"children" in the Big Book

It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents—anyone can increase the list.

If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.

His income is good, he has a fine home, is happily married and the father of promising children of college age.

He is the Father, and we are His children.

We have tried to hold the love of our children for their father.

They struck the children, kicked out door panels, smashed treasured crockery, and ripped the keys out of pianos.

Perhaps at this point we got a divorce and took the children home to father and mother.

How could men who loved their wives and children be so unthinking, so callous, so cruel?

Is it right to let him ruin your life and the lives of your children?

Be determined that your husband’s drinking is not going to spoil your relations with your children or your friends.

The wives and children of such men suffer horribly, but not more than the men themselves.

You do not know what to tell the children.

The same principle applies in dealing with the children.

You may be afraid your husband will lose his position; you are thinking of the disgrace and hard times which will befall you and the children.

Alateen, for teen-aged children of alcoholics, is a part of Al-Anon.

The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his “in-laws,” each one is likely to have fixed ideas about the family’s attitude towards himself or herself.

He may take small interest in the children and may show irritation when reproved for his delinquencies.

Sometimes mother and children don’t think so.

Little by little, mother and children will see they ask too much, and father will see he gives too

Instead of developing new channels of activity for themselves, mother and children demand that he stay home and make up the deficiency.

The alcoholic may find it hard to re-establish friendly relations with his children.

The children are sometimes dominated by a pathetic hardness and cynicism.

It was the usual situation: home in jeopardy, wife ill, children distracted, bills in arrears and standing damaged.