Hi, I am an adult child of an alcoholic. I cannot speak for all adult children of alcoholics (ACOA’s) as we come from all different walks of life with different experiences. My parents followed their parent’s footsteps through the cycle of addiction, but I broke that cycle by creating my own footsteps in a new direction hoping that my children will do the same. I am not an addict and I do not physically drink, but I have developed many behavioral traits that are associated with drinking. I am here to tell you my story of growing up in what I thought was a “normal” household, not knowing how the long-term consequences of an alcoholic’s behavior would affect me, and how it has shaped me into the person I am today.
Both my parents were hard-working, responsible people who seemed to have it all together. My dad was absent for chunks at a time during my childhood. My mom worked as well and mostly raised my siblings and me. My mother had a loveable personality. She showered us with hugs and kisses and made sure our needs were met before her own. We were always taken care of. Although, it may have seemed like my family had it all together from the outside, it was not always like that. I grew up in a household where drinking began as weekend parties gradually adding in Sundays and eventually the weekdays. My parents loved having a good time with friends years before I was born, so excessive drinking and the behavior associated with drinking, was a normal growing up. Even though the drinking behavior was a norm, specific behaviors affected me more than others and in ways that tore up my insides and left me physically upset. My earliest memory is from when I was five-years-old. “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica was blaring in the background. I was trying to break-up my parents as they yelled profanity and hurtful things, and as they pointed fingers in each other’s faces after a night of drinking. I might as well had stayed in my room because it did not matter how hard I tried to get their attention, I was completely failing at the attempt. It was as if I was a ghost exhausting energy to stay afloat for nothing. Both my parents drank, but I struggled with my mother’s drinking the most.
As I got little older, about the age of eight, I was able to recognize that my mother’s alcohol intake was increasing, but I was too young to realize it was because she was unhappy or depressed. My mother was no longer as loveable as she used to be. Her demeanor turned cold, she would complain, and spill her problems including her relationship with my dad on us. I was aware that some situations she put me in was dangerous, such as driving after having a few drinks. It did not take much for my body to be consumed by anxiety, always feeling like I was on edge. The anxiety left me in a state of a heightened sense of awareness preparing me for any potential threats. I would focus on my mother’s driving to the point of watching the outer white and inner yellow boundary lines to make sure she was not going veer off the road. My master plan was to grab the steering wheel to stay in between the boundary lines if that ever happened. It never did, but I was prepared and focused heavily on the “what-if”. For me, it was always easier to expect the worst out of situations. It did not take long for me to see that my mother had developed two different personalities. I grew up with both of these people; the good and the ugly. Her personality appeared to display two different people. When she displayed the ugly, I cringed and hid from her. She was mean, negative, and her demeanor was dark. The trust disappeared as there were periods of chaos, verbal abuse, confusion and heightened states.
In between the ages of 10 through 17, I tried to stay away from the house as much as possible, especially when drinking was involved. I would stay at friends’ houses or go to work, and it allowed me to stay in a controlled environment for a little longer. At the age of 15, I was stealing the keys out of the ignition so my mom could not drive drunk. I also had cleaned her up after watching her fall into the glass door. By the age of 16, it seemed like everything was getting worse as my family was hanging on by a thread. I moved out of my parent’s house and even farther – off the island and out of town by the age of 17. I had seen so much go wrong from the alcohol, such as strained relationships, neglected duties, irresponsible behavior, aggression both verbal and physical, failed communication and much more that I could no longer tolerate the behavior. My parents were drinking more. I was falling into a depression and was caught cutting my arm, so my parents made me go to counseling. My parents sat with me at every appointment. I did not speak a word. I just cried. I wanted out of their house but how was I going to explain to my parents that their drinking behavior affected me that much? How was I going to do that after years of pretending everything was okay especially when no one ever talked about the erratic behaviors the night before? How was I, their child going to tell my parents how they should be living? For the next ten years, I struggled with depression and mood swings. I denied the fact that my parents are alcoholics, and that the foundation of my childhood was built on unsteady ground.
