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I read it before I got access to the internet and I haven't been able to find a cite to it since, but back in the 1990s, I read an interview where Drew Barrymore described her childhood (both parents were substance abusers) as showing up at a class to learn things, but the teacher isn't there and you have to teach yourself. It will take longer, but you eventually learn what you need to learn, just takes a lot longer and with more missteps because you don't have a teacher.
Ideally, children should be learning things from their parents, such as how to manage conflict, set boundaries and feel and express their feelings in healthy ways. A parent who's checked out or out of it isn't going to be able to do that. So kids may end up seeking out negative attention, acting out, etc. This can effect education and relationships.
Plus, while a parent may not be deliberately abusive, if they're that out of it, they can do things to endanger their children like driving drunk, nodding off while smoking, etc. My mom's long term boyfriend while I was growing up would expound on various theories he had about life and fall asleep, but he never got volatile. Recently, I wondered what happened to him and when I checked Google, it turned out he'd killed someone while DWI. Now, he wasn't my dad or stepdad, but I was saddened for everyone, but especially his victim's family. Imagine what his child must have gone through, even though he wasn't an abusive drunk and she was an adult at the time.
Depending on how severe the alcoholism is, alcoholics can be more prone to certain types of health problems. A friend's dad was a very quiet, passive alcoholic and he died in his 50s of liver related causes. There's more of a chance of losing a parent early if the addiction is severe enough.
Often the eldest kid takes on the responsibility of making sure things are ok. They end up feeling ultra-responsible for the whole family, but particularly the younger siblings. So, they basically end up with all of the responsibilities of the adult, but without the knowledge and life experience to handle it. There's always a fear something is going to go wrong. Growing up that way can result in anxiety or depression.
Often couples will fight about alcoholism. My parents would accuse each other of being alcoholics. My mother hid it a lot better and quite likely has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with behaviors/symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (even after getting sober). My parents went to a marriage counselor in an attempt to save the marriage. My dad told me years later that my mother was very enthusiastic when the counselor was telling him he had a problem with alcohol. But once my dad brought up how much wine my mother drank (the woman could polish off an economy size bottle, alone in one night) and the counselor said she had a problem too, my mother became disinterested in counseling. My parents finally split when I was 12 and it was for the best.
There's a lack of supervision when the adults are too drunk to supervise kids properly. On my dad's side, it wasn't that bad, because we had a big extended group where the older ones looked out for the littler ones. On my mom's side there were times where it was like Lord of the Flies. I mentioned it in another post, one of my cousins once used my brother as a battering ram on a door (my other cousin & I were locked in a room to escape him) and knocked out a tooth.
A checked out parent isn't going to be vigilant and watchful about the behavior of other adults around their children. This can lead to abuse of the child as the parent isn't "there" to protect the child. I was fortunate enough not to deal with that.
But my parents tended to like to party with other people their own age. On more than one occasion, I literally had to step over passed out people. I drank a few times before college, but I was afraid to drink much. I didn't realize drinking could be "social" until I got to college.
Also, there's a fair amount of alcoholism in both my immediate and extended family. I have a number of friends who've grown up in alcoholic homes. I don't know statistics, but my experience has been that alcoholic parents usually don't just stay passively checked out. Either the alcohol lowers inhibitions to the point where they might abuse their children in various ways or they can't handle kids when hungover. Most people have probably had a hangover at some point in their lives. Imagine feeling that way with kids who want your attention. It's not surprising hung over parents will lose it on their kids. Not ok, but not surprising.
And people can change back and forth from check out, abuse and good parenting rapidly, without warning.
I couldn't find it, but awhile back, I remember reading sort of a backlash to the ACOA movement and one person wrote about how he or she did just fine with an alcoholic parent. It was part of the overall "resilency" factor.
I think it depends on a lot of factors. Other adults in the kids' life for one (my grandma and other relatives on my dad's side insulated me from some of this, as well as a kindly neighbor couple). Do they have a postive way of getting attention? I did well in school, for the most part and that was a positive way for me to get adult attention. How independent is the person? My mother swears I was independent since infancy. Supposedly she dropped me off at kindergarten and I was excited and she was the one crying. I was a latchkey kid from 9 on with the exception of one year when my mother stayed home with us when we moved. I was watching my younger brother after school and many nights by 13. Even being fairly independent, I still have a lot of anxiety. So I imagine how much more anxious kids who are less independent would be under the circumstances.
I have some thoughts on the recovery movement, but this post is farily long as it is, so I will write a separate post about that.
And yet here you are trolling. The number of threads you've made is irrelevant. This one is trolling, plain and simple.
Magritte25's books are good references...if you were really interested in getting an answer as to how/why ACOAs can be messed up. But you're not. Trying to compare the pain of two different groups of maltreated people is not only meaningless, but bound to cause nothing but trouble. And you know it.
