When A Parent Drinks Too Much

by Jeannine Locke

Children of alcoholics can find help for and fear that alcoholism imposed on their their special problems in an organization called families. Alateen. At an early age, these children had The eight teenagers assembling that learned that home was an unsafe place to bring Tuesday night in a Presbyterian Church friends. One boy told about a formal dinner that classroom were an attractive group, well ended with his parents hurling plates and dressed and groomed, clear-eyed and cutlery. A girl would never forget the birthday apparently carefree. As they arranged party that was climaxed by her father collapsing themselves around a study table, there was with his head in the cake. small talk, teenage style. Ordinary, happy kids, The Alateens all confessed to having you’d suppose, with a happy excuse for being used the unhappiness in their homes as an together. excuse for their own weaknesses and But from the moment their meeting misdemeanors that ranged from laziness and began, there was no mistaking its purpose for disobedience at school to criminal behavior. fun. At a sign from the senior member of the Mark, a handsome, mop-haired 18-yeargroup, they bowed their heads and prayed: “God old, had served time in a state training school for grant me the serenity to accept the things I stealing a car. It was his way of “paying back” cannot change, courage to change the things I his drunken father. Jacqueline, a pretty 17-yearcan, and wisdom to know the difference.” old, had reacted to her father’s alcoholism by It was the Serenity Prayer of Alcoholics taking to drink herself. At 16 she would raid his Anonymous that the teenagers were repeating. liquor stocks, then invite other teenagers to join None of them was an alcoholic; their dilemma her for drinking and driving in the family car. was that they were the sons and daughters of Jacqueline’s younger brother, Jay, had alcoholics. They were Alateens, members of an turned against their non-drinking mother. He international organization of youngsters, aged explained: “Mother was always raging and 12 to 20, who are growing up in families having hysterics–I thought she was the sick one. disturbed by compulsive drinking. They meet not Dad was nice. When he was drinking he’d give to agonize over their parents, but to exchange us money and generally indulge us children.” ideas and experiences that will help them It was at weekly Alateen meetings, the understand the nature of alcoholism and how to same youngsters testified, that they had gained minimize its damage to their own lives. insight not only into their parents’ problems but The Alateens talked freely. Theirs was a also their own. Jacqueline stopped drinking. closed meeting, which I was allowed to attend “When I understood about my father and how on condition that I respect the participants his drinking was a disease, I didn’t get a charge anonymity. The only other adult present was an any more out of alcohol,” she said. attractive young mother who acted as With unconscious pathos, U-year-old moderator-counselor. She, too, was an insider, Debbie, reporting her progress, said: “I used to the wife of an alcoholic and a member of Al- think that if my mother really loved me, she Anon, the family group movement that has wouldn’t drink. I’d hide her liquor or throw it grown out of AA. She and the youngsters had down the sink. But that just made things worse. agreed to report on their progress in coping with Then I joined Alateen and it was such a relief to their common problems. learn about alcoholism.” The Alateen case histories were at once From her Alateen handbook Debbie had tragic and heartening. The youngsters talked learned that “the sick alcoholic doesn’t want to without self-pity about the tensions, the squalor, make his family suffer. He doesn’t want to get

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into debt, smash up cars, land in hospitals and pays an appalling price in bewilderment, jails. But the craving for alcohol is too strong. humiliation, and often in physical neglect and Even though he doesn’t admit he drinks too abuse. The security, love, and warmth that are much, he suffers from guilt, remorse, physical necessary for a child’s development are rarely illness, loneliness and despair.” present in an alcoholic home. Where these do Debbie concluded: “But the main thing I exist, they are of such unpredictable quality that learned from Alateen is that we children aren’t the child has difficulty developing the trust and responsible for our parents’ drinking, and we confidence in himself that he will need for future can’t make them stop.” successful living.” The organization which answered these The desperation of that need is made children’s urgent needs came into being only plain in letters–about thirty-five a week—that ten years ago. Appropriately, it was the brain youngsters write to Alateen world headquarters. child of a 17-year-old Pasadena, California, boy Some of these letters ask for general information whose father was a member of AA, his mother about alcoholism; others want the address of the an Al-Anon. Impressed with the way they had nearest Alateen group, and all cry out for help. been helped, he got together with five other A 15-year-old girl wrote from the Midwest boys whose parents had compulsive drinking about the distress of her whole family. Her father problems and proposed that they, too, form a is an alcoholic who had tried AA briefly, then fellowship. His hope was that by pooling their lapsed back into drinking. Her mother, experience and strength they could learn to despairing, has begun to talk about a cope with the complications that an alcoholic in separation. An older brother and sister, the family added to their normal problems as meanwhile, were “plotting to leave home; they teenagers. The response to Bob’s idea was so just want to get out of the house.” But the 15enthusiastic that Alateen was founded and year-old still loves her father, and “can’t bear the named that very night. Today, around 4,000 thought of just leaving him with nothing and no youngsters belong to 392 Alateen chapters in a one. He might fall asleep with a lighted cigarette dozen countries. The greatest concentration is in and burn himself up.” the United States, where there are 194 chapters; Another youngster, also in his mid-teens, most of the remainder are in Canada. Although writes about how his family, under strains its rate of growth now surpasses that of Al-Anon, imposed by the mother’s drinking, has the sponsor and coordinator of its work, Alateen disintegrated for the second time. The boy’s own is still a mite, by comparison with the father had divorced his mother “because of her monumental need for its services. drinking problem.” Now his stepfather has had According to the National Council on enough. Alcoholism, there are some 6.5 million alcoholics His letter told a domestic horror story. in the United States. Canada has upward of a My mother has been an alcoholic since I was quarter of a million. But for every alcoholic, NCA about three. Don’t get me wrong–I love her very estimates, there are at least four others whom much. I feel that if my stepfather had been a little his or her sickness directly affects. Explains Dr. more understanding she could have overcome Ruth Fox, a practicing psychiatrist and NCA’s her problem. But one night when she was drunk, medical director: he locked her out of the house. He is now living “Alcoholism is a family disease. Excessive with a woman who, I guess, he plans to marry drinking of alcohol by a father or mother, or both, when the divorce goes through. My mother was affects every member of the family–emotionally, pregnant when he threw her out. I now have a spiritually, and often economically, socially, and baby sister who will never know her father.” physically.” But the boy had not abandoned hope. He The result often is a recurrence of the was writing, he said, “to find out how to combat drinking problem in the next generation. As Dr. my mother’s sickness.” He ended: “I would Fox points out: “Forty to sixty per cent of all greatly appreciate it if you sent this information alcoholics come from the disturbed background as soon as possible.” Mrs. Timmy W., Alateen’s of an alcoholic family. The child of an alcoholic international secretary, reads such tragic letters

