American psychologist Eric Byrne put forward a hypothesis about the predetermination of the life path of many - and even most - people of the so-called. “life scenarios”: human relationships, behavioral habits and worldviews uncritically learned in childhood.

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

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

Wiki's story

Vika is the daughter of an officer and a teacher. Her mother is energetic, strong-willed and authoritative, while her father was weak-willed. Addiction to fun companies and strong drinks eventually made him an alcoholic. However, Vicky’s mother did not divorce her husband: she was not – or did not consider herself – a particularly attractive woman: in her opinion, it was better to have an alcoholic husband than to live without a husband at all.

Vika had to go through a lot as a child. Several times they hid with their mother with neighbors while their father raged in the apartment. Having sobered up, he always apologized, which seemed even more unpleasant to his daughter than his violence.

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 the Cold War.

My father never really hit Vicky’s mother: he was afraid of his wife. However, there was a time when he swung an ax at her. Vika, like her mother, distinguished by a strong, decisive 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 short. She managed to push her father from behind so hard that he fell and hit himself 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 heavily and in this state went far into the lake (this Lake Ladoga, as you know, is the largest in Europe). A storm began, the boat capsized and everyone died.

Neither Vicky’s mother nor she herself were particularly worried about her father’s death.

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

Almost 5 years passed like this, and finally they separated.

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

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

Analysis of Wiki's life scenario

During the therapy process, Vika realized that in childhood she had uncritically learned from her mother certain worldviews related to relationships with men, love and marriage.

1) A man is a means to create a family. Thanks to your husband, you can have a child; your husband brings money into the house. But he's good for nothing else.

2) Men drink often. 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 close man.

So her scenario is something like this: get married without love, the relationship with your husband is cool, he will drink, and in the end you will grow completely apart from each other, but you will come to terms with it.

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

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

As we 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 was unable to overcome her script because she was not aware of it.

Why can the daughter of an alcoholic marry an alcoholic?

There are many reasons. Most often, a combination of several factors listed below leads to a repetition of the mother’s fate.

1. If a father drinks, then his behavior, appearance (even the smell, and, as you know, olfactory impressions for women are of great importance), attitude towards his wife and daughter are such that they repel the 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 so needs.

It would seem that it is not difficult to act on the principle of “by contradiction” (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, standard man and woman, 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 imprinting phenomenon. It’s just easier this way: it doesn’t require conscious effort or self-change.

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

2. The girl needs her father's approval, for him to accept and love her. An alcoholic father, as a rule, cannot give this. Children tend to take the blame for what is happening on themselves; they often feel that if they had done something differently, then adults would have behaved 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 couldn’t cope, I should have done something differently, and then everything would have been fine.” Together with the feeling of guilt, it includes a mechanism for duplicating the situation, as if forming 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. Thus, suffering can provide significant bonuses: to be a victim means to be guaranteed to receive the support of others; to be a support for the mother - to maintain one’s self-esteem, maturity, the opportunity to be “good” against the backdrop of parents who are unable to solve their problems; keeping a distance in relationships with others (after all, you can ignore an alcoholic) is an opportunity to satisfy your internal 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 usefulness as a woman, because she has no experience in relationships with a non-alcohol dependent man and she is afraid of being insolvent in such a relationship. Therefore, without noticing it, she avoids men who don’t drink - and eventually ends up dating someone who drinks.

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

Help from a psychologist in overcoming a negative life scenario

First of all, the psychologist’s task is to help the client realize what motivates 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, it is necessary for her to feel rejection, even disgust for such a life: life with an alcoholic.

By the way, 40% of the daughters of alcoholics who managed to create normal family, - these are just those girls who emotionally strived at all costs to get away 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 overcame their script.

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

The first task of the psychologist is to strengthen the client’s faith in herself, to help her believe in her fullness as a woman, in the fact that love exists on Earth not only for other women, but also for her, that not everything is lost, that she does not need an ersatz, not just 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 of the life scenario. Remember, above we talked about psychological benefit, that, ultimately, 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 you have a chance to fulfill your need for love and support without playing the role of a victim. During 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, since she is a strong-willed person, capable of being critical of herself, and she really wanted to change her life.

