ILLIAD ARTICLE -- Help Teen Cope With Alcoholic Mother

This article, taken from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is basically a question and answer advice column in this publication. A stepmother is writing to ask for advice regarding her stepson's real mother. The birth mother has a severe drinking problem which has led her son to start doing poorly in school. While the stepmother and father try to get him to come and live with them, the son says his mother wouldn't be able to survive without the child support. Ultimately, she asks what else there is to do besides putting the son through a custody battle.

I found the answer portion to pertain directly to the RSO that my project is based off of. The answer section gives the advice to congratulate and vocally express gratitude and how proud the parents are that the son should be doing so well in school. The answer portion also mentions the importance of introducing the son to Ala-teen to get him to understand the psychological components involved in alcoholism.

How I Found My Resources

I found my resources by searching the Internet for recommended books that focused on explanations and treatments regarding children of alcoholic parents. Then I explored more into Alateen and the work that is already established by them. Through one of their bibliographies I found John Wallace's "Writings". I found my Illiad article "Help Teen Cope with Alcoholic Mother" by searching for articles on children coping with alcoholic parents.

Illiad Book-- John Wallace: Writings

This book by John Wallace talks about his views on alcoholism and getting through the process of recovery. It is a collection of his papers written about the psychological and physical damage done by alcoholism and how to reverse its effects.

One specific paper that caught my eye was entitled "Children of Alcoholics: A Population at Risk". In this paper, Wallace notes that it is factually proven that children are affected differently depending on whether their mother or father is the alcoholic. I never realized how much psychological impact alcoholism can have on a young child. For instance, Wallace explains that the instability associated with living with an alcoholic parent may result in chaotic lifestyles and a higher possibility of suicide later in life.

He goes on to talk about treatments for these children starting with a careful therapeutic examination of problems associated with the child and a family history check. He believes that opening children up of their issues will open the flow of communication within. This is closely linked to the idea behind my Project Hope which is an outlet for children with alcoholic parents to get to open up and talk about their feelings toward these issues.

MELCAT RESOURCE

The resource that I ordered from MELCAT was "Living with a Parent Who Drinks Too Much" by Judith Seixas. A chapter that I found particularly interesting was one entitled Alateen. This chapter talks about this group that was started by a boy with an alcoholic father.

One thing I found interesting about this section was that I had heard of the group Al-Anon which is for relatives and close family friends of alcoholics, but I had never heard of Alateen before. Alateen has the same foundations and group talks as Al-Anon and AA but instead it's geared toward children/teens of alcoholics.

One idea for my project would be to find the nearest location to Mount Pleasant so that I could let the class know where the group meets.

The Health Care Debate

One thing I learned from Obama's Healthcare Debate was that more people are without insurance than I thought. He said, "One out of three people will be without health insurance at least once throughout a two year period." I thought this statistic was staggering. Personally, I'm not very fond of Obama's healthcare plan. This issue is a major topic of discussion in my family and we are really wondering if this plan will actually pass. From what I've heard in the speech, it seems as if Republicans are somewhat "getting the short end of the stick". I believe that people who are self-sufficient enough to afford healthcare should not need to pay addition money for those who cannot. I think there should be some sort of healthcare reform, but not the one proposed here.

One thing I learned from "Cancertainment" was that people in their 20s and 30s are the largest group of underinsured adults in America.

The Problem

The community that I have chosen to identify is children of alcoholic parents.

The Problem:

The main problem with this community that I would inclined to solve would be that they don't have an outlet for the anger and issues that are kept inside.

Why this Problem:

Most people don't understand and don't know how to react to this type of serious situation. A friend of mine is a child of an alcoholic parent and struggles with this constantly. She has a little brother that still lives at home and at the age of eleven calls and texts her that his mom is drinking at home. She is trying to get her career together and I feel like because I don't come from this background that I cannot possibly understand how hard it is to manage with something like that going on in your life.