s not good enough. I no longer live with my parents but I have a younger brother and sister that have to deal with her drunkself almost everyday. It makes me feel guilty that I moved out but I know it’s not my responsibility to take care of my siblings. I just want her to actually want to become sober for herself and for us.
I grew up being very confused, and up until this point, I still feel lost. My mom in particular was the type the took in and helped our childhood friends who were going through family home troubles… while my parents completely emotionally neglecting their own children (me and my siblings). We endured a lot of emotional and verbal abuse, and for some of us, it got physical too. My dad was never around for us physically or emotionally. He was a hard worker (and I truly admire that part) but he was never really there for us in any other way (his parents were physically abusive and emotionally distant while he was growing up) when he was home, he would be on the computer perusal his shows or youtube drinking, and when he wasn’t doing that he was off doing his own thing or fighting with my mom in front of us or yelling at us. I never wanted my mom to leave the house because even though my mother was emotionally unstable, I felt safer with her. I didn’t know if my dad would hurt us or yell at us and she couldn’t be there just in case… My mother always ignored our family issues making us to believe that everything was normal, going on to help other people, leaving us children very confused. When I went to friends houses and got out into the real world, I realized that it was so, so different. I was so jealous of the parents I saw who kissed and hugged and loved on their children and each other, and respected each other. I didn’t know why as a child but now I see it made me wish so so bad that I had that.
I didnt live with my dad but he would visit sometimes because my mom and dad pretty much split up when I was a little kid, so I never really had a full time dad, it was just my mom and brothers. I will never forget when I called him to ask if he was going to attend my high school graduation but he was drunk for a couple of days and told me he wasnt going to be able to and he started crying. I still remember that vividly. I wish I would have been able to help him. RIP Dad.
I am 17 years old, I’ll be 18 in August. I have anxiety and depression. I grew up with a Dad just like this. Constant criticism, lots of drinking, no affection or playfulness from my dad. I had and still have no emotional connection with my dad. Being a teen, i only remember small things about being a kid. 1.) i cried every night in my room because i thought my dad didn’t love me 2.) he constantly screamed at me and called me names. My mom is manipulative and passive agreed and so i recently moved out of her house into my dad and stepmoms house hoping it would be better and also that i could get close with my dad somehow. My mom smokes pot, i do not view her as a parent, she never cooked dinner for me as a kid, she was always at work so i was left home alone a lot. We have been homeless once and we lived with random men who didn’t treat me or my mom right. So i didn’t really have a stable home either. I moved in with my dad about a year ago, and I’ve never felt worse. I’ve been in therapy for maybe 6 months, first it was to help me get out of an abusive relationship with an ex, but now it’s focused onto my family life and me. it’s helped a lot but some days are still really really hard. My dad sometimes gets drunk on the weekends and starts fights at 3:00 am around there. He makes our stepmom do all the work while he sleeps on the couch, drinks a lot, and works. So going through all this and more that i haven’t mentioned, i feel all these on a really really deep level. It’s like I’m just trying to get by everyday, constantly walking on egg shells around my dad, staying in my room trying to get better on my own.
I just watched this article after I had a fight with one of my parents that’s an alcoholic, and this article further proves how much that they need help and how because of their actions my personality has been altered. I cried perusal this because it’s making me realize everything now and why I am the way I am and why I’m also brought toward friends who are depressed and suicidal and why I’m always there to help. I’m always targeted and yelled and for every little thing I do wrong and I feel like I can never catch a break. I always do try my best but most of the time it’s never enough.
Hey you! Yeah you reading this! Take a moment to read this! I am so frickin proud of you! Maybe you don’t know me but I am in your family. In a family of people who struggle and still stand strong. You decided to do things that you didn’t feel like doing today. Maybe this doesn’t seem like much but we did it while our parents were drinking. Maybe they weren’t being abusive to you or yelling, maybe they were chill. But you know that voice people get when they are drunk? God, it annoys us so much but we are still strong. I am so frickin proud of you. Cry on my shoulder, blow your snot in me. I DONT CARE! WE are family ❤️
My alcoholic father was emotionally and verbally abusive. This led me to think abusive behavior was normal. And when I got into m first relationship at 16, I saw abusive behavior and thought “this is familiar” “this is how dad acts, so it must be love”…. I wis I could go back and tell my younger self so many things. I’m almost 20 now, and I’m still dealing with the trauma from my dad and an abusive relationship. And I was diagnosed with PTSD 2 years ago. Life fucking sucks
I know I’m late but here’s my story. I am currently 13 years old. I lived a normal life until 8. I came home from a Christmas Eve party from my best friends house and my mom was drunk. My dad has anger issues and was hitting her. My mom still drinks and so does my dad. My mom is drunk and then not drunk for a while. Every time she’s drunk. She acts even worse. She is drunk today and I’m on holidays at my cousin’s house. She screamed and yelled like a psychopath. But I have my aunt, grandma, cousin’s, brother and grandpa. My aunt feels bad for me and always says “how do live with her? I would escape at age 16.” Sometimes I wish my mom and dad didn’t exist. I never knew what a normal family is. Edit: my aunt came in and comforted me.
