Dimensions of Functioning in Alcoholic and Nonalcoholic Families

This study examined various dimensions of functioning in alcoholic and nonalcoholic families. Participants were 813 college student volunteers who completed a standardized measure of family functioning, demographic questions, and questions related to experiences in their families of origin, including abuse, spousal violence, parental marital status, parental alcoholism status, and grandparent alcoholism status. Results indicate that children raised in alcoholic families tend to experience lower levels of family functioning and are more likely to have had traumatic experiences than children from nonalcoholic families. Mental health counselors will likely work with individuals who have at least one alcoholic parent, as nearly 20 percent of children in the United States grow up in alcoholic families (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1998). The effects of parental alcoholism on children and families are varied and often detrimental (Campbell, Masters, & Johnson, 1998; Deming, Chase, & Karesh, 1996). Alcoholic families, for example, exhibit more negative messages among family members (Sheridan & Green, 1993), engage in greater levels of openly expressed anger, and exhibit lower levels of warmth, cohesion, and direct communication than nonalcoholic families (Garbarino & Strange, 1993; Rojas, 1993; Senchak, Leonard, Greene, & Carroll, 1995). Parental alcoholism has also been associated with role confusion, role reversals, and distorted hierarchy in families (Chase, Deming, & Wells, 1998; Goglia, Jurkovic, Burt, & Burge-Callaway, 1992; Sheridan & Green, 1993). In addition, children of alcoholics experience higher levels of neglect and physical abuse in their homes than do children in nonalcoholic families (Hall, Bolen, & Webster, 1994; Kerr & Hill, 1992a; Sher, Gershuny, Peterson, & Raskin, 1997). According to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (1998), alcohol is a significant factor in approximately 81% of child abuse cases. The experience of growing up in an alcoholic family seems to lead to various vulnerabilities in children, including self-esteem issues, depression, anxiety, stress-related illnesses, and difficulties in school (National Association for Children of Alcoholics, 1998). Furthermore, the effects of parental alcoholism persist into adulthood for many children and have multigenerational consequences. Specifically, adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) have a higher prevalence of mood, anxiety, and abuse/dependence disorders (Beaudoin, Murray, Bond, & Barnes, 1997; Cuijpers, Langendoen, & Bijl, 1999), lower levels of marital satisfaction, higher frequencies of divorce, lower levels of satisfaction in their relationships with their own children, and higher frequencies of marrying alcoholics than non-ACOAs (Kerr & Hill, 1992b; Larson & Thayne, 1998). ACOAs have also been shown to have less overall life satisfaction (Hall et al., 1994), less trust in others and more codependent behaviors (Jones & Kinnick, 1995; Lyon & Greenberg, 1991), more issues related to control (Shapiro, Weatherford, Kaufman, & Broenen, 1994), less adaptive expressions of anger (Hart & McAleer, 1997), and more difficulties with college adjustment (Garbarino & Strange, 1993) than non-ACOAs. Although the effects of growing up in an alcoholic family are becoming clearer, there is a need for a comprehensive assessment that will support or disconfirm previous findings related to the effects of parental alcoholism on dimensions of family functioning (e.g., conflict, cohesion, and communication) and that will extend previous work to include additional indices of family dysfunction. Specifically, previous researchers have tended to focus on physical abuse and neglect of children as indicators of dysfunction in alcoholic families. There is a need for a more expansive assessment of family dysfunction in alcoholic families. To this end, a review of family literature was conducted and a number of indices of family dysfunction that may be impacted by parental alcoholism were identified. …