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Parental alcoholism is a major risk factor for their children's future alcohol abuse and dependence during adulthood. Thus, the purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to understand African-American adult female children's perceptions of self-worth, their lived experiences, and their quality of life as it relates to parental alcoholism. The research focus and questions were addressed by applying the conceptual framework of Bowen's family systems and Covington's self-worth theories. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 8 African-American adult female children of alcoholics. Subsequent data analysis and thematic coding were employed by using Colazzi's 7-step method to ensure rigor. The key findings from this study revealed that although over half of the women in this sample experienced some form of abuse and exposure to familial discord and even violence, their self-worth was strengthened by resilience and through forgiveness of their parents and siblings. This study's implications for positive social change include helping researchers and practitioners to better understand parental alcoholism and how it could shape the experiences of offspring, especially in the African-American female ethnic group. Future interventions could be shaped by these findings, and researchers may use these study results as a platform for future work in this literature domain.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vuxna barns personliga erfarenheter av att ha vuxit upp med missbrukande föräldrar och deras syn på stöd och hjälp. Kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med vuxna barn i åldrarna 25-35 år som vuxit upp med minst en förälder som missbrukat alkohol. Resultatet visar att missbrukets omfattning och karaktär beskrevs och uppfattades på lite olika sätt. Gemensamt var dock upplevelsen av att missbruket påverkade relationerna och samspelet negativt i familjerna. Familjelivet beskrevs som kaotiskt och oförutsägbart av flera intervjupersoner, bråk och konflikter förekom ofta. Alla hanterade sin situation genom att på olika sätt försöka anpassa sig efter föräldrarnas beteende och behov. Ett exempel på detta var att majoriteten av intervjupersonerna tog ett stort ansvar för hemmet och småsyskonen då föräldrarna var onyktra. Missbruket var heller ingenting som det pratades om, varken inom eller utanför familjen. Resultatet visar också att intervjupersonernas erfarenheter av stöd och hjälp såg förhållandevis olika ut. I några familjer hade socialtjänsten varit inkopplad, men det hjälpte inte för att lösa föräldrarnas problem. Ett par intervjupersoner har gått i stödgrupp för barn till missbrukande föräldrar, medan andra inte har fått något stöd alls, varken från den närmaste omgivningen eller från samhället. För några intervjupersoner utgjorde däremot det sociala nätverket ett viktigt stöd. Gemensamt för alla var att de uttryckte att de fått för lite stöd och hjälp under uppväxten. Lojaliteten gentemot föräldrarna var något som försvårade möjligheten att få hjälp, både från den närmaste omgivningen och från samhällets sida. Att barn som idag växer upp med missbrukande föräldrar behöver få mer stöd och hjälp från samhället var något som alla var överens om. Skolpersonal som dagligen träffar barnen lyftes fram som viktiga vuxna som kan göra skillnad för dessa barn. / The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to study the experiences of persons growing up with substance abusing parents. Qualitative interviews with adult children of alcoholic parents were conducted. Some informants in this study grew up with one alcohol abusing parent, while some grew up with two alcohol abusing parents. The results shows that the extent of addiction was different among parents, but common were that relationships and interactions in families were negatively infected by the substance abusing behaviour. Family life was characterized by chaos and unpredictability by many informants. A high level of conflicts was also common in the families. As children most of the informants took a lot of responsibility, especially for the care of younger siblings. The parental alcohol abuse was hidden from the community, and was almost never talked about, neither inside or outside of the family. All the informants expressed an absence of social support and help, from their networks as well as from society. Some of the families had contact with the social services, but none of the informants felt like they got enough help. Some of the informants got help from a support group for children with substance abusing parents, while others did not get any help at all. All informants felt loyalty to their family and parents and therefore avoided to reveal their parents alcohol abuse, which made it even more difficult for the community to help. The informants expressed that children growing up today with substance abusing parents need a lot more help from society. One way to reach out to these children is to educate teachers and other professionals in school in how to pay better attention to children of alcoholic parents.

A number of families suffering from alcoholic consequences constantly increase. More and more children suffer from the lack of their parents’ care, emotional repulse, compulsion and poverty. Though the childhood is so short the experience gained at that period of time, joy survived and bitterness suffered leaves the foremost marks and most frequently decide the future ways. The aim of the specialists of the social spheres is to help these children to prevail the basic difficulties, which menace their social course. The goal of this final post – graduate work is to disclose the features of social with the children dependent on their alcoholic parents.

115 undergraduate students were surveyed to see if attributional style would be different for individuals with alcoholic parents, depressed parents, or neither factor. Subjects were sorted into the three groups based on their responses to a family history questionnaire. Each subject filled out two attributional style questionnaires, the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Attributional Style Assessment Test (ASAT-II). The three groups did not differ on attributional style for interpersonal, noninter- personal, or general situations. Within the adult children of alcoholics group, subjects reported that their successes in interpersonal situations were due to their strategy and effort, rather than ability, more so than for noninterpersonal successes.

The purpose of the present archival study was to investigate the relationship between parental substance abuse and the risk for maladjustment and psychopathology in children in a clinic sample. Children of alcoholic parents and children of drug-dependent parents were compared to children of non-substance abusing parents. The subjects were 83 boys age 6 to 12. Children of substance abuse parents had lower levels of adaptive functioning and higher levels of school behavioral problems. Although previous studies have reported a strong association between an adverse family environment and the risk of child maladjustment, the present study did not find that the addition of an adverse family environment increased the risk for maladjustment or school behavioral problems in children of substance abusers.