Please don't post here, ok? There are threads on sexual abuse, incest and other more controversial topics. I don't have time to read entire BOOKS and don't feel like paying B&N $15 to learn why. CDF is meant to be a "window to the world." Many of these people have lapsed from my life, anyway, over time ... some have fortunately lapsed and a few UNfortunately have.
If someone who knows can add, please do so. And you could very well be someone qualified to answer without having experienced it.
Secrecy, acting like everything is ok when it's not, lying, not trusting your instincts because you are told your instincts are wrong, verbal, mental and emotional abuse...sometimes physical abuse. All of these things happen to ACoAs. ACoAs don't know what normal behavior is so they guess. ACoAs tend to overreact to changes, lie when they don't have to, they feel they are very different from other people, etc. ACoAs tend to be control freaks as a reaction to living in uncontrollable situations. Sometimes the alcoholic parent was ok, other times they weren't and you never knew when that change would happen. One time, joking around with Dad was ok but if you did the same exact thing another time, you'd get slapped in the face. ACoAs are also perfectionists because they were raised to believe that their behavior somehow triggered the alcoholic's drinking and/or the enabling parent's distance.
Again, this is hard to melt down to one or two paragraphs because it is a pattern of behavior that we are describing. We are talking about years of being told that what you know to be true, is not. "Dad's not drunk." "Everything is fine." "No, we aren't fighting." "Everyone's parents fight like this." You know these things aren't true, yet the one or two people in anyone's life who are supposed to tell the truth are lying to your face.
I'm not sure what type of answer you are looking for here. I can't quantify my experience against someone else's life. I know what the experience of growing up with an alcoholic father and an enabling, distant mother did to me. Did I fare better or worse than other children? Frankly, that is the least of my worries. I only worry about how I can be a better person, how I can learn from my own past and be better for my children and my DH.
Please don't post here, ok? There are threads on sexual abuse, incest and other more controversial topics. I don't have time to read entire BOOKS and don't feel like paying B&N $15 to learn why. CDF is meant to be a "window to the world." Many of these people have lapsed from my life, anyway, over time ... some have fortunately lapsed and a few UNfortunately have.
If someone who knows can add, please do so. And you could very well be someone qualified to answer without having experienced it.
Surely if you have time for CDF, you have time to indulge in a few websites. As I said, answering your question quickly is not possible due to the nature of alcoholism.
I have some thoughts on the recovery movement, but this post is farily long as it is, so I will write a separate post about that.
Thank you for your maturity and openness.
The reason why I even penned this thread was because of some people I met beginning in college, but mostly because of a bizarre date I went on. I was set up with this attractive professional woman living in SF's East Bay. I knew in advance her father was a successful professional, but an alcoholic. I got there, she showed me her place, we mapped out a route of things to see and a restaurant to go to across the Golden Gate. Everything was fine. My only faux pas MIGHT have been that I chatted with some Brazilian tourists for about 2 minutes to practice my Portuguese. As we are driving back through San Francisco, she began acting like a child. It was creepy. As we drove by some place, I said "cool building." She asked like a 6 y.o. "What is that?" She worked in San Francisco...the building was City Hall. She then said she wanted to go home, like a child. I took her home, thinking good riddance, despite what you look like. About 3 weeks later, she calls me to talk and also ask me the number of the lady who set us up. This is irrational. It's her friend who she routinely talks to.
Post traumatic stress disorder. Being raised by a battle worn father who drank on weekends was not great...I never blamed him for his state- The world made him the injured man he was...I loved my dad...whether he drank or not...One thing that I knew was that he loved me--- also - He was an intelligent person - being around an intelligent drunk beats the alternative- being around a stupid drunk person.
Why is ACOA and AA and whatnot at the very forefront of recovery efforts for offspring of alcoholics?
By this, I take it you mean 12 step programs right? Before I proceed, I want to make something very, very clear:
AA & OTHER 12 STEP PROGRAMS HAVE HELPED A LOT OF PEOPLE. IF IT WORKS FOR YOU, GREAT, MORE & A HIGHER POWER TO YOU. I have no quibble with 12 Step programs, but I don't think they're for everyone, nor should they be the end all/be all of dealing with alcoholism and the trauma and emotional issues which can result from growing up in or being in a co-dependent situation.
When AA started in the 30s, therapy was both expensive and stigmatized. AA made certain therapeutic aspects readily available for people who wouldn't have had access otherwise. It's free or low cost (a collection is taken for the meeting space rental). It's available in areas which don't have a lot of selection in therapists. It's frequent (meetings to choose from) and local (in churches, etc).
