growing up with a
dad that is an
alcoholic has shaped so much of who I am
and affected me probably
more than I
ever was ever aware
of I don't think I'm an
alcoholic but I do think I've got a
problem with
alcohol I think I've abused it in the
past and that this potential I could end
up being like me
Dad I'm acutely aware of what my dad has
lost by prioritizing booze above
everything else in his
life but I've never really understood
the reasons why he drinks to excess or
why I
do hi hello hello welcome to the bar
lab to help us both address why we have
compulsive drinking habits dad has
agreed to join me in London to speak to
Tony Moss professor of addictive
behavior
science he set up a bar to conduct his
research um so what I'd like to do today
is to work through with each of you um
something called drinking motives
questionnaire we just ask lots of
different questions so this
questionnaire isn't actually about how
much you drink but it's getting you to
think more about when you do drink how
familiar do these kind of examples sound
the scale is like one to five going from
never or almost never as kind of one and
almost always say five um if you're
ready we can make a start yeah yeah so
how often would you say you drink uh
because it helps you enjoy a party big
social situations make me scared and I
cope with that with alcohol and I always
have mhm so five yeah always so five for
that one yeah so how often would you say
that you drink to be
sociable always
yeah I don't like answering that
one just feel a bit angry at myself five
yeah um how often would you say that you
drink because you like the feeling four
four oh was five what love doing that
yeah I like who I am when I've had a
drink and I hate who I am when I'm
drunk drunk me is um argumentative
belligerant and aggressive makes a lot
of trouble for sober me it's always me
first thought is is the OWN drunkenness
that you like or is it it's a feeling of
being intoxicated and the sooner the
better first thing that jumped out of me
is the link between alcohol and social
situations is strong for for both of you
the other thing was that you you both
seem as being sort of using alcohol
almost as a as a coping strategy as a
way of of dealing with uh difficult
feelings or or situation ations very
similar there
d a lot of the research that we've done
looked at what we call kind of
intergenerational transference we know
children from quite a young age in fact
will start to learn and think things
about alcohol it's both what they see
and it's also what they hear that kind
of imprints from a young age and in much
the same way the motivations and the
beliefs that we have about alcohol do
pass on from one generation to the
next LS of different feelings cing
throughs at the
minute but Tony said there's like a
direct relation to how we have family
view alcohol and how you're brought up
and everything and it's no wonder that
our scores were so similar growing up
with an alcoholic dad was a lonely
experience but one in five people like
me struggle with a parent
drinking so I'm going to meet two women
with similar stories hi hi hello I'm
Vicky I'm Amy meet I'm Maria nice to
meet you Maria how are you I'm okay I've
always just felt like all I knew was
what I knew so it was normal but you
know once you grow up and you realize
your family Dynamic potentially isn't
what everyone else's experience and then
I felt like I had to like hide it almost
and there was like a level of Shame and
I suppose that's just carried us through
most of me adult years you know do you
feel like CU of who yeah dads were we
were almost
predisposed to have the issue
surrounding alcohol we've got it
definitely caused me to question my
drinking a lot and to be quite worried
about it to the point where I now choose
not to drink so are you completely t
total now yeah um so like I'm at the age
now like I'm 34 everyone's dying to know
when I'm going to have kids and like I
feel the reason I have cut off having
children is I'm so scared I'm going to
end up just like my dad I don't want to
have kids like may you
feel slightly
broken you shouldn't have the fear that
you're going to end up down the same
route as your dad cuz you're already
doing something different than what he's
done like everything I've ever worried
about they felt it
too it did make us feel really
validated it also gave us options for
going
forward talking to my dad openly about
his alcoholism is something that have
struggled with me whole
life so I've brought him to London to
see a family mediator in the hopes she
can give me the strength to improve our
communication hi nice to meet you Becky
hi hi John today's session is very much
about enhancing communication we don't
tend to share our thoughts with our
loved ones all the time so um be
prepared you might feel a bit
uncomfortable what I would like you to
do is for one of you to be the speaker
and then the other person to be the
listener I can go first yeah cuz I
bounce off you
then
okay this is really hard for us to say
because I love you so much but I think I
have
enabled you in the past we alcohol
because um I didn't want to make you
feel
worse over the last couple of weeks I've
I've met some people in like a similar
position to me um and I found it really
comforting actually to um to talk about
like things that only the child of an
alcoholic has
experienced they both of their dads have
died through
alcoholism I made this but I promise to
myself that I was going to say all the
things that I bet they wished they had
said as
well
um I
think I really want to be a
mom sorry I really want to have
kids
I want I want my kids to meet
you and I'm so worried
dad and if you don't stop
drinking and you don't get a proper
handle on it that you won't beat
them
and that really scares us it would be a
lie for me to say I'll never drink again
to you
I will try my absolute
hardest but the awful thing is I
thoroughly believe that in 10 years time
I could be saying exactly the same thing
here if you're
lucky