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

Question for a psychologist:

Good afternoon. I am 24 years old, I am a student and live with my parents. My father has been drinking all my adult life. Previously, as a child, I was scared, but now, as an adult, I don’t understand why my mother puts up with this and why my sister and I have to endure all this. Previously it was hopelessness, but now it has grown into terrible hatred. Because my father does terrible things, most of the time he does mischief while drunk: he insults everyone, shouts that he will kick us all out of his house (even though we are all registered in the apartment: mom, me, sister and him), eats from the pan, turns off the water , electricity, gas, once cut the cable from the Internet, he can lock himself in the toilet, turn off the light and leave, he himself leads an asocial lifestyle - he rarely bathes, does not wash his hands (because of this he lives in the hall, and we live in other rooms) . When drunk, he becomes terribly annoying and talks some kind of completely incoherent nonsense. Therefore, I try not to talk to him at all, neither sober nor drunk. But sometimes I catch myself thinking that I’m ready to kill him, and nothing is stopping me. Because I don’t know how to make all this stop. his money goes to beer and vodka, so we live modestly. Mom has loans and debts to feed us, and I’m going crazy that I can’t help. I would like to get a job somewhere, even for pennies, but the guy says that if I don’t study hard now, then I won’t be able to find a decent job and I’ll still live with my mom and dad, let alone help my family. The guy advises to deal with the situation (his father was also an alcoholic, and that’s why he died): he says that dad should not be allowed into the house when he’s drunk, that they should throw away his things if he doesn’t come sober, in a word, make sure that his father He left our common home of his own free will and stopped ruining our lives. And he argues that these conditions should be set by my mother. But my mother doesn’t want to, or can no longer fight him after so many years. She has learned to live with this drinking and does not believe that at 43 she can still build a better life. I blame her for putting up with it and not getting a divorce, while my sister and I are forced to endure everything after her. On the contrary, the grandmother advises not to cheat or touch the mother, that she will sort everything out herself. But I understand that he won’t figure it out... 24 years of my life have passed in scandals, in nerves, in hysterics.

And I don’t know what to do, I feel sorry for my mother, I feel sorry for my sister, who is 16 years old. I don't feel sorry for myself at all. I'm even scared of my thoughts of committing lynching. I blame the guy that we have been dating for 5 years, he knows about my situation, gives good gifts, but he’s not asking me to get married yet (citing the lack of housing).

There was a moment when I forgave my father for everything, I was absent from the city for 3 months - he even called me and said that he missed me. And when I returned that same day, he got drunk. And since then I have been ignoring him, not asking for anything, not eating at the same table. He notices all this, but expresses everything only when he’s drunk - he calls me arrogant, says that “I’m like my mother,” “go live with your boyfriend, you’re not needed here,” and so on. I understand that this is drunken nonsense, but still, it is very unpleasant. I understand that I can’t help this person in any way. He believes that it is we who are ruining his life, and not vice versa. Help me figure out how to calm down and live another 2 years with my parents while I’m studying for a master’s degree. What to do towards your mother? Should she be encouraged to finally start doing something and not just endure? How to behave towards your father? Should you listen to the advice of your loved ones: your boyfriend and your grandmother? How to deal with this situation? I'm just desperate about all of this. I probably have neurasthenia because of this. Because my psyche is very unstable. I cry because I can’t help my family in any way: neither in word nor in deed. I'm afraid I'll make everything worse.

Psychologist Ekaterina Viktorovna Prokhorova answers the question.

Hello, Natalya. You are in a difficult situation. And it is very difficult to remain indifferent to what is happening. An alcoholic father is a truly difficult family situation. And it is children who suffer first. I understand your desire to fix everything, to help your mother, to change your father. And I see that you are experiencing feelings of powerlessness, guilt and anger at yourself and your loved ones (at your father because he makes your life unbearable; at your mother because she does not fight and does not try to change anything; at the grandmother for advising not to touch your mother; at the guy for not suggesting getting married and living separately; at yourself for not being able to do anything and for thoughts of lynching).

