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Open Eyes
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Open Eyes Not a Unicorn, just another horse
 
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Default Mar 10, 2021 at 11:06 AM
 
Children genuinely do not understand what it really means when a parent struggles with alcohol abuse disorder. Yet, the child can "feel" it and struggle to understand why the parent's mood changes so much and how a parent can even get very mean and scary. Also a child can witness a parent act out, yell, and even throw things around and treat the other parent badly. Children do NOT understand what they are witnessing and it causes the child to feel unsafe and not know what to do about it.

These feelings of doing something wrong if you finally say "my parent was and is an alcoholic" can go way back for someone. It was often something that was not permitted to talk about because the alcoholic parent did not like that. Alcoholics live in a world of DENIAL and they can get very angry if anyone says they have a problem. They WANT enablers around them to say it's ok to drink.

The problem with alcohol consumption is there is a period in the consumption where the alcoholic can actually be caring and nice as if they took medication and are better. Then the alcoholic can get to a level of alcohol where they can get very mean and even act out. Also, when a parent or partner is stressed they can act out and get down right mean because their body is actually craving the alcohol and also the person never learned how to regulate their emotions on their own.

This makes it VERY confusing for a child because the child simply doesn't understand what alcoholism really means. So, it's no wonder the child develops anxiety issues as they simply never really know what mood a parent is going to be in and if it will be "safe".
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