I was four or five years old in my earliest memories. I clearly remember sitting by myself on a Saturday. I watched hours of cartoons by myself and when they were over, I sat playing by myself for hours. I was hungry but my mom was still asleep. I think she didn’t wake until well into the afternoon. I remember watching the kid across the street playing.
Children of Alcoholics Week
- “When she was drunk she would tell me about how she was abused as a child,” Becky says.
- Hard as it is, it isn’t your job to sort this out.
- Anything she does as a result is her own decision.
- That’s not because I have a drinking problem – I’m actually pretty good at knowing when to have a drink and when not to – but it’s because of two main reasons.
- Sadly I can’t forget the woman that my DM was for the last 30 years.
My mother and father were extraordinarily kind-hearted, compassionate people. But my mother, who had a traumatic childhood, was an alcoholic before I was born. Every day, I wish I could do something to take away the hundreds of pounds of sadness she carries every day. But the effects of her alcoholism affected my sister and me terribly. If you’re uncertain about whether your parent is addicted to alcohol, we can help you to identify the signs and symptoms of a drinking problem.
Advice for children and young people with alcoholic parents
My dad bears the brunt of it, but if he’s not there and I am, it will be me. There is always a reason or an excuse why she is unhappy and drinks and it usually boils down to us. When she is sober she is the most beautiful, generous, loving person. When she is drunk she becomes selfish, argumentative, bordering on violent and abusive. Charlie Barker says he set up the group to help people who are battling addictions.
Follow BBC on:
The lives of addict and enabler (because that is what you are, and I was) are very deeply entwined. The addict starts the entwining, but we eagerly continue it. Most of us have the mindset that if we just try enable hard enough, we’ll ‘get through’ and they’ll ‘see the light’. Alcohol numbs them and it also gets them the attention they crave.
At 26, I was exhausted and depressed – like I didn’t want to go on anymore yet I felt I had to. There were so many people depending on me. That’s when I finally got educated about alcoholism and addiction and its impact on kids and families. I better understood my mother and her disease. I learned about the effects of growing up as a child of an alcoholic.
In fact, he told this to my sister and me on several occasions. He just always acted like Performance-Enhancing Drug Use in Recreational Athletes it would get better on its own. He didn’t see clearly that my mother’s alcoholism was destroying all of our lives and that allowing life to go on the way it was actually enabling my mother’s alcoholism to go on and worsen. My dear father was a talented athlete and coach who had a positive impact on thousands of lives throughout his life.
I had a very high fever and was so dizzy and weak, I feared that if I stood up, I would faint. I’m pretty sure she told her family my secret. They were always so welcoming to me for sleepovers. They invited me to dinners and even trips. I was the first person to hold Brooke, which I always think completely foreshadowed my role in her life. Though I was a bit old to care about having a sibling at that point, I felt blessed to have her in my life.
