The Impact of Growing Up With An Addicted Parent On Our Adult Life

Growing up with a parent who has an addiction is an experience that leaves a mark on the person’s development. It can impact their identity, relationships, self-esteem, approach to parenting, attachment, and their perspective on alcohol use and substance use in general. Let’s examine what many adults face when their childhood experience was marked by a parent’s addiction.

Attachment Patterns with Your Parents Growing Up

Everyone has a different childhood, of course, but we can identify some common patterns. In regards to our relationships, it can create certain patterns. The way connect with our parents usually shapes our attachment style. The attachment style is the general pattern though which we engage with other people, the expectations we have of our relationships, and the way we behave.

When our primary caregiver, that is, our parent, is consistently unavailable or shows unpredictable behavior, being kind one day and angry the next and absent the following one, it can create insecure attachment styles that adapt to this behavior, but can bring us trouble later on.

The first is the anxious attachment that makes the person fear abandonment and cling in excess to their partner, friends, and others in their life. They feel insecure and try to keep others happy to prevent them from leaving. Then, there is the avoidant style, in which the person tries to keep away from others, does not let themselves be vulnerable, and seems detached and distant. Some might not show a consistent attachment style. This can occur because the parent with addiction can behave towards the child in ways that make the child adapt, and later on they might bring the same approach to their adult relationships. 

Relating to An Addicted Parent

In regards to attachment issues, the relationship with the parent with addiction can be fraught and full of ambivalent feelings. Some find that they feel a lot of justified anger and want to keep their distance, others might feel guilt and a desire to help their parents. Some people might alternate between different behaviors and feelings that are confusing and can make them feel lost and tired in regards to this relationship.

For example, one might feel a lot of anger at an absent father who is an alcoholic and at the same time have some hope to have a warm relationship with him. The attachment might be broken, distant, or ambivalent, full of positives and negatives, and that can take some work to deal with. An alcoholic father or mother might be, at the same time, a source of shame and worry and of kindness and support. It’s not always easy to make sense of the relationship, and our expectations of other people are shaped in part by the relationships we develop with our parents. 

On Codependency

A common pattern that develops in families where there is a person with addiction is codependency. In codependency, the family members become used to carrying the person’s weight, concealing or supporting the addiction, and engaging in other behaviors that are ultimately harmful for them. Some grown up children might repeat this pattern in their romantic relationships, enabling the spouse’s addiction or bad behavior as they have learned to do.

Parenting Our Own Children

In regards to parenting, adults with this background often commit to doing better and avoiding their parents’ mistakes. They might, however, rediscover some of their own anger at how they were treated and relive experiences from a new perspective. For example, seeing their children can make them realize how unfairly they were treated and it might reawaken some old wounds. Some find that they don’t have a good guide for being a good parent and might fall back, especially when under a lot of stress, in the patterns they saw among their family. However, for many adults, their own experience becomes  a big source of motivation to do better by their child and to give them a more stable childhood.

The Generational Addiction Cycle

Adult children of people with addiction can also struggle with the topic of addiction. There are different ways in which this can manifest. Many find themselves struggling with addiction as well and working to overcome the family patterns. Others avoid substance use completely. However, some might fall into other types of addictive behaviors, for instance, immersing themselves in their work. For a lot of people, the problem is not that they are tempted by the substance, but that they find themselves around others struggling with addiction and feel responsible for “fixing” this situation. It might be in regards to the addicted parent, a sibling, a partner, or even a child, but it’s important to look out for the pattern of codependency.  

Adults who come from this background are definitely not condemned to repeat what they saw or lived. However, overcoming the legacy of trauma and dysfunctional patterns might take work and effort. Therapy and support groups can provide many with a space for making sense of their experience and building new patterns in their relationships, with their children, and in their view of themselves. 

Experiencing the addiction of a parent is not easy, not just because of the substance abuse problem but because of its consequences. A parent with addiction might be more absent, require care rather than give it, to be unreliable, to refuse to acknowledge the problem. When a person grows up in this situation, it clearly influences how they see the world and themselves. However, it is possible to address the situation, and it does not mean that one is doomed to repeat what they saw or lived. 

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