One of the biggest misfortunes for a child is a drinking mother . What to do in this situation? Is it possible to help a loved one go to a center and begin treatment for alcoholism, or can we just come to terms with the slow degradation of personality and expect trouble every day? How should a son or daughter behave if their mother drinks?
Why do parents drink?
Alcoholic parents may have several reasons for their alcohol abuse. The four most common are:
Heredity
If grandparents drank, then mom and dad will most likely abuse it, but this is not a death sentence, as there are exceptions.
Stressful situations
Some adults tend to drown out troubles at work and other problems with alcohol.
Family quarrels
Parents can argue seriously, this happens in all families. Some adults go on a drinking binge for this reason.
Alcoholic friends
Parents could fall under their influence “for company.”
If there were people in the family with diagnosed alcoholism, then all relatives are at risk. This applies to children and grandchildren. Genetic predisposition is not a reason to hate your family. The child's task is to learn to hate actions, not people.
Psychologists recommend that children raised by drinking parents be wary of alcoholic beverages and drugs. You should give up drugs altogether; they will only bring mental destruction. And with alcohol, know strict limits so as not to doom your future children to your suffering.
How can a son and daughter save an alcoholic mother?
We have been treating and rehabilitating alcoholics for more than 20 years; we have offices in all major cities of Russia. We have Christian psychologists who will help you cope with the situation. They will tell your son and daughter how to make your mother want treatment.
To help your mother get rid of alcohol addiction, we offer both personal counseling and inpatient treatment under the supervision of experienced psychologists. Since the main cause of alcoholism is spiritual emptiness, we will show you how to fill it with meaning.
We will introduce your mother to God - through preaching, prayer, Bible study. In discussions and conversations, she learns about Jesus, His sacrifice. The woman will examine in detail the dangerous situations in which the biblical heroes found themselves, and how they coped with their grief. She will be able to compare this knowledge with her life.
Gradually, your mother will not just believe in God. She will trust God to help her form a spiritual core that will give her the strength to resist drinking. As a result, when a woman leaves the rehabilitation center, faced with new difficulties, the alcoholic mother will be able to say to addiction: “No!”
Psychological characteristics of children from families of alcoholics
Alcoholic parents are a disaster for children. Such boys and girls live in a tense environment with unpredictable reactions to their actions. They are both afraid and need mom and dad and seek their support. At the same time, they are afraid of reproach and cruel behavior.
Psychologists say that a child from a drinking family can be recognized by several signs:
- Inability to refuse. In conditions of harsh upbringing, children grow up indecisive and cowardly. They cannot make decisions on their own. This is a consequence of too harsh upbringing and frequent physical punishment.
- Stealth. Boys and girls hide their situation in the family; they do not tell anyone about their current situation. They meet friends only on the street and do not invite anyone over.
- Low self-esteem. A child of alcoholics understands that his family is different from others for the worse. He feels like an outcast among his peers.
- Inconsistency. Families have no routine; their lives are characterized by momentary desires. Children do not know how to set priorities and manage time.
- Predisposition to break rules. The kids have problems with the police even while they are at school. They are impulsive and ignore discipline.
- Difficulty of adaptation. Psychological problems prevent a child from being flexible in communicating with peers and teachers. His reactions are unpredictable and far from standard.
- Gullibility. The lack of normal communication in the family does not allow the child to form behavioral patterns. He is amenable to manipulation and believes any information.
- Aggression. Outbursts of unmotivated rage are copying the behavior of parents. This is also associated with the fact that the child does not know how to express his feelings otherwise.
Children from a family of alcoholics need help and understanding. It is not their fault that they are in a difficult situation.
How to influence parents
A child of a drinking mother and father should remember that he is not obliged to save them on his own. They are adults and should be responsible for their lives. Codependent relationships, where one person cares for alcoholics and tries to please them, lead to unpleasant consequences.
