#parentalinfluence

Founder Anil Sachdev Speech | 4th PGDM Convocation

This study was based on the survey by U.S. National Epidemiologic Study of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). I would like to do a research on alcohol dependency. There were a wide range of variables, like alcohol consumption, experiences or symptoms etc. present in the NESARC data set. Since, I am yet to finalize the specific variables that I should use to determine the alcohol dependency, I have included all the relevant variables in my personal codebook: background, alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence, and diagnoses

However, I realized alcohol abuse disorder is a wide topic, and I should deep dive into the area that has piqued my interest most. I have often heard that alcoholism is a family disease; in most cases, every member of the entire family suffers. And, alcoholism takes an especially high toll on children, who often carry the scars associated with an alcoholic parent’s drinking well into adulthood.

Over the years, I have noticed how some people within and outside my circle have become dependent on alcohol. Some seemed to get addicted in their adolescent only, almost immediately after some exposure to alcohol, while others in their later life having irregular drinking habits.

So, within the topic of alcohol dependence, I got more intrigued in understanding the association between parental alcohol consumption and children’s alcohol dependency. And, I added “family history of alcoholism”, “drinking frequency”, “type of drinks” and “drinking quantity” variables to my codebook to understand drinking dependency levels.

Given below are the research questions, hypotheses, parameters and the literature review that I conducted to develop the hypotheses. All the sources have been cited at the end of this post.

Research Questions

1.     Is there a positive relationship between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence?

2.     Are children of alcoholic parents more likely to develop alcohol dependency?

Hypotheses

1.     Higher amount of alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of dependency

2.     Family history of alcoholism can influence a person’s risk of becoming alcohol dependent.

Parameters used

1.     BACKGROUND INFORMATION: NESARC respondents represents the civilian, non-institutionalized adult population of the United States, including residents of the District of Columbia, Alaska, and Hawaii. It includes people living in households, military personnel living off base, and people residing in the following group quarters: boarding or rooming houses, non-transient hotels and motels, shelters, facilities for housing workers, college quarters, and group homes.

2.     ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION: Circumstances surrounding drinking, beverage-specific consumption and consumption patterns (frequency of drinking and of intoxication, amounts consumed) over the last 12 months and throughout the lifetime.

3.     ALCOHOL ABUSE/DEPENDENCE (ALCOHOL EXPERIENCES): Alcohol experiences (effects and consequences of drinking, development of tolerance, attempts to stop drinking)

4.     ALCOHOL TREATMENT UTILIZATION: Experiences with treatment for alcohol abuse and dependence.

5.     FAMILY HISTORY (I) OF ALCOHOLISM: Family history of alcoholism was based on the reported alcohol problems in 14 different categories of first- and second-degree relatives (kappa = 0.70) (Dawson & Grant 1998).

Literature Review

[1] is a study on the relationship between lifetime alcohol dependence, age at first alcohol use, and a family history of alcoholism which was investigated using data obtained in the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey. The objective of [2] is to present nationally representative findings on the prevalence, correlates, psychiatric comorbidity, and treatment of DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence. In [3] researchers have examined the effect that perceived social support has on the relationship between having a family history of alcoholism and alcohol use in a sample of 85 adult children of alcoholics and a control group (n = 68). [4] examines NEO-FFI correlates of risk for alcoholism, alcohol use disorders and alcoholism subtyping dimensions in a mixed-gender sample of 468 young adults (mean age = 21.3) presumed to be at high risk (n = 239) or low risk (n = 229) for alcoholism on the basis of a family history of paternal alcoholism. Authors of [5] have assessed the effects of family history and family environment on alcohol misuse.

References

[1] Bridget F. Grant, Ph.D., Ph.D. “The Impact of a Family History of Alcoholism on the Relationship Between Age at Onset of Alcohol Use and DSM–IV Alcohol Dependence | Results From the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey.” (1998).

[2] Deborah S. Hasin, PhD; Frederick S. Stinson, PhD; Elizabeth Ogburn, MS; et al. “Prevalence, Correlates, Disability, and Comorbidity of DSM-IV Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in the United States. Results From the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.” (2007).

[3] Christine Mccauley Ohannessian, Victor M. Hesselbrock. “The influence of perceived social support on the relationship between family history of alcoholism and drinking behaviors.” (1993).

[4] E D Martin K J Sher. “Family history of alcoholism, alcohol use disorders and the five-factor model of personality.” (Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 55(1), 81–90, 1994).

I believe it’s important we explore our thoughts, feelings and experiences. In many respects, it’s how we learn to do things better and how we come to make positive changes in our life.

Consciously we may not always equate how influential our parents or family are until we’re older or have our own children, by which time the dye has been cast. It’s important to look at our relationships, knowing that traits we bring into our relationships are carried from our childhood, based around cultures and made up of expectations about the world and how we must come to act.

How we act and react in our close relationships is largely as a result of how we experience life in our formative family relationships. When it comes to committed relationships, there are without a doubt; clashes that we bring to the relationship, from our respective families.

As we begin to live our lives, it’s important we’re all aware of family expectations, based around those early cultures in our relationships. It’s vital we continue to work to change old expectations so that new expectations can be formed. We come to learn through early experiences that culture and background traits take on inflexible characteristics, through which we  have very little choice.

During our lifetime, we will come to test and re-test programmed learning from our parents and will opt to either copy it, or change it. Some of us, of course will do neither; and will continue to replicate their parents’ culture and personalities. Others will do the opposite, consciously making themselves aware of any new changes they feel they should make.

It is only when our experiences force us to recognise other possibilities through new experiences that we begin to see and change any conditioned behaviour.