Psychological characteristics of adult children from alcoholic families. How adult children of alcoholics differ. Janet Voytitz's book
UDC 616.89-008 © Merinov A.V., Lukashuk A.V., 2014
FEATURES OF CHILDREN GROWING IN FAMILIES WHERE THE PARENT HAS BEEN SUFFERED WITH ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE
Annotation. The article is devoted to a review of modern literature data concerning the problems of psychological, narcological and clinical-psycho-pathological characteristics of children who grew up in families where the parent or parents suffered from alcohol dependence. The issues of formation, psychodynamics and psychocorrection of detected disorders are considered.
Key words: adult children from families of alcohol-dependent patients, family of alcohol-dependent patients.
© Merinov A.V., Lukashuk A.V, 2014 PECULIARITIES OF CHILDREN GROWN UP IN FAMILIES WITH A PARENT SUFFERING FROM ALCOHOL
Abstract. The article throws light upon present-day literature data, which deal with peculiarities of psychological, narcological and clinical-psychopathological problems of children who have grown up in families with a parent or both parents suffering from alcohol dependence. The questions of formation, psychodynamics and psychocorrection of the revealed disturbances have been studied.
Key words: grown up children from families of alcohol dependent patients, family of an alcohol dependent patient.
About 40 years ago, the attention of researchers began to attract the problematic contingent of children who grew up in families of people suffering from alcohol addiction. It turned out that the urgency of this problem is due not only to the gross social maladjustment and victimization of this cohort, but also to the significant prevalence of this phenomenon. So, in the USA about 40%
adults (about 76 million people) have alcoholism in their family. The percentage of children and adolescents who have at least one of their parents suffering from alcoholism (in the future we will use the established formulation "adult children of alcoholics" (ACA), in the United States, according to recent studies, ranges from 1: 8 to 1: 5. It should be It should be noted that as the average age of the population cut increases, the share of ACA in it decreases, which reflects their shorter life expectancy.Extrapolating the given global proportions to Russia, taking into account the current trend in the level of alcoholization of the population, we can say that the number of ACA is from 25 to fifty% .
In a systematic analysis of scientific publications devoted to this issue, several main approaches to its study can be distinguished. The greatest interest in this little-studied phenomenon was noted in the 60s-80s of the last century, when the main clinical and psychopathological patterns of the syndrome of the “adult child of an alcoholic” were identified, and the most probable spectrum of comorbid pathology was statistically determined. At the end of XX - beginning of XXI century, the interest of researchers switched to the analysis of psychodynamic and neuro-functional aspects of this undoubtedly multifaceted phenomenon. Moreover, in the last decade, in the study of alcoholism, there has been a shift in the interest of scientists from the problems of the individual to his relationship with the immediate environment.
Clinical and psychopathological aspects of the phenomenon. The most frequent “frontal”, but, unfortunately, far from the only problem of ACA is chemical dependence. Various studies have repeatedly proven that the risk of developing alcoholism in ACA is significantly higher. Moreover, in the presence of a father who is dependent on alcohol, the risk of alcohol dependence in children is four times higher, in the presence of addiction in the mother - three times.
Some scientists have found changes in neural stimuli in the mesolimbic system in ACA.
According to various sources, the frequency of alcoholism in adult sons ranges from 17 to 70%, in adult daughters of alcoholics - from 5 to 25%, drug addiction - about 6% and 3%, substance abuse - about 17% and 5%, respectively. Only 19.9% of adult children, whose parents are sick with alcoholism, do not show any psychopathological disorders at the time of the family survey.
Most studies support the anticipation hypothesis, which manifests itself in the fact that representatives of the younger generation, according to most of the main clinical markers of the course, get sick more severely than representatives of the older generation. Moreover, in each specific case the history of addiction is described as telescoped trajectories, that is, the onset of alcohol use occurs at an early age, and the interval before the onset of clinical manifestation of the disease is very short - an average of four years for ACA compared to seven years for children from families no history of addiction. At the same time, there is a hypothesis of "aversive transmission", which suggests that the more severe alcoholism was in the parents, the lower the risk of being addicted in their children.
Also, in a number of studies it has been proven that ACA has a higher incidence of pain, tics, runny nose, enuresis, insomnia, migraine and runny nose, allergies, anemia, colds, weight problems, these people have 60% more injuries and injuries during at school, they are prone to aggressive and risky behavior.
While in men from the ACA group, narcological diseases predominate in the spectrum of psychopathological manifestations, for women the most typical nosologies are neurotic and borderline registries. This includes post-traumatic stress disorder and other stress-related disorders.
structure, as well as anxiety and depressive spectrum disorders.
