If you think alcoholism only affects the person abusing alcohol – think again. Alcoholism affects the entire family in more ways than most think. In addition, alcoholism can affect the alcoholic’s colleagues, employer, and friends. Alcoholism slips into every aspect of an individual’s life, whether they intend it to or not. So how does alcoholism affect the family?  

What is Alcoholism?

Alcoholism is a disease where a person severely abuses alcohol by not being able to manage or control drinking habits. Sometimes it is classified as Alcohol Use Disorder and can be described as being mild, moderate, or severe.

How Does Alcoholism Affect the Family?

Many people ask “how does alcoholism affect the family?” Alcoholism can affect the alcoholic in many ways. An alcoholic may find themselves in poor health, suffering financial strain, losing a job or relationship, problems with the law, and more. Most people have known an alcoholic who has lost something due to his/her drinking behavior.

What many people don’t realize is that alcoholism doesn’t just affect the addicted person; it affects the whole family in various ways, including:

• Chaotic Home Life

Many times, when there’s an alcoholic living at home, the home atmosphere can become chaotic. For example, let’s say Jane drinks a lot every night after getting home from work. She’s married with two toddlers. Jane starts off the evening feeling decent, though tired from working all day. She cooks dinner for her family and then goes to the den to sit and drink a bottle of wine while watching her favorite television shows. Her husband doesn’t like her drinking so much because she tends to ignore him and the children. Sometimes Jane will get very drunk and start a fight with her husband, while the toddlers watch and become afraid. Once in a while Jane will get so angry that she’ll grab something and throw it hard against the wall. This is simply one picture of a chaotic home that family members must live in due to alcoholism.

• Relationship Issues

Alcoholism can affect a person’s ability to form deep and meaningful relationships with family members and friends. Heavy drinkers are not able to be fully present with spouses and children, and sometimes an alcoholic will neglect children because he/she is drunk. There have been plenty of breakups and divorces due to an alcoholic who has isolated him/herself from other family members.

• Arguing and Fighting

When a person gets drunk, they can become a whole different person. Sometimes, an alcoholic will start arguments or fights with family members, which can disrupt the whole house. In addition, such fighting can lead to emotional and physical abuse.

• Divorce

As already mentioned, alcoholism can really affect a relationship or marriage. Sometimes the chaos, lies, and behaviors can lead to divorce. This can affect the entire family, especially the children.

• Financial stress

Alcoholics tend to not be the best money managers, which can lead to a lot of financial stress in the family. Either a lot of money will be spent on alcohol or perhaps poor financial choices made while drinking. Some alcoholics can get so deep in their negative drinking behavior that they end up losing their home, and maybe even their family.

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Studies show that children of alcoholics have a higher chance at becoming problem drinkers or alcoholics themselves. Some attribute this to genetics and others state that it’s because of the chaotic or dysfunctional home atmosphere due to the alcoholic in the home. Or, it may be a combination of both.

Trouble With the Law

Alcoholics have a far greater chance of getting in trouble with the law than those who aren’t alcoholics. It may be getting a DWI charge or maybe a domestic violence charge. It could also be getting into a fight with the neighbor or stealing in order to fund excessive drinking habits.

Walking on Egg Shells

There’s a phrase in the recovery world where people talk about having to “walk on egg shells”. This means that family members of an alcoholic aren’t sure how to behave around the person. Sometimes Mom may be in a good mood and the children love to sit and talk with her. But other times Mom has had too much to drink and when the children approach her, she lashes out and starts screaming at them. As you can imagine, this frightens the entire family and they walk around wondering just what kind of mood Mom is in. They wonder if they should approach her or what they might say to her. They are “walking on egg shells” trying to keep Mom happy out of fear. Some people call this “emotional hostage-taking”.

Caretaking

An alcoholic is likely to wake up many mornings with a hangover. This can prompt the family to being “caretakers” to the alcoholic, doing things that are not their responsibility. However, they know if they don’t do them, things won’t get done. This could mean the children cooking for themselves or their other parent, doing all the chores, or staying home to take care of the alcoholic parent rather than get out and mingle with friends or play outside. Caretaking can become a defense mechanism that children can take with them all the way to adulthood, oftentimes choosing an addict or alcoholic as a partner because that’s familiar energy.

Summing It Up

How does alcoholism affect the family? Plenty of ways. If you think alcoholism only affects the person drinking, think again. In fact, there are plenty of loved ones who feel like they are going crazy due to the behavior of their loved one struggling with alcoholism. They want so badly for that person to stop drinking and get their life back together, and often spend a lot of time trying to help them.

The issue is that many attempts to help are not successful, as it’s up to the alcoholic to reach out for help and make serious changes. Al-Anon teaches that you didn’t cause the alcoholism, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it.

You can, however, learn how to best support your loved one. This means taking good care of yourself and your family and leaving your loved one with full responsibility for his or her actions. It’s easy to get addicted to an alcoholic’s moods and behavior, so self-care and support for the loved ones is important. Take good care of you and your family, while learning how to best support your loved one who is struggling with drinking too.