Disruption of family rituals as a mediator of the relationship between parental drinking and adult adjustment in offspring.

This study investigated whether disruption of family-of-origin rituals and routines would mediate the relationship between family history of parental problem drinking (FH+, FH-) and two outcomes in adult offspring: adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) personality attributes and drinking problems. The self-reports of 143 students and 129 outpatients indicated that disruption of family routines and rituals mediated the relationship between family history status and both ACOA traits and problem drinking. These results suggest that the mediating effect of family-of-origin rituals and daily routines may explain some of the heterogeneity in adult outcomes of offspring from FH+ families, in both student and clinical samples.