The question of the specificity of clinical and psychopathological patterns associated with upbringing in a family of alcohol addicted patients is debatable and, rather, open. Thus, a number of studies have shown that a similar spectrum of manifestations is present in people who grew up in all dysfunctional families, especially in conditions of intrafamilial physical violence. In children from dysfunctional families, the incidence of mental disorders is 95%. Harter S.L. (2000), on the basis of a meta-analysis, came to the conclusion that the manifestation of the "ACA syndrome" is nonspecific, and Sher K.J. (1997) suggested that concomitant pathology depends on the presence of a comorbid dependence of the disease in the parents: so if the parents, in addition to alcoholism, had features of antisocial personality disorder, then with a high probability it will also be observed in their children, etc.
Despite the controversy of some provisions and the incomplete clarity of the structure of the relationship of various clinical and psychopathological manifestations in ACA, most researchers agree on one thing: ACA is a risk group for the formation of a wide range of narcological and psychiatric diseases, and also have a reduced level of social functioning associated with this.
Interesting in this light is also the hypothesis that the inheritance of alcohol dependence from parents by children can be realized by two mechanisms. The first is mainly through the genetic path of information transmission, in which, from birth, ACA has dysfunction in the front-striatum, which manifests itself first in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, then flows into antisocial personality disorder and ends with the debut of addiction. The second is epigenetic, in which the child takes addiction from his parents as a variant of maladaptive regressive
copping mechanism, in which alcohol addiction is a way to avoid solving life problems, which, in turn, leads to even greater social maladjustment (the vicious circle of secondary alcoholism).
Psychodynamic and personality-psychological aspects of the ACA phenomenon. Children from alcoholic families Already in the first six months of life, negative attachment patterns are characteristic: a low emotional response, a high level of negative reaction, rare positive messages to parents, and at the age of 18-36 months they reveal obvious behavioral disorders with conflict internalization. At the same time, alcohol dependence in the mother, in general, is more destructive, because it violates symbiotic relationships in the first years of life, when the foundations of the child's personal adaptation are laid. At the same time, a strong attachment to a healthy mother significantly reduces the negative impact of the father's alcoholism. The dominant emotional reactions in these children are fear and hostility, which subsequently become the cause of psychosomatic disorders and chemical addictions.
The family of an alcohol addict is a family with contrasting rules: they are either too free or too strict. In such a family, the child begins to understand very early that alcoholism is a big family secret, and everything bad that is connected with it must be hidden. Therefore, children strive with all their might to hide the "shame" of the family, they cannot speak frankly about the family either with friends or with teachers, secrecy, evasions, deception become common components of their life. Let us list the main characteristics of families with alcohol dependence in a parent, the most significant for the formation of specific disorders in ACA: blurring, indistinct boundaries of various spheres of life, personalities - children often do not know which feelings are normal and which are not, and they lose “the firmness of the psychological soil under your feet "; denial of the existing alcoholic, codependent and other
blematics; inconstancy of attention to the child, with attempts to attract this attention by any means available to him, including delinquent behavior; delegation of blame for the problems of parents to the child - that is, the entire system of upbringing in such a family makes the child believe that he is to some extent to blame for what is happening; insufficient information about the normative functions of the family - children raised in such families have little idea of how a normal family should function.
Children from alcoholic families have signs of increased impressionability, emotionality, which forms a special kind of long-term emotional memory. This contributes to the fixation of unpleasant events in memory. The child remembers fear, resentment, insults for a long time. Also, along with active protest reactions, they often have passive reactions - running away from home, avoiding friendly relations. A sharper manifestation of passive protest reactions are suicidal attempts, the purpose of which is the desire to take revenge and scare. Another form of violation of the behavior of children with family alcoholism is imitative behavior (petty theft, hooliganism, foul language, vagrancy) due to their general neuroticism, increased suggestibility, emotional volitional instability.
Thus, three basic rules or strategies are formed in families with chemical dependence: "Don't speak, don't trust, don't feel."
The negative educational constructs received by ACA as they grow up will prevent them from establishing trusting relationships. First of all, this will manifest itself in the difficulties of creating a marriage. It has been proven that ACAs are less likely to marry / marry, and if they do, they are less satisfied with marriage and more frequent divorces.
N.K. Radina (2003) cites the results of studies, according to which ACA has a less differentiated image of the "I-real" in comparison with young
shami and girls from ordinary families, and the specificity of the ACA's self-image consists in the bipolarity of the role-playing set: to be an aggressor or to be a victim.
It is well known that girls who grew up in families with alcohol addiction are much more likely to choose a man who is also addicted to alcohol as their husbands; the number of such elections is estimated at 60-70%. It is believed that since these women grew up in families where it was customary to ignore the signs of alcohol dependence (denial), so they are not prepared to recognize the corresponding signs of this disease in their suitors, on the other hand, they are attracted to men who resemble their fathers.
In marriage, these girls have a much higher risk of being chemically addicted, or becoming codependent, tightly woven into the pathological family dynamics of addictive symbiosis.
In addition, children in families of alcohol addicts are more often victims of physical violence or incest, which is also an aggravating factor in the development of victimized personality traits.
