Hello friends!

We regularly receive letters at the "Psychologist's Cabinet" in which the authors ask how to get along with an alcoholic. Write, mostly women - wives and daughters of alcoholics. They ask how to protect small children, how not to let themselves and them offend during periods of drinking bouts. And, most importantly, how to help ("not let the abyss") to your alcoholic.

Why did I decide to devote an entire article to this difficult topic? The reason is simple: I personally know several people (my once close friends) who were raised in a family with an alcoholic father. I will give two examples - you can draw your own conclusions.

The first example is a friend of mine who grew up in a family with an alcoholic father.

All childhood, the guy watched his drunken father - they lived in a one-room apartment. He spent his free time mainly in the yard.

Mother was saved by work and trips with friends: “What did I not see at home? Drunk husband? she explained to her friends. I “took” on my son already at school, when I realized that I had to somehow put the boy on his feet.

I didn’t even think about getting a divorce - it was a pity to leave a person: “He will be lost without me.”

My friend from childhood despised drinking and said that he himself would never become such a husband and father. And what happened in the end? Now he is in his 30s, has a wife and two small children. Drinks.

An example of the second is my old dacha friend who grew up in a family with an alcoholic father.

She loved her father very much, but her mother also felt sorry for her - she understood that this was not "". I watched my father's binges, the sobs of my mother and my grandmother. She didn't drink.

Do you think, in the end, she drank herself, like my friend? Oh no, everything is more serious - she married an alcoholic.

Probably, someone will think that I was just unlucky with the examples. But, unfortunately, they are typical. As evidence, I present to your attention an article-call by Irina on this sore subject.

UNTITLED

(Each woman can call her whatever she pleases )

Dear women! You are busy with a drunken husband ... and what happens at this time with your child? Ask yourself this question.

In my practice, I have repeatedly encountered the problem of drunkenness. This problem in one way or another is present in many families. Written a large number of literature on this topic. This problem is devoted scientific work, it is studied in scientific institutes. The Telephone Trust Services are often contacted by women suffering from alcoholic husbands, drinking sons.

And this problem is not only in our country. It can be called one of the world's problems, universal! Life with a drinker, even if he has not yet become an alcoholic, is life on a powder keg, anything can happen. A woman living with a drunken husband must fight and defend herself all the time. It's practically a war.

And in this war, a woman should try to keep her and her children physically and mentally safe! And this is very difficult. And yet, an adult woman is aware of what is happening in her family, and, making a choice in favor of further life with an alcoholic or a divorce from him, takes responsibility for the consequences. E. Berne, in his book "Games People Play", perfectly described this in the game "Alcoholic". But I would like to make some comments about children living in families with an alcoholic parent. Usually it is the father.

I won't touch on those dire cases where both parents are alcoholics, or the child lives with one alcoholic parent in the absence of the other parent. Most often, these parents are deprived parental rights and the child then lives separately from them. This usually does not make the child happier or relieve him of many psychological problems, but that's another topic.

A child in his family comprehends the wisdom of relationships with the opposite sex, in particular, on the example of the relationship of his own parents. He learns role-playing relationships (mom-dad, man-woman). Moreover, there is a kind of "absorption", at an unconscious level, of behavioral reactions.

The child perceives the relationship of the parents as normal, even if they give the impression of being ugly and even vicious to an outside observer.

This is a very big danger. I'll try to tell you how I understand it. All people are characterized by basic anxiety, but its manifestation in a person's life, intensification or decrease, largely depends on the external conditions that affect the person.

So, a drunken father, if at the same time he still scandalizes and raises his hand against his mother and children, causes a very great fear in the child. Even if the father does not beat and does not make a big scandal, the child, seeing how upset the mother is, also experiences great fear. For him, his parents are protection and support, and he sees how this protection is crumbling!

But this is one moment. There are others. Alcoholism is not contagious in a physiological sense, but it is contagious in a psychological sense.

Often in families where the father is a drinker, the son, having matured, also begins to drink. The son, watching his father's drunkenness, begins to believe that it is also quite possible to live like this. The father avoids responsibility, does not solve problems, but the family continues to exist, and the mother takes all or almost all responsibility for the family, performs all the functions of the family's life. The boy doesn't think like that logically, it happens almost unconsciously.

