Dorosłe dzieci alkoholików w oczach mieszkańców Wrocławia

The article is about the image of adult children of alcoholics. The completed research allowed to show the features with which co-dependent people are most often associated. The article also presents the results of tests that were conducted in Wroclaw. The online questionnaire was addressed to people who were raised in alcoholic families and people who come from this type of family. The obtained material made it possible to show the main image variants of adult children of alcoholics.

REPRESENTATIONS OF “FAMILY PAIN” BY ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS

Relevance. The term “family pain” is used in family psychotherapy to refer to the emotional state of dysfunctional family members. Research on this phenomenon in dysfunctional alcoholic families can expand the understanding of the family system and allow us to formulate the goals of psychotherapy with such families. Objective. To investigate the “family pain” experienced by adult children of alcoholics. Methods. The sample consisted of 52 people who were in a recovery program for adult children of alcoholics (ACA), and 50 controls. We implemented a phenomenological analysis of ACA groups, a content analysis of images of “family pain”, and factor analysis of the characteristics of “family pain”. Results. The study showed significant differences between the images of “family pain” experienced by adults who were raised and still live in alcoholic families, by those whose parents were alcoholics and had died by the time of the survey, and by those whose parents were not alcoholics. People who live with their alcoholic parents describe “family pain” as a familiar, long process with effects on the whole family. The experience of “family pain” includes anger, shame, and self-pity. People whose parents were alcoholics and have died describe “family pain” as a feeling of guilt towards their parents and a process of experiencing their parents’ death. The control group had difficulty describing “family pain”, or described it as a process of experiencing their parents’ death. Conclusions. Representations of “family pain” are associated with the subjective meaning of family dysfunction for the participant and the experience of negative emotions in the family.

Alcoholic family marital heterogeneity aggregates different child behavior problems both pre- and postseparation

Children of alcoholics (COAs) are at risk for elevated internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Yet, little is known about the familial and behavioral adjustments of COAs following parental separation. Using an ecological–transactional framework, we examined how multiple risk factors contributed to the formation of different alcoholic family structures and how living in heterogeneous family structures affected COAs’ behavioral problems. The Michigan Longitudinal Study, a multiwave study on initially intact alcoholic and control families with preschool-age children (n= 503), was used to evaluate outcomes of offspring, when families either remained intact or were separated when the child was aged 12–14. Alcoholic families who later transitioned into stepfamilies were characterized with higher paternal antisociality, marital aggression, and serious family crises than alcoholic families that remained intact. COAs in stepfamilies (but not in single-parent families) exhibited higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in preadolescence compared with those in alcoholic intact families, in part because of elevated behavioral risk at age 3. Structural equation modeling indicated that the aggregated risk of stepfamily residence directly related to COAs’ internalizing and indirectly related to COAs’ externalizing problems, partially mediated by family stressors. Findings suggest targeting COAs in separated families for early intervention.

Social Support and Externalizing Symptoms in Children from Alcoholic Families

This study examines whether social support perceived from different sources can significantly predict behavioral problems in children from alcoholic families. Participants are composed of 540 children in three age groups. We use the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale and Youth Self Report/YSR 11-18. Our finding was that children of alcoholics have a greater risk of externalizing symptoms in comparison to children of non-alcoholics. Social support significantly predicts behaviour problems in the different life periods. In alcoholic families it was observed that mother, teacher and peer support negatively correlated with externalizing problems in the different developmental periods. Regression Analysis showed that the important predictors for externalizing such problems are low levels of support from teachers (in middle childhood and late adolescence), peers (in middle childhood) and mothers (in early adolescence). Our concluding remark is that social support perceived by children of alcoholics differs from the support perceived by children from control groups. This is important for prevention and therapy.