I can relate to this so much. My mom was an alcholic and so was my step dad. My step dad got clean and he is now completely alcohol free but our relationship is strained because I don’t trust him, my mom lost the battle and gave up and commited suicide years ago. She was in and out of hospital, she’d get clean, be fine for a month and then go right back to drinking. My step dad was a loud alcoholic whose favourite game was to corner me and yell in my face, to this day I flinch when someone comes behind me and if you corner me and yell at me I am capable of punching you and I also have trust issues, especially towards any man or father figure I’ve met in my life. I tend to push people away. My mom was the best mom ever when she was sober, she’d listen, she’d talk with me, I could come to her with anything I wanted and she’d always have time to talk. When she was drunk she’d go to sleep and lock me out, yell at me, we’d fight on a nearly daily basis (and it wasn’t “No mom I don’t want to clean my room because I am busy” type of fighting, it was: “I want my mother to be alive to see me graduate and through major events in my life” types of fighting, she’d nearly burn down the house a few times because she’d leave food on a stove, lock me out and go to sleep and the scariest memory for me is seeing her stumble over the short railing we had on the balcony one time because the fence was being remodeled, she fell from the first floor (around a meter and a half height) and landed on her car leaving a dent in it, she got up and walked off as if nothing happened with bloody hands and a few scratches here and there but that was my scaries moment because I thought that she was going to die.
my dad is an alcoholic, he drinks every single day without fail and it has gotten earlier and earlier into the day. sometimes even starting before afternoon- he gets drunk everyday and takes all his drunken emotion out on the rest of my family. he refuses to sleep, and often argues and shouts at us while we are trying to sleep. i’m afraid of who he is when he is drunk. i only ever like him when he’s sober, it’s like a burst of hope, but it doesn’t last long because soon enough he picks up a lager. the worst thing though, is when he’s drunk around my friends. stumbling into my room with all my friends there and completely humiliating me. in that moment, i feel overwhelmingly ashamed to be related to such an irresponsible and unstable mess of a father. he needs help just as much as i do.
My mom is a single mother and for years she’s been depending on alcohol to cope. It changes her completely. She’s mean and petty when she’s drunk. She has never been there for me emotionally. And it feels like all the love I should be getting goes to my brothers. (I’m the only sister + the middle child) I’ve learned to predict my mom’s moods when she drinks, and she says a lot of hurtful things to me. Ik she doesn’t always mean them, bc the next day she’ll try to apologize. She and I have drifted apart and her apologies don’t do much anymore. We don’t talk about anything and things are always tense between us. But I’m turning 18 this month so I guess we’ll both be better off when I’m out.
This article hit so close to home. I’m not saying my age but I’m a minor. And when I was 6 years old my father left home and went to prison for abuse. He now doesn’t have custody of me and he was an alcoholic. And my mother is an addict and an alcoholic as well. But unlike my father,she stopped the addiction (when I found out) and she knows about her issue and is able to function day to day. She is not as bad. It caused my depression and anxiety. It left me an emotional scar (some physical. Not from him but from me) Please like this comment
Strangely, even though my parents drink a tame amount of alcohol, I’ve experienced, thought, or felt every single one of the effects mentioned. It’s weird, but it’s also nice to know that there is an awareness of what kind of life I’ve lived up until now and why it’s made me as I am as a person. Thank you for this. It’s been an experience to watch this article and I truly enjoyed it. Small Note: My parents are, luckily, not abusive. However, the way they are has led me to feel exactly how this article portrayed those with alcoholic parents somehow.
I’m around 13 and it’s always been hard to relate to other people and their families. My dad was actually normally a good parent, but I think my mom’s addiction was hard on him as well as the rest of us. My mom always said she felt bad about drinking or taking pills, but I think her saying that was what helped form the mindset ‘if she really loved us, she would quit’. It’s hard to put this all in past tense, since it’s all happening right here, right now. Hearing other people’s stories both make me feel better and worse. In any case, thank you for sharing everyone (and thanks for reading this as well).
This tore me apart. Now that my alcooholic dad is not here (he died as result of liver necrosis/kidney failure/heart attack, due the high alcohol consumption while having diabetes), I start to understand how many situations i’ve been in my entire life and how it all started. My dad was the best when he was sober, but most of times, I couldn’t trust in him, bc in many ways he let me down. Now, i’m more aware of who I am and how to deal with all my issues and not repeat the same mistakes.
People’s stories on here. Especially all the kids under 20/ Just ripping my heart out. Honestly, one of my first thoughts at the start of the pandemic was – all the kids in destructive homes with alcoholic parents won’t be able to go to school to get away from them. My heart just bled for them and every day I wear a mask I was wear it for you! Sounds dramatic but I’m serious. I could almost feel your pain. I grew up with and alcoholic mother. It was horrendous. It does get better but you will have a lot to unpack when you are finally free from your situation. Peace and love with you all. P
My dad never hit me. But on occasions in which I would interact with him when he was drunk, he would sometimes blurt out things like “You’re Good-for-nothing” or “Your sister is better than you”. And I knew he meant it. My dad’s the type to not talk much and not yell unless something really pissed him off. He and my mother would find everytime he came home drunk, which was mind you, everyday. It sometimes would get to the point where he would threaten to kill himself or sometimes try to jump off the balcony. I used to put on my headphones and close the door while they fought, still able to hear them from the other room while my headphones blasted music at full volume. My sister used to sought them out but now that she left for uni, I have to step in. Which scares me, because when I look at him I don’t see my father and I can’t hide anymore. I try my best to stop him from yelling any further or doing anything with the rising fear of him hitting me, or even worse, doing something to himself. I try my best to study hard so I can get out of here, get my mother out of this toxic marriage and also do something for my father. For future parents, please, don’t be a monster for your kids.
