Alcoholic Children Research Paper

This paper aims toward the children that have been neglected and abused by an alcoholic. Identification of these children is difficult for several reasons, the child being embarrassed, being ignorant to the fact alcoholism is a disease, denial, and simply not wanting anyone to know about it. Whether it is the mother or father there is no question that there are large numbers of children that have been severely affected by living in an alcoholic’s home. During the last decade there has been more and more research done on alcohol in society. Historically the number one most abused drug is alcohol. The most popular interest has been with alcoholism, alcohol abuse and alcoholics. Less attention has been given to the family and more specifically
According to Stanley Coppersmith and Morris Rosenberg (Authors of Children of Alcoholics 2007, cc) the effects are irreversible and sometimes the child never recovers to live a happy and healthy life. The chemicals within affect the alcoholic’s behavior, the non-alcoholic parent’s behavior is affected by reactions to the alcoholic and little or no emotion remains for the many needs of the children who fall victims to this family illness. I myself am a survivor of living in an alcohol environment. I have to say that everyday was a challenge for not only me but for my siblings as well. We are always asking ourselves this one question: What is wrong with us? Well I can say that we as children seen such frightening things my father did to our mother it was unheard of talking about it to anyone. Living with my father there were so many up and down days it was hard to establish any kind of routine. One minute would be fine and the next would be chaos to the extent of running to my grandmothers’ house or calling the police. I often found myself trying to avoid being around my father because I felt anything me or my siblings did would trigger a very violent dad to this day I’m still very much afraid of. I am the oldest of four and feel as though I was responsible for the safety of my siblings to this
In addition, I could have written this paper without doing any research at all. Honestly, the feeling has been here the whole time to just quit, but I have not and I am not quitting. I am very angry with my parents for allowing this to happen to us. I do know my anger is real and is a natural emotion and I deal with it everyday. I have come to terms that my father will never change and will drink himself to death but that is something I cannot change and frankly am very tired of trying. I recently had to go and talk with the magistrate of the court to have my father committed, for not only his safety but also the safety of my mother. He tried putting gasoline in a kerosene heater one day he had been on a nine day binge had no idea what day it was, and frankly I don’t even know if he knew where he was, he was committed by the court for five days. He has been diagnosed as having alcohol dementia and still drinks. I feel as though I gave my father his lifeline and he did not grab on so where do I go now. Nowhere, now I wait for the call to say he has passed away and that makes me very sad. I feel like I have gained an enormous amount of clarity in terms of my own life and have been able to move past and deal with most of these issues