PTSD Alcoholic Family: Unfortunate Collateral Damage

Tools such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help adults with PTSD discover new ways to cope with overwhelming emotions. From depression and anxiety to PTSD, alcoholics’ family members are susceptible to a range of mental illnesses. Getting help for the alcoholic in your family is the only way to protect the rest of your loved ones from becoming collateral damage. Seeking external validation and approval is often a response to the inconsistent or critical parenting experienced in alcoholic households. Children may become overly focused on pleasing others or achieving external markers of success as a way of compensating for feelings of unworthiness or insecurity. This can lead to a fragile sense of self-worth that is heavily dependent on others’ opinions and approval.

Wisdom Within Counseling can help you recovery from the complex trauma of growing up with alcoholic parents. It’s not unusual for the child of an alcoholic parent to feel the impact of growing up in an alcoholic home. Parents are supposed to make their children feel safe, protected, and secure. But when a parent is an alcoholic, life can be chaotic and feels anything but secure. When you grow up in a home with one or more alcoholic parents, the impact of the dysfunction reverberates throughout your life. Living with the PTSD from an alcoholic spouse or living with the alcoholic spouse often results in physical stress for family members.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Trauma

There are many different alcohol addiction treatment options available today. In this type of post-traumatic stress disorder, it is not a single event that causes the difficulty. Instead, it is shaped by repeated exposure to traumatic memories and events. It isn’t just war veterans and sexual assault survivors who develop PTSD.

Take Back Control of Your Life in Rehab

• However, your child also needs therapy on their own to learn new coping skills and receive help to process the adverse childhood experiences they have already had.
• These individuals may struggle with perfectionism, constantly seeking external validation, or have difficulty recognizing their own achievements and strengths.
• Typically, at a young age, children form an emotional attachment with their caregivers, and this has an influence on their development.
• The impact of growing up with an alcoholic parent extends far beyond the immediate chaos and unpredictability of daily life, often leaving lasting emotional and psychological wounds that can persist well into adulthood.
• Children growing up in alcoholic households often develop various coping mechanisms and survival strategies to navigate their challenging environments.
• This ongoing exposure to trauma can lead to the development of PTSD symptoms, which may manifest in various ways throughout childhood and into adulthood.

For example, one of the 9 phases of Affect2U’s treatment program focuses on ACoA-specific challenges. And if you’re not sure if a rehab you’re looking into offers informed support, you can always call their admissions team to ask. Even if you don’t have a diagnosed mental health condition, the trauma of your childhood can affect you in many ways.

For many, this ongoing emotional turmoil can contribute to the development of PTSD from an alcoholic spouse, depression, and other mental health challenges. Sometimes, they can be from severe life events like firsthand experiences of abuse or neglect. If there is substance use in the home and a parent is unreliable or unavailable, this can also serve as an ACE that impacts future interpersonal relationships. At many rehabs, you can find support groups for people experiencing the same issues. You may attend meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous, which even if you aren’t addicted to alcohol could help you gain an understanding of what your parents have experienced.

What Kind of Treatment Can Aid in Recovery?

Second, they have witnessed substance use and it was role modeled for them. Recently, integrative psychosocial interventions have been developed to address both trauma/PTSD and substance use disorders simultaneously (Back 2010). Clinicians previously believed that trauma interventions were inappropriate until after a patient had been abstinent from alcohol or drugs for a sustained period of time (e.g., 3 months). Proponents of integrative treatments posit that unprocessed trauma-related memories and PTSD symptoms may, at least in part, drive alcohol use. Thus, attending to and treating the trauma-related symptoms early in the process of therapy may improve the chances of long-term recovery from alcohol (Back et al. 2006; Hien et al. 2010). Struggles with trust and emotional regulation are also common long-term effects.

The expert interventionists at Intervention Helpline can help get your loved one back on track before his or her alcoholism causes serious (or further) damage to the entire family. And for those struggling with both PTSD and substance abuse, dual diagnosis help can address the underlying causes of addiction, leading to lifelong holistic recovery. There is also the fear that the alcoholic will endanger family members’ safety in other ways, such as driving while drunk or neglecting to provide necessities like food, shelter and supervision. Family members fear that the alcoholic will put his or her own safety at risk, too. Creating New PatternsHealing involves creating new habits and boundaries that prioritize mental health and emotional well-being.

Addiction Therapy Programs

This study strongly suggests that alcohol-dependent patients with co-occurring PTSD should receive medications targeting alcohol consumption. There are several general issues to consider when treating co-occurring alcohol dependence and trauma/PTSD. When pharmacological agents are used, treatment should generally follow routine clinical practice for the treatment of PTSD.

Living with an alcoholic is an emotionally, physically, and socially taxing experience for both partners and children. The effects of alcoholism ripple through every aspect of family life, often leaving long-term scars. However, with the right resources, support, and strategies, it is possible to navigate the challenges, heal the PTSD from an alcoholic spouse, and build a healthier future. If you grew up with an alcoholic father or mother (or both!) and find yourself struggling, know that there are resources that can help you heal and move forward. A skilled therapist, especially one who has experience working with adult children of alcoholics, can play a powerful role in helping you work through past trauma and develop new and healthy thought patterns and behaviors. Although these are some of the most common effects that adult children of alcoholics experience, it’s important to keep in mind that every situation is different.

Traumatic Effects on Children

This can open up lines of communication that have been shut down, helping you and your family heal the ways in which you relate to each other. Learning healthy conflict resolution alongside loved ones can help your relationship function more positively. Another underlying cause is the theme of selfishness in an alcoholic home.10 ACoAs learn that their emotional needs are less important than everyone else’s and that they’re selfish if they prioritize themselves. Your sense of worth becomes rooted in how well you take care of others. But the truth ptsd from alcoholic parent is that your needs are important too, and learning how to communicate them is essential in adult relationships.

• People who deal with alcoholic parents’ effects are at higher risk of also becoming alcoholics.
• As well, do you seek approval and feel lost about your identity, even though you may have a good job?
• Third, sadly, in their efforts to cope with their PTSD, they often turn to substances as a maladaptive means of coping.
• If you have noticed that your child might be at risk of developing PTSD, the best thing you can do is seek help for yourself and them.
• We do this by offering evidence-based and individualized treatment programs to each person who enrolls in our facility.
• All of these long-term effects can have a significant and lasting impact on an individual’s life.

Non-problem family members attempt to shield the mascot from the true nature of their household problem, although this child is aware that not everything is as it should be. Explore rehabs that treat trauma to learn more about treatment methods, pricing, and more, and reach out to centers directly. If you’re a treatment provider and have a question, please reach out and someone from our Customer Success team will be in touch with you shortly. These providers will be best able to help you alleviate symptoms of PTSD and go on to a better life.