I hate it that I can relate to this, because I wish that I couldn’t I have an alcoholic father, who denies his alcoholism – he spends money on his drinks and berates us for wasting money on our own hobbies – to top that off, he is more religious than my mother – and thus makes things a lot more god related than they have to be. Currently, I am 19 and have been through this ordeal starting the age of 5, perhaps 8 years – so I’m living with this for 14 or 11 years When I was younger, I recall my father and also my mother being overly strict on us, even beating us when I laughed or had fun about something they disliked. Mostly my father would push his opinion onto me and destroy whatever interests I had by spreading doubt within me. Now, I stopped caring about what will happen to me, what I do and how my life is going to continue. Living this long with someone who suppresses you and everything that you want to be, everything that makes you different from others, individual – you can’t afford to care anymore, it’s scary how it’s a routine I am bound to and unable to escape, because I can’t afford to care about escaping it either – I feel tired of it. I have very little friends, and spending time with them is more than enough to make me feel happy. But I also feel like I could lose them at any moment, being regarded as a freak or something. I am an outsider in my grade, that people even see as creepy when I just laugh or smile and they demand me to stop doing that. The worst part of having an alcoholic father while being his daughter with a younger sister is that I fear that he will one day see my mother in me instead of myself, and that he tries to do something to me, just because I am being told that I am my mother from appearance and everything else.
Absolutely accurate. Another thing I’d like to add is that alcoholic parents can be reckless and selfish. They can often fuck up and expect you to clean up after them, or to help them with their issues, while you still can be a kid. That can make you feel like you have to take care of everyone else because that’s what you learned to too. It also can affect you to understand what’s normal and what’s not. How to do things correctly or not. It can hard to explain when people don’t understand since they haven’t experienced that situation. Etc. you can often feel alone and wonder why you couldn’t have a normal family life like most others do. You just want anyone to love you and want to take care of you. But you can also learn to be independent and be scared to depend on others since you weren’t able to do that with your parents. Etc.
A few of these points have completely hit the nail on the head for me. After 21 years of dealing with an alcoholic mother who verbally emotionally and somewhat physically abused and neglected me as child has been something else for me. I’ve only recently started coming to terms within the last year that I was abused and neglected for all these years and it continues into my adulthood but identifying it is just the start. Realizing that shutting yourself in a room playing a article games to ignore everything, not being socialized, having to beg for clothes, being told your overweight, being horrified and breaking down because you or someone else is having an argument and blamed for not being a caretaker to your grandparents is insanely abusive, manipulative and toxic. I hope everyone else who’s watched this and related to it can find help. It’s out there and everyone deserves to have access to it. And please be kind to yourself. That is the biggest thing i’m learning to work on as I go through this journey.
this made me think. I survived cancer twice while having half of my face amputated in the process.. a tumor destroyed my jaw and changed everything I once knew.. I decided to start my own website to inspire others who feel ugly and not good enough for this world..I moved to Barcelona to build a new life. I want to show others that it’s all about positivity and energy.. and that with the right mindset, you can overcome any mental or physical hurdle if u just learn to love yourself! positive energy trumps any physical shell! go check me out and subscribe if u want to help me reach my goal of helping others who lack self-love.. it would mean the world to me!!
When i was around 7 years old my dad started drinking (again) I dont remember much but my mom said he “Spoke like a bully” and there was multiple times he would hit me or my sisters or chase us around the house. It was TERRIFYING. I grew really bitter about it after awhile. He stopped drinking after going to Rehabilitation but the worst he’s done was scream at my sister for around 10 minutes while she ate lunch about how awful she was, knock over my mom and throw his wedding ring away, and throw a plate at me and raise his fist. Each time this happened i was sobbing uncontrollably and I was so, so scared. During the second one i actually threw up from crying so hard. Now im almost 14 and only recently have I realized it was abuse. I still can’t talk to my dad like i do with my mom and personally I dont feel close to him. I can never confront him at all about whats happened and every time he yells at me i shut up and start crying out of fear and disappointment all because of what hes done before. Im fine admitting that i dont love him as much as my mom at all but im still so scared of telling him that. Im also very obsessive when it comes to relationships because im afraid of losing someone. Well, thats my story. I still need to tell all of this to my therapist but im working on getting over the long lasting scars of the abuse :3
both of my parents drink alcohol, my mom was also a meth user (she’s clean now) but my dad never gave up alcohol. He’s been drinking since the age of 9. When he met my mother he would abuse her so badly, and almost tore my sister in half while fighting. My dad recently was taken to jail over terroristic threats, misdemeanor class A. Protective orders and everything. The night before i called the cops, he threatened to dismember me and burn the remains. He has threatened me many times before, and has also choked me while holding holding my niece who was only a few months old at the time. All the problems listed in this article, i have. I was raised with alcoholic parents. Now im dealing with just an alcoholic mom. That’s my story…sorry for it being so long
Thank you! I have ALL 7 of the traits all of them. It was a bad time in my life and still affects me decades later. BUT BUT BUT I have forgiven and released my Mom because she had a dysfunctional childhood and an alcoholic Mom. She passed. And now I think about her sober times and the wonderful person she was. I continue to work on me. It is all I can do. Thanks for the article.
my dad and stepmom are alcoholics and are drunk almost every day.. being the oldest kid in the house, I have to make dinner on those nights and make sure everyone is ok. I constantly worry my dad will leave to get more alcohol and never make it back. My stepmom is okay when drunk, and neither of them are abusive but my dad always puts his own needs before anyone else’s often eating all the food I made for everyone or blasting music until the early hours of the morning even when we have school the next day. They yell and fight, and it makes me have mental breakdowns often. It’s like re-living my parent’s divorce every other night. Meanwhile when I’m at my mom’s I have to basically raise my younger siblings on my own, my mom never parents us and my step-dad cares more about the dog and my mom (who is now pregnant at 42) than anything else. When the baby is born I already know they will get more love and attention than any of us ever got. in conclusion, I am always freaking out and having panic attacks and mental breakdowns over my alcoholic parents and borderline neglectful parents (at the other house) on top of my depression and anxiety on top of basically raising my siblings and trying to pass high school. I can forget having fun on the weekends like normal kids my age. I haven’t hung out with friends since I was 8 or 9.