In addition, the mother often hides from others or significantly downplays this dependence of her husband out of fear or shame. It is especially affected by the fact that often the mother pretends that everything is fine. Such ambivalent (dual) behavior of the mother contributes to the fact that the child is lost and does not know how to react to the situation. He (the child) may experience anger at his parents, but this duality makes him unconsciously or consciously repress this anger.

Gradually, the son develops a certain stereotype of behavior, for example, in a situation where he does not know how to behave or does not want to be responsible for something. His answer is to drink. Of course, a child can start drinking in non-drinking families, but there are other reasons. And there are always reasons. The same applies to the daughter - very often in later life she chooses a drinking husband.

The girl already knows how to react to his drunkenness, she knows how to behave with him. This understates it, which arose in parental family, severe anxiety. The behavior of her drinking husband is quite expected for her.

Here, the “victim” complex formed in her family with a drinking father can also work. The “victim” always has a secondary benefit, no matter how harsh it sounds. This benefit is the sympathy of others, the desire to be a “savior”, to be needed by this drinking man. At the same time, the woman believes that without her, her alcoholic husband will disappear. In families where fathers drink, the following sometimes happens.

The mother or other relatives, wanting to make the child feel responsible, ask him "to look after" a drinking father. This is done, as it seems to them, out of good intentions, for educational purposes. The fallacy of this method is that the child is thus included in this intra-family game "Alcoholic". Under the "game" E. Berne understands "a sequence of actions that are subject to individual, not social programs, in contrast to pastime." This does not mean that the games are not serious. They are often violent, even deadly, and often the games of a lifetime! In my practice, there was also such a case:

A 16-year-old girl lived with her mother and drinking father. Her mother and other relatives tried to influence her father, he even coded. But later he returned to drinking anyway, and all the relatives, and the girl's mother, gave up the fight and decided to leave everything as it is. By type: "Come what may."

The father is a “quiet drunkard”, considers himself a sufferer, etc. The girl loved him and pitied him. And she made a promise to herself that she would get her father out of drunkenness.

What happened here?

There was a substitution of roles: the girl moved from the role of a daughter to the role of a “savior”, which is usually performed by wives. She intervened in marital relations (husband-wife) - this role is also performed by mothers in relation to children.

Thus, she crossed out the parent-child relationship with her own father. She took on the role of a wife or mother with all the ensuing consequences: the girl took responsibility for her father, which often negatively affects all relationships in the family, including with her mother.

It is the parents who are responsible for their minor children, not the other way around! Of course, the girl did all this out of the best of intentions, out of love for her father, without thinking about any roles and family levels.

Often in families with a drinking father, the mother, wanting to prove to the children the harmfulness of drunkenness, exposes the father as an "anti-example", in every possible way setting the children against him. If at the same time the father is a “quiet drunkard”, then the child, striving for a kind of justice, begins to feel sorry for his father and enters into a silent, and sometimes declared, coalition against his mother.

If the father is aggressive at the same time, and the child agrees (if only in his soul) with his mother, then he (the child) psychologically loses his father. But a child cannot not have a father! Then often in later life he will transfer his desire to have a father to other people.

So, a girl can look for her father in her husband, and a boy in a friend, boss, psychotherapist, etc. And then there will be a substitution of roles. After all, a husband, a boss are one role, and a father is a completely different one. Father - blood relative and will remain so forever, whatever it may be. They have different functions and cannot be mixed.

In the event that a woman decides to hang out with her husband because of his drunkenness(or other reason), she should not consult with the child about this. She herself decides to break off the marital relationship. This is her area of ​​responsibility. You can not push children to break the parent-child relationship (I do not consider monster parents).

A mother can explain that she does not want and cannot live with a drunkard husband, but he still remains a father for a son or daughter with such a problem, illness, etc. Dad loves the child, but he decided to continue drinking, and nothing can be done. You can find different words to explain with the child, but the main thing is that he (the child) has the knowledge that his parents love him, and he can continue to love each of them (both mom and dad).

To feel the harmony of the world, a child needs to understand that he has a mom and dad. Divorce ends the relationship between husband and wife, not father and child.

