When Mommy or Daddy Is the Problem – Alcohol Misuse | Secondhand Drinking
When mommy or daddy is the problem, a child can experience childhood trauma, aka Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). And the problem I’m talking about is a parent’s alcohol misuse or the other parent’s coping with their drinking behaviors. In other words, a parent whose drinking (alcohol misuse) changes their behaviors and/or a parent experiencing secondhand drinking — the negative impacts of a person’s drinking behaviors on others.
I was inspired to write this post after watching the video Christine Cissy White included in her article, “The ‘F’ Words: Fear & Forgiveness.” In that video, Donna Jackson Nakazawa explains, “If your parent is the bear in the living room, it is biologically impossible to run to that parent…and you also can’t run away from them….” She goes on to explain what happens to children who live with scary parents, namely trauma and the toxic stress outcomes childhood trauma causes.
Now, to the point of my post — what if “the bear in the living room” is a parent who misuses alcohol or a parent experiencing secondhand drinking?
When Mommy or Daddy are the Problem – Childhood Trauma – Alcohol Misuse and Secondhand Drinking (SHD)
Unless you’ve been a child in a home with untreated, unhealthily discussed alcohol (or drug) misuse or addiction, it’s difficult to image what it’s like to be a child in such a home.
Devastating. Scary. Shame-filled. Life-robbing. Lonely. Isolating. It’s a set-up for a “rest of your life” that NONE of us would ever wish on a child. It’s one of the most distressing examples of secondhand drinking and affects millions of children worldwide who struggle to cope with a parent’s changed behaviors — the drinking or drugging behaviors their parent exhibits when the chemicals in alcohol (or drugs) changes brain functioning. And that’s only the drinking side of the equation. The other side of this is the non-drinking parent — the parent coping with secondhand drinking. That parent changes, too, and their behaviors become erratic, irrational, and scary, as well. The following is an excerpt from a blog post of mine, Mothers Who Love an Addict | Alcoholic, written in observance of Mother’s Day 2013:
Mothers who love an addict | alcoholic have it doubly hard in my opinion. We not only try to help the person with the drinking | drug abuse problem and/or addiction, we try to keep our non-drinking | non-drug abusing children safe in all manner of ways. We don’t want them to know what’s really going on because we don’t really know ourselves. And so we dig in, trying desperately to protect our children, and in the process, we often make a muck of it.
I know I did. I am such a mother. The havoc wrecked in my life and then by me in the lives of my daughters made most holidays – but especially Mothers Day from my perspective – something to get through because joy had long been absconded in our family. I didn’t feel I deserved their cards and gifts and unconditional love. I felt like a bad mother. I felt guilty that I could not make things better. I felt sad that they carried an unnameable sadness that wasn’t apparent on the outside, but I believed to be there on their inside, and as expressed in this anonymous letter shared with me, it was an unnameable sadness that was, in fact, likely there.
An Unsent Letter to Dad: the Impact of Secondhand Drinking on Children
But not anymore. Not any more. To read the rest of this article, please click here…
What Can We Do to Help Children of a Parent Who Misuses Alcohol?
1. Help them understand their parent’s behaviors change because they drink too much (more than their liver can get rid of) – not because of anything they (the children) do or don’t do.
2. Assure them they cannot do anything – not get good grades, not be super good or nice, not take care of their younger sibling, nothing – to make their parent stop drinking nor stop the behaviors they (their parents) exhibit when they drink (yelling, belittling, passing out, hitting, being confusingly nice or loving…).
3. Help them understand that once their mom has had 3 drinks (and show them what a drink is) or their dad has had 4, the alcohol will most likely change their parent’s brain works and thus their behaviors. This change is caused by alcohol “sitting in the brain” waiting to be metabolized by the liver. [It takes the liver about one hour to metabolize one drink.] Brainstorm what they can do to keep themselves safe when this happens – quietly going to their room, for example.
4. Assure them they are not alone – let them know that out of four children they know, one is also experiencing living in a family with alcohol abuse or alcoholism.
5. Share this link from TeensHealth, Coping With an Alcoholic Parent.
6. If you are a teacher, general practitioner or pediatrician – talk to your students or patients about secondhand drinking as a concept, in a manner that shares what happens when a person drinks too much – it may be the lead into a conversation a child needs in order to share what’s happening in their home.
What Can We Do to Help Children of a Parent Experiencing Secondhand Drinking?
The first thing is to help that parent understand what is happening to them and then help them find the help they need. To that end, I’m sharing an excerpt from my April 2014 Alcohol Awareness Month series:
There are two sides to the drinking equation – the person doing the drinking that causes drinking behaviors and the person on the receiving end of the drinking behaviors – that is, the person experiencing secondhand drinking (SHD).
It is an unbalanced equation to be sure.
As such, it is likely most readers know someone or know someone who knows someone or they are the someone who has experienced secondhand drinking. For secondhand drinking is the term to describe the negative impacts that coping with, or being forced to cope with, a person’s drinking behaviors has on others – the co-worker, fellow-student, innocent bystander, spouse, child, parent, in-law, close friend – even the tax payer and citizenry of a community.The secondhand drinking side is conservatively estimated to be five times the number of persons on the drinking side. This means approximately 90 million people are directly affected by SHD – a person’s drinking behaviors, while roughly two to three times that number are indirectly affected.
Adding Secondhand Drinking to the Alcohol Awareness Month Celebration
April 2014 marks the 27th annual Alcohol Awareness Month celebration. It was founded and is sponsored by the NCADD (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence), and this year’s theme is “Help for Today. Hope for Tomorrow.” This theme was chosen “to draw attention to the pervasive impact that alcohol, alcohol-related problems and alcoholism has on young people, their friends, on families and in our communities.”
So part of my effort to spread the word about April as Alcohol Awareness Month this year is to raise awareness about the other side of the drinking equation – the side of secondhand drinking. This awareness effort is not about stopping a person’s right to drink. It is about sharing the impacts, causes and remedies of SHD in order to help the 90 million Americans directly affected and the millions more who are indirectly affected. To finish reading this post and the other articles in the series, please click here…
The more we understand alcohol misuse and secondhand drinking-related stress as the consequence of brain changes caused by these conditions, the better prepared we are to help children when “the bear in the living room” is a parent who misuses alcohol or a parent experiencing secondhand drinking. When we prevent SHD for a child, we prevent childhood trauma, aka ACEs. When we prevent childhood trauma, we can change that child’s life – we can break the cycle. You’ll better understand why when you read this post, Secondhand Drinking Prevention.
As Always…
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If you have questions or specific concerns, feel free to give me a call – 650-362-3026 (PST). You might also find my, Quick Guide to Secondhand Drinking: A Phenomenon That Affects Millions, helpful.
Lisa Frederiksen
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