Children do not need to take on the burden of responsibility. Their task is to try to influence parents. An alcoholic does not admit that he needs treatment. Even if there is only one parent in the family who drinks, the other will also need help.
When talking to an alcoholic, a child should not focus on the addiction. It is worth trying to convince the mother or father that their health has become weak. Their blood pressure often rises, they experience insomnia, their legs swell, and their heart hurts. This is not good for their young age.
Read more: Communication skills - what does this mean in the modern world?
In conversation, you need to avoid accusations and insults, and show gentleness. You will have to remind them about the deterioration of their condition often; addicts will not go to a narcologist at the first request of their children. Then the whole family will need to visit a psychologist or psychotherapist. The path to rehabilitation will not be easy.
According to statistics, mortality from alcohol is growing inexorably: as many people die from drinking as die in road accidents. At the same time, the majority are not drunken alcoholics, but middle-aged people who drink several times a week. Most often they die from serious damage to internal organs. It is possible to recover from addiction, but desire alone is not enough: alcohol is integrated into psychophysiological processes in the body. Therefore, an alcoholic requires medication support.
Real help
Unfortunately, in most cases it is the teenager who has to take responsibility for easing the hangover of an alcoholic mother. Below are a few simple methods that can help in this difficult matter.
- After alcohol abuse, the body loses a large amount of fluid, and the first step is to restore its amount. To do this, you need to give a person who is in a hangover a lot of liquid: water, fruit juices, herbal tea.
- In order to recover faster, a drunk mother needs to take a shower for at least half an hour. A good result can be achieved if the shower is contrast.
- Activated carbon also works well; to correctly calculate the dose, you need to take into account that you need to give 1 tablet per 10 kg of weight.
- You also need to feed the alcoholic well, preferably with fatty foods.
- After all this, it is necessary to create all the conditions so that the mother can sleep soundly and for a long time.
This is the real help that a child can provide to his drinking mother.
What should children of drinking parents do?
Alcoholism is a terrible diagnosis that puts an end to the life of an adult. But the problem also affects his children. They are no less susceptible to the harmful influence of an unstable adult.
Boys and girls can help themselves. A few tips will be a small guide to action.
Ask other adults for help
If both parents drink regularly, you can turn to close relatives. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, older brothers or sisters can influence the situation. If there are no relatives, you need to seek help from social workers, local doctors, and school psychologists.
Prepare for adulthood
If you can’t influence mom and dad, you need to pull yourself together and protect yourself from stress. If possible, spend less time at home - go to sections and clubs, read and do homework in the library. Graduating from school will be an important milestone - it will be possible to leave home for another city to study.
Move out after graduation
At the first opportunity, you need to leave the house, in which there is only drinking and scandals. Adults get jobs and rent separate housing. Psychologists recommend not communicating with relatives. Their goal in most cases is to receive financial support and drink even more. If the mother and father have not completely lost their appearance, they will be excited about the relationship with the child. They can stop drinking and return to normal life.
You need to start with conversations. Alcoholics can be influenced - there are times when they lack self-confidence and help. If the case is advanced, then the children can only accept what is happening and leave the parental home at the first opportunity.
A child who finds himself in a situation where both parents start drinking every day needs to remember and know one important thing: nothing will change from his behavior. No matter how hard the child tries to behave well, study well, be the first in everything and everywhere, this will not affect the problem in the family.
Harm of alcohol to the fetus
Studies have shown that the unprotected fetus suffers the most from a drinking woman. A pregnant woman who drinks alcohol does not even realize the harm she is doing to her unborn child, who has a weakened immune system due to alcohol and may be born with diseases such as:
- congenital physical pathologies;
- tendency to various diseases;
- mental disorders;
- developmental deviations.
It turns out that long before it is born, the fetus already bears all the consequences of alcohol, and the innocent, little unborn man is already suffering from the fact that his mother drinks. And this becomes the beginning of a ruined childhood, and in some cases, the whole life.
