A phenomenological methodology was used to identify the life of children living with alcoholic parents. Nine adolescents participated in the in-depty interviews, done between October and December 2001. The Colaizzi´s method was used for data analysis.
The results of this study are as follows.
One theme and thirteen meanings were identified. The one theme is Paradoxical Coping in Life. The meanings are obsessive behavior as a was to control father´s behavior, always on the defensive due to anxiety and tension, being afraid of life alone due to paranoid thought, contradictory expectations about father´s drinking behavior due to life with chronic tension, stress becoming familiar and life being boring and tendious without stimulation, life that is fake and filled with misinterpretations about reality, affection sought from others due to loneliness, compensatory life within peer group, negative expectation about the future due to negative experiences, controling others to protect ego, denial of real emotion to protect self from hurt, life of regretting self, and strong need for approval from others. The results of this study can provide a foundation for ther development of programs for children of alcohol dependent parents.
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