Number of adults seeking support for alcoholic parent triples in five years, charity reveals

Leading alcohol charity received more than 23,000 calls or messages from over-18s seeking support to deal with alcoholic parent last year – compared with 6,400 in 2013

People whose parents began drinking later tend to face a different set of challenges to those who are children at the time, experts say (Getty)

The number of adults seeking a charity’s support to deal with an alcoholic parent has tripled in five years.

The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) received more than 23,000 calls or messages from over-18s needing assistance last year, compared with 6,400 in 2013, the charity told the BBC.

According to the NACOA, one in five children in the UK are affected by their parents’ drinking – and the new figures suggest that adults are affected by it too.

Stephanie Page, a helpline supervisor at the the charity, told the BBC that people whose parents began drinking later tend to face a different set of challenges.

“The parent may have retired and is lonely; they may have had issues adjusting to retirement. The adult child of the alcoholic often finds that really difficult because they haven’t seen this side of them before and they may not know what to do,” she said.

“It can be really surreal seeing this side to your parent.”

Previous research by the Children’s Society revealed that alcohol abuse among adults was damaging the lives of an estimated 700,000 teenagers across the UK, with nearly 100 teenagers made homeless each day as a result of alcohol abuse by their parents.

Charities have warned that as demand for children’s services rises, cuts to local authority budgets are leaving a growing number of children struggling to deal with problems that stem from living in homes where alcohol or drugs are being misused.

A record number of people died because of alcohol in England in 2017, with the NHS warning that someone was admitted to hospital every 30 seconds due to drink as a factor.

There were 5,843 deaths in 2017 where alcohol was the primary cause, with liver disease accounting for about 80 per cent of these, NHS figures showed. This is a rise of more than 6 per cent on the year before, and an increase of 16 per cent in a decade.

While the numbers drinking to unsafe levels have fallen – with just 21 per cent drinking more than the recommended 14 units a week – the latest data showed that over-40s were drinking more and account for 80 per cent of deaths.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it can be “incredibly damaging for a young person to grow up with an alcoholic parent and can lead to lifelong harm”.

“We are investing £6m to support children of dependent parents, and services including alcohol treatment and mental health services are available for people who are suffering the impact of parental drinking as adults.”