Parental alcoholism and childhood psychopathology.

A relationship between parental substance abuse and subsequent alcohol problems in their children has been documented extensively. Children of alcoholics (COAs) are considered to be at high risk because there is a greater likelihood that they will develop alcoholism compared with a randomly selected child from the same community. COAs and children of other drug-abusing parents are especially vulnerable to the risk for maladaptive behavior because they have combinations of many risk factors present in their lives. The single most potent risk factor is their parent's substance-abusing behavior. This single risk factor can place children of substance abusers at biologic, psychologic, and environmental risk. Since the turn of the century, many reports have described the deleterious influence of parental alcoholism on their children. A series of studies measured mortality, physiology, and general health in the offspring of alcoholic parents and concluded that when mothers stopped drinking during gestation, their children were healthier. Today, research on COAs can be classified into studies of fetal alcohol syndrome, the transmission of alcoholism, psychobiologic markers of vulnerability, and psychosocial characteristics. Each of these studies hypothesizes that differences between COAs and children of nonalcoholics influence maladaptive behaviors later in life, such as academic failure or alcoholism. This research supports the belief that COAs are at risk for a variety of problems that may include behavioral, psychologic, cognitive, or neuropsychologic deficits. The vast literature on COAs far outweighs the literature on children of other drug abusers. Relatively little is known about children of heroin addicts, cocaine abusers, or polydrug abusers. Nonetheless, many researchers suggest that the children of addicted parents are at greater risk for later dysfunctional behaviors and that they, too, deserve significant attention to prevent intergenerational transmission of drug abuse. Most research on children of other drug abusers examines fetal exposure to maternal drug abuse. The overview of the research on children of substance abusers points toward the need for better, longitudinal research in this area. Most studies on COAs or other drug abusers are not longitudinal; they examine behavior at one point in time. Given the studies reviewed in this article, it is unclear whether we see true deficits or developmental delay. Longitudinal studies will allow us to predict when early disorders and behavioral deviations will be transient or when they will be precursors to more severe types of maladaptive behavior. Longitudinal research also will enable us to explain specific childhood outcomes. Differences in outcome could be studied simultaneously to understand whether antecedents discovered for one are specific to it or are general antecedents leading to a broad variety of outcomes.

Children of Substance Abusers: Overview of Research Findings

Objective: In this critical review the authors evaluate the literature regarding the relationship between lifelong DSM-III-R anxiety disorders and alcohol dependence. Many alcohol-dependent individuals demonstrate severe anxiety symptoms in the context of acute or protracted abstinence syndromes, but it is unclear whether these anxiety conditions are independent psychiatric disorders or temporary syndromes likely to disappear on their own

https://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/foc.2.3.440

Alcohol Dependence and Anxiety Disorders: What Is the Relationship?

In this chapter, we deal with family influences in the pathogenesis of alcoholism. Were we to interpret this mandate literally, we would be taking as our task a presentation of evidence that the family plays a role as an etiological agent in the development of alcoholism. Although some of the data we discuss here could conceivably be interpreted in this fashion, most students of the family would be made uncomfortable by an attempt to characterize the family as an etiological agent in the development of pathology. Hypotheses about the role of family behavior in the onset and course of illness tend to rely on complex interactional models based on notions of circular causality and the mutual influence of interacting variables. Traditional cause-and-effect hypotheses are replaced in such models by multi-factorial explanations. The family is seen as one of a series of variables that interact in a dynamic, systemic fashion to influence the development and course of a condition such as alcoholism.

The Alcoholic Family

Children of alcoholics during the recovery process: alcoholic and matched control families

Literature on the personality characteristics of spouses of alcoholics, on the psychosocial status of children of alcoholics and on alcoholic-spouse and alcoholic--family interactions is reviewed.

T Jacob

Papers

The alcoholic's spouse, children and family interactions. Substantive findings and methodological issues.