Naturally, the kids can't do anything to help their alcoholic mother. And this only aggravates the problem, because they “understand” that mom needs help.
What to do during drinking and binges
Psychologists recommend that children leave home when their mother and father have binges. Alcoholics are aggressive and unpredictable people. Under the influence of alcohol, they start fights and quarrels. Children unwittingly become their participants.
Boys and girls from families of alcohol addicts become victims of violence. Drunk friends of parents or the mother and father themselves can cause psychological trauma.
When drinking starts in the house, the children better leave. Relatives or friends who are ready to shelter will become a reliable shelter. You can also turn to an orphanage for help. It will be calmer and safer there than at home in an inadequate environment.
It’s not worth joining homeless people and drunkards like your parents. This lifestyle can break the child even more. People think about stealing, using and selling drugs, which can lead to problems with the law. Homeless people can be potentially dangerous: they are also aggressive and often under the influence of alcohol.
Read more: What to do with a teenage child: tips for parents
Concept of withdrawal syndrome
At the stage of getting used to the constant use of alcohol, abstinence syndrome (withdrawal syndrome) occurs when a person feels bad without alcohol and wants to drink to improve the condition. Sometimes, after drinking too much, a guy has a desire to get hungover (this is the body’s natural reaction to the effects of ethanol), sometimes he refuses to drink alcohol again.
But after a while he drinks again to return to the state he liked. A mother has a question about what to do with her son who drinks, if there are no severe binges and excessive intoxication, but there is constant consumption of alcohol. The young man is increasingly using the bottle with or without reason. He can afford to drink after a hard day at work and on weekends.
Limits of responsibility
Children worry about their parents, but they should not be responsible for them. Mom and dad are adults, they chose their own path. The child should be less interested in the fact that something might happen to his parents. He needs to be mindful of his own safety and well-being.
Mother and father gave life, but they also made it unbearable. It is undesirable to enter into conflict - teenagers are inferior to adults in physical strength. People intoxicated are unpredictable and aggressive. The consequences of conflict are dire.
Solving any problems of a mother and father who have gone on a drinking binge is not the child’s concern. He is still too small and inexperienced, he does not have the resources. Their life is their concern. Schoolchildren should remember their business. Study, health, well-being are his priorities.
“Mom wished me dead many times.”
Until the age of 18, Yegor M. studied well and was obedient. His parents had a great influence on him and were strict with him. Everything changed when I entered university. In the 90s, in his company they drank everything that burned, and for any reason.
— While I was young, drinking was as natural to me as breathing. I didn't realize this was a problem. I was a complete loser. He received a good mathematical education, but did not become a programmer, but went into trading. Incomprehensible deals, threats, alcohol in incredible quantities. Then we drank all the booze we could buy. Often it was alcohol, just surrogates. How he survived is unclear.
Yegor’s epic with trade ended in the style of Balabanov’s film “Dead Man’s Bluff” - he spent six months underground, where he hid from bandits. Afterwards he got a job as an assembler in a theater and continued drinking. “My friend and I usually drank 0.7 vodka at lunch, 0.7 vodka in the evening, and sometimes got drunk too. Twice 0.7 was not a dose for us to get drunk.”
Mom screamed: “I wish you could die, I hate you!” Children of alcoholics - about parents, fear and adulthood
His parents had high hopes for Yegor, but he did not live up to them - as he says himself.
— I have a very bad relationship with my parents. My mother wished me to die many times. When I did something wrong, she cursed me. I forgave her, but I don't love her. “I don’t like them both,” he admits.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Yegor decided to move to Moscow. And, as he says today, it was this move that allowed him to survive. He was in his early 30s and decided to go completely blank.
— There were no shores in my hometown. I could drink for weeks without anyone really caring. It doesn't work that way in Moscow. Moreover, I arrived in the capital almost empty, there was no money, I was looking for work. Then I got married, had a child, we bought an apartment, and I got a new profession.