I can say that many psychologists insist that children should not be involved in the so-called intra-family situation "Alcoholism or drunkenness and the fight against them" at all. This is very difficult to do, especially if the child lives with a drinking family member. In conclusion, I want to say: do not burden the child with unnecessary responsibility!

Adults (parents in particular) are responsible for their actions and their lives! And drinking is a conscious choice of an adult! I want to recommend to women, one way or another faced with the problem of drunkenness and alcoholism, the book of an excellent psychologist and psychotherapist E.V. Emelyanova "How to communicate with a drunken husband" (Publishing house "Rech" St. Petersburg, 2008) This book contains practical practical advice to women.

Irina, practicing psychologist

That's it, friends. I hope you found the article interesting and useful. But at the same time, not relevant. I wish you all never face such problems.

I would love to hear your opinions on the topic. What do you think? Are there examples of life in a family with an alcoholic among your acquaintances? Perhaps there are stories even with a happy ending? I also recommend this one, they say it helps.

(18 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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72 comments

One can only guess what feelings a child experiences when he sees his dad drunk. It seems strange and incomprehensible how this man, who does not remember what he does and says, behaves inappropriately and sometimes beats his relatives, can be your father. If dad drinks, then this situation seems hopeless to the child, he does not know who to turn to, he tries to hide the situation in the family from those around him. But there is always a way out, and even a child himself can do a lot to protect himself and help his father stop drinking.

The problem of alcoholism

Many people know how to live with an alcoholic, since alcohol addiction in our time is a fairly common disease that children in the family suffer from. Alcoholism occurs due to prolonged and frequent use of alcohol. This disease is characterized by mental and physical dependence. Very often, a drinking person does not even realize that he suffers from alcohol addiction.

If the father drinks, quarrels, conflicts, scandals and even fights often arise in the family. Children are the first to suffer from this. If nothing is done in time, the disease enters a deeper stage, a person's life goes downhill, the family breaks up. It is even harder for children whose mother drinks or both parents drink.

However, do not confuse ordinary household drunkenness with alcoholism. In the first case, it is enough just to talk to a person. Perhaps everything will stop when the father's problems are solved or get better financial well-being. But often it is everyday drunkenness that smoothly turns into alcoholism. The question arises, how to determine that a parent is an alcoholic?

Signs of alcoholism

If the father drinks, then you need to pay attention to his behavior. The following signs indicate the onset of alcoholism:

• the person is often under the influence of alcohol;
• he often feels unwell;
• if he cannot drink, he is irritable and angry;
• in a state of intoxication, a person is often aggressive;
• even after long-term use of alcohol, the father does not have any nausea or vomiting.

• manifestations of withdrawal syndrome (after drinking, dad is very ill in the morning);
• he often treats bad morning feeling with a new dose of alcohol (he gets drunk);
• when the father drinks, his sleep suffers, insomnia appears;
• a person experiences anxiety, a sense of fear and anxiety.

At this stage, the father needs urgent treatment, as mental disorders will soon appear. A strong dependence on alcohol can make a man impotent, he develops cardiovascular diseases and other diseases. internal organs. All external manifestations of alcoholism are clearly expressed:

• hand tremor;
• swelling of the face and limbs;
• profuse salivation.

Your actions

Many unfortunate children wonder what to do if dad drinks often? To get started, you need to do the following:

1. Try to calm down and assess the situation. Maybe the father does not drink so much and often, and is not an alcoholic at all. Sometimes a child from worries about his mother, his life and family can exaggerate the problem. In such a situation, after you calm down, you need to tell your mother or one of your relatives about your feelings. It is important to consider how much and how often the father drinks. If this is a bottle of beer after work sometimes, and not a strong alcoholic drink every day, then there is no cause for concern yet.
2. You don't need to tell your father that you think he's an alcoholic. From this, he will not stop drinking, but only get very angry, even if at that moment he is in a sober state.
3. It is very difficult for many children to tell someone: I live with an alcoholic father. Often the problem is hushed up because of shame for their parents. But you need to tell one of the adults about the situation in the family. You can turn to people you can trust. It can be relatives, acquaintances, friends or parents of friends. First of all, after this, the child will feel better. In addition, they can advise what to do in this situation, since it is very difficult to solve such a problem on your own.
4. In order for dad to stop drinking, you can ask someone from the people whom the father trusts to talk to him. It could be your dad's parents, your grandparents, his friend or brother.