Natalya, the first thing I would like to talk to you about is about your family as a whole, about relationships and “hopelessness.” People are designed in such a way that we subconsciously choose acquaintances, friends, wives and husbands who are suitable for us, and even if from the outside it seems that in a relationship one is a victim and the other a tormentor, it will still be a union in which both are comfortable. This may seem absurd, but it is true. And your mother’s choice to be close to your father is not weakness. In any relationship (even when there is an alcoholic in the family) there is always something that they receive from each other. Something very valuable, and not always realized, is what keeps them together. And here your grandmother is right that you shouldn’t cheat and touch your mother. It’s not worth it, because the mother already understands that the children are suffering, that something needs to be done (and most likely feels a strong sense of guilt about this) and understands that she can’t change anything, not because she doesn’t love her girls, but because he simply cannot refuse your father. This is not her fault, it’s just how her fate turned out, she needs this person. Just as it is not your and your sister’s fault that your father drinks. Many children in families where there is an alcoholic feel guilty about what is happening at home. And it is very important to understand and realize that this is the business and concern of only two people, dad and mom.

Natalya, you have the right to be angry with your parents, and to feel the desire to kill someone, you also have the right. This does not mean at all that you are capable of murder, this is just a normal feeling of a person in a difficult situation. Don't blame yourself for these thoughts.

I also understand your feelings of resentment towards your boyfriend. You would like him to take you away from your family home and thereby save you from problems. But as I understand it, this is not yet possible, housing is really important question when starting a family. But what if you still get a job with a flexible schedule or part-time, and combine work with study. Thus, you and your boyfriend could rent an apartment, for example, and pay for it together. In addition, it is easier for university graduates with work experience to find a job later.

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How to live and what to do while helping their father stop drinking are the most common questions that arise in their small, but so smart beyond their years, head.

Very often you can hear the opinion that if When the child was a child, the father drank all his life , then his sons and daughters will drink, but it is often wrong. Sometimes troubles happen, and children of drinking parents inherit a harmful craving for alcohol, but most often a child who is faced with alcoholism in childhood, categorically does not accept it.

For a child living with a dependent person for a long period of time, determining his condition is not difficult. But what about children who are faced with a problem for the first time? In a man addicted to alcoholic drinks, the disease can be identify with initial stage . Dependence on alcoholic beverages is characterized by the following symptoms:

• Father often drinks to the point of severe intoxication ;
• How he feels every day getting worse;
• Happens to men attacks of aggression , and he is often irritable;
• When drinking alcohol he doesn't feel sick.

This is how the first stage of alcoholism manifests itself. It can last several months or several years. As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, second stage of the disease :

• Dad develops a condition called withdrawal syndrome . With it, during sobering up, the state of health worsens. Because of this, binge drinking may occur;
• In the morning parent hangover, drinking another dose of alcohol;
• Father appears insomnia, he cannot sleep for a long time, his sleep is light and restless;
• At the moment of a hangover he is overcome feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety.

Next is formed third stage, which is considered the last one. At this stage, dad is faced with the problem of personality degradation. He is overcome by mental illness, psychosis, hysteria, and uncontrollable aggression often occur. It was during this period urgent and compulsory treatment is required , otherwise there will be grief in the family - the father will drink and it will end fatal. The fact is that by the third stage the human body is poisoned by alcohol and its internal organs gradually begin to fail. The heart, liver, kidneys, brain are destroyed and eventually lead to death .

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Children often do not understand why their father started drinking alcohol every day , began to beat his mother severely and constantly rage. They do not understand the behavior of their once loving and caring father, who before their eyes is turning into a stranger with unpleasant smell, behavior and appearance. Therefore, the child is confused and does not know how to behave correctly.

Children who have experienced parental alcoholism should stick to some rules and understand the following:

But you shouldn’t involve him in a conversation with dad. people unfamiliar to him . For example, a girl should not try to stop her boyfriend’s parent from drinking or involve neighbors, this can lead to a worsening of the situation and the man’s aggression. His damaged reputation and bad mood will lead to even greater alcohol abuse.

By the way! One of the medications for alcoholism can help the father. Find out which remedies are currently most effective in combating addiction.

Treatment of addiction is possible at home even without knowledge drinking man. This is convenient when a man refuses treatment and does not admit his illness.

