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Exposure to Parental Alcoholism During Childhood and Outcome in Adulthood: A Prospective Longitudinal Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

W. R. Beardslee ,
L. Son  and
G. E. Vaillant
W. R. Beardslee*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Childrens Hospital, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 295 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA
L. Son
Affiliation:
Counseling and Consulting Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
G. E. Vaillant
Affiliation:
Dept. of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, 03756, USA
*
∗ Correspondence
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Extract

The effects of children's exposure to parental alcoholism was assessed using records from an existing prospective 40-year longitudinal study of working-class families: 176 men who had grown up with an alcoholic parent or parents were compared with 230 men without such exposure. Degree of exposure to alcoholism in the childhood family environment was highly correlated in later life with alcohol use, alcoholism, time in jail, sociopathy, and death, but not with increased rates of unemployment, poor physical health, or measures of adult ego functioning. Most of the impairments observed occurred in those subjects who actually developed alcoholism. Exposure to alcoholism in the family environment and family history of alcoholism independently contributed to the later development of alcoholism.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 149 , Issue 5 , November 1986 , pp. 584 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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