Thanks everyone for an incredible thread. I am an ACOA and a recovered A, every single one of us kids became alcoholics. I have no idea if it was nature or nurture: my family has so much alcoholism carried down through each generation I truly consider the genetic theory, among others. It sometimes feels, rather depressingly, that someone who isn't an alcoholic in my family is the exception!
I always wonder how we could have become alcoholics when we hated the family dynamic so much, hated our fathers drinking so much, and I myself swore up and down I would never be like him. Well, I became like him.
I'm not mentioning this to claim that children who stay with an active alcoholic parent will become alcoholics, but I think it is a risk to consider. It sure seems to have been the case with my family.