Additionally, children of families who are chemically dependent are more likely to develop negative psychological and physiological effects. In a recent reading by Scott Russell Sanders, he recalls some of the mental trauma associated with such abuse resulting from having a family member who was chemically dependent on alcohol. “When he was drunk, our father was clearly out of his mind. He became a stranger, as scary to us as any graveyard madman, not quite foaming at the mouth but quite ferocious, short-tempered, explosive; or he would become mushy and whiny, which frightened us almost as much” (Norton