Investigation of the "EGO states" and "childhood decisions" of individuals were diagnosed as alcohol dependent and their non-alcohol dependent spouses

This research investigates the "ego states" and "childhood decisions" of men were diagnosed as alcohol dependent and their non-alcohol dependent wives in comparison with the non-alcohol dependent men and their wives. The total sample were 168 adults consisting of 42 Alcohol dependent (A+) and 42 non-alcohol dependent (A-) men and their non-alcohol dependent wives (E+ & E-). Ego states were evaluated using "Ego-States Scale (ESS)" and childhood decisions were evaluated using "Childhood Decisions Scale (CDS)". Both of the scales were developed and reliability and validity analyses were done by Varan and Öztan (2007), based on the Theory of Transactional Analysis of Eric Berne (1978). Along with the scales, a "Socio-demographic Information Form", a questionnaire, and a "Clinical Information Form" for the alcohol dependent people were presented to the subjects. According to the results of the study, scores of alcohol dependent men (A+) were found to be significantly higher than those of the non alcohol dependent ones (A-). Scores of the men in group A+ were found to be considerably higher than in group A-, on the 12 of the 18 subtest of CDS, especially on "Don't exist", "Don't be you", "Don't grow up (Free)", "Don't make it", "Don't be well", "Don't think" and "Don't do anything" subscales. When the results were evaluated with respect to their ego states, it was found out that A+ are more driven by the Child-ego-state, and less by the Adult-ego-state, compared to the A- group. Analysing the comparison of the wives of alcohol dependent (E+) and non-alcohol dependent men (E-), scores of E+ were found to be significantly higher than scores of E-, on the 12 of 18 subscales of CDS, which was similar to the results observed in men. Scores of women in the E+ group were found to be considerably higher than that of women in the E- group on "Don't exist", "Don't be you", Don't be close", "Don't belong" and "Don't be well" subscales. According to the results of the ego state comparisons it was observed that scores of E+ were significantly higher than scores of E-, only on the "Adapted Child" subscale. Two most important findings revealed by the comparison of couples were; alcohol dependent men (A+) had significantly higher scores than their wives (E+) on "Free child-ego-state" and the wives (E+) had even higher scores than their husbands on "Adult-ego-state". Another important finding was that "Don't grow up (Free)" scores of A+ and "Don't be child" scores of E+ were significantly higher than their spouses. The reason why these results were considered even more interesting is that, for the non-alcohol dependent couples (A- & E-) none of the ego states and childhood decisions were significantly different from each other. This finding supports the literature claiming a symbiotic relationship between alcohol dependent people and their spouses. The results of the analysis of alcohol dependency and codependency (being the spouse of the alcohol dependent person) reveals that "Free Child" and "Adult" ego states and "Don't be well" and "Don't think" injunctions were predictive factors for the alcohol dependency, while "Adapted Child" ego state and "Don't be you" childhood decision, were predictive factors for codependency. Keyswords: alcohol use disorders, codependence, Transactional Analysis, "Childhood Decisions Scale (CDS)" and "Ego-States Scale (ESS)"