Alcoholism and the dysfunctional family: it’s time to awaken to the damage that’s being done!

For those of us who work in the world of addiction and recovery, what I’m going to write about today is no surprise at all. As a matter of fact, it’s been going on since the beginning of time.

Alcoholism, has and is currently destroying more families in this country than anyone would ever want to believe!

And just by reading the above sentence, we’re not talking about homeless individuals living under bridges , were talking about mainly “high functioning alcoholics“, I actually hate that term, who are individuals able to hold down a job, have a home even a family, and I will say that an alcoholic having a family is one of the most unfortunate things in the world.

Does that sound highly judgmental? It’s not. It’s simply a fact.

And even though there are thousands of articles and studies from all walks of life showing the damage that an alcoholic does to their partner and or their children, we still have this ridiculous dysfunctional pattern happening more and more over the last several years.

As a Counselor in the addiction recovery world, over the past 43 years I’ve never seen as many people contacting us for help with alcoholism and the family as we have since the beginning of Covid.

It has risen dramatically.

And what are some of the damages, just a few of the deep damages that an alcoholic can do to a family? Let’s take a look:

Number One. Destroy family finances. Now if you’re an alcoholic who has a family and you’re making a ton of money, this may not affect you at all, this point may not have anything to do with you.

But you will find other points that will be highly related to your situation.

And for people, especially now with inflation, struggling financially, the struggle that comes from putting the extra burden of purchasing alcohol on a regular basis can destroy our families budget and even their financial future.

Number Two. Children are ignored. In a family where either one or both parents are alcoholics, one of the most damaging affects that happens to children, is they are missing out on the deep emotional bond that they need to become healthy, happy adults.

Children often develop incredibly low levels of self-confidence and self-esteem, which limits the amount of happiness that they can find in their young lives.

Number Three. Alcoholism in a family can create codependent children and partners, who are afraid to rock the boat, so they put up with the alcoholics antics for years upon years upon years.

We have seen this happen so many times and it’s one of the saddest things in the world of counseling, to see children completely neglected emotionally, it doesn’t matter how many gifts the parents or the alcoholic parent buys, the emotional connection is what’s most important and all alcoholics are missing their own emotional connection!

So they’re in no position to emotionally connect with their partner or their children either. And what about the negative affects that alcoholism has on the marriage? Let’s take a look:

Number One: One of the main reasons that couples seek counseling, from someone like myself, is because of alcohol and other addictions! Alcoholism is probably the number one reason that we’ve seen such a huge increase in couples coming to our private practice, but there’s also addiction to drugs and food and social media and everything else... But alcohol leads the way.

Number Two: For the partner, their alcoholic husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend can start to create a deep level of shame and guilt in the “non-alcoholic”, as they make up stories to cover for their partners behavior, or their partners absence from work, or their partners absence from their children’s games or birthday parties.

The codependent partner can start to live a life of hell, also beginning to suffer from low self- confidence and low self-esteem because of their fear of rocking the boat.

Number Three: Alcoholism can be one of the major causes of ongoing arguments and a lack of trust in a marriage or relationship. Love is not the most important thing in regards to a relationship, but trust is the most important thing in regards to a healthy relationship!

Without trusting, without being able to trust your partner, it doesn’t matter how much love you have , all we’re doing is becoming codependent with the addicted partner.

One of the saddest things that I’ve seen, and I stated above, is what happens to children of alcoholics. We see them quite frequently developing early stages of anxiety even at the age of four or five or six, many times they will go into a depressed state, they may isolate themselves from family members and friends.

As they grow up, because they’ve seen such dysfunction in the family, their relationships can be filled with struggle as well, because that’s all they’ve seen as a child growing up in an alcoholic family.

And of course, there is an increased chance that growing up with a parent Who is an alcoholic, can also open the door for a young child to start experimenting earlier and to become an alcoholic themselves as well.

Here are two different stories of families I’ve worked with recently in the world of alcoholism that I think paints a picture very clearly.

Family Number One. The wife contacted me first telling me that her and her husband had married for about 30 years, and they had battled for 20 years over his deep addiction to alcohol.

As we spoke on the phone during our session my first question was, “how are your children doing?.“

She was shocked, and asked me why I asked that question so early in our first session.

And I told her the fact was that most time young children , I think her children were like the ages of maybe six and 12, will start showing signs, unhealthy signs in their emotional reaction to mom and dad or their friends etc.

And that’s when she landed the bomb on me: the oldest child would get up at 4 AM every day and pace the hallways until it was time to go to school after hearing dad up all night drinking, his anxiety was so high he couldn’t handle it and mom would find him early in the morning simply pacing back and forth and back and forth.

The younger child, became belligerent, and pushed back on everything mom or dad would ask him to do.

He was modeling his fathers behavior! Every time the wife would ask her husband to do something simple like go to the store for milk he would blow up, and turned it into a huge argument!

The youngest child, was already becoming the worst side of this child’s father.

When she ended up coming into counseling, she admitted 100% that she had been codependent for 20 years, but she was so petrified to leave the relationship even though it was the most toxic thing in the world she had ever been involved with, and even though she saw the damage to her children.

She was a great client, she did all of the work that I gave her, but she couldn’t come to that final decision that it would be better for her and her children to be on their own then to be stuck in this insanely drama filled alcoholic household.

I pray today, that she will make that decision for her own sanity and her children.

Family Number Two. This has a little bit of a different twist. After 20 years of admitting that he was a serious alcoholic, I got a call one day from a gentleman who said his wife wanted me to work with him because she felt that his alcoholism had gotten out of control.

The first session we had he was in denial, the second session we had he was in denial, the third session we had he woke up and instantly began to realize the millions of mistakes he had made with alcohol over the past 20+ years.

The difference here is huge. His wife told him that he needed help and that she would even attend sessions with him so he didn’t feel alone, and it worked!

After a year of working together he was completely sober, and his 16-year-old daughter wrote me the most beautiful letter telling me “I finally have a father I’ve always wanted!“

This family had a happy ending. An incredibly happy ending. They have gone on now to create the most incredible bond between all the children and mom and dad, that was vacant for years.

Never give up. If you need help reach out to me, we have helped so many families over the past number of decades, and we are available to help you as well.

Don’t delay. Don’t procrastinate. Those are the tools of the codependent person. Don’t delay, don’t procrastinate. Those are the tools of the alcoholic.

We are here ready, willing, and able to help.

As a former alcoholic myself for 30 years, I know the stress and strain I put on my intimate relationships, and I am grateful every day of my life that that substance, nor any other substances, are in my life at all.

The same can happen to you. Let’s go.