Alcoholism: A Family Illness
...potentially fatal disease characterized by tolerance and physical dependency or organ changes, or both. Generally, alcoholism is repeated drinking that causes trouble in the drinker's personal, professional, or family life. When they drink, alcoholics can't always predict when they'll stop, how much they'll dink, or was the consequences of their drinking will be. Denial of the negative effects alcohol has in their lives is common in alcoholics and those close to them (Monroe 33).
Alcoholism is a deadly disease. Statistics show that 50% of highway deaths are alcohol related (Black 151), 30 to 40% of hospital beds are filled with alcoholics and the third leading cause of death in America is alcohol (McCracken Audio). However, alcohol is not only the alcoholics problem. Alcoholism is a family illness.
The children of alcoholics in particular are in great danger. There are 28.6 million Americans with at least one alcoholic parent (Monroe 70), and 25% of American families have had trouble with alcohol (Monroe 67-69). A survey of fifty children of alcoholics showed that 60% of them felt neglected, 60% witnesses their parents fighting and 30% were abused by there alcoholic parent (McCracken Audio).
The behavior of an alcoholic is so unpredictable that their children do not know what to expect from on minute to the next. They will praise their children and say that they love them one minute, and the next they will start telling them that it is their fault they drink so much and that they wish they never had children. The children will try and help the alcoholic. They feel they are the only ones that can save them. They will pour bottles full of liquor down the drain, hide it in different areas of the house, or threaten to run away. They blame themselves for their parents' drinking problems. The alcoholic will pay little attention to their...
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