I don't have a problem with 12 Step programs. AA helped my dad become sober and gave us back the loving, caring father we had lost for awhile. My brother tends to do better at staying out of legal trouble when he's in it.
I went to an ACOA group during my senior year of college, it didn't operate by 12 step principles. It was run by a counselor from the campus counseling center and a graduate student training to be a counselor. I found it really helpful and probably would have continued with it had it not been for graduation. I've seen 2 therapists over the last 3 years dealing with a family estrangement issue (still seeing the 2nd one).
I went to one AlAnon meeting in my 20s in grad school. The organizer seemed to have his entire social life revolve around meetings. He would go to AlAnon meetings in lieu of social activities, even non-alcoholic ones like going to the movies. He had us go around the room and do the "Hi, my name is [name], I'm the [relationship] of an alcoholic. I departed from the script to say both my parents, 3 out of 4 grandparents and an aunt were alcoholics. My brother at that time hadn't declared himself an alcoholic, so he wasn't in the tally. This dude actually corrected me and said, "No, you're supposed to say, I'm [exscapegoat's real name] and I'm the daughter of an alcoholic. He also spent part of the meeting emphasizing the confidentiality rule. Fair enough, but he made a big point about how some other people from a meeting he used to go to would point and laugh when they saw him. I didn't feel comfortable, listened to my gut and didn't go back again.
When I was first dealing with my family estrangement, I was referred to a counselor. Because of my family history, I was referred to someone who specialized in co-dependency/addiction. This guy was extremely gung ho about meetings. Now, my mother and brother both met their spouses in AA. There would be a lot of jargon/slogan speak when we got together.
To give you an idea of how rigid my family can be, before he met my SIL, my brother met the other love of his life in AA. She partied a lot in college, resulting in a very frightening experience while trying a drug. Forget which one. She was hard core about meetings at first to stay sober. But sobriety got easier as she shifted her priorities. She still went to meetings, but less frequently. She didn't use alcohol or other drugs. My brother broke up with her because he didn't think she went to meetings enough. We're talking she sometimes couldn't make a meeting because she had a shift to work at her job.
I have had a number of AA sayings spouted back at me in an attempt to silence me when I've tried to assert myself or set reasonable boundaries. I explained this to the therapist.
Yet he still wanted me to go to AlAnon. So I agreed to go to several meetings. I did get some good concepts from it, such as detachment. But there were also things that gave me a bad gut feeling.
Sure, the Serenity prayer is voluntary. But what if the entire room is saying it and you're not? Sure reciting the steps is volunatary. But I never saw anyone skip it when we'd go around the room saying them. It was a bad combo with my experience being scapegoated
There was also a weird undercurrent at some meetings I attended. One poor woman who'd suffered a lot of abuse would cry whenever it was her turn to "share". I noticed some people would roll their eyes when it was her turn. WTF? It was a whole 3 or 5 minutes (they had a timekeeper because of the size). Who does that in a support group?
Some would do this weird passive aggressive crap where they would say something that was about someone else in the group, but very vaguely. Despite the rules about not talking about what happened in the meetings, people would talk about it.
Another issue with 12 step programs is you're encouraged to find a sponsor and listen to that person. But they have no outside training or accountability. Power/authority, without training/accountability strikes me as a very dangerous and volatile mix. Some people have good sponsors. My dad and brother were both lucky on this count. But then, what if you wind up with someone like my mother for a sponsor? Can you imagine someone vulnerable looking for help ending up with a sponsor like that?
I think it's a very serious issue because a lot of people with Personality Disorders also have co-morbid addiction. So you could end up in a 12 step program with a Narcissist or Sociopath as your sponsor. And due to the organization being de-centralized, you have no real recourse unless something outright illegal happens.
So, I shared my concerns with my therapist after I went to the agreed upon amount of meetings. He didn't directly pressure me, but he kept putting it down as one of my goals. Eventually, I changed therapists (long story) and found one who specializes in Personality Disorders.
I got curious and started looking around to see if my concerns were valid. Here's some of what I found:
A number of people seem to have had bad experiences with "Thirteenth Stepping" (experienced members preying on newcomers). But a lot of that is blog entries vs. news stories, so I'm not including that in the links. I'm not saying every single one of them is telling the truth, but given what people would have to go through to "prove" it, I think it's underreported and the structure of 12 step programs doesn't lend itself to reporting/investigating it. And may, in fact discourage people from reporting it. I know they do the no new relationships/changes bit at the beginning of meetings. But when established, respected people at meetings go against that, it could confuse newcomers.
I knew a girl in college. Every time I went to her house, her Dad was blitzed. At the time, I had never known alcoholics, so I just thought he was a rambunctious talkative Southern curmudgeon. I figured it out later, in my mid-20s, that he was an alcoholic. She earned a 3.7 in biology and everything ran pretty well in her life. She did reneg on med school because she didn't want that level of commitment, and wound up unfortunately marrying a guy cut from her Dad's cloth. Incidentally, her Dad died in his early 60s.