I’m ten years old and my mom drinks on the daily and calls me names tells me that I’ve ruined her life and that I’m going to be the reason my parents get divorced I even made a poem The spiteful woman sits on the couch and drinks her soul away oh how I wish she would just go away she tells me I’m not good enough and that I’ve ruined her life why I strive for her love I do not know But I do know that someday I will go
One thing I notice in my dad.. was the grumpiness in him. it’s like when he don’t drink he don’t wanna hug me like in a affection way as a father should you know it’s all love. But when he’s not sober he wanna hug me and Wanna be on me touching my hair like NO. When I think about him I realize like I get mad thinking about it. He’s been like that ever since I was a little child I used to see him vomit everywhere I used to be so scared to be around him. EVERYTIME when I talk about his alcohol problem I just wanna cry because I get emotional when I talk about it. But the good thing in him he’s not Abusive at all..it’s just his drinking.
As a little girl I would wait and take care of my alcoholic Mom. And she let things happen to me that put such a bad impact on me. I am 24 now and have finally told her I can no longer let my sympathy and big heart allow me to continuously be there for her because the things she did are NOT okay. It was so much weight off my shoulder. She is now I’ll from it and she told me she is sorry for what she did. And I pray she will take her being sick as a chance to be better. Thanks for for reading,♥️
My dad is alcohollic and my Mom has anger issues,it’s the perfect pair for disaster,I have found my dad wasted on the floor,once my brother had to pick him up from the middle of the street,he would want to mow the lawn but it wasn’t safe at all and i feared he would cut His legs,he would fight my Mom and my Mom would fight back,or Mom would start threatening him cuz she was so annoyed with him,But she is very sweet and caring,But when she’s around him it all goes downhill,I’m 11 btw,and I still haven’t gotten out of here 😭
Ack. This article hits home. I must say, the first point is poignant. I remember being in an exam in our high school gym one day. It hurt to swallow, my throat was bruised. I had fought my father the night before. Instead of studying, I was in the rain in the backyard fighting with my drunken dad…yet again. I would get him out there to get him away from my mother and my siblings. It was frustrating to take his punches but when I would get him down and pin him, I could never punch his face in like he deserved, because I didn’t know what ramifications it would have on our family. I remember putting my pen down in the exam and sitting back to look at my fellow students sitting around me in the gym, wondering if any of them had to fight the night before. I just wanted normal…that’s all I ever wanted, nothing special. I resent the time that was wasted in all those years. I resent the humiliation. I resent the unspoken pity from people who had an idea of what went on. I didn’t resent them, just being put in the situation. I resent looking in the mirror now and seeing my father in me. The face I wanted so badly to punch into bloody oblivion. I resent complaining to you all here, and feeling like I don’t have a right to. I never complained about this. I never complain. I married a wonderful woman, I have wonderful kids, I don’t drink. I think I’m a pretty good dad and husband. Nothing special…just normal…I hope.
I am currently working and it been 2 months, my father is an alcoholic, he becomes crazy at night time. Harming his relationships with close ones. I sometimes get tensed due to his behaviour. And i think I’ll never come back when I go back to my work location. It feels really bad when your closer ones are like this. This world is a strange place, people say if we leave our family then we may get depressed due to no family support and currently I’m feeling sad and tensed by his behaviour of creating an issue for nothing in the night and then getting normal in the morning.
Yes, my parents are alcoholics. And no I dont want to have a foster family cause when they dont drink they are amazing. But when they do,I hate looking at their drunk faces, the feeling that I know, after they wake up they’ll go drink again. I have trust issues, cause they say thay they will not drink, but they do. I have no friends, nobody to talk to. When they have free weeks from work, holiday and stuff they drink until they need to go to work. After work sometimes they drink again. But when they get drunk, they go to sleep, they sleep for a few hours, wake up and drink again. Both of my parents are alcoholics. What will I say to my kids when I’ll grow up? What will I tell them about my parents? That they were alcoholics? My life is ruined basically
Ok so, i am writing this under a blanket and Crying miserably while trying not to make a sound. My Father is a Hopeless alcohol and Smoking addict. He has Alcohol every single day and we throw out about 14-18 1L alcohol bottles every 3-4 weeks. When he drinks alcohol,( should i consider myself lucky?idk) but he doesnt become abusive unlike most of the alcoholic parents i read about in the comments. He will become increasingly tipsy, stagger while walking and Talk utter garbage. Typical ‘drunk behviour’ shown in TV shows. Sometimes i wonder if i am the adult of the house. He behaves like a teenager and although my mom isnt an addict like him,but she us a frequent drinker as well. When she has too much to drink, she behaves exactly like my dad and seems line a Junkie teenager. I hate it so much. Whenever i saw them like this i wanted to just end my life then and there. Maybe some people will think this is a stupid reason for such dramatic action but i hope children with a similar situation to myself may relate to me. I want to get out of this hell. I wanna have a good family. I dont have an obsession with materialistic things, nor am i high maintenance. I wish a genie would grant my wish to be adopted so that i could run away with my cats and live with good parents. My cat and her kittens have been the biggest light in my life these last 4 months. because of the vet checkups food expenses i have to put up a front and talk to my parents like NOTHING is wrong. I promised myself that this will be a facade but when i talk to my mother like old times, i dont hate it.
