Breaking the cycle: Positive strategies for women overcoming the legacy of parental alcoholism
It’s not, simply, the person who lives with addiction that endures long-lasting consequences. The NSPCC reported that “more than 70,000 children in England have a parent struggling with alcohol misuse”.(1)
Adopting positive strategies for living with the after-effects of being raised by addicted caregivers is essential to healthier life outcomes and avoiding addiction yourself.
Strategies to breaking the cycle include developing self-awareness and healthy coping mechanisms, educating oneself on attachment styles and repercussions, active engagement in therapy, boundary setting, accessing support groups, and developing healthy interests and hobbies.
These strategies are explored below.
What having an alcoholic parent means for a child
There’s a lot of shared information nowadays about intergenerational trauma and how cycles repeat and unhealthy patterns that pass down from parents to children.
While a light is being shone on this, society is still at the start of using this information to create meaningful change. There are some families, too, that won’t access this knowledge and some who, even if they do, won’t change.
Addiction isn’t easy to address. It’s complex and its roots are deep. For those who have experienced it within the family, there’s the shared understanding of how deep, destructive and consuming it is, and how it can “pass down”.
Being raised by alcoholic parents has huge repercussions for the children both in childhood and as the children age and become adults.
It’s not uncommon for children in these homes to experience emotional and physical neglect, fear, learned helplessness, and disappointment (i.e. linked to relapse, failed attempts at a supervised home detox, and being let down in relation to care). The caregiver relationship has the most long-lasting effect on how a person develops, grows, and creates their life.
Aristotle reportedly said, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man”. Bowlby, a developmental psychologist, sheds light on this.
He developed attachment theory which demonstrated how humans attach in relationships as a long-lasting effect of their primary attachment with their primary caregiver (usually the mother).
In homes where addiction exists, it’s common for children to develop anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment styles. These are often very detrimental to the attempts at living a healthy life.
Positive strategies for overcoming the effects of parental alcoholism
It isn’t easy identifying, facing, and addressing unhealthy patterns that have driven thoughts and behaviours for an entire life.
Growing up around alcoholic parents has severely detrimental effects. These are usually seen in a person’s relationship with themselves and in their relationships with others.
Much work needs to be done to understand this and to know how to develop new, healthy responses to people, events, and internal triggers.
Learning about and adopting positive strategies to manage the ongoing consequences that come from being raised by addicted parents is essential to healthier outcomes.
The following suggestions help create places of self-understanding, compassion and healing.
1) Develop self-awareness using social media
Developing self-awareness is key to any attempts at emotional and mental healing. This is what’s needed after a childhood where needs are ignored.
A person needs to learn how to heal and to provide themselves with the care that their parents didn’t have the skills to offer.
There’s a wealth of knowledge available online. Finding qualified therapists, psychologists, and coaches on social media pages is an excellent way to learn about triggers, causes, and how to manage them. Follow them and set them to favourite so you get daily tips and advice.
Self-awareness introduces the importance of developing self-care routines, healthy coping mechanisms, and emotional regulation techniques such as mindfulness and meditation.
2) Learn about attachment theory
When you learn about attachment theory and figure out what attachment style you have, you can then learn how this impacts relationships with family, friends, at work, and with partners.
Developing new ways to communicate and interact can facilitate hugely positive rewards both personally and socially.
It becomes easier to separate you as a person from the part of you that might react to a situation because you’re unconsciously triggered by an event. This is both empowering and helps you to come by self-compassion.
3) Become actively engage in therapy
A person must participate in therapy with a healthy approach. They must be committed to looking at their own behaviours, thought processes, emotional reactions, and be willing to take accountability for these. How? By doing the work advised by therapists to create real and beneficial change.
It’s important to find a therapist who follows a theoretical approach that suits your personality. To create long-lasting changes with practical techniques you can use, it’s advisable to find a therapist whose approach is more analytical or directive.
Cognitive Analytical Therapy, Gestalt, Family Systems, and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy are some examples of more active therapeutic approaches.
4) Develop boundaries and implement them
Those raised by parents with alcohol addictions commonly self-abandon. They’re relationships are often characterised by putting the needs of others before their own. They’re used to “coming second best”. Alcohol use having always been the priority of their parents means that it can be hard to value and prioritise Self.
It’s common to spend a huge amount of time worrying and to feel as if you can’t feel okay unless someone else (i.e. a partner, friend, child etc.) is okay.
Enmeshment and co-dependency are terms that are thrown around in the addiction field, but the lived experience of these relationship dynamics are profound.
To manage this, it’s essential to develop boundaries. This might be linked to time, finances, or emotional capacity. It’s crucial to listen to your needs first as a priority.
5) Seek support groups for help
There are various charity organisations that offer support for those who love/d a person with addiction, via outpatient treatment, residential, and, of course, home-alcohol detox plans. Do some research, make contact, have a chat, take up any activities they offer that spark an interest.
Learning how being raised by/loving a parent who lives with alcoholism is only fully understood by those who have experienced it.
Connecting to others who have lived it, too, brings a space of reassurance. Those thoughts and feelings, those reactions you have? They’re normal. Shared experiences bring deep comfort and new enlightenment.
6) Develop healthy interests
The more you fill up your life with healthy hobbies and interests, the more meaningful it becomes and the more resilient you become. Resilience is essential to facilitating inner strength. When you have activities you love to do, you can always return to them as a grounding space.
Unsure what your interests are?
Famous psychologist, Carl Jung, reportedly asked, “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
Understandably, you might think, “But I had no childhood. I had to be the adult back then.” Perhaps you don’t know what makes the hours fly past. If this is the case, experiment. Create a list of activities that tickle your interest and try every single one of them.
Take the first step
The first step can feel scary, but it’s worth it. Choose one strategy to focus on as a starting point and give it time every day. It’s time to give yourself the attention you always deserved.
