The children and adolescents of parents with drinking problems are at risk of a range of problems, related not only to the drinking itself, but also to other family problems. Parental alcohol problems can mask other problems being experienced by the drinker and/or the wider family environment. These problems include, for example, physical or psychological ill health, relationship difficulties and financial problems.

How children will be affected will be influenced by a whole range of variables, including, for example, gender, age, the severity of the drinking, how badly daily family life is affected, whether domestic violence/abuse is present and what other problems might also be present. Maternal problem drinking during pregnancy can place unborn children at huge risk of developing specific problems › more information 

The extent to which alcohol problems run in families, and the role that those families play in modelling and influencing drinking behaviour, have been the subject of intense debate. The following paragraphs summarise the key elements of those debates  › references are suggested in the section of useful reading

Alcohol problems – The role of the family

It is clear from reviews of both risk and protective factors that alcohol (and other drug) use and misuse is affected by a huge number of influences. These influences include the family, peer relationships and the media. Those factors associated with the family are known to be highly important, which has implications for interventions aimed at preventing alcohol and other substance use and misuse.

Parental alcohol use has consistently been shown to be positively associated with adolescent use of alcohol. In fact, most young people are with parents or other family members when they first use alcohol and (especially among early initiators) they tend to be at home. Besides influencing the alcohol use of young people directly, family substance use is also likely to exert an indirect effect through its impact on family relations and parenting practices. For example, a great deal of research has shown how significant is the impact of important variables such as family climate and parenting practices, on the development of a variety of adolescent problem behaviours, including alcohol use.

Low family involvement and poor parenting practices place children at high risk of engaging in problem behaviours. A key dimension is parental control (also referred to as discipline, punishment, supervision, and monitoring). Research suggests that poor parental monitoring and discipline are associated with higher adolescent alcohol use, and that poor relationships with parents predict substance use.

Family cohesion has been found to play a protective role in suppressing levels of alcohol consumption among youth. Hence, it can be seen that if the family is such an important influence with regards to alcohol use, that such influences continue to feature when alcohol misuse is considered.

Do alcohol problems run in families?

It has been know for a long time that alcohol problems run in families. A wide variety of possible mechanisms have been put forward to explain this link between parental problem drinking and problem drinking in the next generation. Some of the main theories are:

• Environmental, general: The most widely favoured model suggests that general environmental mechanisms (e.g. offspring are affected by the family discord associated with a parental drinking problem) are the ways that effects are passed from one generation to the next. A number of specific and general hypotheses are possible regarding the features of the family lives of problem drinkers which might lead to problematic outcomes, including the stress of living in such a family environment, inconsistent and confusing interactions between problem drinking parents and child, alternating love and fear experienced by children towards their parents, and reversal of parent and child roles within the family. The characteristics of the child him- or her-self might also affect outcomes.

• Environmental, alcohol-specific: This model suggests that the children learn to drink excessively themselves by modelling themselves upon heavy drinking parents. There is evidence that such an alcohol-specific, environmental, behavioural modelling mechanism could be at work. There are many variants of this model, including that adolescents with parents with drinking problems acquire more of an expectation that alcohol will enhance cognitive and motor functioning; that parental alcohol use could serve to model the use of alcohol as a way of coping with stress; that modelling might be along gender specific lines; that modelling might depend on the degree of positive relationship with either parent; and that modelling might interact with the availability of the role model.

• Genetic: It is likely that there is a genetic contribution of some degree, although what that genetic influence might be is still unclear, and whatever influence it has will certainly be only partial.

Is it bad news for all children?

There is growing evidence that some children are not always as adversely affected by parental alcohol problems as suggested by the research in this area.

Increased recognition is being given to a set of protective factors and processes (individual, familial and environmental) that, if present, can buffer children against the negative effects of parental alcohol misuse. This phenomenon is commonly called resilience. It is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this website › read more on resilience

To understand more about identifying children who are living with parental alcohol misuse and who may need help, you can find out more about common signs to look out for, and ideas of how to talk to children to find out if they are living with parental alcohol misuse. › read more on how to identify children