A four-year follow-up of close family members of Birmingham untreated heavy drinkers

Abstract

Aim. To explore the positions towards their relatives’ heavy drinking adopted by close family members of a community sample of untreated heavy drinkers over a period of four years.

Design. Detailed interview and questionnaire study of a sample of close family members and the heavy drinkers to whom they were related, interviewed three times at intervals of two years over a period of four years.

Sample. Twenty-five close family members of 25 heavy drinkers drawn from a community cohort of 500 heavy drinkers in the English West Midlands. This is a follow-up of 25 of the 50 family members included in an earlier report (Orford, J., Dalton, S., Hartney, E., Ferrins-Brown, M., Kerr, C., & Maslin, J. (2002). The close relatives of untreated heavy drinkers: Perspectives on heavy drinking and its effects. Addiction Research and Theory, 10, 439–463.).

Data. Perceived Benefits and Drawbacks of drinking checklist (family members and heavy drinkers); Readiness to Change questionnaire (family members and heavy drinkers); Coping Questionnaire (family member only); semi-structured interview (family members).

Findings. A wide range of positions towards their relatives’ heavy drinking continued to be evident over time. The downsides to relatives’ drinking were widely recognised and a minority continued to see the drinking as very problematic. The benefits of relatives’ heavy drinking were also widely recognised. A minority consistently saw their relatives’ heavy drinking as benign, and a number of others came to see drinking positively as it reduced over time. The largest group continued to be ambivalent. Family members as a group became more positive about the drinking over time than did their heavy drinking relatives, and became less inclined than their relatives to desire change. Acceptance that drinking was already less than it once was, and sometimes family members’ own heavy drinking, were amongst the factors operating to allow family members to preserve a positive view.

Conclusions. Close family members are often caught in a complex set of dilemmas about what position to take in relation to their relatives’ heavy drinking. For a number of understandable reasons, they take a more or less benign view of their relatives’ heavy drinking.

• Birmingham untreated heavy drinkers
• questionnaire
• family members
• cohort
• qualitative interview