Hi-My name is Ray and I'm a recovering Adult Child of an Alcoholic.

Needed to share tonight so this will all be in rose color. I've discovered that there is very little action on other ACOA sites which is discouraging. The characteristics of Adult Children didn't go away just because the fad of the late 80's and 90's died down.

I was thinking about a couple of things today that have been interfering with my life lately. One is being a night owl and the other is not answering the phone and tending to hide from people even though I have no reason to.

One of the fundamentals of mental health is that a person needs to feel that they have a fair degree of control over their lives. Makes sense. One of the first principles of torturing someone is to take complete control of their lives. A child growing up in a chaotic environment internalizes that, since anything can happen at any time and you never know when something catastrophic will happen, they have very little control over their own lives. As a result they develop what is called free floating anxiety.

They often grow up to be very controlling people in one way or another. Many attempt to control other people in a variety of ways and can become very abusive. Another more subtle way is to just maintain tight control over their own environment. In any case, even though the controlling may be directed outward the internal need is to maintain control for ones self.

In part, for me it means avoiding other people whenever possible. I'm not a recluse in the normal sense. I just don't make close relationships with others very well. And yes it becomes very lonely which is the price I pay. I became a night owl many years ago which was a two pronged coping strategy. One, it was quite and safe late at night when I was growing up. I had much more control. I could read or listen to music quietly and didn't have to worry about getting yelled at or otherwise getting in some random trouble. It was easy to get in trouble in my home. Often you didn't even know why. "Because I said so," were the watch words and may still be the most hated phrase I know.

The second part of the night owl stratagy is that it limits the contact you have to put up with in dealing with the rest of the world. That is both a plus and a big minus. It's hard to exist in a world that is mostly geared toward daytime interaction including work.

The other problem is that I'm usually pretty much out to touch. I keep my phone turned off and screen calls. I prefer to call you back on my time table rather than yours. That way I can decide on how I want to respond to your message and not have any surprises sprung on me. Life while growing up featured a random set of surprises, many of them quite unpleasent.

The other dread factor was that the phone ringing often meant trouble. My father could be in jail or have gotten a DUI or in a car wreck or any number of things. We lived in a constant state of fear when he was out drinking. One, we feared something bad would happen to him and at the same time we feared he would come home and start a fight. Having the phone ring still creates a sudden spike of irrational dread. So my solution, as I said, is to not hear it ring. This of course is more and more of a problem in our communication age where the rest of the world is glued to a cell phone seemingly 24 hours a day.

Maybe I'm typing into the great Internet Void but if you are out there thanks for listening. Sometimes sharing just means talking about the problem. Sharing helps.

If you stop by please post a comment just to let me know you were here if nothing else. Thanks and as always, "Keep coming back it works."

Ray

What does the term Adult Child of an Alcoholic mean? The short answer is that children growing up in alcoholic or other addictive households develop certain similar characteristics which manifest themselves in dysfunctional behavior in adulthood. Perhaps the most concise description of a very complicated subject is “The Problem” which is read at every ACA meeting. I will publish it now and when I figure out how I’ll post it as a link on the side so you that it will always be available.

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The Problem

Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional households.
We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.

We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.

We lived live from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.

We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.

These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.

Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.

This is a description, not an indictment.

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If you relate to the problem, don’t despair, there is also a Solution. I’ll post it tomorrow. If your parent(s) were alcoholic or otherwise addicted and you don’t relate, give it some time. Denial is a strong mechanism. We read the Problem, Solution and the 12 Steps at each and every meeting for a reason. They need to be constantly absorbed and re-absorbed to have meaning. We also say “Keep coming back. It works.” I invite you to keep coming back there is much yet left to learn.

Every 12 Step meeting, all of which are derivative of AA (Alcoholic’s Anonymous), has three phases. The read stuff, they share personal experiences, and there is some sort of group close. The reading section is introduction and teaching which is what I’ve been doing and will continue to do. As a member though it’s important for me to share. Sharing is where healing takes place. To separate the two I’ve decided to share in a different color type. From now on, when we are in black it’s about addiction and recovery in general. When we are in Rose it’s about me and my experience as and ACOA.