Approaches to the rehabilitation of ACA. The process of ACA rehabilitation and restoration of disturbed psychological mechanisms in each patient proceeds in its own way, but at the same time, the most common "milestones" are distinguished, which are necessarily traced during each "journey to recovery": awareness and acceptance of one's state (problem identification); search for the native I (natural expression of feelings, search for their own needs and desires); movement towards the desired personality image (the formation of new beliefs, behaviors and points of view; self-forgiveness).
To work with VDA, it is necessary both to use the empirically established protection factors and to enhance the general protective properties. In this case, the treatment of alcoholism in ACA must necessarily be built on three
compulsory principles: reasonable restriction, group and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, "changing the vector of aggression towards external manifestation" - the transfer of energy, which was aimed at self-destruction, to creative activity.
Thus, children who grew up in families where one of the parents or both suffered from alcohol dependence represent a very specific group in terms of personality and psychological characteristics, types of socialization and marriage. This contingent in our country often remains “outside the scope” of not only psychocorrectional work, but also clinically not isolated in the minds of practical narcologists, psychiatrists and general practitioners. At the same time, taking into account even the approximate prevalence of the analyzed phenomenon, one can assume a very serious contribution of ACA to the formation of narcological, somatic, suicidological and other indicators in our country.
In other words, a serious medical and social problem has long existed in our society, which, unfortunately, has not yet been considered as such.
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When a drinking person appears in a family, each of its members suffers from his actions; adult children of alcoholics know this firsthand, who at one time became involuntary witnesses of domestic drunkenness. Every person who has encountered alcoholism knows that this destructive addiction poisons not only physical health, but also destroys personal relationships with loved ones.
Families in which parents are addicted to drinking are generally not well-to-do. Violence and disturbance of the psycho-emotional atmosphere flourish in them. Children growing up in such an atmosphere often become not only witnesses of parents' alcoholism, but also victims of their drunken antics and whims. Many of these children have psychological problems in adulthood that prevent them from building relationships with others and developing personally.
Janet Voytitz's book
In the 80s of the last century, a book by Janet Voytits was published, which described in detail the psychoemotional state of matured children of drinking parents, the features of their behavior and the tendency to regularly drink alcohol.
Often, adult children of alcoholics suffer from psychological trauma suffered in childhood against the background of drunkenness of their father or mother.
In most cases, it is customary to hide family problems associated with drinking alcohol from outsiders. This secrecy has several reasons:
Children of drunkards often have to take care of themselves from an early age on their own. Mother and father do not devote time to raising them. If they drink together, then all their attention is riveted on the bottle. If one of the parents suffers from alcohol addiction, then the second is busy actively fighting the "evil snake" and cannot devote enough time to his own children.
Often, a teenager growing up in a dysfunctional family begins to drink alcohol himself early. This is not due to a genetic predisposition, but to the desire to be noticed by their own parents, plunging into alcoholism with them.
Who are "adult children of alcoholics"?
As they get older, people who have grown up with drinking parents develop certain personality traits that predetermine their adult life. Even if they become adherents of a sober lifestyle, childhood memories associated with alcoholism will remain in their memory.
The term "adult children of alcoholics (ACA)" (DDA, from ACoA - Adult Children of Alcoholics, or ACA - Adult Children Anonymous) was originally used as a definition of support and self-help groups that worked on the methodological basis of the movement Alcoholics Anonymous (AA ) Twelve-step program.
ACA are people who come from families where at least one of the parents was addicted to alcohol, and in this regard, they were forced to develop certain existential qualities that help "survive" in this family. However, these same qualities absolutely destabilize life outside the parental dysfunctional family.
The term ACA should not be shared with the term ACA - adult children from dysfunctional families. This is due to the fact that such problems may concern not only people who grew up in alcoholic families, but also those who were brought up in dysfunctional families, in which acts of all types of violence, perfectionism, religious fanaticism, "emotional divorce" of parents, a ban on expressions feelings, etc.
A set of symptoms with a common pathogenesis
ACA syndrome is a complex structural formation of problems and disorders caused by destructive personality schemes that have arisen in childhood in an alcoholic family, which impede adequate and direct contact with actual reality and provoke psychological stuck in the traumatic past. The adult child is not aware of these distortions. Destructive schemes provoke many violations in contact with oneself: the creation of a negative or split image of one's “I”, infantilism and ignorance of one's needs, getting stuck in the experience of negative feelings. It also leads to problems in communication: aggressiveness and distrust, the experience of ambivalent emotions, destructive models of interaction. (Z. Sobolewska-Mellibruda)
It should be noted that the studies of ACA and VDD did not unequivocally confirm the presence of specific specific, the same for all traits that would distinguish the population of people who grew up in alcoholic and other dysfunctional families. Therefore, it is impossible to argue that all children raised in dysfunctional families have serious problems and personality disorders.
Therefore, the "ACA syndrome" in the classifiers DSM-V and ICD-10 is not marked as a separate disease or personality disorder. The concept of ACA is used in psycho-psychotherapeutic practice to identify people from alcoholic (and dysfunctional) families who suffer from this in adulthood. Patients undergoing psychotherapy in health care settings generally receive a psychiatric diagnosis of Severe Stress Response and Adjustment Disorders (F43).