I know people who are much worse off as a result of ACTIVE as opposed to PASSIVE abuse. I'm not looking to read books, here. A paragraph or two will do.
How about just a sentence? It's not a competition of "who had it worse".
I know people who are much worse off as a result of ACTIVE as opposed to PASSIVE abuse. I'm not looking to read books, here. A paragraph or two will do.
There was a lot of emotional/verbal abuse (repeated, unprovoked screaming, yelling, cursing, shaming & belittling) by my mother. The physical abuse (vs. regular, typical physical discipline for that time period) wasn't very frequent, mostly because I would try to appease her by doing what she asked and even trying to anticipate (doing extra cleaning, etc. around the home) what she might want. It took me about 2 years in therapy to even realize she was outright abusive. I kept thinking since I didn't get physically abused often, I wasn't abused.
A more passive example would be the year she stayed home alone (despite multiple invites) after we were with my dad for Christmas Day. The split was right near Christmas and I was 12. She drank alone until she passed out. My dad dropped us off. I walked into my mother passed out and my younger brother started to cry it wasn't Christmas with my mom passed out. I tried to conole him, but he was inconsolable and went to bed and cried himself to sleep.
My reaction was really weird. I felt sad, lonely and like I couldn't help my brother. Then I realized I couldn't do anything about it and turned the tree lights on and figured I'd at least get my pick of tv shows (I was often vetoed or mocked). But it was pre-cable, so everything was repeats (or at least to my recollection). I got out a new book I'd received as a gift and read until my normal bed time. Then I turned the lights off on the tree, checked the locks, etc. and went to bed.
My mother wasn't, IMO, abusing me or my brother that day. The woman had a huge nightmare of a childhood, was going through a marriage split and was pretty much self-medicating. But I do remember that pretty vividly. There's a whole bunch of Family of Origin drama which happened around the time of the holidays. It does influence how I feel about the holidays, but I've worked on replacing it with healthier and happier celebrations. I still feel occasional sadness about it though sometimes.
I wouldn't even call that abuse. Possibly neglect, on both parents' parts. But it did have an impact. When you add incidents like that up over time, they have an effect on the kids. Some bounce back better than others. Some people would read my story and say, "well, at least you had lights and got Christmas presents" because their own childhood holidays were so much worse. Does that make sense?
Please don't post here, ok? There are threads on sexual abuse, incest and other more controversial topics. I don't have time to read entire BOOKS and don't feel like paying B&N $15 to learn why. CDF is meant to be a "window to the world." Many of these people have lapsed from my life, anyway, over time ... some have fortunately lapsed and a few UNfortunately have.
If someone who knows can add, please do so. And you could very well be someone qualified to answer without having experienced it.
I was married to an alcoholic who came from a house where his father was an alcoholic, and you can definitely see some of the oddities in ACOAs from the way they interact with others. For one thing, everything's a secret, even when there's no reason for it to be a secret. It's weird. I remember my former SIL telling me that she had moved a heavy box, which caused a place in her pelvic bone that had once cracked in an earlier auto accident to fracture again. But she hastily asked me not to tell her brother. She didn't want to "worry" him. Translation: Do not tell the alcoholic something "bad" because they might use that as an excuse to drink. Of course, the alcoholic is going to drink no matter what happens--happy, sad or in between and nothing anyone else does or says has any bearing on it. The ACOA still thinks that they have some power--or responsibility--to stop alcoholics from drinking. This same sister told me how as a child they watched their father knock their mother to the floor and repeatedly slam her head against the floor and drag it, trying to rip open her scalp on the nails that were sticking up from a recent carpet removal. I mentioned that to my husband, who said "Oh, that never happened. My sister makes up these stories all the time." But I know the timing of that story coincides with an uncle from New England picking up the mother and the kids and taking them to live on a farm for three months "for some reason" until the father came to get them, so I'm pretty sure this DID happen. Sometimes they are in complete denial about their parent's alcoholism. My ex always said his father was just "tough" because he knew he was going to die young. Anyone else would call his father ABUSIVE. His friends told me how mean his father was and that he was a drunk. My ex would not describe him that way. He just "liked his beer" and was tough.
The ACOA often takes the responsibility for others' drinking upon themselves. Conversely, they can also go the other way and have ZERO compassion for anyone. I remember reading about a woman whose mother was a drunk, and she was the person at her job to whom people came when they were injured and to fill out the incident reports. She said it was very hard for her to keep her mouth shut and not say, "Why didn't you just watch out where you were going?" She had no tolerance for accidents because in her world, accidents always happened when it was your own fault through drinking.
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