Attention: you should not involve outsiders to talk with dad and completely strangers. This will not help the father stop drinking, but will only anger him, ruin his reputation and create the impression of a dysfunctional family.

1. Answering the question of what to do if the father often drinks, the child can be advised to talk to a sober dad. Just don't do it when he's drunk. In a conversation, you do not need to tell your father - I live with an alcoholic. It is important to express your concern about the health of the pope without moralizing, reproaches and accusations. The conversation is better to build in this vein:

• you can start with memories of a joint trip, hike or games;
• then praise dad for sobriety, tell him how much you love him;
• then find reasons and explain why you like it so much when he is sober;
• at the end, try to put pressure on pity and burst into tears from the memories of what happened when dad was drunk (it is important that your tears and words are sincere, not a single parent can withstand the tears of a beloved child);
• ask him not to drink.

Actions in an emergency

You need to think in advance what to do if the father is on a drinking binge. If dad does not stop drinking for several days in a row, then in this state he can be dangerous to others and you. If there is no mother at home and you are alone, then it is better not to take risks and not stay in an apartment with a drunken inadequate father and his drinking companions. In this case, you should heed the following tips:

1. No need to forcefully take alcohol from dad or hide the bottle. From this, an inadequate drunk person can become aggressive and harm you.
2. Talking to your father and drinking buddies, trying to convince them to leave, is also pointless.
3. It's better for you to leave the house for a while. Just not just on the street, but go to relatives or friends.

You should also be aware of a serious condition called withdrawal symptoms. It occurs in alcoholics after alcohol withdrawal. That is, if a person drank for several days in a row, and then stopped himself or ran out of alcohol, then he becomes very ill. In this case, you need to call ambulance because severe withdrawal can result in coma, heart attack, stroke, or even death.

No matter how hard it is for you to contemplate a drunken father, you should understand a few simple truths and adhere to the following recommendations:

• Alcoholism is a disease, not a person's own desire. He should not be offended and condemned.
• Don't turn your back on your father. If his family and relatives leave him, he will simply get drunk and die. Such a patient should be supported in every possible way and helped to get out of this state.
• When dad comes away from drinking, he is very ill (withdrawal syndrome). In this state, he does not need to be left alone, be always there and support him so that he sees that someone else needs him and understands that in this life he still has something to fight for.
• All his attempts to stop drinking should be encouraged and supported on the way to a sober life.

If the child is already an adult

Much more help to your drinking father an adult son or daughter living their own lives can provide:

1. To quickly stop the father's drinking, you can call a narcologist at home. He will detoxify the body and dad will feel better.
2. As soon as the father is sober, you should immediately contact a psychologist who will help identify and eliminate the cause of drunkenness.
3. If the father does not mind, he can be assigned for treatment to a narcological dispensary, where he will undergo further rehabilitation.
4. When will dad accept firm decision take the path of sobriety, then you can help him put his life and apartment in order.
5. In no case do not keep your father company in drunken feasts. For you, this is dangerous because you have a bad heredity and can also join the ranks of people with alcohol addiction. If you think that dad will drink less alcohol with your participation, then he can easily find himself an additional dose elsewhere if he wants to.
6. After the father embarks on the path of a sober life, all alcohol must be removed from the house. Even family feasts and holidays should be celebrated without alcohol.

Living in a home where an alcoholic mother or father is an unbearable ordeal for children. Parents are in an insane state, they are not interested in everyday chores, as well as solving problems. Addiction to alcohol develops against the background of uncontrolled consumption of a large volume of alcoholic beverages. As a result, complete chaos reigns in the family: dirt, lack of money, hungry children, quarrels, fights and even murders. The child is traumatized for the rest of his life.

Signs of Addiction

The first thing that betrays an alcoholic is behavior. According to statistics, 3.5 million people in Russia are alcohol dependent and 68–70% drink alcohol every day. The following signs will help distinguish domestic drunkenness from alcoholism:

• the person is drunk most of the time;
• frequent deterioration of health;
• no vomiting or nausea with prolonged use of alcohol;
• sudden mood swings, irritability, anger;
• in a drunken state, aggression occurs.

• sleep becomes sensitive, insomnia develops;
• the nervous system suffers, because of which dad feels fear and anxiety;
• withdrawal syndrome (nutrient deficiencies and dehydration lead to the fact that every morning after drinking the father feels bad);
• hangover needs.

At stages 1-2, treatment is required. If this is not done, then the 3rd stage will follow - psychological disorders. There is a chronic and constant need for a new dose of alcohol. Diseases of the internal organs develop, the heart and blood vessels are under stress, the man runs the risk of becoming impotent. Become noticeable external signs alcoholism:

• imbalance of thermoregulation - increased sweating, profuse salivation;
• hand shaking (tremor);
• nose becomes red, streaked;
• gait - caricature, peculiar;
• face, arms and legs become puffy, puffy.

The 3rd stage is characterized by the degradation of the personality. The brain of an alcoholic father is gradually destroyed, psychosis and hysteria occur. Over time, this condition leads a person to death.

Understanding the reasons

Children perceive drunkenness of the father as a disease. And the hangover syndrome that follows leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the parent's illness. Over the years, the child tends to blame his own actions for what is happening:

• did not cope with his father's assignment;
• got an A in school
• didn’t manage to do push-ups or pull up as many times as dad wanted, etc.

The reasons why a father drinks do not depend on the child. It's about the alcoholic. However, children in their own way think everything up and try to somehow justify the current tragedy. In medicine, there are 3 categories of causes: social, psychological, physiological. Paternal alcoholism occurs against the background of:

1. Hard labor. Stress at work or strained relationships with colleagues, superiors.
2. Unclaimed. Lost a job, business collapsed (other reasons for loss of income).
3. Serious illness, depression.
4. Conflicts within the family. The wife or parents are too demanding of a man. There is no mutual understanding between spouses.
5. Troubles, tragedies, death of loved ones.
6. Unjustified hopes. Needs are higher than income, low salary, arrogance, when a person is in an eternal search for a better job and life.
7. Problems of a sexual nature.

The list of reasons can go on and on. The important thing is that the father does not want to solve them. Starting to drink, he is forgotten, letting life take its course. It makes no sense to figure out which of the reasons brought the father to alcoholism - this will not solve the problem. Over time, there is no reason for drinking, but the addiction is formed and a person cannot overcome it.

How to behave if dad drinks

For a frank conversation, close relatives, parents of friends are suitable. The child should find a person whom the father trusts (dad's parents, brother or his friend), and let them ask him to stop drinking.

It is necessary to start a conversation on your own when the father is sober, but without making claims. You can remember bright and pleasant moments. It will not be superfluous to praise for sobriety and explain why it is so important not to drink. At the end - sincere requests, gleaned from negative memories of a bad life, when the father is drunk, will cause pity in him. The main thing is that it should not be feigned, but from the heart. Then ask your dad to stop.

V emergency when he is rowdy, and the mother is not around, the child urgently needs to leave the house. It is better to think in advance where to go - to your grandmother, aunt, friends, etc. It is forbidden to do the following:

• take away the bottle
• to have intelligible conversations;
• expel drinking companions (if any);
• stay in a house / apartment with drunk and inadequate people.

Children of drinking parents should know that after drinking, a person has an abstinence syndrome. Only doctors can help you deal with it. You need to call an ambulance.

Help for an alcoholic father

Even a child can influence dad to stop drinking. However, the younger the child, the more difficult. V school age child:

• can only talk with a sober father about the perception of the problem and further treatment;
• tell relatives about the problem.

Children over 18 years of age will be able to provide specific assistance so that dad does not drink. Action algorithm:

1. Persuade him to visit a psychiatrist and psychologist.
2. Offer dad to call a doctor at home to detoxify the body. Purified blood will improve well-being.
3. Take your father for treatment and rehabilitation to a drug treatment clinic.
4. Help with household chores if the parent stops drinking on their own.
5. Remove all alcohol in the house.

