If a child is witnessing a lot of chaos or has an addict parent who is wonderful one day and a monster another day, the child is left to make sense of that with the developmental equipment of their particular age. And you can just guess what kind of sense they make of it: “I'm bad, I can't figure anything out, I can't get anything right.” And then you transplant that child into adulthood, and that's where it's going to come out.

I've often heard “Well, I'm going to take care of my recovery and then my kids are going to be okay,” or “I'll focus on the kids when I get a year or two of recovery behind me,” or “Well, they're so young right now, it doesn't really make a difference,” or maybe “They're more into themselves now, anyway.” But there are many little steps you can take with your children – young, adolescent or adult – to begin to be the parent they need and the parent you want to be.