The master’s thesis considers the quality of relationships in the primary family and the experiencing of anxiety in adult children of alcoholics. Adult children of alcoholics are defined as people (older than 18 years old) that grew up in a family plagued by alcoholism.
In the theoretical part of the master’s thesis, general findings about alcoholism as well as the connection between dimensions of family life and alcoholism are presented. We introduced the characteristics of an alcoholic family system, children’s roles in such family, and their emotional and psycho-social development. Consequences of growing up in an alcoholic family and characteristics of adult children of alcoholics (their experiences, development of false self, a presence of possible addiction, etc.) are presented as well. We have also focused on describing anxiety and anxiety disorders, which are frequent in adult children of alcoholics.
In the empirical part, results of the research which included 532 participants aged from 15 to 79 are presented. 454 (85.3%) of the participants were females and 78 (14.7%) males. 377 participants in total answered the questionnaire. The average age was 33.07. As much as 303 (74.6%) participants were classified as adult children of alcoholics.
The results have shown that adult children of alcoholics in comparison with adult children of non-alcoholics have lower quality relationships with their parents. They received less care and were more controlled by their parents during their childhood; moreover, they experienced more anxiety. Furthermore, a trend that adult children of alcoholics drink more alcoholic drinks than the rest also emerged. Women, who have/had an alcoholic parent(s), on average got more scores on the questionnaire about experiencing anxiety than men, however, the difference is not statistically significant. The correlation between experiencing anxiety and the quality of relationships in the primary family with adult children of alcoholics was confirmed. A trend that adult children of alcoholics who experienced lower quality relationships in the primary family (more excessive protection and less care) are experiencing higher level of anxiety in adulthood.
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