Heart to heart conversation

But what should children do if in the family drinking father doesn't work ? The answer to this question is of interest to many children and adolescents who are faced with the problem of alcohol addiction in their parents. Despite the child’s young age and low authority, he can influence the situation by choosing the right approach. A frank conversation with dad will help in this matter. Not worth it from the very first words accuse a man of alcoholism and point out its shortcomings. Morals, reproaches, insults can make him angry and will not lead to desired result. The conversation will be more effective if it is structured as follows:

• Recall positive point from a “past” life - a joint vacation, fishing, going to the circus or zoo;
• Praise your father , about his sobriety in at the moment. Say that you really appreciate such moments and the opportunity to talk with him;
• Find some reasons why The child likes the sobriety of the man – he is kind, attentive, he smells good, he can teach new and interesting things;
• Some cunning on the part of the child can also help. May I mention in passing about dad being drunk and his behavior, shed a tear or talk about it with bitterness in words. Parents find it difficult to bear the sincere tears of their children, especially those caused by their behavior;
• As a result, it follows ask your father not to drink , but do it categorically.

If these steps are not successful, then you can try to take care of his health and build a conversation in this direction. Tell him that alcohol poisons his body, leads to serious problems health and can even lead to death. Ask about his well-being in a state of hangover, whether he likes such a life with a headache, nausea, heaviness in the stomach and confusion of thoughts. Let him think about it. Find out in the end does the parent want to stop drinking? and jointly come to solutions to the problem.

Addiction calculator

M F

Your addiction

Dependency type:

There is no danger to the body, the habit of drinking is typical for many people, but in the specified quantities and with the specified parameters of the patient, it does not cause any harm to the body. Many people relieve stress with alcohol on holidays and after work, but are not addicted to it.

The patient sees alcohol as a way out of difficult situations and resorts to high-grade drinks more and more often. This stage is dangerous because in any difficult situation in life, this stage can smoothly transition into the next one, which is much more dangerous to health.

At this stage, an addicted person can no longer do without alcohol, but is firmly convinced that he is capable of quitting at any time, but not today. Already here complications with the liver and other difficulties with organs and well-being may begin.

Special treatment and a short course of rehabilitation, plus the support of relatives, can bring you out of this stage. This stage can provoke very serious problems with the liver and other organs, which will lead to illness for the rest of life.

This stage is not hopeless, but requires an extremely serious approach to treatment and a long period of rehabilitation, with regular medical procedures, many drugs and, often, expensive treatment.

Treatment period for addiction:

Do you want to speed up your treatment?

How can children help their father stop drinking?

Children always worry about their parents , whatever their lifestyle and actions. And even small child and even more so, a teenager can provide all possible assistance to his father, who is faced with the problem of addiction to alcoholic beverages.

First of all, it is worth understanding that alcoholism is a disease which requires treatment. The parent does not choose such a life; it becomes a consequence of some problems of an adult that he could not cope with on his own. Condemnation and reproaches will not help, and the decision to leave dad to the mercy of fate can lead to a deterioration in his condition and even death from alcohol. Dad should be supported; only adults together with doctors can help understand the reasons, but children's help will be invaluable and can push the head of the family to take decisive action. Can ask the church for help . A child’s prayer so that the father does not drink can bear fruit if the child really desires this. You can persuade dad to visit the Temple of God together and perhaps he will be inspired and stop drinking.

Attention! On the site you can read reviews of various medications for alcoholism in the appropriate section. You can choose any review and get acquainted with the products, then find out the opinions of users and, if desired, place an order.

They can be given to a parent by mixing drugs into food, but only after consultation with a specialist.

Emergency situation - what to do?

Life with an addicted person does not always go smoothly and without difficult situations. Sometimes the question arises what to do, if the father drinks heavily , is rowdy and rushes with a knife. This dangerous condition can occur in a patient who abuses alcohol for several days in a row. If there are no adults nearby at the time of aggression, then the child should not be in the field of view of the drunken parent. How to live for a daughter or son , if their alcoholic dad drinks every day, and there are no adults around. We suggest you listen to some tips and take them into account:

• Not worth it with your behavior or actions provoke a man to aggression , for example, trying to take away alcohol;
• Don't get into discussions with a parent and his drinking friends, try to reason with them not to drink;
• If dad is clearly drunk, it would be better for the child to visit relatives or friends until the man sobers up .

In case of sudden failure from alcohol, for example, when the father drank for several days in a row, and then decided to quit, he may develop withdrawal symptoms. This condition can be dangerous to health, so if dad becomes ill, the right thing to do is call an ambulance .