As Yegor admits, he was unable to completely get rid of alcohol. Yes, he began to drink less and control himself more. The week's drinking bouts are over. But the need to get drunk and hangover the next day remained.
— In my city, I turned to drug addiction specialists, but we didn’t agree on anything.
My wife’s patience sometimes breaks, a few years ago she told me: you either get coded, or we get a divorce.
I coded, but my physical condition has worsened significantly. I became irritable and nervous. The encoding ended, and everything started again. In Moscow I went to see a psychiatrist, she treated me as a psychiatric patient, prescribed antipsychotics and drops that caused an aversion to alcohol. If you drink, you won't die, you'll just get sick. But I don’t believe in psychotherapy and I don’t want to let anyone dig into my head. I do not rule out that my mother instilled this program for destruction in me.
My daughter is more tolerant of me, she doesn’t like it, naturally, but she tolerates it and is not offended,” he continues. - Yesterday I drank a bottle of cognac, slept well, today I got a little hangover from beer. New Year is coming soon, which means that I will drink for three days and then come to my senses. There is no fear for life, I am a fatalist. I’ll live as long as it’s measured, it has nothing to do with alcohol.
What are the dangers of alcoholic parents?
Children raised in unfavorable conditions are forced to grow up early. They shoulder the burden of childish responsibility and take care of themselves on their own. But life in a house where mother and father drink deals a blow to the child’s psyche.
- The habit of drinking alcohol is formed. Girls and boys believe that alcohol abuse is the norm for an adult.
- Moral injuries. Intimidation, aggression, and a tendency to submit are the consequences of beatings and humiliation.
- Difficulties with self-organization and discipline. Parents did not have these qualities; no one taught these boys and girls.
- Constant financial difficulties. This is considered normal among adult children of alcoholics.
- Envy. The child was deprived of many material benefits, so he is always envious of his peers.
Isolation often forms. Parents forbid children from prosperous families to communicate with the child of alcoholics. They may ignore that the boy or girl does not lead the same lifestyle and avoid the influence of the mother and father.
Treatment methods for alcoholism
As soon as the alcoholic mother has agreed to treatment, she urgently needs to be taken to a drug treatment clinic. Depending on your financial situation, you can choose a private or public drug treatment clinic. At the appointment, the doctor will collect a complete medical history and determine the stage of alcoholism. Conducts the necessary diagnostic studies and prescribes the necessary tests to assess the patient’s health. The specialist will analyze to what extent alcohol has damaged blood vessels, internal organs, and the brain. For the entire period of treatment, the mother of an alcoholic must remain in a hospital. The narcologist prescribes a course of treatment and introduces this technique to relatives. The course of treatment may contain several types:
- Medication. The patient's body is cleansed of toxic breakdown products of alcoholic beverages. There will be drugs to support the organs and systems of the body and medications that cause an aversion to alcohol. For each patient, drug treatment is individualized
- Psychological. Psychotherapy is an effective technique in the treatment of alcoholism. Clinics usually combine medication therapy and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is carried out individually or group sessions are organized.
- Coding. There are many coding methods. Medication coding can be carried out based on the fact that the patient is intolerant to alcohol. Laser coding involves an effect on the brain. Encoding can be done through hypnosis. The doctor, based on the medical history, suggests one or another type of coding, which in this case will be the most effective.
Consequences of living with alcoholic parents
A child whose life was spent with a drinking mother and father will always be different from his peers. He carries the burden of problems into his adult life. He believes that the responsibility of helping his parents is being transferred to him. He tries to help them cope with addiction, spends a lot of time and effort, and pays for rehabilitation.
Such codependency is to the detriment of the grown child’s own life. He forgets about his family and work and spends all his energy on his parents. He hopes to the last that his mother and father will begin to lead a normal life and give up their habits.
