RESEARCH ARTICLE
“Fixing” Mother’s who Drink: Family Narratives on Secrecy, Shame and Silence
Liezille Jacobs*, 1, Julian Jacobs2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2015Volume: 7
First Page: 28
Last Page: 33
Publisher Id: TOFAMSJ-7-28
DOI: 10.2174/1874922401507010028
Article History:
Received Date: 23/10/2014Revision Received Date: 7/11/2014
Acceptance Date: 19/1/2015
Electronic publication date: 31/3/2015
Collection year: 2015
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distributin, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: In South Africa, there is a paucity of qualitative studies giving a voice to mothers who drink, which could inform interventions to assist families to heal from repetitive alcohol use disorders.
Methods: This qualitative study explored the discursive accounts of 10 mothers who are members of Alcoholic Anonymous in the context of their complex state of being-in-the-world with others (like husbands and children). The aims of this study were to explore why mothers drank excessively and to unpack their families’ responses to their drinking.
Results: First-person narratives with mothers’ about their lived experience with alcohol use disorder illustrate the main themes, which emanated from these discussions. The discourses on secrecy, shame and silence related to the mother’s lived-experience with alcohol’s occurrence in the family. This paper recommends that families who always stand over and against an alcohol dependent past should consider attending free support group meetings for loved ones of Alcoholics. A popular family support group for families affected by alcohol dependency is known as Al-anon.
