Children of alcoholics during the recovery process: alcoholic and matched control families.

Children of relapsed and recovered alcoholic patients were compared with children from sociodemographically matched control families on a set of indices of emotional and physical status. The children of relapsed alcoholics evidenced more symptoms of emotional disturbance than did the control children. In contrast, the children of recovered alcoholics were functioning as well as the control children. Additional analyses showed that the emotional status of children was related to the emotional, physical, and occupational functioning shown by their alcoholic and their nonalcoholic parent, as well as to family life stressors.