Psychologists associate this with the desire for compensation. Adult unloved children think that their recovered parents will give them their love. They hope that their mother and father will support them and become proud of them.
The daughter or son of alcoholics takes on a significant burden. They not only try to provide treatment, but also provide financial support. They buy food, pay bills, give money for expenses. As a result, mom and dad get used to such attention and view their child as a way to solve their financial difficulties. They don’t stop drinking, they just “grab” money.
In such a situation, it is worth remembering that parents are those who raised, and not those who gave life. If two adults valued vodka more than their own child, then there is no need to consider yourself their debtor.
The syndrome of adult children of alcoholics leads to the fact that a person cannot achieve his goals. Many boys and girls, observing the situation in their own family, promise themselves to achieve success. Life in a drinking family leaves its mark - uncertainty, fears, inability to defend one’s point of view. These aspects prevent a person from achieving his goals.
Clinical psychologist Veronika Stepanova on the role of a child in a family where parental alcoholism causes depression and suicidal tendencies in the video:
Literature:
- Moskalenko V.D. Codependency in alcoholism and drug addiction // A manual for doctors, psychologists and relatives of patients. - M.: Anacharsis, 2002. - 112 p.
- Bratus B.S. Psychological analysis of personality changes in alcoholism. - Moscow State University, 1992.
- Gogoleva A.V. Addictive behavior and its prevention. - M.: Moscow Psychological and Social Institute. - Voronezh: NPO "MODEK", 2002. - 240 p.
- Nemchin T.A., Tsytsarev S.V. Personality and alcoholism. - L.: Leningrad State University, 1989. - 192 p.
The text was checked by expert doctors: Head of the socio-psychological service of the Alkoklinik MC, psychologist Yu.P. Baranova, L.A. Serova, a psychiatrist-narcologist.
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How to change your life for children
If mom and dad ignore the child’s requests and do not want to undergo rehabilitation, they will have to come to terms with this. The child’s task is to devote time to self-development. Mother and father are adults and are responsible for their lifestyle.
Read more: Exercises for developing speech for children of all ages
Children must move forward and leave their home when they reach adulthood. This is necessary for the normal arrangement of your life. The path of mom and dad should not be repeated, so as not to harm yourself and your own family.
Psychologists advise schoolchildren to follow several rules
Avoid Troubled Teens
Children may find themselves in the same situations and seek support from the same students. Bad company won't teach you anything. Drugs and alcohol are common among them. They steal, commit crimes, have problems with the law. It’s easy to fall under their influence, but it will be impossible to leave the company.
Choose your friends carefully
Well-read children with set goals make good friends. They will help you become better and tell you a lot of interesting things. Together you can explore the world around you and make discoveries for yourself.
Girls and boys from problem families do not need to hide in a corner and be afraid of their peers. In any school community there are kind children who will selflessly lend a helping hand.
Sign up for the section
There are clubs for schoolchildren in cities and towns, many of which can be attended for free. Sports, handicrafts, and music will distract you from the family situation. They improve health, broaden their horizons, and train their memory.
Find a hobby
Hobby is an effective way to cope with stress. You can collect a herbarium, play chess, collect stamps. The passion for literature is also free: any works are freely available in the library.
A healthy lifestyle remains fashionable among young people. There are horizontal bars and parallel bars in courtyards and school stadiums. Workout is a free way to improve your health and get good physical fitness. Teenagers come to the playgrounds with whom you can meet and make friends.
Communication with children who are positive brings good results. Boys and girls lose their desire to spend free time at home, they meet with friends and do useful things.
Study well
This is not necessary for praise and recognition from parents. Many opportunities open up for children who do well in school. They enter universities on a budget and get a place in a dormitory. If you can’t move away from your parents, you should go to a local college or vocational school.
Studying can be combined with part-time work. This money will be enough for household items, clothing and other necessary things.
Any education will be useful in life. Working hard will help you get a good salary.