VDA / VDD typology
There are several types of Adult Children of Alcoholics / Adult Children from Dysfunctional Families: alienated, sad, resentful, dependent, codependent, successful, with a sense of inferiority. (http://www.leczmy-alkoholizm.org/)
Alienated, as a rule, they do not realize that what they have experienced in their father's house continues to have a serious impact on them. They feel “different”, more complex and confused inside. In dealing with people, they show a high degree of control. They feel confidently that the environment evaluates them negatively.
Sad ... Many ACA / UDD are undergoing periodic treatment for depression. They often change drugs that do not bring them the relief they want and do not relieve their general depression. As a rule, they finish therapy with a psychologist after the first visit, as they are afraid to give up their long-accustomed helplessness and depression. Their memories are filled with painful experiences of loss. Traumatic childhood dramas are a source of indescribable grief and pain that cannot be extinguished with a pill.
Offended - some of the VDA / VDD realize that they were very badly injured in childhood. They experience grief, anger, bitterness and even hatred in their souls for the parent who drank or showed violence towards them. They feel wounded and perceive the world and people through the prism of their resentment.
Addicted ... There is a group of such ACA / UDD who themselves become addicted, using psychoactive substances. They begin to use because they cannot cope with difficulties and internal stress. They clearly transfer all family alcoholic and other traditions, ways of solving problems through consumption, into adulthood, in fact, completely copying it.
Codependents - these are children who grew up in alcoholic and dysfunctional families who have been taking care of and caring for relatives since childhood (due to their dependence, illness, due to inversion of the hierarchy, etc.). As they grow up, they enter into relationships with people who should be taken care of (for example, with addicts, with seriously ill patients, etc.). They find life with a partner who does not require care and full dedication to be uninteresting and routine.
Successful - these are those VDA / VDD who serve in responsible and highly paid positions, are professionally successful. They are happy and high efficiency will work for both high pay and “thank you”. With enviable success, they can solve complex problems under stress and under pressure. They are not afraid of difficult tasks and, when required, they boldly take risks. They are very responsible. The people around them are surprised and envious of their composure and inner calmness, not realizing how much what they see contradicts what is happening inside these people.
Defective ... It is possible to identify the "inferior" by the markers of self-humiliation and incompetence in communicating with the people around them. This is influenced by several factors: the “I am bad” image rooted from childhood, lack of positive experience of close relationships with people and lack of basic interpersonal skills (communication, building close relationships, resolving conflicts or misunderstandings).
Therapy for clients with ACA / UDV syndrome
Therapy ACA / UDD can be carried out in the form of individual or group psychotherapy.
Individual therapy involves one-on-one meetings with a psychologist-psychotherapist. The stages of individual therapy correspond in full to the stages of group therapy. Duration from 1 to 3 years.
Group therapy Is a process in which 3 stages should be distinguished.
Initially In therapy, it is important to deepen our understanding of how exactly traumatic experiences from childhood affect our beliefs, behavior and ways of solving current life problems and communicating with people. The recommended methods and techniques of work at this stage are those that will allow you to investigate family history, to realize the “ancestral syndrome” and the peculiarities of the parental family that influenced our development, as well as who we are today.
The group form of work allows you to feel like others, to be understood, listened to and accepted. In a group, participants learn a special coexistence that serves their development. In such a group, it is easier to open up and in the future to cope with strong emotions and experiences caused by memories, difficult traumatic experiences.
Second phase - in-depth therapeutic work aimed at catharsis of difficult emotional experiences that provoke memories of traumatic situations. This is work on the "festering wound" of the soul. Therapy helps to cleanse and heal it so that it no longer affects our lives.
At this stage, it is important to search for new and high-quality models of behavior and solutions to problem situations that have not been dealt with before.
The essence of this phase of therapy is to change the image of oneself in the direction of a more real and positive perception of one's own personality - more adult, independent, possessing more resources than in childhood. You should focus on those situations of the past that make it difficult and impossible to use the current potential.
Stage Three - planning and achieving real and local changes in life.
One should start with local (point, small) changes. Because this is the right way to make sure that what is planned is real. If the change is real, then you can move forward by planning a new one. If not, we must double-check our plans.
The role of the therapist and the group at this stage is to accompany and support the plans of the individual participants.
Participants are expected to achieve stable personality changes (neoplasms) over a period of 1.5 to 2 years. The duration of group psychotherapy, as a rule, takes from 6 to 12 months.
After psychotherapy ...
Immediately after therapy, participants experience local personal and life changes. Further, they overstep the next. As a rule, after a year or two, signals appear indicating a change in attitudes towards the world, towards life and oneself.