It is important to understand that without the consent and desire of the father, it may not be possible to change his life. It's a long journey that requires motivation and patience.

The likelihood of quitting alcohol

The family is a powerful tool for treating the drinking person. The age of the patient, the number of years of existence of the problem and the degree of destructive processes in the body play a big role. If the father has not yet reached old age and has recently begun to drink, the strongest psychological support will affect the result. Children demonstrating healthy lifestyle life, affection and love for the father, often save him from degradation.

Drunkenness is not a whim of a person, but a disease that is almost impossible to get rid of alone. A child, forgiving offenses to a drinking father, gives him a psychological resource for recovery.

It is more difficult if the “alcoholic” experience is long. A person simply does not know how it is to live normal life. Every conscientious alcoholic, deep down, wants to stop drinking. But the disease is stronger than the idea. Don't give up on unsuccessful attempts. We must again and again fight for the sobriety of the mind and the health of the father.

American psychologist Eric Burne put forward a hypothesis about predestination life path many - and even most - people of the so-called. "life scripts": human relationships, behavioral habits, and worldviews learned uncritically in childhood.

For example, psychological research show that almost 60% of the daughters of alcoholics marry ... alcoholics!

Why is this happening? And how can the daughter of an alcoholic overcome her negative life script?

Wiki history

Vika is the daughter of an officer and a teacher. Her mother is energetic, strong-willed and authoritative, while her father was distinguished by a weak will. Addicted to cheerful companies and hard liquor made him eventually an alcoholic. However, Vika's mother did not divorce her husband: she was not - or did not consider herself - a particularly attractive woman: in her opinion, it is better to have an alcoholic husband than to live without a husband at all.

As a child, Vika had to go through a lot. Several times they hid with their mother at the neighbors while their father raged in the apartment. When sober, he always apologized, which seemed to his daughter even more unpleasant than his rampage.

Gradually she moved away from her father. Their communication became formal. The father hardly spoke to his daughter, she also avoided him. It was something like a cold war.

Father never really hit Vika's mother: he was afraid of his wife. However, there was a case when he swung an ax at her. Vika, like her mother, distinguished by a strong, resolute character, at that moment stood behind her father. She was then 15 years old, but she was already tall and strong, and her father was small in stature. She managed to push her father so hard from behind that he fell and hit hard.

However, Vika did not feel sorry for her father and believed that she had done well.

When Vika was 17 years old, her father died. He went fishing with his friends. They drank well and in this state went far into the lake (this is Lake Ladoga, as you know, the largest in Europe). A storm began, the boat capsized - and everyone died.

Neither Vicki's mother nor she herself was particularly worried about the death of her father.

Vika got married quite late. When the son Mitya was born, she and her husband began to gradually move away from each other. The husband often went away, and soon Vika realized that he was drinking. Scandals began.

So it took almost 5 years, and finally, they dispersed.

The ex-husband found another woman drinking. And Vika for some time - almost until the age of 30-35 - lived alone with her son and, according to her, felt good.

But then she became worried that she would be alone for the rest of her life. This anxiety led her to a psychologist.

Wiki Life Scenario Analysis

In the course of therapy, Vika realized that in her childhood she uncritically learned from her mother some worldview attitudes related to relationships with men, love and marriage.

1) A man is a means to create a family. Thanks to the husband, you can have a child, the husband brings money to the house. But he's not good for anything else.

2) Men often drink. This is natural and almost inevitable. The dignity of a woman is to endure and remain an honest wife and mother.

3) Attractive women are rare. Therefore, you should be happy if you have at least some kind of close man.

Thus, her scenario is something like this: get married without love, relations with her husband are cool, he will drink, and in the end you will completely move away from each other, but you will put up with it.

Only the last point did not quite come true. However, the initiator of the divorce is not Vika, but her husband.

Needless to say, Vika was not aware of these attitudes, which did not prevent her from acting in accordance with them. She admitted that she had never felt much love for her husband, but her age was no longer young, and she wanted to have a family. She did not know about his addiction to alcohol before the wedding.

As you can see, Vika chose her husband the same way as her mother, and her relationship with her husband is similar to the relationship of her parents.

She couldn't get over her script because she wasn't aware of it.

