how does alcoholism affect home life?

Answer 1

It depends on the family, which parent (or both) are alcoholic, and also the sort of alcoholic they are and the reasons they are drinking.

(Some alcoholics are "mean drunks" and directly abuse people when they're drunk. Others are "silly drunks" and are completely irresponsible and uninvolved. Both types and those in-between disrupt normal family interaction but in different ways.)

This has been documented in a lot of books that deal with Adult Children of Alcoholics. Sometimes the behaviors seem contradictory; the gist is that a child develops extremes of judgment and behavior, as defense mechanisms just to survive the insecure or even dangerous home environment.

I will talk about my experience as the eldest in a family where the father was an alcoholic -- the negligent sort, not the directly angry/abusive sort.

1. I learned I could not trust my judgment. All the problems were denied or ignored, despite evidence. Nowadays, I still have trouble asserting myself and coming to conclusions. My opinions were ignored, so for a long time I felt I had no "voice."

2. I withdrew physically and emotionally to survive. This impacted all my relationships ... i.e., I didn't really know what a relationship was. They were all either dangerous or draining, and irrelevant to my life. When I got married and had kids, we had a rough time and I had to work hard to UNLEARN all of this just to be a good husband and father. It's been 14 years and I am still working on it.

3. I felt I had to be the hero and redeem my parents (save my father, comfort my mother). That's a heavy burden to carry.

4. I could depend on no one but myself. I am still very autonomous and have trouble letting anyone help me, or wanting to work with others... and trusting them to carry through. I felt like an adult when I was younger than 10, and emotionally had to carry an adult's burdens.

5. I stopped crying. I still rarely cry. My emotions are usually "flat." I don't show much, and cover up what I do almost immediately. It's not safe.

6. I learned that nothing I did would matter, and life is beyond my control (because my father was stubborn and beyond my control, no matter what my needs were). I still have trouble committing to things and feeling like my input has any value. (YA is sort of "therapy" for me... and even after giving advice, I still usually become disillusioned and wonder if I contributed anything.)

7. I didn't learn a lot of the normal family maintenance skills a kid learns. (How to clean up, how to complete projects, how to discipline oneself.) None of these things were modeled by my father, and my mom was too distracted by my dad to work with me much directly.

See how this experience can result in "wrong" ideas about the nature of the world? These things I learned had to be unlearned at some point, so I could become healthy again.

Some of this stuff are things I would have struggled with in any case. Alcoholism robs the child of the parent who is supposed to guide, strengthen, reaffirm, and educated the child to become a healthy adult. The kid is abandoned to find help elsewhere (if possible) or just go it alone.

The impact on my sister? She has had trouble trusting men for years, and only recently has been able to find relationships with them.

My mother became very hypersensitive, cynical, and passionless because of my father's lack of investment in the marriage.

I don't hold a grudge against alcohol. It's the person drinking it who causes the problem. When someone becomes addicted to the bottle, it disrupts the entire family and takes lots of time to heal. The pain is usually passed to the NEXT generation, if the children grow up without finding healing themselves; their coping mechanisms screw up THEIR kids.

Answer 2

I am now 37, however I can only answer from a child's point of view because I grew up in an alcoholic home until me and my siblings were taken away.
As the oldest out of 7 children, I have seen alot. Both parents were alcoholics. I my case they were also abusive to each other and an occasional child.
Alcoholism splits a family, emotionally and physically. The emotional scars are always there, however the pattern can be broken.

I do not know if it was because I was the eldest and saw many disturbing things, but I vowed to NEVER drink or marry an alcoholic. I chose to not drink because of the tendencies that my parents displayed and the shame it brought on our family, and then being separated from my brothers and sisters. Too much heartache just to get drunk.

Some people can control their alcoholic intake and for that I commend them, its those who allow the drink to control them that concern me. It is a disease, and like with any addiction, they (the alcoholic) has to choose to quit, no one else can do it for them.

Answer 3

Alcoholism is task and when someone in your family suffers from this disease everything you learned in psychology 101 is of no use to you, because it is a talking disease. You talk and they make excuses. The year that you become an alcholic is the year or age you get cured. If you are 10, you are 10 mentally when you come off. You can be a grown man with a great job, educated, great home, great car and money in the bank and still act like you are ten years old.

Drinking a bottle of liquor a day and call it recreational, but when you fall out you can't remember that you curse your family out or beat your girlfriend or better yet rape someone. We see this played out everyday in the newspaper -- and we wonder where it comes from..

Well let me share some of the excuses I have heard:
My mother drank herself to death when my father left her.
My mother killed herself
My father was an alcoholic
My family always drank
Choices Choices...We have choices. You don't have do it..

Answer 4

puts everyone on edge...lots of yelling, screaming, cleaning up after messes and at inappropriate times, banging, throwing things, being what they call honest, slurring, drooling, staggering, sleeping in inappropriate places, starting arguments, late night disturbances, hitting, verbal abuse, broken bones or worse, people in the home can't concentrate, you can no longer trust that person, you can no longer depend on that person, they become a liability rather than an asset, you can't trust them to drive (cause they might kill someone) so they will be arguing over the keys, the family can't save any money, can't pay their bills, lose their house, head for bankruptcy, lose everything, etc. etc. etc.

Answer 5

Alcoholism can and does detroy home life.

Answer 6

It makes home tolerable

Answer 7

they are very destructive to everyone involved , mentally, finically, emotionally physical, family can be completely destroy.

Answer 8

you get drunk man