Clients report post-therapeutic neoplasms in various fields. First of all, the perception of themselves changes in situations of social interaction: they feel more confident, more conscious about their value and their competencies. This is due to an increase in the feeling of emotional balance, inner peace. They are beginning to talk more and more about themselves positively and take care of their boundaries and needs.
The most important neoplasm after therapy is the willingness to take responsibility for your life. There is also a strong sense of confidence in the future.
P.S. Together with a visit to a psychotherapist and a professional therapeutic group, there is also the possibility of visiting free anonymous groups of the ACA community ...
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood!"
Children who grew up in families with alcoholic parents are very different. And yet the situation unambiguously leaves an imprint on their further independent path. It is of great importance which parent is addicted, to what extent.
Much more difficult for children,. Sometimes, looking at a child, you don't even suspect the presence of dysfunctional parents: normal academic performance, neatness, adequate behavior. This happens if the role of the family is played by someone else: grandmother, aunt, older sister. But even in such cases, with outward well-being, further acquaintance with the children of alcoholics reveals striking differences.
The most unlucky babies are those who have developed from reproductive cells exposed to alcoholic toxins. And if the male material for conception is renewed three months after the last drinking of alcohol, then not a single drop drunk during puberty is forgiven girls, since eggs are laid for life.
No less dangerous is the use of albeit small doses of alcohol during gestation. The most sensitive are the nervous system, the immunity of the future man, the appearance takes on specific features. In more severe cases, the baby will be ugly.
Children in a family of alcoholics
Children with alcohol in their lives can be divided into two categories. The first were conceived and nurtured in alcoholic intoxication. Apart from incurable psychological trauma, they have problems with physical health. The second category felt the enormity of the alcoholic life after birth.
A mental wound dominates here, leaving an imprint in adulthood. Both categories have a low level of intelligence, lack of life experience. In addition, children in a family of alcoholics feel uselessness, hopelessness, which leads them into deep depression.
Schoolchildren have to go through a terrible emotional burden, trying to hide family problems in order to seem like everyone else. Prolonged psychological stress depletes a fragile body, which manifests itself in depression, indifference or aggression.
External distinctive features
Experts are ready to describe what kind of children are born to alcoholics outwardly. Typically, a child who has been exposed to alcoholic toxins will have several of the following symptoms:
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- defects of both hard and soft palate and upper lip;
- thin upper lip and a reduced upper jaw;
- the nasolabial fold is not pronounced;
- narrow eyes with a pronounced upper eyelid;
- the nose is flat and wide.
External distinctive features appear in various pathologies, but alcohol dependence may be one of them. In addition, exposure to toxins from vodka and beer results in missing body parts, deafness and dumbness.
Psychology
Children do not always take their path. Often there is a backlash when a grown-up child, suffering from negligent ancestors, vows not to drink for anything in his life. But even with such a seemingly positive outcome in the psychology of children of alcoholics, a special behavior is formed in society: uncommunicativeness, distrust, not emotionality.
Any child needs communication, love, attention, support. Constant contemplation, if not drinking and swearing, then sleeping parents, the baby explains for himself in his own way: he is bad, no one needs him, there is nothing to love him for. Children are able to perceive themselves only through the reaction of those around them, both directly to them and to their actions, and then behave in accordance with the assessment received.
With the last bit of strength, the child tries to please the unfortunate parents, hugs the drugged father who has just kicked his leg. The lack of understanding of how to behave in order to be good and loved causes complete disorientation in the developing personality, which affects the rest of his life.
Feeling orphaned with living parents can cause tremendous psychological trauma. In order to somehow protect himself from grief and despair, the child tries to adapt in different ways to what is happening.
As a result, he can turn into a bully with defiant or buffoonish behavior, or become quiet, invisible, indifferent. Older children sometimes grow up quickly and try to take on the family life.
Adult children of alcoholics
No matter how the life of a child from a dysfunctional family develops, a number of behavioral patterns can be traced that do not give him the opportunity to take a good place in society and create a strong family:
Do you still think that it is impossible to cure alcoholism?
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And have you already thought to be encoded? This is understandable, because alcoholism is a dangerous disease that leads to serious consequences: cirrhosis or even death. Liver pain, hangover, health problems, work, personal life ... All these problems are familiar to you firsthand.
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- self-esteem is greatly underestimated;
- inability to take decisive action;
- inability to feel and express emotions;
- feeling of guilt for the failures;
- the desire to do without outside help in any situation;
- there is no ability to mobilize forces in a difficult situation;
- strong sensitivity to the opinions of others.
Since the end of the twentieth century, psychologists have called the totality of the described traits the ACA syndrome (adult children of alcoholics). Such people constantly need support, it is difficult for them to establish relationships with others, which additionally drives them into depression and pushes them on the parental path.
Only work with a psychologist will help a person learn to live with existing problems or overcome them for good.
social educator alcoholic family
A child's life is a relentless process of growing up. This process is especially accelerated in adolescence. A little boy or girl receives a largely idealized view of the world from parents and from school.