Why can the daughter of an alcoholic marry an alcoholic?

There are many reasons. Most often, a combination of several of the following factors leads to a repetition of the fate of the mother.

1. If a father drinks, then his behavior, appearance (even the smell, and, as you know, olfactory impressions are of great importance for women), attitude towards his wife and daughter are such that they repel his daughter from him. Such a man, as a rule, is not able to be attentive to his daughter, to give her the love that she needs so much.

It would seem that it is not difficult to act on the principle of "on the contrary" (not like parents, but vice versa), if not for one "but". It is written in the subconscious that my father and my mother are exemplary, reference men and women, so it is easier and more natural to build your life in their image and likeness. This is not even psychology, but physiology: the so-called phenomenon of imprinting. It's just easier that way: it doesn't require conscious effort, self-change.

In addition, the father is the first man in the life of every woman. His attitude towards his daughter is the standard against which she then compares the behavior of all the men who are interested in her.

2. The girl needs her father's approval, that he accepts her and loves her. An alcoholic father, as a rule, cannot give this. Children tend to take the blame for what is happening on themselves, it often seems to them that if they did something differently, then adults would behave differently. This is how an inferiority complex appears: the confidence of a girl, and then a woman, that she is unworthy of love.

3. Often, children who grew up in a family of alcoholics have a subconscious attitude: “I didn’t manage it, I had to do something differently, and then everything would be fine.” Together with a sense of guilt, it includes a mechanism for duplicating the situation, as it were, the formation of a second chance to overcome it and a false way out of the guilt complex.

4. Finally, children have phenomenal adaptive abilities. They adapt to anything, even the most abnormal relationships, managing to find something in them that satisfies them. So suffering can give significant bonuses: being a victim means guaranteed to receive the support of others; to be a mother's support - to maintain one's self-esteem, maturity, the ability to be "good" against the background of parents unable to solve their problems; keeping a distance in relationships with others (after all, you can not reckon with an alcoholic) is an opportunity to satisfy your inner needs without taking into account the opinions of your parents, and then other people.

As a result, the daughter of an alcoholic does not believe in herself, in her fullness as a woman, because she has no experience of relationships with a non-alcoholic man and she is afraid of being insolvent in such relationships. Therefore, without noticing it herself, she avoids non-drinking men - and eventually converges with the drinker.

It can be argued that most of us have an attachment to our childhood experiences - whatever they may be. Fear of the new and the unknown is also a characteristic feature of most people.

Psychologist's help in overcoming a negative life scenario

First of all, the task of the psychologist is to help the client realize what drives her, since these driving forces that determine her life are still hidden from her.

She must see her fear and realize her attachment to the past, which makes her unfree. Her task is to internally distance herself from this experience.

Moreover, she needs to feel repulsion, even disgust, for such a life: life with an alcoholic.

By the way, 40% of the daughters of alcoholics who managed to create a normal family are just those girls who emotionally strove to escape at all costs from what surrounded them in childhood. This emotional rejection turned out to be stronger than attachment to the past and fear of the unknown. And they got over their script.

An important place is occupied by work on traumatic childhood experiences, and on a sense of self-worth, and on the entire system of beliefs and ideas of the client.

The first task of the psychologist is to strengthen the client's faith in herself, to help her believe in her feminine fullness, that love exists on Earth not only for other women, but also for her, that not everything is lost, that she needs not an ersatz, not only some kind of husband - but a loving and beloved person. That it is possible for her to meet him.

Such faith is valuable in itself: regardless of whether this meeting takes place or not.

The second big task is the actual awareness life scenario. Remember, above we talked about psychological benefits, that, in the end, a person adapts to the situation in which he lives and begins to satisfy part of his internal needs with its help. Understanding this means getting a chance to fulfill your need for love and support without playing the role of a victim. In therapy, you can learn to be happy without creating additional difficulties for yourself.

And, of course, this is the construction of a new life scenario, where there is no place for addiction and alcoholism.

Vika managed to understand herself, as she is a strong-willed person, able to be critical of herself and she really wanted to change her life.

She remarried at the age of 38, when Mitya was already 7 years old, and is much happier with her second marriage than her first.