My name is Masha, I'm 26 years old. My father died at the end of last year. He was only 52 years old and an alcoholic. When he died, I was not surprised, I was practically not upset, I did not cry. I didn’t care, I was just infuriated that on New Year’s Eve, instead of pleasant holiday chores, I had to deal with a funeral. Throughout my entire life, he gave me nothing and left nothing except a murdered one-room apartment, a bunch of complexes, mental trauma and terrible childhood memories, he ruined my mother and I’s entire lives with his drunkenness. I am writing this and know that later I will most likely be ashamed for “washing dirty laundry in public”, saying nasty things about a loved one, especially a deceased one...

I grew up in a feeling of eternal chaos. I never knew what to expect. I remember I was five or six years old when my mother went on a business trip and left me with my father. I woke up in the morning, drank milk with dried bread, and then sat and waited for dad to wake up and let me go for a walk. I sat on the windowsill hungry and looked out the window at my friends playing in the yard. My father slept until lunchtime, always got up shaggy and angry, and began to find fault with me. Then, as I later realized, I got hungover and became just a super-daddy - a humorous, kind, simply golden man who joked, gave me money and took me out for a walk. And the next day everything is new: a hangover, nagging and insults. It all tore me apart, especially when he yelled at my mother and lied that he didn’t drink, played with me and everything was fine with us.

All weekends and holidays, all birthdays, every New Year- everything is spoiled, spoiled by my father’s drunkenness. His mother worked two jobs, and he was constantly stuck at home because he was kicked out from everywhere. He didn’t go on a binge, but he could easily oversleep, be late, not answer when his boss calls, or simply not go out because he’s sick with a hangover.

What’s the wildest thing for me: he died of cirrhosis, but never admitted himself to be an alcoholic! He always said that everything was fine with him, that it was my mother and I who were pushing him, and that he was just a confused person who was tired of life and relieved stress this way. He simply loved to complain about his miserable life and blame everyone. Perhaps, if it weren’t for this trait of his, I would still be able to communicate with him sometimes, but listening to the same thing every time about how bad everyone around me was was unbearable. I didn’t respect my father and never knew what it was like when a daughter is proud of her father, feels loved, protected, valuable. I’m writing this now, but tears are flowing like a river from resentment.

It’s terrible that because of vodka, the whole life of a person and his family goes downhill.

I don’t understand: why do you drinking men get married and have children? You don't need them!! My father was never interested in my affairs! He didn't know anything about me at all! I never supported anything - neither morally nor financially. Throughout my childhood and youth, he was either lying in front of the TV on his squashed old sofa, or drinking in the kitchen with a neighbor. When mom came and kicked them out, they continued in the yard. And I, a child, was embarrassed to go out then, because I was ashamed of my father, a drunkard, who would either fall asleep in the bushes, or urinate in public, or run into trouble and then walk around with a black eye. One day he got drunk, went for cigarettes, slipped on the stairs at the entrance and knocked out his two front teeth. Then I walked around like that all my life and never got it in.

I'm 26 years old, and I've never had a normal relationship with a guy. Although I am a slim, young, seemingly pretty girl, I am appreciated at work, but I cannot start a relationship. I feel very lonely, I suffer a lot because of this.

When the film shows happy family, caring father, normal relationship, I feel so offended and hurt that I could burst into tears. But the worst thing is my self-doubt and resentment for an unhappy childhood. I don’t know how I can forget and forgive this. I tried all sorts of different techniques and went to a psychologist, but it didn’t get any easier. I don't know what's going to happen. He's already died, I'm an adult, I don't drink, I have my own good life, my mother is alive and well, thank God, she divorced her father a long time ago and moved in with her colleague. It would seem that renovate your father’s apartment or sell it and buy a new one, get married, live and be happy. But I can't live. I am constantly tense, constantly waiting for a trick, I often cry, I can suddenly flare up and yell at a person. Then I feel ashamed, but for some reason I can’t apologize either, although I scold myself terribly inside! In general, I am a terrible pessimist by nature - I very rarely experience a feeling of true joy, not to mention happiness - something always gets in the way.

I think a lot about how my life could have turned out if my father had not drank at all, if we had lived together, if they had given me another sister or brother... What would I be like? Would my father still be alive today? Only these dreams provide an outlet, at least some support. I dream, and it seems to make me feel better.