People often ask why I choose to tell people that I am an adult child of an alcoholic (ACoA) and that my mother’s substance use disorder really affected me. It’s a VERY personal topic, after all. This is an important decision for ACoAs; for many, it is best for them to keep that part of their lives private and that is totally A-OK. Do what is best for you.
For me, I simply could not make progress in healing and creating the life I want without making this important recognition. When I got educated about addiction, I realized that I had many traits tied to the ACoA syndrome. It was 100 percent necessary for me to declare, “Yes, I’m Jody Lamb. I am an adult child of an alcoholic!” This freed me to tell myself: I am totally normal. Despite the things I feel and the challenges I face, I am going to heal, reprogram my brain and create the life I want! I needed to recognize all the things that happened and then move forward.
In 2009, when I started on my journey, I went looking for people writing and sharing about their own ACoA self-discoveries online and I found very few doing so. I decided to begin blogging about being an ACoA because I knew millions of people shared a variation of my story and someone might find it helpful.
Today, I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t have that important declaration. This led to also sharing about it on social media, creating a YouTube channel with an ACoA topics focus and publishing an ACoA book, “7 Things That Change Everything,” that I am so grateful is available for free download, worldwide.
Now that I’m 10 years into my journey and I’ve made so much progress healing and creating the life I want, people have asked, why carry the ACoA label with you at this point? Other have commented that calling yourself an ACoA can cripple your ability to move forward. They say that label is like keeping a dark cloud over you and that it can make people say, these are the cards in life I was dealt, and all these terrible experiences have given me a heap of issues. Therefore, I will never have the life I want.
I suppose that can happen, but I’ve met far more ACoAs who would never allow having an alcoholic parent to become a pass to give up. Rather, they take control of their own lives by recognizing that past experiences shaped how they think and live and then they do what they need to do to heal and change.
Sharing that I was deeply affected by my mother’s alcoholism is an important reminder that…
- I’ve accomplished SO much, despite everything I
experienced and the very normal way my brain was programmed. - Millions of other people experienced very
similar things in life and may believe they are alone. Sharing my story could
help people. It is very important to me that I share my story to give back to
the people who’ve inspired me with their stories. I want people to know that I
am living proof that you can heal and create the life you may not be able to
even imagine today. I am one of the many ACoAs who’ve healed and created the
life I want.
Maybe one day I’ll decide to remove those four letters from my social profiles and writing but I doubt it.
I will always be an adult child of an alcoholic – one who healed and created the life she wants.
May you be well in your journey. I wish you peace and serenity.
Here is the video version of this post:
