The aim of this study was to explore and describe the intergenerational interactional patterns in a Coloured family where the mother has abused alcohol. Researchers have found that drinking behaviours of parents can have major effects on the children’s lives throughout generations. Substance abuse of a parent has major influences on the family, their interactions, and relationships, mostly between the parent and the child. There is a major gap in the study of the Coloured families and how substance abuse affects their families and children. The study employed Bowen’s constructs of differentiation of self, multigenerational transmission process, triangulation, emotional cut-off, nuclear family emotional system, sibling position, family projection process, and societal regression and utilized analytical generalization of the concepts to achieve its aim. The mother, an older sibling and maternal mother were the main sources of data although the perspective of the mother herself was privileged in the study. Semi-structured interviews were utilized to gather the data. This allowed participants to freely narrate their personal perceptions and experiences of interaction in both the family of origin and the current nuclear family. The research used a single case study of a purposively sampled family. The researcher is a Coloured female who had specific interest in this specific cultural group and their interactional patterns, which optimised cultural familiarity during the research process and reduced the likelihood of potential discriminatory racial bias of the participants. The findings demonstrate that perceptions of interactional patterns in the nuclear family and family of origin coincided with certain of Bowen’s Family Systems concepts, particularly, triangulation and differentiation. However, the need for further exploration of concepts such as the nuclear family emotional system and the family projection process in Coloured families are still needed in future studies. The findings provided insight into the functioning of the relationships and FAMILY INTERACTION IN MATERNAL ALCOHOL ABUSE interactions in both the nuclear family and the family of origin. Limitations of the current study are identified and recommendations for future studies in this field are also offered.