The home is the ultimate safe space for children. It is meant to provide an abundance of love for them inside the walls, while shielding them from the potential harms that exist outside. When excessive alcohol addiction enters the picture, this safe space becomes disrupted. While no child deserves this disruption in their lives, unfortunately, it happens far too often. Children need help to understand their parent’s alcohol addiction is not their fault. Intervention is essential to get these children the help they need as early as possible, so the cycle of addiction ends with them.
What Happens to the Family When Alcohol Addiction Is Present
Dr. Caludia Black is a renowned expert in addiction and co-dependency. She also focuses directly on addiction and the family and “family systems.”
Dr. Black believes that there are certain “rules” that happen when alcohol addiction enters the home. These rules are “Don’t talk, Don’t trust, and Don’t feel.” What happens is that communication breaks down, and as a result, the child’s emotional needs are not met, the trust diminishes and eventually dissipates between a child and their parents. From here, feelings start to bottle up, and they begin to repress their emotions.
A parent’s alcohol addiction also misleads the child into a feeling that they are in some way responsible for the parent’s behaviors. These false notions often carry into adulthood if they are not addressed. One way of dispelling these myths, is by educating kids about the “7 Cs.”
The 7 Cs: A Parent’s Alcohol Addiction Is Not the Child’s Fault
The “7 Cs” are a way to help children cope with addiction. Here’s how they are explained to kids, “I didn’t CAUSE it, I can’t CONTROL it, I can’t CURE it, BUT I can take CARE of myself by COMMUNICATING my feelings, making good CHOICES, and CELEBRATING myself.”
This is an exceptional breakdown of how to help children get out from under their feelings of guilt, blame, and shame that they often associate with their parent’s addiction. It is also an excellent tool to help educators, medical staff, social workers, and those in the faith community address and support children of alcoholics.
“I Didn’t CAUSE It, I Can’t CONTROL It, I Can’t CURE It”
Children of alcoholics often take on the blame for their parent’s alcohol addiction because they do not have a support system telling them otherwise. Eliminating this blame, and helping the child to know they are not alone, are essentials when it comes to addressing all of the components of the 7 Cs.
Many children try to control their parent’s alcoholism because the feeling that everything else is out of control in the house is dominant. When a child is offered the tools needed to let go of the idea that they can control their parent’s drinking, they are given the sense of safety and serenity that they deserve to have as children.
We must never forget that a child’s love for their parent is often immeasurable. It makes perfect sense that they hope to cure them of what is destroying not only them but the entire family. A child can be helped to understand that while they cannot cure a parent, they can take care of themselves. A child is served so well to learn they can attain recovery even if their parent never does.
“I Can Take CARE of Myself by COMMUNICATING My Feelings and Making Good CHOICES”
Once a child of an alcoholic understands what they can’t do, they can then learn what they can do. They may not have control over other people, but they can control how they react to other people. By helping children understand that they deserve love, and that love must first come from within, they start to learn self-reliance and resiliency.
The 7 Cs also combat the negative family rules that
Claudia Black discusses in her book, It Will Never Happen To Me. By teaching a child to communicate their feelings, “Don’t talk” can be eliminated. By teaching a child that they can make good choices, they can choose to “Trust” and “Feel” again. This will take time and hard work; however, the results of a healthy child who now has the opportunity to grow into a successful adult, who breaks the cycle of alcohol addiction in the home are beyond worth it.
NACoA: Teaching Children the Value of CELEBRATING Themselves
All children deserve to feel safe and loved. Children of alcoholics need safe and informed adults to show them that love. To show them that they are worthy of being celebrated. That they are worthy of celebrating themselves, and worthy of recovery even if their parents don’t find their own recovery.
The prominent trauma and addiction specialist, Dr. Patricia O’Gorman, says, “All children need protection. Learning safe behavior is a life-long process.” That process can start with education in the Children’s Program kit from the National Association for Children of Addiction (NACoA).
Children deserve to feel safe in the home. When and if this happens, they can feel safe in their hearts and safe in their souls. Together, we can make that safety a reality, one child at a time.
Many children blame themselves for their parent’s alcohol use. They may even feel responsible for the state of the environment that they are living in and begin to take on parental responsibilities to compensate for their parents’ inability to parent while consuming excessive alcohol. There must be a paradigm shift in the way that children of parents struggling with alcohol abuse/use disorder are seen, screened, educated, helped and treated. There must be a renewed focus on helping the children of parents of addiction recover. For more information on how to help children of parents struggling with alcohol addiction overcome their loss of childhood, traumatic adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s)and move forward toward to a chance for a healthy future, please reach out to NACoA today at (301) 468-0985.
