1st Edition

Risk and Resilience Adults Who Were the Children of Problem Drinkers

By Richard Velleman, Jim Orford Copyright 2001
    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    Risk and Resilience looks at the issue of young adults who grew up in families where a parent, and sometimes both, had a drinking problem. Alcohol-related problems are now recognized as being near the very top of the world league table of health and social problems. Since the large majority of problem drinkers are adults aged between 22 and 55, many are parents with children or adolescents in their care. In the USA alone, there are estimated to be over six million children under the age of 18 living with a parent with a drinking problem, and over 22 million adults - one in every eight American adults - who were brought up with a parent who had a drinking problem. Clearly, many children who grow up in this sort of environment have a difficult childhood. Velleman and Orford examine the question of what happens to such children when they grow up. Risk and Resilience focuses on three main themes: What is the likelihood of such young adults developing drinking problems themselves? Wha

    Growing Up with Parents with Drinking Problems and Establishing an Adult Life: Four Illustrations
    What Was Already Known: A Review of Previous Research
    Doing Research on the Subject: The Design of the Present Study
    Recollections of Growing Up with Parents with Drinking Problems - Results I
    The Children of Problem Drinking Parents as Young Adults - Results II
    Explanations for Differences in Adulthood Adjustment - Results III
    How Has Our Understanding Advanced? Summary and Integration
    Implications for Intervention, Service Development and Prevention

    Biography

    Richard Velleman, Jim Orford

    "Essential for all libraries, this important contribution to the understanding of a significant social problem should become a classic." -- D.J. Hanson of SUNY College at Potsdam
    "For researchers, this is a detailed review of existing literature and a great new body of data and analysis to complement and extend knowledge in the field...It gives practitioners much needed information to help address the cognitive and behavioural effects on children of alcoholics, and how working on family strengthening and family harmony can build the resistance to reduce likelihood of problem drinking later in life." -- Journal of Substance Misuse