Socialization (from lat.socialis - social) - the process of personality formation, the individual's assimilation of language, social values and experience (norms, attitudes, patterns of behavior), culture inherent in a given society, social community, group, reproduction and enrichment of social ties and social experience. (6, p. 43)
How this interaction takes place in a spontaneous, relatively directed and relatively socially controlled socialization largely determines the self-change of a person throughout his life, and in general, his socialization.
Socialization is a person's achievement of a certain balance of adaptation and isolation in society.
A number of signs testify to the degree of adaptation of a person to society:
The degree of mastering the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the implementation of role expectations and prescriptions characteristic of society in various spheres of life (family, professional, social, leisure, etc.);
The presence and measure of the formalization of realistic life goals in a given society and ideas about socially acceptable ways and ways of achieving them (i.e., a measure of the consistency of self-assessments and the aspirations of a person with his capabilities and realities of the social environment);
The level of education required at this age stage.
The following can be considered as signs of a person's isolation in society:
Having your own views, the ability to change them and develop new ones (value autonomy);
The presence and nature of the self-concept, the level of self-esteem and self-acceptance, self-esteem (psychological autonomy);
Realization of selectivity in emotional attachments, their preservation and replacement (emotional autonomy);
A measure of readiness and ability to independently solve their own problems, to resist those life situations that interfere with self-change, self-determination, self-realization, self-affirmation; flexibility and at the same time stability in changing situations, the ability to approach life creatively - creativity (behavioral autonomy). (9, p. 287).
When they talk about the harm done by drunkards to their children, it seems to be difficult to surprise: people are already accustomed to this ugly phenomenon. Children are especially vulnerable. Lack of the necessary life experience, a fragile psyche - all this leads to the fact that the disharmony reigning in the house, quarrels and scandals, unpredictability and insecurity, as well as the alienated behavior of parents deeply traumatize the child's soul and the consequences of this moral and psychological trauma often leave a deep imprint on further life.
The well-known child psychiatrist M.I.Buyanov notes in this regard that there is no family in which drunkenness of one or both spouses does not lead to trouble. The risk of developing chronic alcoholism in the future in children is higher than in those whose parents did not abuse alcohol. Children of drinking parents constitute a genetic risk group for the development of alcoholism and drug addiction. In addition, children from alcoholic families carry a complex of psychological problems associated with certain rules and role attitudes of such a family, which also leads to their possible falling into a social risk group. In order to survive in such a family, a child must inevitably learn the forms of behavior that have developed in it, which in most cases differ from socially acceptable options. In families with chemical (alcohol) addiction, according to experts, three basic rules or strategies are developed that are passed on from adults to children and become their life credo: “do not say”, “do not trust”, “don’t feel”. (13, p. 92).
The third rule "don't feel" - naturally follows from the first two. What happens to them can be painful, messy, embarrassing and hopeless. But instead of feeling this sharp pain, little people learn how to dull it. They are forced to learn to hide, deny, or ignore their feelings. Already at an early school age, children are perfectly able to distance themselves from their feelings and thoughts about what is happening in the family, convincing themselves and others that everything is fine with them. But, perhaps, the most vulnerable in this regard, they become in adolescence. According to experts, a teenager not only deeply experiences the tragedy caused by the drunkenness of his parents, but often himself tries to find the key to solving family problems in alcohol. As a result, the process of destruction, degradation of his personality, which in its manifestation is similar to mental health disorders (in particular, with some forms of schizophrenia), proceeds quite quickly and acutely. The teenager becomes rude, callous, malicious in relation to the closest people, his emotional development is sharply inhibited, indifference, emptiness appears, lethargy, apathy, unwillingness to do something, to strive for something, and at the same time aggressiveness, a tendency to antisocial, unmotivated actions.
Naturally, the above characterological changes in the personality of a child and adolescent do not appear immediately, but are gradually formed under the influence of the lifestyle of an alcoholic family and the behavior of drinking adults. The experience of practical psychologists working with such families and the children brought up in them has shown that deviations in the mental development and formation of the child's personality are largely due to the general family atmosphere. Willy-nilly, he finds himself involved in solving many family problems and, together with adults, bears the burden of responsibility for what happens in the house. All this cannot but affect the peculiarities of his perception of the world, feelings and behavior.
1. "This terrible family secret." In an alcoholic family, parents try to hide from their children everything bad that is associated with drunkenness, although this is quite difficult to do. Therefore, the whole family is forced to play the role of a completely prosperous, hiding family problems becomes a way of life. As a result, children find themselves victims of a double standard: on the one hand, they see and understand what is really happening in their family, and on the other, they are afraid to speak openly about the true state of affairs and about their problems not only with the people around them, but also with close, become withdrawn.
