The solution to the alcohol and addiction problem is more obvious than you think—in fact it stares us in the face but because we don’t like that option presented, we discard the obvious (Occam’s Razor) and dig for complicated pharmaceutical solutions and other modalities to help curb the world’s appetite for drugs and alcohol.
I am no seer, but my predictions are startlingly accurate when it comes to predicting at an early age what kids will grow up to have problems with addiction. Like a teabag, I’ve been steeped in addiction one way or another my whole life. I know what the nuances look like; I know what the childhood behavior looks like and I know that until we’re willing to think a different way, I also predict that the addiction problem in America, and around the world, will continue to occupy the news.
Addiction can start in childhood. It is also often the result of genetics and regardless of stellar parenting, it’s still possible for a child to turn to substances at an early age. However, I still think the best offense against raising an addict/alcoholic is to parent well and check your own behavior and get your own vices under control.
Children who grow up with party parents have a high rate of addiction. There’s really no other option for them. It’s impossible to be raised by party parents who may also have the genetic predisposition for addiction, and then have them go ahead and liberally stock the home with alcohol; alcohol is incorporated into their lifestyle, and then somehow they expect their child or children not to lean that way too. For instance, kids are smart and they’re perceptive—they see the ubiquitous alcohol in the home—if you think they don’t notice, think again. If on every family outing alcohol is involved, your kids will think this is normal and that every woman is destined to grow up with a wine glass in her hand. They will assume all dads drink. The world you show them is their first view of the world. When small children have birthday parties parents tend to think it’s their party too and pretty much all you see anymore are bottles and bottles of wine or liquor. What happened to all the balloons and cupcakes?
By kindergarten, too many kids are used to seeing alcohol poured for every occasion. They see mommy pouring wine every night or maybe even during the day. They see alcohol when mom takes the kids on play dates. They see alcohol on the weekends when parents fill their homes with other party parents and everyone is drinking. They see alcohol at sporting events when parents walk around with travel mugs and Solo cups. They notice their parents can’t take a hike or a walk in the park without carrying a beverage.
Children who have parents who drink a lot by the time they’re three or four years old have already felt more than their fair share of fear. They don’t understand the loud voices. They don’t understand why mom and dad argue or slur their words or act silly like they’re no longer in charge. The child’s feeling of safety and security is shattered, yet they are too young to articulate the feeling. Instead, the child whines, wets the bed, has difficulty falling and staying asleep, and they may begin to have problems at school. All of it traces back to the home environment. It doesn’t matter what socioeconomic bracket a person inhabits, the underlying feelings a child experiences are the same.
These are also the children who have early access to sips of alcohol from all the booze and half-filled glasses scattered about the house. Mom’s glass of wine or cocktail looks harmless. The child takes a sip and realizes if he or she takes a few more, they will feel different. They like the effect of those changed feelings because they’re no longer feel scared, confused or angry all the time.
By the time this same child reaches middle school, they’re stealing booze from their parents but there’s so much of it in the house no one notices. There’s booze in the garage, there are cases of wine from the trip to Napa that their parents’ took three months ago. There’s booze behind the full bar in the lower level, and there’s booze in the kitchen because their parents would rather not have to trek too far away in order to mix those before dinner cocktails.
These are the parents who have the mindset that once their kids are in high school, surely they’re old enough to stay home alone, (just because they can doesn’t mean they should). These are the parents who think nothing of leaving their teenagers and sometimes younger children home alone. Even if your child is responsible, word tends to get out that parents will be gone. I watched it happen over and over when raising my sons. I was stunned that any parent could be so naïve to think that just because their child was an A student that they had the tools to handle that much freedom or pressure from friends to “have people over.”
The drinking escalates in high school. Now off to college and the drinking is full tilt crazy. Your boozy child is exposed to Adderall, cocaine, marijuana, all the drugs that maybe they missed in high school. A drunk child has zero reasoning ability—their brains are not fully formed until their twenty-five.
If we don’t want our children to grow up reaching for a cocktail or a pill, we have to role model something better besides that of alcohol being front and center at every occasion. If all a child knows and has seen their entire lives are adults drinking, how could any rational person expect that their kids won’t do the same thing?
I have watched this happen over and over to families. I could see the train veering off the track ten and fifteen years ago, and for too many families the derailment ended in broken homes, early deaths due to alcohol-related cancers, heart attacks from all the heavy drinking, and children who were well on their way to having their own alcohol and drug addictions—it’s sad to see any parent deal with the heartache of addiction in one of their kids, but why do they act so surprised? The dysfunction was evident years ago, and without some sort of drastic change, the script was already written. I take no pride in my predictions because the heartache that ensues can be devastating, but it all goes back to the parenting. If we’re not willing to look at ourselves and get our own addictions under control—or stop altogether—how can any of us be surprised when the child picks up the baton and carries on with the race that their parents started?
The most blind people in the world are those who refuse to listen—but parents want to do what they want, and some even get angry if you suggest that drinking and parenting don’t mix well. They’re convinced that alcohol or drugs will never impact their lives in a problematic way. They continue to think if they have a house, a job and their kids play sports, that they won’t have “those” sorts of problems. It’s always hard to look at ourselves, but one thing that I’m sure of is that the addiction problem will continue to plague the nation, and the world, until people are willing to take stock of their own behavior, first.
Lisa Boucher is the award-winning author of Raising The Bottom: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture. She was raised by an alcoholic mother and has been sober herself now for 28 years.