Does my drinking or really any substance use for that matter affect my kids well of course
it affects your kids thats not even the good question the good question is how does it affect
your kids? That's what we're going to be covering in today's video now if you're wondering some
of these things might be a little bit difficult to hear but nonetheless we need to hear it
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this
YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction
so you can get your life and your family back on track
and on this channel we try really hard to help you understand addiction from every single angle
and today we're going to be looking at it from the child's point of view we're going
to focus in specifically on how a parent's alcohol or other substance use or abuse
affects you as a kid and even as an adult now I think to some level some of this stuff is
going to be pretty obvious and you know what I'm going to skip the really obvious stuff
like if it's extreme um like heroin addiction or meth addiction
and the parents not functioning and maybe the parent doesn't even
have custody of their kids or there's this tremendous amount of violence in the home
like those extreme kinds of effects I'm not even going to cover honestly that's pretty obvious
what I'm going to talk about in this video is how does even moderate substance abuse
affect your children? So not the crazy off the charts lifetime movie kind just like the regular
everyday maybe like functional alcoholism or functional addiction if that's such a thing
affect your family and specifically your children before I go too far into that part if you want to
know if you have an addiction or if a loved one has an addiction and you want to know exactly
how severe that problem is I've put a link in the description for
you to download the actual real life criteria for substance use disorder
so that those criteria count for drugs alcohol any kind of addiction it's going
to walk you through the process of how do you actually diagnose that and how do you do
how severe the problem is the links in the description you can download that right
after you watch this video all right back to our topic I've broken this down for you into
five categories some of these things may seem a little obvious and some of these things
probably will not seem so obvious the first one I'm going to start out with is modeling
when you're using substances you are modeling that behavior for your kid
that may be the obvious part but let's go a little bit deeper into it if you
use substances in your house like drinking or any kind of substances and that's the way
adults in the family have fun or they party or that's when they're happiest or excited
it may come across to your kid like really glorified like Ooh that's how adults are happy
that's how adults connect when I get older I'm going to do that so it may seem really cool or
awesome to them that's one thing but there are a lot of other ways that using substances model
things for your kids if you're using substances to help you cope with stress or cope with problems
or not solve problems then you're also modeling that for your kids
you're using it as a primary coping skill which your kids are picking up on
like this is the way you get through tough stuff
this is the way you deal with a hard day at work or for example if you're the kind
of person who maybe has a few drinks when you come home from work cause that helps you relax
and calm down you're also modeling that for your kids but that's just normal everyday life
and that's how things are done now another way that substance use affects your kids
is the fact that if you have a substance use issue even a moderate substance use
issue it's going to make you a lot less consistent with how you show up in their lives
now maybe you're there every day maybe you're a stay at home mom
so I'm not saying it makes you necessarily be physically not there although that is a thing
that it could definitely cause I'm talking about emotionally consistent a lot of kids that grow up
in homes where there's substance abuse problems feel like they don't know what to expect from
their parent when they get home or they feel like sometimes mommy is so fun and she's so
excited and I love to be around her and she's like the most awesome mom and sometimes she's
angry and mad and she gets mad at me and I don't know why
or what I even did cause yesterday it was great and today it's terrible it's going to make
you inconsistent naturally because it affects your mood and it makes your mood inconsistent
because if you are using substances you're high or you're intoxicated which then affects
how you perceive and interact in the world or if you're not high or not intoxicated
but you've been in a pattern of that then you're going to be in a little bit of
withdrawal or you're going to be having a hangover or you're going to be coming out the downside of
that which is then going to affect your mood how you perceive the world how you're able to problem
solve and cope with things which is going to make you come across as inconsistent in how
you're parenting and relating to your kid so it's not just
inconsistency when the substances are in place it's the consistency
all the time it's the ups and downs the back and forth it can be very problematic for children
the third way your substance use impacts your kids is because your substance use probably
impacts your other relationships like with your spouse or with your
boyfriend or your girlfriend or your partner or your parents or your friends
and your kids are watching those relationships as well so maybe you substances and you think well it
doesn't affect my kids cause they don't even know it doesn't matter if they know it's affecting you
so it's affecting them because let's say in your marriage your spouse is always upset with
you because of your substance use and there's tension and fighting and arguments between you
and your spouse guess what that trickles down onto your kid not only are you modeling that
kind of behavior that this is how adults work out problems but just your general energy right?
If you're upset or if you've had an argument yesterday or mom and dad aren't talking
and there's conflict between the parent and the grandparents all of that all of
your relationship issues trickle down onto your children because those relationships have a huge
impact on you you know I've seen a lot of families where maybe one parent had a substance
abuse problem and the two parents fight about it a lot and the kids feel stuck in the middle
along with the parent who doesn't use and they may feel like
that they have to be the parent of the one that does you use like they have to
spy on them or tell them or maybe they have to cover for them because they know
that mommy was drinking but daddy will get mad if he knows it so you have to cover for them
and it puts the kid and a real parentified type of situation which doesn't allow a kid
to be a kid now another way substance use can affect your kids is it affects your ability
to be a good provider now you may be watching this and you might be
thinking I don't know what you're talking about and where I'm really successful
we have tons of money in this house
and that may be true but my guess is if you have a moderate substance use problem that
it is impacting your work in some kind of way if nothing else you're spending a lot
of money on substances and that money could be going to something more productive I guess
and an an extreme situation when a parent has a substance abuse problem they may
have difficulty keeping a job or they may be spending so much money on substances
that it's making it hard for the family to pay bills now another way that substances
affect your kids and this one may not be quite as obvious as some of the others is
it really affects your ability to be present with your kids meaning emotionally there and
connected now I think being present with your kids is probably one of the hardest things that
parents have to do I know for me personally It's the most difficult part right? Because
we're juggling so many things work and paying bills and household chores and picking up
kids from school and going to the soccer games and arranging this and dealing with our spouse
there are so many things that adults are dealing with it's difficult even in the best of situations
to be emotionally present with your kid when they're having a problem
when they're telling you about silly stuff that matters to them but it doesn't matter to you
when you're helping them with their homework
it's hard enough to really be engaged with that but when you
lay your substances on the top then you get a real inconsistency with your ability to be
now maybe when you drink or use it relaxes you up and your child finds you more approachable
I've definitely seen that in a lot of situations which may seem kind of good in some ways
but if you think about it what does that really modeling for your kid?
And if the substance is the thing that's making you lighten up and be even funner or
a better parent then that probably means that you're using it to a degree that when you're
not then maybe you're not as good of a parent and you're not as present or fun to be around
maybe you're irritable or grumpy or tired or hungover or you feel sick you can't deny that
those things impact your ability to be present with your child now I know a lot of this may
be really hard to hear but sometimes we just got to get honest with ourselves I
don't want you to be thinking about this and thinking oh my gosh I'm the worst parent ever
and I ruined it I'm not saying that at all you can still be a good parent
and struggle with a substance abuse problem but it is going to have some effect on your kid
in fact what I really like to ask you to do is if somebody else's substance abuse ever affected
your life as a child growing up I would love for you to tell me about that in the comments
what effects did it have on you as a kid? And does it still have effects on you now?
Maybe some good effects and maybe some bad effects but hearing about your experience
might help the rest of us really shed light on it and understand the long-term implications which
is exactly what I want you to watch this video next because it's all about the long-term effects
how does what happened to me as a kid
now play into my life as an adult I'll put it right up here I have to do is click on it