2. “Living in a Shelter”. As they get older, children begin to realize that people condemn drunkenness and especially drinking parents. Therefore, with all their might, they strive to hide the shame of their family from neighbors and peers, cannot discuss issues of interest with friends and teachers for fear that they will advise them to ask their parents for clarification and thus the terrible family secret will become known to many. The habit of hiding makes it necessary to ignore reality. In these conditions, secrecy, evasion, deception become integral components of life. The more secrecy, the more confusion, guilt, struggle, conflict and quarrels, separation of family members, psychological isolation and loneliness.
3. "What is real." From early childhood, a child has to observe the discrepancy between what is happening in the house and what adults tell him. Such a contradiction gives rise to distrust of everything that surrounds him, and of himself. The desire to put things in order, to make the family feel comfortable, and with it - a sense of reliability and security, does not get its real embodiment. The child feels his powerlessness and therefore, not seeing a way out of this situation, he experiences fear, anxiety, dangerous forebodings and falls into a state of frustration.
4. "Messages with a double meaning." A child living in an alcoholic family often hears something that contains a contradictory meaning. Such messages to children are called mixed messages or information with a double meaning. For example, a mother says to her child: "I love you, go for a walk, do not interfere with my work."
The situation is also paradoxical when parents demand from the child to tell only the truth, and they themselves are trying with all their might to hide from others what is really happening in the family. An even greater paradox for a child is his relationship with a drinking parent (father). In a sober state, the father is attentive, affectionate, caring, and in a state of alcoholic intoxication, he becomes aggressive, angry and even cruel. It is difficult for a child to figure out what his father is really good or evil, and therefore he cannot believe in a "bad dad", he tries to deny the truth associated with his bad behavior. Such a duality of feelings experienced in relation to the drinking father, exhausts the child, can even lead to nervous exhaustion.
5. "Struggle, conflicts, quarrels." In alcoholic families, parents often sort things out in the presence of their children, without hesitation in expressions and actions. Quarrels and constant clarification of relationships, both at the verbal level and accompanied by physical aggression, have a traumatic effect on the child. Often in parental conflicts, he sees his own guilt and looks for solutions. family problem inside yourself. In addition, the constantly observed disputes, bickering, complaints of adults against each other lead to the fact that children learn a similar style of relationships between people in general (especially for boys).
6. "Fears, anxious forebodings." As we noted above, the behavior of people who use alcohol is unpredictable. Often, under the influence of alcohol, the base feelings of a person are activated. Parents can use aggressive threats to demonstrate their strength. All this makes the atmosphere in the family unsettling and painful.
Therefore, children live in constant fear and expectation of troubles associated with the behavior of a drunk parent. They fear that upon returning home they will be met by a furious father, and therefore often prefer to spend time outside the home. Lingering outside the house, children try to protect themselves from the nightmare that is happening there.
A drinking father often brings drinking companions home and scolds and hooliganes with them. When the wife makes them comments or somehow protests against their arrival, the husband drives her and the child out of the house, regardless of the bad weather. Neither crying, nor entreaty, nor persuasion of the child stop him. And this is repeated many times, the child lives in constant fear that the father will return home drunk and the situation will resume. And so he starts to run away himself if the father comes drunk.
7. "Disappointments". In an alcoholic family, adults get used to failing to keep their promises. Initially, children react to this very painfully, they are oppressed by such irresponsibility of their parents. But accustomed to hide their feelings even from the closest people, they never talk about their experiences, but simply stop waiting for the promised. However, for the formation of their personality, this attitude of parents does not pass without a trace. In their hearts, children believe that their parents have committed a betrayal, and therefore cease to trust everyone around them. Such childish disappointments about unfulfilled promises lead to the fact that even adults from alcoholic families continue to feel disappointment and trust no one in anything, remaining socially immature and infantile.
8. "Growing up too quickly." Along with the negative conditions for the formation of the personality of a child in an alcoholic family, one can conditionally single out such a positive moment as a faster growing up. Due to the circumstances prevailing in the family associated with the addiction to alcohol of one of the parents (and sometimes both), older children are forced to take on their functions in solving material and household problems and providing support to younger brothers and sisters. In addition, they are forced to take care of the drinking parents and cover up the disorganization of family life. The child's uncharacteristic care for the family and the forced parenting role does not allow him to experience childhood joys. They begin to understand this only when they become adults. It is difficult for them to adapt both in a wide social environment and in their own family, because they are used to living in a regime of constant sacrifice and feel like “pseudo-adults”.
9. "Insults and humiliation, including overt and covert sexual violence." Drinking parents lose internal control over their behavior. They can be physically violent towards children without feeling or measuring their strength, unwittingly traumatizing the child or even injuring him. Quite common in alcoholic families are forms of punishment that humiliate human dignity: depriving a child of food, clothing, locking up for a short time in an unventilated room, public flogging, etc.
Many children, especially girls, are sexually abused by their drinking father. Explicit and latent sexual aggression towards children is a fairly common occurrence in families with alcoholism. The consequences of this aggression are manifested in the form of deep psychological trauma, affecting the entire subsequent life of the person subjected to sexual violence, and especially when it happened in his family. Even as an adult, such a child continues to experience guilt, shame, self-loathing, despair, the role of a victim in all life situations, passivity, and often falls into depression.