You know something? It kinda feels good to know that there are people who can relate to being in such a situation. My heart goes out to all of you. Over at my end of the world, when i try to communicate with someone (like a friend or a coworker) about what it’s like to deal with such a parent, they always give me a blank stare. Most often than not, they think am over reacting and too sensitive. I rather wished they would have just heard me out and nodded in agreement even if they didn’t get it. But i really don’t blame them for not being able to understand it either. Most of us tend to think we can handle trouble just fine until it really happens to us, we are hopelessly optimistic like that. Anyways, wish you folks a good week ahead. Cheers
I grew up with an alcoholic dad and it was very very difficult.. I’ve had years of therapy and now I’m doing so much better. I encourage everyone to write a letter to their alcoholic parent (you don’t have to send it) so you can write everything down, and tell them about the pain they inflicted upon you. It really helps.
First of all, thank you for your article and for giving us light into this topic. Also, my heart goes to everyone who’s suffered this and now’s having to deal with the consequences of it. The article really depicts the reality in which I grew in. Single parent, mom, is an alcoholic. Emotionally abused me and my older sister, 8 years different between us. Basically my sister helped to raise me, but she always felt I was a burden and then she never really gave me what I needed to grow. The heaviest abuse began when my mom started dating a drug addict. Crack addict. He was way younger than her, 15 years younger or so. He cheated on her, he stole money, he beat her and they would fight constantly. I once saw him with a gun on his hand hitting my mom on the head and my mom then told me to run. I ran, and she then came behind me. It was so scary I thought we were going to die that day. Eventually he left her for a younger woman. She got way worse, she’d drink till she passed out. She’d pretend she was having convulsions, to see us crying. Sometimes she’d really pass out and we’d have to carry her and every time I thought she was going to die. I was super attached to her even though she mistreated me and was breaking me mentally. Whenever I’d get home with a good grade or did something positive the response would be: “You did nothing more than your obligation.” I don’t remember a single time my mom offered to help me with homework. I stopped caring. I once got home and my brother-in-law told me we’d go for a ride. He took me and we drove and then he told me I would have to become a man if I wanted to live with them, that I’d have to “not be a gay anymore”, that’s not Christian and I bring discord and darkness to our house. I dropped from high school on my last year, my sister went away and I had to endure my mom by myself. She worked in a restaurant/bar at the time, and she worked the night shift. She’d leave at 2am and I’d stay up all night waiting for her, worried. Most of the times she’d just leave work and go straight out with “friends” to drink. Sometimes just alone to some random bar, and there were times I had to go pick her up… 7am, after staying up all night trying to call her and she wouldn’t pick her phone up… on purpose. The more I tried to know where she was, the more dismissive she would become, as in: “You don’t have any business trying to take care of my life.”. Then I met someone who helped me, invited me to live away from home, in the capital, and to study. I did it, I went away from home and well, I was basically locked in a prison where I had to do everything at home, from cleaning, ironing his clothes, cooking all meals and preparing his food for work… He stopped wanting to have intimacy with me… He started to reject me, and never really told me why. At that time I was doing a prep course in music to apply for a bachelor’s in music. I quit the course on my last year also. I still managed to get to college, but quit on my last year, because he left me and I lost all my identity. Just how I lost it as well when he told me he didn’t like my hair and I had to change. When he told me he didn’t like the way I dressed, so I changed it. When he didn’t like my family, I completely ignored them. When he didn’t let me go out with friends, so basically my friends stopped inviting me and I eventually lost them. Now I’m almost 30, my life is upside down. I used to have a career in music, now not any longer due to covid-19. I have an addiction to one of my anti-depressants, to weed and I cannot sleep properly. Never could really, I’m scared of the dark and it takes me a long time to sleep because I close my eyes and then I get this anxious feeling in my tummy that someone/something is going to be there, in my bedroom, to hurt me or whatever. I feel broken, I feel lost and I feel like I have all the mental issues that exist and are known to men. Anyway, there’s just so much more that I’d like to tell. It all just leads to more victimization anyway. Thank you for reading till here, and I wish you all the best for 2022 <3.
