The Effect Alcoholic Fathers Have on Their Daughters

 The Effect Alcoholic Fathers Have on Their Daughters

    I was sitting on the stairs crying to the point of hyperventilating, terrified that he would start hitting me. I got sprayed with more spit as he bent down to scream in my face some more, so I brought my hands to wipe my tears while simultaneously trying to block my face from his spit. As I covered my face with my hands, I felt his warm hands squeeze my arm so tight I could feel the pressure shifting my bones.

    Being the daughter of an alcoholic affects you in more ways than anyone could imagine. You come home from school or from hanging out with friends, and right before you walk through the door, you get this feeling in the pit of your stomach wondering; Is he drunk? How drunk is he? Is he in a bad mood? Did I do something to upset him? Can I make it to my room without him picking a fight? No child should ever have to feel that way when going to their home, which is supposed to feel safe and be somewhere you can always return to. Alcoholic fathers can have a detrimental effect on their daughters and their mental and physical health.

    Living with an alcoholic father can mean many things. You can expect angry outbursts, unnecessary arguments, inconsistency, and unreliability. It affects their children in many ways and at all stages of life, from infancy up to adulthood.

                                                           Photo from mountainside.com

Effects of alcoholic fathers during childhood

    Fathers with alcoholism have many negative consequences on a daughter's development and well-being. She grows up with nonstop chaos and is constantly affected by the instability of the household. One in eight children has at least one parent with a substance use disorder in their home, according to The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

    Children need their parents to love and care for them and their emotional and physical needs. With an alcoholic father, the child gets pushed to second place after the addiction. This often leads daughters to feel unworthy, unloved, unsupported, like they're not enough, or they did something wrong.

    Young daughters may struggle with several consequences of their father's impact on the the social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of who they are. To list a few, some of the struggles you daughters face due to their father's addiction are:

• Guilt over their father's drinking
• Development of, or increased levels of anxiety, depression, and lowered self-esteem
• Behavioral issues
• Issues with self-control
• Attachment disorders
• Lack of trust in others

    Many daughters living in an alcoholic household begin to believe that their father's outbursts, mood swings, and unreliable temper is their fault which couldn't be more wrong. They can also tend to go into denial to avoid shame and attempt to feel a sense of normalcy. Often times that happens because the child learns to internalize their parent's behavior, putting them in a spiral of confusion, denial, and guilt.

Effects of alcoholic fathers during adulthood

    The effects of an alcoholic father don't come to a halt once the child becomes and adult. Some people may think it'd be easy to leave that part of their life behind once they grow up and move out. The truth is that it follows many children around for many years beyond childhood.

    

                                                   Photo from North Jersey Recovery Center

    Growing up with an alcoholic father in the house makes dysfunctional relationships seem normal. This then causes that child to grow up putting themselves into unhealthy and dysfunctional relationships because that feels comfortable for them. The lack of basic needs being met in childhood can negatively affect the child's development of secure attachments. In adulthood, this leads to unhealthy behaviors and trust issues in relationships. Since they had to rely on themselves more as a child, they may feel responsible for others, take on more than they should at work or school, and make themselves feel like they need to be independent and can't rely on others for help.

But what if it's not the father's fault?

    Some may say, "Well, she probably did something to upset him," or "he got set off because she couldn't keep her mouth shut." Well, I hate to burst their bubbles, but alcohol is known to alter your brain chemistry. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), "Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works. Alcohol makes it harder for the brain areas controlling balance, memory, speech, and judgment to do their jobs, resulting in a higher likelihood of injuries and other negative outcomes." 

                              "Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of fiber tracks in the brain of a 58-year-old man 

                                with alcohol use disorder. DTI maps white-matter pathways in a living brain."
                                          Image courtesy of Drs. Adolf Pfefferbaum and Edith V. Sullivan.

    Some people will still blame the daughter or the rest of the family, but it really comes down to the fact that the father is an alcoholic. it changes the way he thinks and feels, he becomes more sensitive, his temper worsens, and frankly, it's not the daughters or the rest of the family's job to walk on eggshells in their own home because of someone else's addiction. NIAAA also says, "Long-term heavy drinking causes alterations in the neurons, such as reductions in their size." Alcohol affects brain chemistry when you drink moderately, but the amount alcoholics drink and how often they drink affects them even more.

    So, my question to the people who will argue this topic is, how can you excuse the alcoholic and blame the daughter when it's the alcoholic doing it to himself? Yes, there are often other reasons behind alcoholism, such as depression, but again, why would you blame the daughter?

    Although the purpose of this article is to explain the effects of an alcoholic father on his daughter, it also goes far beyond an alcoholic father and his daughter. It could be a mother and a son, mother and daughter, or father and son. It doesn't matter who the alcoholic is and who the receiver or witness is; what it comes down to is that alcoholism is a disorder that cannot be blamed on the people surrounding the alcoholic. Since it's specific to each circumstance, it is difficult to place the blame on anyone when you're talking generally about the topic.

    Every situation is different, but the effects the alcoholic fathers have on their daughters are undeniable. The guilt, shame, fear, and sadness that come with having an alcoholic father should not prevent her from having a happy, successful, and functional life. It's hard to heal from experiences like these, and many people don't understand the turmoil that children of alcoholics go through. Alcoholic fathers can have a detrimental effect on their daughters and their mental and physical health. What is most important for children of alcoholics to understand is that their parent's poor behavior is certainly not their fault.