I was 29-years-old by the time my parent’s drinking caught up with them turning their functional behavior into a full-fledged addiction. My mother’s drinking not only affected her behavior, but her jobs as well. She was not able to hold a job. She had gotten a DUI so she was not able to drive. She struggled to stay sober. Her body was deteriorating and she was in the stages of drinking herself to death. My dad would tell me about her delirium tremens episodes and it scared me for both of them. My dad was in no positon to tell my mother to stop drinking let alone to try to help her. My dad had his own issues with drinking and moved out of the house. My mom was drunk all the time. She would call me almost every night to complain and cry to me about her life, and how everything was everyone else’s fault. She was in a lot of pain physically and emotionally. This affected me immensely. The pain, guilt, and helplessness I felt from just listening to her at times felt unbearable, but I continued to listen to her as she struggled. She had no one else to talk to, so I would silently cry on the other end and sometimes even hold the phone away because she repeated herself over and over again. It was like talking to a broken record. She slurred her words and verbally abused me and other people I loved. There was nothing I could say that would make her feel any better. Deep down she was a hot mess. She could not even function. After the third time of ending up in the ER from drinking herself the point of unconsciousness, she accepted help. She was admitted to a detox center and she called that Rehab. She was there for 5 weeks.
As an adult with my own family, I invited her to live with me for a few months after receiving detox treatment and in those months, I appreciated her presence as much as I hated it. When she was sober, she helped me with my children. She cherished the time she spent with them. She was upbeat and happy at times. She would make breakfast and loved spending time with me and my kids just as she did when I was little. It hurt me to know that she struggled internally. I saw her struggle with her feelings as divorce was taking place in her life and she was losing everything she had worked at. I knew being sober was not going to last therefore I trusted my intuition when it told me “Enjoy these moments while they lasts”. And I did. I savored the good moments with my mother knowing that she was craving the alcohol and it was only a matter of time.
While staying with me, my mother had found some way to ingest the very thing that poisoned our relationship even after lying down strict rules. She ended up getting drunk six times in the three months she lived with me. It was hard to deal with although I had been in this atmosphere before. This feeling was nothing new to me. I had experienced the physiological reaction called the fight or flight response for years and although I had not had to experience it in a while, it still knocked me on the ground just as it always had. It felt like a roller coaster ride. I would come home from work and I could tell by the look on her face and the sound of her voice that she had been drinking. Her eyes would be blood-shot, her face would droop, her speech would slur, and she would be stumbling with unsteadiness. The atmosphere would become sad, strained and dark. I can remember a certain night where I did not say a word to her. I was not about to confront her. I was tired, but I knew. My mother tried to keep herself busy by cooking dinner in the kitchen. She really believed she was concealing her disease. She ignored my feelings as tears ran down my face. I felt angry, betrayed, and so disappointed. She would see that I was crying and ask, “What is your problem?” but not with a sincere tone, with a tone that was ice cold, numb, with no emotion. One of the nights she had been drinking, I confronted her threatening her with using an alcohol test strip. She was furious and retaliated with lies and profanity. I backed down and did not end up using it because I already knew the truth. I backed her into a corner, because I just wanted her to know that I knew and her excuses and lies were not working. I was relieved when she moved out. It gave me a sense of relief. My stress and anxiety levels decreased immensely, but my worry for her is constant. It’s never-ending.
My life has been a lot of ups and downs but mostly downs with my parents. I have learned that it isn’t worth it to confront them after they have been drinking. It has taken me 29 years to figure that out, because that’s when I am the angriest and most hurt. I want them to see that, but in the state of drunkenness, they do not. By the time they sober up all you want to do is forget about what had happened no matter how much it hurt. The guilt that appears when you try to confront them when they are sober is tremendous. I mean why would I want to re-hash that the day after just to listen to them get defensive with me? That is the problem… feelings need to be heard and I never had the guts to do that until I was in my late 20’s. I refer to each of these situations as tornado warnings in which I need to prepare for. First I feel the storm: it starts to get windy and gives me the chills. I can see the storm from a distance and expect the worst so I board up the windows and doors essentially making my walls a lot stronger. I cover myself with a warm blanket to try to mask the feeling. I put on headphones so I don’t hear the storm over top of me. Each time, I concentrate on deep breathing so my emotions do not spiral out of control while waiting for the storm to end. This is just a temporary fix to attempt to protect myself from the very thing that lives inside me: The chaos, the anxiety, the negativity, the over-reacting.
She continues to drink, but it is not as nearly as bad as it used to be. I hope my mother stops drinking for herself one day, but I do not see abstinence from drinking in her future. Call it what you want, but I am a realist and a pessimist. I do not allow myself to get excited hoping that things will change. For me, it is better to expect the worse. I have fallen hard and have gotten hurt too many times. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Addiction has flourished within my family for many years and that is why my immediate family environment is sober and quiet. I have learned that less chaos makes my heart happy. There is no name-calling, yelling, blaming, trust issues, or verbal abuse, going on in my house due to addiction and my life goal is to keep it that way. My parent’s unstable events through addiction has sent me in a spiral that has lead me to not only understand myself but understand my parent’s behavior as well.