Thank you ! I had always had a hard time trying to identify what normal or ‘good’ family relationships were like, and now that I’m a teenager I’ve struggled with identity issues that i couldn’t find a way out of, my parents were divorced and my dad is an alcoholic. I feel so heard and understood ❤️ thank you @psych2go
My story starts here: Ima 13 years old and my dad It’s an alchoolic, my mom its in another country working for us, because my dad its a little sick, but he goes at store everyday and drink till his drunk, he stay late in the night and ima alone, i study hard and i have good grades, but i can’t support anymore my dad, he scream at me, sometimes he punches me, he insult me, my mother, but i try to hide what my dad said about my mom, because she will get angry at my dad, and then they scream at eachother, and my dad beat me up for this, my life its hard, i try to hide my sadness, ima pretty normal, but i just wanna to live normaly, thats all i want in my life Edit: my dad its verygood in the morning and evening, but Every night he get drunk and if ima gonna say why he stayed up that late he is gon a scream and insult me, my life its hard but…. i try to stay normal
When I was in third grade my dad picked me up drunk we were walking to the crosswalk but the office lady stopped him the aids took me inside I was trying so hard not to cry cause I knew if I told someone they’d push me away my grandparents picked me up they live like 5 minutes away and I went to their house then I went to my house to pack and he did it on my birthday week I promised my neighbor I’d meet him outside but I couldn’t I watched Pokémon but it felt like my heart was tearing itself apart I got an inside scar and an outside scar it hurts and they’re so clueless when they drink trust me people are not funny when they drink they’re dumb,ignorant, and they lie if they drink a lot more they get abusive my moms dad had a. Achoolic dad and his dad would beat him at 3am every night and beat the crap out of him my grandpa is very hard working his family was poor he climbed himself to the top my cousins have an achoolic dad except theirs is worse my cousin eats chapstick and dog food cause he didn’t give them much food and my older cousin gave her food to her younger sister and my other cousin has an achoolic dad just remember it could always be worse
My story: hi I’m 14 years old and am going through hell my parents ever since I was born have been alcoholics the farthest back I can remember is when I was 4 years old and at the time I slept next to the door to my room and went to sleep one night only to be woken up by my drunk dad chocking my mother (who is fine now) and the feeling of not doing anything haunts me to this day now all they do is work come home get drunk and fight it’s a struggle getting them to go to sleep I stopped caring about their endless cycle of fighting for about a year now I struggle with school because I’m always tired because of the fight waking me up I have lots of friends though so that’s nice at least other than that my life sucks 😞
My grandmother was alcoholic till she died. And I didn’t know untill 2 years later. And when my mom told me, I realised that… my dad was always drinking in the evening. Being both physical and mentally abusing. But I never thought it effected me. perusal this article shows me that… I do have problems thanks to my upbringing around my alcoholic father. But specially in the love apartment. A year and a half ago I finally managed to break out of a abusive relationship After trying to leave for a year. ( we were together for 2 ) because being abused wasn’t as bad as bring alone, Or so I thought. A half year later I went on a date which I assumed was just gonna be this, one night thing. And now we have dated for a year, he is amazing, he loves me, he dosnt care that I don’t want biological children or anything about my crazy ideas. But I constantly come up with negative things about him which really don’t matter in the big picture, always imagining him cheating to avoid opening my heart to be crushed or to be abandoned. But I never knew where this feelings and fears came from. They came from my dad… . Ps. He went to anger management classes and after that cut down on the drinking. He also stopped drinking heavy liquer after his heart attack in October.
My father lives far away from us due to his transfer. One day he had hit his head on the roadside and an wound had opened up in his skull. My mom and my brother left me and went straight to my father’s due to the emergency, later after everything calmed down both my mom and brother returned to home. But right after few weeks he had we got to know that he had started drinking again and now more frequently, it lead my mom to go again far away from us just so he can babysit him so many times and we also lost money because of this. Whenever we get a call from my dad my mom would always get in tension because he gets drunk and does not go to office or eat. He just doesn’t know that how much tension he has been giving us till now I pray nobody has to suffer from these kind of situation 🙏🏻😭
WOW. My dad was an alcoholic. As a child I would see him be so mean to my mom & fight with her on a daily basis. I was always so scared of making him upset because when he would drink, I never knew how he would get. Because of the trauma I faced as a child, now as an adult when I get into an argument with my boyfriend, I break down and get so emotional. I would always feel like why am I like this? I know why now but it’s so hard to break those bad habits I’ve brought w/me because of the trauma. It’s taken a tole on my relationship and I hate the way I am. I hate it.
Random very true fact : You know, no parents doesnt love their childs, sure te media want them potrayed as the villain, but child abuses are always caused by either stres, trauma or mental ilnesses!! They are dying deep inside too! They needed help!! If it wasnt for the stress, they wouldnt do such things to their childs! Even psycologist cnfirmed that! And Jesus loves you so much, He always did, He’s thinking about u a lot and He wants you to surrender it all to Him and give your life to Him 🙂 I love you too ❤
My mom was an alcoholic all through my childhood. She used to hide bottles of vodka around the house and I’d find them and dump them out not caring if she’d get upset when she needed it. My mother passed away when I was almost 17, and I’m 19 now. I feel very disconnected from myself now and my childhood. And I feel so alone all the time.
Most people talk about their father being alcoholic and their mother not being one, in my case, its the complete opposite. Its very hard and whenever i try to confront my mom she just blames it on me and start to become out of control. One time even resulting in the cops being called. My mom is very toxic but my dad on the other hand is so nice and respectful, at least i have a parent i can count on.
I relate to 1,2,4,5 and 6. My dad is an alcoholic and it never really started to bother me a lot until recently. I’ve been crying everyday for the past 5 days. He calls us names, breaks promises, and I worry that one day he’ll pick up a knife and kill us. He hurts my mom constantly and blames us for everything. My mom and sisters don’t feel the way I do: sad and alone. I don’t know what kind of person he is anymore. I’m so sensitive and I get hurt my everything now. If my sisters make fun of me I cry. If my friends do a little thing that hurts me I cry. If I look in the mirror and see fat I cry. I’m crying right now. I just can’t deal and I want to be happy again but there’s a stranger living in my house who thinks i will love him when he uses my sensitivity to his advantage 😭
im 25 and this describes me perfectly, my dad left my family because he couldn’t take living with my mum anymore but im stuck here until i can afford to move out with my boyfriend. Living with an alcoholic is beyond stressful and exhausting, not matter what you try and do they are helpless until they see it themselves i guess. It’s taken a huge toll on me and has caused major anxieties around alcohol. If there were any alcoholics reading this please get help, not only are you harming yourself you are harming others and bottles cant help your problems but family can.