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and realizes that “what these youngsters hope Alateen for comfort. The kids here were the for by return mail is some magic formula that will first to understand. But I got more than comfort make their parents stop drinking.” Instead, Mrs. from our meetings. I learned to care about other Timmy W. introduces them to a program people and their problems and I learned to live concerned primarily with saving them, only one day at a time.” indirectly with helping the sick parents. Now 17 and living with her father, who What Alateen offers is much the same finds occasional work, Pat manages kind of treatment as AA prescribes. Trust in God housekeeping and a part-time job on top of is one of the first “steps of recovery” that both school studies. groups are encouraged to take. Then, through “When I wake in the morning,” she says, group education, they are helped to face up to “I -think: How awful it would be to live this way their problems and to gain the strength and all my life! But I can stand it for 24 hours.” insight that will allow them to live with their The youngsters all emphasize the problems. For a start, Alateens learn everything healing effect of talking out their troubles. they can about alcoholism: that it is a disease– Jacqueline put it: ‘The tension in me has an abnormal sensitivity to alcohol, plus an simmered down because I can discuss it. That, emotional compulsion to drink—and that, to get and taking inventory of yourself, are what help well, the desire must come from the alcoholic most.” himself. It was Jacqueline who a year earlier had “You can do nothing directly,” their taken to hiding her problems in alcohol, just as handbook, “Youth and the Alcoholic Parent,” her father was doing. Her arrival home one advises. “Persuasion, reproaches, bitter silences night, floundering in drink, was the shock that and tears–all these will only put your parent on sent him to AA. Now, Jacqueline reports, her the defensive and increase his guilt. That leads whole family was “on the program.” Her father’s to more drinking, more trouble.” efforts had encouraged her mother to seek help The Alateen can best help his parent by for herself at Al-Anon. Jacqueline and her helping himself. “Fear and dread are destructive brother, Jay, go to Alateen. emotions; put them out of your mind. There is “It wasn’t until we’d taken inventory of hope for every alcoholic, no matter how black ourselves at Alateen that Jackie and I began to things look at the moment. Learn to live one day see our own weaknesses and how we’d been at a time and live it so you will grow. Yours is the -using Dad’s drinking as a crutch,” Jay only life over which you have any control.” confesses. Pat, an Alateen whose family had been “We had become lazy, unruly kids and broken and impoverished by alcohol, was we blamed everything–our bad grades at school sustained by the idea of living a day at a time. and our own unpopularity–on the fact we had an She told her story at the Alateen meeting I alcoholic at home.” attended. Unfortunately, case histories such as this Pat’s father, a professional athlete, one, of a whole family working to rehabilitate began drinking soon after she was born. When itself, are rare. One of the reasons is that many she was seven, Pat was put in the care of her parents, even those in AA or Al-Anon, still resist paternal grandparents. Her father continued to the idea of their youngsters’ playing an active drink and drift from job to job. role in Alateen. Attendance would be an Pat was in high school when her father, admission that a member of the family was an by now ill and unemployable, arrived at AA. He alcoholic. Moreover, parents all too often introduced her to Alateen. underestimate their youngsters’ seriousness of “At first,” Pat remembered, “I couldn’t purpose, their earnest desire to live successfully stop talking. I had to tell everything about my in an alcoholic situation. terrible life. I had no mother, my grandparents There is no doubting the earnestness of were old and sick, and my dad was out of work. the Alateens whom I met. Having faced up to When my grandfather died and then my serious problems far earlier than most young grandmother–both in the same year–I came to people do, and having probed their own

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personalities more deeply than most of us ever to live with alcoholism but to lay the foundation do, they have achieved remarkable maturity and for a saner, sweeter, more productive life. strength. At Alateen they have learned not only

Source: Parent’s Magazine, July 1967

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