The Impact of Kin and Fictive Kin Relationships on the Mental Health of Black Adult Children of Alcoholics

According to a report by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) (2002a), alcoholism ranks almost certainly as the number one mental health problem; if not the most significant of all health problems in black urban communities. Research has shown that alcoholism is the number one health problem in the African American community (Stinson, Grant, & Dufour, 2001). Ethnicity and alcohol problems include both medical and social consequences. Research on alcohol's health effects on minority groups has shown a strong correlation between heavy (long-term) drinking and death for African Americans (Caetano & Clark, 1998). In addition, alcohol-related fatal crashes are three times more prevalent among ethnic minority groups than among the general population (Caetano & Clark, 1998). Various contributing social and biological factors affect the consequences of alcohol consumption for ethnic minority populations (Stinson et al., 2001). Studies have shown that greater densities of liquor stores are found in segregated ethnic minority neighborhoods (Caetano, Clark, & Tam, 1998). The availability of alcohol has been linked to patterns of alcohol-related traffic crashes in African American communities (Caetano et al., 1998). People vary in their vulnerability to the effects of alcohol. Among African Americans, some have a genetically determined metabolizing enzyme that affects the degree of vulnerability to alcohol cirrhosis and alcohol-related fetal damage (Treno, Alaniz, & Gruenewald, 2000). The debilitating effects of alcoholism and other chemical dependencies are not confined to the addicted individual alone (NIAAA, 2002b). Spouses, parents, children, even friends and colleagues of substance abusers may suffer a progressive psychological, emotional, and spiritual deterioration that mirrors that of their chemically dependent loved one (Hall, 2007). The pain of a spouse, child, or parent may be less immediately visible, but it is no less severe. According to the Children of Alcoholics Foundation (COAF) (2004), one out of eight Americans is an adult child of an alcoholic. Black (2001) poignantly described the suffering of children who grow up with an alcoholic parent and find themselves so encumbered by parental needs that they cannot proceed normally toward the development of satisfying adult commitments to love and work. Black provided an invaluable topographic model of problems faced by children of alcoholics. Children, like other codependent people, are emotionally abused, frequently neglected, and often physically victimized by addicted parents (Black, 2001; Hall, 2004). The nonaddicted parents are frequently too psychologically debilitated to serve as a barrier to the destructiveness of the alcoholic or drug-dependent parent (Hall, 2007). Children of alcoholics (COAs) are keenly aware that the drinking and drug use of their parents are threatening not only to their parent's lives, but also to the integrity of the family; and their terror of losing their parents is made nearly unbearable by their recognition that they (COAs) are relatively helpless without competent adult support (Hall, 2004). It is the fundamental assumption that many adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) adopt certain roles to cope with parental alcoholism, have a difficult time separating from their family of origin, are unable to establish stable commitments in love and work, and experience a severe depletion of self-esteem (Black, 2001; Hall, 2004). Several authors have suggested that the presence of a significant other in the life of a child of an alcoholic may help buffer the adverse consequences of parental alcoholism (Hall, 2004; Howes, 1999; Werner, 1999). For instance, kin and fictive kin relationships can provide emotional support to the child when the alcoholic is unavailable. In this qualitative study, kin relationships are defined as blood, marriage, or adoptive kin (for example, grandparent, cousin, aunt, uncle) and fictive kin (for example, mentor, coach, teacher, play mother and father) who regularly participated in significant life events (for example, weddings, funerals, baptisms, attended school plays) with the ACOA when the ACOA was between 10 and 18 years old. …