I grew up with an alcoholic father, he lied and made excuses so that he could get hammered on a weeknight. He’d come home sometimes and just cuss me out and call me a loser. Things never got violent but that’s not to say he didn’t try to take it to that level. There’s probably a lot of people in these comments that have been put through worse by an alcoholic parent but just know that you’re far from alone. As much as it sucks, there is a valuable lesson to be learned which is to be smart with alcohol use. Don’t make the same mistakes our parents made, we don’t have to follow in our parents footsteps. Let’s use this opportunity to inform others on the dangers of alcohol abuse, we know firsthand how bad it can be. Peace and Love to all.
I haven’t been able to go to my Dad’s house in over 3 years. He’s been sober for 17 days and this is probably the longest he’s gone since way before I was born. He’s been calling me every day and I barely recognize him because he’s different now, but it’s a good different and I hope he keeps it up. I told him I believed in him but I lied. I just don’t know anymore.
Relatable! I have an alcoholic father who have ruined my life completely. I am 18 now. I have been facing this since I was almost 5 years old. I have no idea what growing up in a ‘normal family’ even means. He has always been physically and verbally abusive to my mother and also us (me and my sister). When I was 12 years old my parents were about to get divorced but that did not happen because of some reason. He has been sent to rehab twice but after just few months he turns to alcohol again. I am still suffering. Don’t know what to do, where to go. He does not even support us financially. I am ashamed of being his daughter and there is literally no respect left for him. Now the only hope is that I complete my studies and get a job as soon as I can and then we (my mother and sister) can move out of here. And the only thing I want in life is to become a better parent to my childern. I shall never let them go through any of these painful experiences.
me as a child with an alcoholic mom it was very hard because when she werent affected by alcohol she was the nicest mom in the world and would do anything for her children but when you love someone it is so hard seeing them fall apart and a pattern i have noticed in my three other sibling that two of them tend to sheild all their emotions away and my other sibling is filled with emotion and cant event talk to of our mom beacuse of the pain and i feel bad for every person who has to go through this.
My father is rarely seen not drinking…and the worst part is that people see him as this happy, exciting guy who’s great with people…no one ever sees him at home. Passed out drunk on the couch at 12 PM. Snapping at such random things at random times. Never able to talk to him or make any sort of emotional connection. It hurts how many of those things relate to me. My grandparents also drink themselves into a stupor and same with my aunts and uncles…just drinking and arguing and saying the most awful things to themselves and random strangers. I made a vow to myself that I will never drink, ever. I have never drank a single sip of alcohol of any kind and never will.
This helps me to understand so much of my own behavior over the years, especially the need to save people, attracted to people who treated me like shit because I felt needed. God, word for word this is my life. I had NO idea how to expect love for the longest time because all I was given was abuse from my alcoholic family. The abuse was profound but I literally just blocked it from my memory for years, avoiding any of my own feelings of pain. I never understood what real families should look like. I was always so hard on myself, always. I was not kind to myself, and kept going at everything alone, terrified that someone could look down on me if I wasn’t doing things perfectly. This especially translated to retail work, where I absorbed the abuse of bosses and accepted it without saying anything. I didn’t stand up for myself. I just thought if I did everything right, I would somehow be okay. But I needed to much more. I moved on to another career in teaching and realized all I wanted to do was give kids the kind of childhood I never had – a happy one. I also have had drug addict and alcoholic friends who I tried to save but those relationships just copied the same pattern of me making excuses and overlooking things. I know so much better now.
I am 21 years old, and as per my knowledge my father has been an alcoholic for 22 years. I heard that when I was just a little infant, he physically threw me. When I was little, I didn’t understand why he behaved strangely. I thought he was just sleepy. As I grew little by little, I understood that there was something called alcohol and it would make people tipsy. I recall crying and begging my dad to not drink on those days when things got so dangerously violent at home. He would promise me that he wouldn’t and say sorry. But a few weeks later he would start drinking again. The years passed by, and my trust was broken and my spirit was crushed over and over again. I resorted to anger. I would shout at him and say that he doesn’t care about us. Fast forward to the present, I’ve been in therapy and psychiatric treatment for 3 years for Borderline Personality Disorder, and my elder brother for about 8 years for OCD and Depression. At this point I have no more empathy, and people can tell me about how alcoholism is a very difficult disorder to recover from, but I can’t budge, and I can no longer forgive my father for everything that went horribly wrong. It’s a conscious choice I have mindfully made, and it’s the only one that can give me strength and independence. I’ve always been jealous of my friends who had responsible fathers who would spend more quality time with their family rather than sitting hungover on the sofa. I wish I could give advice for people just like me, but I feel like I have no effective solution in my mind.
