Growing Up With an Alcoholic Mother: How Ian Broke the Cycle

Ian Madasen races sprint cars at 160 miles per hour on dirt ovals across America. He has broken his neck twice in the last year doing it. None of that scared him as much as the realization, somewhere in his thirties, that he had become the exact thing he swore as a kid he would never be: his mother.

That is the trap that catches so many children of alcoholics. Growing up with an alcoholic mother or father puts you at higher risk of developing an alcohol problem yourself, even when you grow up swearing you never will. Ian's story on the Sober Motivation Podcast is about how that promise turned into a cycle, and how, eventually, he broke it.

Here is how he got there and what he learned along the way.

The Promise He Made and the Cycle He Could Not See Coming Growing up with an Alcoholic Mother

Ian grew up in St Marys, a blue collar suburb of Western Sydney, Australia. His mother was an alcoholic. He started drinking at 14, shortly after she passed away.

"Seeing my mother be destroyed by alcohol, and then you kind of make a promise to yourself that you don't wanna be like that ever in your life. But for some reason it pivoted to that straight away, and I think that was because I was brought up and that was the only way I knew how to deal with things. Everyone around me drank alcohol."

This is the part of generational alcoholism no one warns you about. The promise you make as a child is real. It is also not enough. What overrides it is what you were modeled. In Western Sydney in the 1990s, that meant a culture where, in Ian's words, "triumph or tragedy and everyone drinks."

There was no therapy after his mother's death. No grief counseling. Mental health was not a phrase people used.

"It was a culture of, you know, you get up and you get on with it, and you drink a beer and you get over it. I don't think that's a slight on anyone, and I think everyone around me was trying to support me, but we just didn't know how."

If this part of his story resonates, you may want to read He Watched His Dad Drink to Death. Then He Nearly Did the Same, a parallel account of how a parent's drinking gets quietly passed down.

The Career That Hid the Problem

At 18, Ian moved to the US to chase a sprint car racing dream. After almost a decade of crewing for his older brother and knocking on doors, he made it. Eventually he was racing on the World of Outlaws and High Limit national series, sometimes running up to 100 races a year.

He also walked straight into another heavy drinking culture. Motorsports parties. Sponsor dinners at bars. Heroes who drank. For a long time, he genuinely believed it was just part of the business.

"I just thought that was part of the business and something you had to do to kind of achieve your goals."

The schedule kept the problem invisible. When you are running that hard, Ian explained, you are forced to act like everything is together "for your career's sake." But the grief he had been outrunning since 14 was still in the passenger seat.

"I thought that getting everything I wanted, becoming a professional race car driver, competing at a high level across America, was gonna fix everything. And it did for a while. And then there's some things happened in my career to where I wasn't able to compete, and that's when it all came crashing down for me."

This is the high functioning trap. The more your life looks like a win from the outside, the easier it becomes to ignore the wreckage on the inside. If you recognize yourself here, read Can You Be a High Functioning Alcoholic? The Quiet Trap of Looking Fine on the Outside.

A Bottomless Abyss, Not a Rock Bottom

Ian does not believe in the Hollywood version of rock bottom. He describes his slide differently.

"I don't think there was a rock bottom for me. I think it's more like a bottomless abyss where things just kept getting worse and worse."

By the final three or four years, the drinking had pivoted from social to almost entirely isolated. He was no longer drinking to belong to the brotherhood that started it. He was drinking alone in bedrooms and basements, hiding it from sponsors, friends, and his wife at the time.

"I think you get paranoid about other people knowing that there's probably a little bit of a problem there. So you're trying to disguise that and isolate yourself. Before I knew it, the only person I would drink with would be myself."

There were treatment stays. More than one. Each one ended with the same lie that catches almost every drinker: this time I will be able to do it normally.

"Even though things are so bad that you have to go to a treatment center, you're still trying to convince yourself that one day I'm gonna get fixed and I'll be able to do it normal again."

