HOW A PARENT’S ALCOHOL USE CAN AFFECT YOU AS AN ADULT?
One misinterpretation that many individuals having liquor addiction have is that their drinking isn’t influencing any other person. Obviously, that is false, and children of alcoholic parents are mostly affected by that toxic environment created by the parent in the family.
Relatively few children manage to get away unscathed from the impacts of a heavy drinker parent. The capricious climate, absence of trust, relationship difficulties, and dread can incredibly twist a youngster who relies upon their parents for physical and emotional security.
The environment at home shapes a child the way he behaves, talks and function in the outside world. If they get a safe and balanced child-parent relationship, it makes their upbringing healthy with valuable teachings in regard to the family and society they have to function in. But on the counter side, if they get a toxic environment with traumatic events in their childhood and parents having involved in heavy alcohol or substance use, it gives them life-long issues like anxiety disorders, sociopathy, feeling unsafe in every situation, unable to cop up with stressful conditions, personality disorders etc.
There are assumed to be two types of fates for the children who had their upbringing in such environment.
They become alcoholic like their parents.
In such case, environment is not only the factor for children to follow on the footsteps of their parents but genetics also plays a huge role.
Children with alcoholic parents may get genetic predisposition for alcohol abuse. According to studies, the risk for alcohol addiction increases to double if there is family history of such condition.
In other cases, they can be influenced by the habits of their parents and choose the same lifestyle for not knowing what else to do as that was the only kind of lifestyle they had witnessed in their family, mirroring the same behavior pattern.
Or trauma of physical and emotional abuse triggers the children to opt addiction as that turns out to be only thing for them to help deal with the amount of stress and abuse they had to suffer with even poorer emotional, physical, social and intellectual outcome. This is termed as post-traumatic stress disorder.
They mature early
Adults in families with liquor habit might need to mature at a sped up pace. In these families, kids might need to take on a guardian job for their parents or kin. Albeit expecting this kind of family job very early on can be a ton of stress and pressure, some positive person qualities can take birth in such individuals. These impacts incorporate flexibility, sympathy, responsibility, determination, resilience and assurance.
But this doesn’t mean that it is a good thing for them. They had to go through a whole lot of hell like experience to achieve such a level of mindset and suffer from lack of insecurity, reliance and love that they deserved at such young age.
They have to set an example in themselves as there was no guidance or footsteps that were worth following growing up. Breaking through all the hardships, low self-worth and self-esteem, feeling of inadequacy, difficulty in social interaction and making friends etc, does a lot harm on their mental health.