The Influence of Parental Alcoholism on Parent-Adolescent Relationships From Adolescence Into Emerging Adulthood: A Qualitative Inquiry

Exposure to parental alcoholism can inhibit a child's ability to become a successfully functioning young adult. Based on qualitative interviews, this study provides a deeper understanding of how those parent-adolescent relationships are associated with risky internalizing and externalizing behaviors. This qualitative study explores the lives of 13 young adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) and provides a unique perspective through an adaptive developmental approach by evaluating emerging adults who were ACOAs and successfully functioning. Compelling findings emerged with respect to how young adults define alcoholism and being a child of alcoholism and how the parent-adolescent relationship adapts in the unstable environment associated with family alcoholism. Salient findings revealed that when emotional and physical detachment from a parent's alcoholic behaviors in addition to an acceptance that those behaviors are not the adolescent's responsibility, individuals gained better control of their environment aiding them in becoming healthy, functioning young adults.