My father was an alcoholic and I too remember time spent hiding under covers trying to remain as quiet as possible.
My parents divorced when I was 15 years old. The scars and lessons learned during the first 15 years of my life influenced the adult that I became. The early part of my adult life was spent going from one dysfunctional relationship to another. I was attracted to boys/men that were distance, unavailable, and somewhat abusive (just like my father). I was comfortable with that because that was all that I knew.
I'm a strong believer that addiction is a generational disease not solely because of genetics, but also because of the behaviors that are modeled and passed down to the children.
IMHO, your granddaughter is forming concepts of how men are suppose to treat women by watching the interactions between your daughter and her boyfriend. She is also learning about how people should treat each other by observing how YOU treat your daughter and her boyfriend. As I was reading this post, I wondered whether she hid under the covers while you yelled and cursed at the boyfriend.
I feel that the dysfunction continues in a family system until SOMEONE gets help. The family dynamic change even if just one person starts behaving differently. We can't change the addict, but we can change how we treat the addict and how the addict's behavior affects us.
For decades I was trying to "save" the members of my family of origin and all I was doing was contributing to our family's dysfunction. It was like a bad play that we just kept repeating over and over again. At first recovery felt very selfish to me, but then I started to feel that the best thing I could do for my extended family was to be the "healthiest" that I could.
I'm not always proud of the things that I model for my children. Actually, I ended up in recovery because I started to see myself repeat negative things that my mother did and said to us as children.
I still struggle. I'm a work in progress.
I said a prayer this morning for you, your daughter, and your granddaughter.
Hugs,
db