If you keep landing back at Day One after a treatment stay, you are not broken. You are running the same playbook a lot of people run. Read She Had More Day Ones Than She Could Count. Here's What Finally Made Sobriety Stick for the version of this story where it finally clicks.

The Day He Decided to Get Sober for Himself

By the time it finally landed, Ian had retired from racing to go to treatment, lost his marriage, and burned through most of his support system. There was no dramatic intervention. There was just one morning in 2024.

"I just knew that there was no end to it that wasn't gonna result in some sort of major calamity, whether that was another trip to treatment or a trip to the hospital. I'd kind of broken everything down to where there was nothing left around me. That was really only, all right, if we're gonna do this, then let's do it. And by saying let's, I'm talking only to me, because it's the only person left to do it for."

This is the part of his story that quietly carries the most weight. For people who have tried to get sober for a parent, a partner, a child, or a career and failed, the shift often only happens when the only person left to do it for is yourself. That is not selfish. It is the only foundation strong enough to hold the rest of your life back up.

Motivation Is Not Enough. Structure Is.

Ian had spent his life running on motivation. He used it to leave Australia at 18, to break into American sprint car racing with no money, and to win at the national level. He assumed motivation would also get him sober.

It did not.

"Motivation doesn't really matter. It comes and goes. It's more about structure and having some sort of framework in place that you can fall back on."

His framework looked like this. He found an AA sponsor who changed his life. He moved in with a close friend, and being around that family restored something he had not felt in years. He started doing the small things again. Sleep. Exercise. Talking to people every day. One day at a time, the way the program says.

Then, in July of 2024, he broke his neck in a sprint car crash. In January, he damaged it again racing in Australia. Either injury would have been a reason to relapse. Neither one was.

"Thankfully I built the framework so strong in my sobriety that I was able to fall back on that and help me get through it."

He plans to return to racing in 2027.

The Bottom Line

Growing up with an alcoholic mother does not have to be the first chapter of your own drinking story. But pretending it is not a risk factor does not help anyone either. The promise Ian made as a kid was real, and it was not enough on its own. What broke the cycle was finally deciding to get sober for himself, finding a sponsor, plugging into community, and trading motivation for structure.

If you connected with any part of Ian's story, listen to the full episode on the Sober Motivation Podcast and consider joining the Sober Motivation community. You do not have to keep this a secret. Reaching out, in Ian's words, is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you become an alcoholic if your parent was one?

Yes. Children of alcoholic parents are at higher risk of developing alcohol use disorder themselves, both because of genetic factors and because alcohol use is modeled and normalized at home. Many adult children of alcoholics swear they will never drink like their parent and end up doing exactly that, the way Ian did after his mother passed away.

Is it possible to break the cycle of alcoholism in a family?

Yes, and Ian's story is one example. Breaking the cycle usually requires more than willpower. It tends to involve community, a recovery framework like AA or another program, a sponsor or accountability partner, structural changes to daily life, and a willingness to do the grief work that earlier generations were never given language for.

What if you have been to rehab and relapsed?

Relapsing after rehab is common and is not a sign that you cannot get sober. Ian went to treatment multiple times before sobriety finally stuck. Each stay taught him something. The thing that finally changed the outcome was what he built after rehab, not the rehab itself.

Why is motivation not enough to stay sober?

Motivation comes and goes. Structure does not. As Ian put it on the podcast, motivation is like taking a shower. It is recommended daily. You cannot stay clean on three days ago shower. Lasting sobriety is built on repeatable systems: a recovery community, a sponsor, sleep, exercise, honest conversations, and small daily decisions made before motivation has a chance to disappear.

Does it count if you get sober for someone else?

It can be a starting point, but it rarely sticks. Ian tried to get sober for his wife, his friends, and his racing career, and relapsed each time. Sobriety became durable for him only when he made the decision for himself. Other people can support your recovery. They cannot be the reason for it.