I’m an addict in recovery. I speak freely about it and
without shame. I’m not the man I was before treatment. I am the self I was
always meant to be. A huge part of my change was due to my kids. What happens
when an alcoholic parent gets treatment? In this parenting season, in the days
between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, a new
study published in the journal Addictive
Behaviors looked at family conflict before and after a father’s treatment
for alcohol addiction. And it shows there is hope.
First the bad news that you already know: alcohol addiction
may start at the point of contact between a drinker’s lips and the bottle, but
then it spreads through your body and brain and beyond to your relationship and
family. It’s no surprise that marriages that include an alcoholic have higher
rates of divorce. And a parent’s struggles with alcohol have far-reaching
effects on children, including cognitive,
behavioral and emotional problems that can carry forward into adulthood. Much
of this is due to the conflict between people that alcohol dependence creates.
That’s before. The
study showed that with treatment, the outlook changes.
The study followed 67 families that included an alcoholic
father entering treatment, his sober relationship partner, and at least one
child aged 4-18. As dad walked in the door of a treatment facility, a
questionnaire showed that kids in these relationships had been suffering – they
experienced far more conflict than kids in families that didn’t include an
alcoholic parent. Basically, children of alcoholics had watched their parents
fight.
Fast forward: the fathers went through treatment and
returned to the families. Six months later, kids in these families saw no more
fighting than kids in non-alcoholic families. Treatment had erased the conflict
gap.
That’s great news, but here’s the interesting part: in this
study 20 fathers stayed sober and 43 relapsed within the year (and 4 quit the
study). Can you guess what fighting in these families was like a full year
after the father’s treatment, with and without relapse?
Surprisingly, the study’s authors write that, “Improvement
following treatment appeared to be present for the entire treatment sample,
rather than limited only to treatment responders who achieve full-scale
remission.” Even in families whose fathers relapsed, conflict stayed low
at the one-year mark. It was as if the process of treatment had a stabilizing
effect on the family even if the father relapsed.
Now, it would be interesting to see results at the 2-year or
3-year mark. But at least for a year, the process of treatment helped families
stop fighting. I hope in this parenting season, you’ll join me in looking forward
to a future free of alcohol-fueled fights, in which you and your partner
experience no more conflict than anyone else.
**
Richard Taite is founder and CEO of Cliffside Malibu,
offering evidence-based, individualized addiction treatment based on the Stages
of Change model. He is also co-author with Constance Scharff
of the book Ending
Addiction for Good.