I have learned that it is okay to feel angry, hurt and sad, but it is vital to pull those feelings out whether it is through venting, writing, listening to music, but most of all coming to peace with the reality of loving an addict is hard as hell. I have had many counseling sessions to figure out why I react the way I do. Why do I always feel angry? Why do I get so defensive? Why do I feel like I have to save people? Why do I sweat profusely when I get nervous? Why have I had panic attacks? Why do I run from my problems? Why don’t I ever want to talk about them? These are only a few of the feelings that I carry with me, which I continue to work on today. As a child, I had no real escape or safety. Even though I felt that things were not okay, it was part of my normal and I had to live with it. The elephant in the room was always there, but no one ever wanted to acknowledge it. And for that, I have struggled with other character traits such as being very reserved, avoiding conflict, becoming an approval seeker and losing my identity in the process, having low self-esteem, harshly judging myself, having an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and taking life very seriously.
The inner critic minimizes any growth that may develop in our mindsets while it facilitates active participation in defensive thinking. I thought being at war with myself was a normal process in my brain. I cannot explain the unintentional betrayal of my parents, so I found an explanation for it in my own behavior. Dysfunction has successfully evolved within generations of my family making it not only difficult to blame my parents, but even more challenging for me to change my thoughts, behavior, and actions. I am learning to let go and instill the energy into myself. It takes a lot to admit your weaknesses without getting defensive from criticism or new perspectives, but I can tell you it is worth it. That is when I extended my path to make new footprints in another direction towards self-care. The strongest part of you shines through once you learn to love yourself and make you a priority. I have gained confidence, and self-respect. I make a conscious effort at keeping an open-mind. I had no control over what happened as a child, but today, I am in control of my own actions. I have always been strict about being responsible but I never took responsibility for my own actions. Last year I wrote my dad a lengthy letter. He and I have been on a bumpy road for years, because I blamed him for my mom’s condition. I described almost everything that hurt me as a child including their drunk behaviors and explained that I have gone through my own issues and in doing so realized my mother’s actions were never his fault. He wrote back validating my feelings without getting defensive. That alone lifted heaviness off my shoulders. It was a positive towards my healing process. My dad and I have worked on our relationship, and I no longer blame him for everything my mom has gone through. We are all responsible for our own actions. I have a long road of working on reducing the levels at which I express my behaviors. Acceptance, knowledge and most importantly the truth, has set me free of the heavy burden that had been weighing on my shoulders for so long.
I know my parents raised my siblings and me the best they knew how, and although it was never up to my standards, I do not blame them for it. Looking at their past made me realize how they went down the road they chose. Although my situation has influenced me entirely, this is not only about me. This is a about my mother. It is about her lack of coping skills. It is about how she isolates herself and struggles to maintain relationships. It is about her lack of self-love. It is about how much this disease has progressed within family generations and the damaging affects it has created. I was a reflection of her pain and the way she dealt with it. Creating boundaries and adapting to whatever is left of the relationships is necessary, as it is vital to my survival, even if that means I would have to end the relationship completely. I am thankful for the good memories with my mother. If anything, I have learned a lot about myself: my boundaries, self-love, and having the ability to be conscious of the things I need to work on as they arise. But most of all having the patience to love my mother for who she is today.
After telling you my story, I would like to share my ACE score with you. It is a 4. You don’t have to have a high score to be affected or for that matter to seek help. If you find yourself struggling in life: Ask for help. I found my own identity when I sought help. I am constantly working on my own identity so that I am not a reflection of my mother. My greatest help emerged in the form of counseling. My help also came from my husband, who I trust, deeply. Help can be in the form of friends and family, providing a listening ear or a shoulder to lean on. Help can be in places you would least expect it. My help also emerged in the form of music. Music got me through many rough nights as a kid. Being able to relate to lyrics has always been comforting, but being able to grow past or with them is satisfying. By taking an active step in seeking help or advice, you are actually taking control of your life. It is courageous to accept your weaknesses, and vital to your survival that you do not struggle alone. In addition to learning about yourself, Stay humbled from what life has taught you and use it as building blocks!