I taught addiction recovery in treatment programs for 13 years and honestly it is easier and tempting to just lecture you all about how to do it. As if I have “the” answer. I do not. I have a lot of knowledge that may point the way toward “your” answer. So I’ll try to take the risk and share some with each post. Since we are still in the introduction phase, the teaching may be more than the sharing for awhile. If a recovering community develops then hopefully the reverse will happen.

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Hello-my name is Ray and I’m a recovering ACOA. (If you’ve been to meetings you know that everyone responds, Hi-Ray. If you’ve been to lots of meetings you said it in your head didn’t you. Hahaha)

I’m 58 years old. My father was an alcoholic before I was born, although I didn’t know that until I was grown because even to the last day of her life my mother never acknowledged the obvious facts. We never spoke the truth. My grandfather was an alcoholic who became depressed and committed suicide. My sister is and alcoholic and I grew up and married one. Alcoholism often a multi-generational disease. It’s probably part genetics and part behavioral training. I drank when I was younger but either wasn’t predisposed toward alcoholism or I never drank enough to activate the addiction. I’ll never know. I stopped drinking in 1987. I’ve been sober 30 years thanks to the program.

Rather than drink, I sided with my mother’s piece of the equation and became an enabling rescuer. I married an actively alcoholic woman and set out to “fix” her because that was what I thought you were supposed to do. In the meantime “fixing” her actually meant propping her up for 13 years so that rather than hitting a bottom and getting real help her addiction only got worse.

In 1985 my wife’s mother passed away and she went completely off the deep end which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I left for a year during which I learned about ACOA and began putting the pieces together about how I had ended up in such a messed up life despite my best intentions to the contrary. In 1986 we tried a brief reconciliation then divorced and I’ve never looked back.

Has it always been absolutely wonderful. No. Is it better than it was. Yes. That’s enough for now. I’ll share more later. Thanks. (And you say….”Thanks Ray.” See it’s this little formula that involves, opening and closing and respect.)

Welcome to my ACOA (Adult Children’s of Alcoholics) Blog

To answer the first question: Why and ACOA Blog in the first place? The simple reason is that meetings are no longer held where I live and I would like to attract some like minded people with whom to share recovery.

I'll get to just what he heck and adult-child is for those of you who aren't familiar with the term but first some housekeeping.

By way of disclaimer: This blog is not affiliated with Adult Children Anonymous (ACA) which is a registered trademark. Although I was a very active member until meetings disappeared and thoroughly endorse the group, their efforts and the 12 Step method upon which they were founded. I do hope to secure links to their home page and other ACOA related sites as we go along. In the meantime if you want to learn more about ACA just Google them.

Before I get into who I am and about me I would like to establish a couple of principles for using the blogs discussion feature. It would be good if we can style our discourse in the way of an actual meeting. The most basic principle is respect. As an adult child, our self image has already been profoundly effected by negative interaction with others, beginning with an alcoholic parent or parents. We come to meeting in all shades and flavors of function and dysfunction. In meetings we learn to listen and learn from each other’s strengths, yes we all have strengths, our hope and our recovery. We do not give advice. “You should,” cross talk and is an unwelcome phrase.

Some adult children are angry adults who grew up in less than tolerant situations. While loving you, I will not tolerate, racism, sexism, gay bashing, or other hate speech. That isn’t to say that those topics are taboo. They aren’t. Virtually anything can be discussed in a reasonable fashion.
In the words of a John Prine song, “Little pictures have big ears.” Children or young adults my find their way to this site. Some may even find it useful. Alanon even has a group for children called Ala-Tots. Out of respect for anyone who may find us. Lets keep a civil tongue; no cursing or vulgarity please. No I’m not a prude and yes I’ve been to AA meetings where the talk was pretty rough at times. Everyone there was at least an adult though.

This gets us started then. The 12 Steps were adapted from AA and Alanon. If you have attended either of those programs you will find that the core of recovery is exactly the same. Everyone who has been effected by drugs and alcohol, which is just another drug, is welcome at the table. Our focus is slightly different but you will understand the language.
I don’t have any pretty art, particularly Teddy Bears which were the unofficial ACOA mascot, to begin with but every journey has to have a beginning. We can decorate the room as we go.

Next time I’ll talk about what adult-child means. Then go into the history of the ACOA movement and lead into recovery and some of my own history to boot. With luck this will cross the path of a few fellow travelers and we’ll begin to form a community.