10. "Abandoned child". Parents prone to alcoholism do not pay enough attention to their children. Even if there is only one parent drinking in the family, the second, becoming codependent, directs all his energy to solving the problems of the patient with alcoholism, and the children remain left to themselves. Often in alcoholic families, even basic care is not provided for children, which poses a serious threat to their physical and mental health. Emotional needs are also overlooked. The result of parental neglect very soon begins to manifest itself in the inability of children to understand the state of another person, to sympathize and empathize with him.
11. "Low self-esteem, lack of self-esteem." Lack of care and attention from parents contributes to the formation of low self-esteem. Children begin to look for the reason for the lack of parental love in themselves and come to the conclusion that they are unworthy of it. Before a child is affirmed in his self-worth, it is necessary that the people who are significant to him initially notice and note it. For him, these are, first of all, parents. Therefore, he evaluates himself as they evaluate him. In addition, he experiences a sense of guilt, shame for the family, which manifests itself in the form of insufficient consciousness of self-esteem.
12. “Living in a fantasy world. Myths helping to survive ”. The reality that the children of alcohol-dependent parents come into contact with gives them a lot of unpleasant experiences, from which they try to escape into a fantasy world. Most often, fantasies are associated with situations such as "What if my father (my mother) were always sober ..." On the one hand, children fantasize about the fact that their life would be completely different if they were born at a different time, in another family, etc. On the other hand, these fantasies focused on a happy ending often contain thoughts about the death of parents as possible option getting rid of all the troubles associated with their drunkenness. As a result of such fantasizing, children may develop distorted ideas about the world around them and their place in it. This pushes them to myth-making, the main motives of which, according to experts, may be the following:
The child sees the reason for the parental addiction to alcohol in himself: if he changes for the better, then the parents will stop drinking;
experience a sense of social discrimination, believe that they are not like everything that brings psychological discomfort to their existence;
they imagine themselves as the masters of the current situation, they believe that they can control the circumstances, but they cannot change anything in the family situation. The inability to realize the myth of one's omnipotence generates feelings of guilt, uncertainty and hopelessness. An attempt to restrain the parents' drunkenness always ends in failure, the control of circumstances has failed, and the child even more blames himself for the inability to change anything in his life;
expect someone who can change the situation in the family for the better. This myth appears on the basis of a feeling of one's own powerlessness, it removes the guilt from the child and puts it on some kind of external force. A ghostly hope appears here, but it blocks internal activity, and family members do nothing to fix the situation. Waiting for outside help, refusal to act, stagnation can lead a child to depression.
The fantasy and myth-making of children is not something unusual or pathological, it is inherent in all children. Therefore, the tendency to fantasize children in alcoholic families could be regarded as a natural feature of child psychology. But quite often fantasies and myths replace reality, are used instead of reality. Then the ability to be the master of his own destiny does not increase, but decreases, the child learns to "go with the flow."
Thus, alcoholization of parents leads not only to mental trauma of children, but also seriously affects the formation of their personality, the negative consequences of which are felt throughout their lives. The most important features of the process of growing up children from alcoholic families are that:
Children grow up convinced that the world is an unsafe place and people cannot be trusted;
Children are forced to hide their true feelings and experiences in order to be accepted by adults;
Children feel emotionally rejected by adults, when they inadvertently make mistakes, when they do not meet the expectations of adults, when they openly express their feelings and state their needs;
Children, especially the elders in the family, are forced to take responsibility for the behavior of other people. They are often judged for the actions and feelings of their parents;
Parents do not share the feelings and behavior of the child, and condemnation aimed at actions negatively evaluates his personality as a whole;
Children feel forgotten, abandoned and unneeded;
Parents may not perceive the child as a separate creature with their own value, they may believe that the child should feel, look and do the same as they do;
Parental self-esteem can be influenced by the child's behavior. Parents can treat the child as an equal adult, without giving him the opportunity to be a child;
Feelings that once arose in a child in response to the situation in the family become the driving forces of his later life. This is guilt, fear, resentment, anger. Growing up, children of alcoholics are not aware of these feelings, do not know what is their cause and what to do with these feelings. But it is in accordance with them that they build their lives, their relationships with other people, with alcohol and drugs. Children carry their emotional wounds and experiences into adulthood, often becoming chemically. And again the same problems that were in the house of their drinking parents reappear;
A family with alcohol-dependent parents is dangerous for its desocializing influence not only on its own children, but also through the spread of a destructive effect on the personal development of children from other families. As a rule, whole companies of neighbors' children appear around such houses, thanks to adults they become involved in alcohol and the criminal - immoral subculture that reigns among drinking people (15, p. 283).
Thus, the negative influence of the alcoholic family on the child's socialization is that children grow up emotionally unstable and with low self-esteem. All these violations significantly complicate the process of upbringing and teaching children, and do not allow children to successfully adapt to the social environment.
