An Elephant in the Living Room

Much needed help for children in families where drinking or drug abuse is a problem.

How does it feel to live in this kind of a family? “My family has this problem it can’t solve, and it’s making everybody kind of crazy.”
– said Shauna, age thirteen.

“It makes you feel neglected, left out. You feel out of place in the family. It makes you feel like you’re in the middle of a war.”
– said Peter, age eleven.

This book, An Elephant in the Living Room, A Leader’s Guide, by Marion H. Typpo, Ph.D., and Jill M. Hastings, Ph.D., has a companion book, An Elephant in the Living Room, The Children’s Book. Together they make up a program designed to help children from age seven to early adolescence cope with problems of living with a problem-drinking or drug-abusing father, mother, sister, or brother.

Primarily for professional or paraprofessional adults working with children in groups—in schools, counseling centers, support programs—these books also may be used by counselors of individual children.

The Leader’s Guide offers adult helpers basic facts in two important areas: child development and the family disease of alcoholism/chemical dependency. These books have been welcomed by counselors and educators as a practical way to begin to help these often lonely, sometimes desperate children, known to be at high risk of developing serious psychosocial problems, becoming alcoholic themselves, or marrying alcoholics.