I have an alcoholic mom and it’s just not fun my parents divorced bc of my mom drinking and it hurts me every night and I got depression and anxiety but my mom doesn’t know because I don’t trust her she tells everybody so like I have trust issues I told my mom to stop but she wouldn’t listen and i feel like people are talking behind my back in school and just every thing scares me Thank you for taking your time to read this💕
Hello guys i wanna share my story. I do not know if u will read this, but i am too scared to talk about its in real life. So i am 17 and my dad has an alchohol problem since i remember. Moreover he is very agressive all the time he shouts at me and my mom and calls us badly. He poisons my life all the time. My mom also have terrible expierience with him and her pain is pain to me too, but she is too scared to divorce with him. She keeps to believe that he will change, because in the past he was a good husband and father to me. I Hope it will all change. Thank you for your time I hope you are not in the similar situation, if u are remember that you are not what is your parent and who someone says about u. Peace
My dad was an alcoholic and drug addict he had really bad anger issues and him and my mum used to fight when I was younger but bcs i was so young I thought it was normal and didn’t think anything if it at the time now I can rlly relate when u said that his you always get criticised by your parents u give up on trying to pls them and can’t see the point … this one I relate to so much since my mum always is so strict on me and wants me to do perfect at everything do I don’t throw away my potential and end up like my dad it’s hard and I hate having to grow up around this it has affected me and still is 8 years later
I can totally relate to everything that was shown on this article. My dad and step mom are severe alcoholics, they drink day and night. They expect too much from me and I can never keep up on their expectations. It got to the point where I gave up on trying to make them proud of me. Every time I take the time to complete a really hard task, they always complain that I didn’t do good enough, or, I could have done more.
I’m 15, and my dad drink alcohol nearly everyday of the week whenever he can… this article made me understand why I am the way I am and dont know who I am. Since I was very little I had awful experience with my dad and sometimes both my parents, mum and dad always fought and that scared me, most of the fights was when he was drunk, he threatened to leave us multiple times, sometimes hit me or my siblings but thet was rare as we used to hide from him whenever he did get drunk to avoid anymore drama or conflict. He has a bipolar character, one time hes super nice next hes mean, other times hes neutral and just so unpredictable… and he was very manipulative, hence threatening to leave if we dont listen to him, or saying that he will kill himself etc. It’s a long story that’s all I’m going to say thank you for reading
I relate so much with this and am crying now because I’m still only young but don’t know what to do with my alcoholic mother. When I was a lot smaller I used to think it was normal and all parents are like this but my older brother (he was kicked out when I was 4) said ‘you know this isn’t normal’ and that’s when I found out.
Ah.. this hurts how relatable this is …. My father has always had a drinking problem since i was young, even tho he’s gotten a little better he still gets a little viloent verbally and physically wheen he’s drunk ive learned how to take care of my siblings who get caught up with his bheviour and what probaly hurts the most is that we can’t talk to him when he’s not drinking because he always use’s the excuses that he ” is a grown man ” and can do what he wants or ” My friend are all going out aswell i m not gonna be the one whos is stuck at home”, sometimes he really scares me and i feel bad for my mam who has to deal with him. (Sorry for venting haha)
My Dad drinks but he doesn’t hurt anyone and isn’t mean. But it pains me . This is probably why my anxiety started. I hate that he drinks. And we you tell him to stop he gets mad. I feel like crying writing this…. I don’t what to do. I don’t want him to pass away I haven’t even got to high school yet I don’t want him gone before then. No one understand how much it hurts me. He has a job and dosent drink on the job. But I’m embarrassed when he’s drunk in public. My Nana is scared something is gonna happen to him. I don’t how to fix it. I’m sorry if anyone is going through this too. I don’t wanna lose my dad before I grow up… 😖
I know this article is old, but I can’t relate to it enough. My mother was an alcoholic, however she wasn’t abuse in the way where she physically harmed me. She would become distant, becoming almost nonfunctional after a mere hour after I got home from school. I’d have to take of my younger sibling, and while she has since stopped these habits.. some very, very toxic ones remain. I love her to death, but yknow some things you can’t just “forgive and forget”. Messed me up a bit. Anyways, sorry for the rant, and thank you so much for this article, I don’t see nearly enough articles touching on the impact of alcoholic parents.
My siblings and I had such a weird mix, our mom and biological dad were alcoholics, dad was a narcissist and so is our stepdad and our stepdad is also an enabler so he enabled her drinking habits. We got quite the mixed bag of issues and became different types of kids described in some of the articles. My eldest sibling was the leader of all their groups, I was the quiet and withdrawn dreamer, and my brother was the troublemaker.
My father is an alcoholic, to tell the truth i really hate him…He is ruining our family, my mother does nothing she’s weak she doesn’t want to divorce him cause she thinks she’ll end up alone…i really want to move out of the house tho im only 17 and i dont have nowhere else to go. Through i feel less alone reading all these comments… I am not alone
My dad is a drunk he almost put us on the streets, as the years went by I saw him go down hill get bigger and losing his mind getting weaker and older. Me my mom and my cat left and my mom got a new job and moved im with my grandmother, were doing good and I got a tablet and switch for Christmas, I’m happy where we are right now I haven’t seen my dad in 1 year.
my mom will drink all day everyday and tell me she hates me. I have to be the one to make her food and pick her up when she falls… it’s been that way since I was really little.the only memories I have of her is when she’s drunk and she says that when I get older she wants me to be her “drinking buddy”. I don’t tell her I love her anymore, idc if it upsets her. she hurts me and wont admit it. I’m 12 btw
My dad has been drinking heavily since 2008. It’s 2024 now, and he’s about 6 months sober. i told him i loved him the other day, and he didn’t say it back actually theres been a few times since his sobriety, I’ve said i love him, but he just doesn’t say it back. Im in the phase of mourning the parent i used to know because he probably doesn’t remember much of my childhood. Im happy he’s getting the help he needs, but the child in me is still screaming 😡