Growing up with an alcoholic mother, we had an isolated life. Mom made it that way to accommodate her drinking. I spent a lot of time alone – reading and writing. I loved writing because it enabled me to create stories and characters I could control. There was beautiful predictability and stability that didn’t exist in my real life.

Most of my classmates were into other things – video games, sports and even back then, I remember feeling weird. Different. Not normal. So, I never spoke about how much I loved writing and reading…and being alone. I was embarrassed to share that.

In high school, I stopped writing and reading – the two activities that gave me so much joy. Instead, I tried hard to be normal. Elusive normal! I spent my time doing normal teenager stuff. This continued into college and as a young adult. I was too busy balancing everything, including practically raising my little sister after Mom’s alcoholism dramatically worsened. But I felt extreme pressure to do common grownup stuff in the little bit of free time that I had.

I remember being about 25 and my friend kept inviting me to get togethers with her friends. You need to be more social, she’d say. Bless her heart for being such a great friend. And so, I would go and sit around a bonfire for hours while her friends got drunk or I’d sit in a bowling alley making conversation about the traffic or that yes, I really ought to try that new restaurant in town. But all the while, I’d think, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??!!” I’d go home and then think about what a weirdo I am. I should want to relax with fellow human beings. This is what grownups do. I’m going to end up an old hermit cat lady.

When I was 26, at my rock bottom, I started writing again. I joined local writers’ groups, went to writing workshops and joined organizations. Around this time, I also got active in learning about alcoholism. I went to Al-Anon meetings. I met so many inspiring and amazing people. I was SOCIAL! They inspired me, they encouraged me, they made me feel more normal. People in my family and at work would ask about weekend plans, I’d feel embarrassed to admit that I was attending a writer’s workshop, doing volunteer work or doing some other uncommon activity. They always seemed slightly concerned that I wasn’t doing what they considered normal R & R. I always felt they wanted me to say I planned to sit around on a boat with people or lounge by a bonfire for half the weekend. 34 years of feeling so weird!!!!

Recently, something happened to change my perspective. A TRUE ACoA journey milestone. My friend invited me to a day at her lake house. They had a house full of friends and I really need to get out and about. I abandoned my plans for that Saturday and I drove an hour to her cottage and arrived in the backyard and introduced myself to everyone and learned the rules of their lawn game and made conversation for 45 minutes and then heard this in my mind: I’d rather be writing or reading or hiking.

So, I told my friend: I must go. I’m sorry.

I have different interests and am free to spend my time how I want it.

HOW FLIPPING FREEING THIS IS!

I want to spend my time around people who inspire me, who want to do more and who are called to do great things. All the times I’ve given time to what I want to do, I’ve jumped out of my comfort zone and attended events and joined groups in which I met amazing people.

I’ve spent all these years feeling weird and anti-social when it’s simply that I’m not around the people I want to be social with and I been forcing myself to do things I don’t want to do.

I’M DONE FEELING GUILTY FOR LIVING HOW I WANT TO LIVE.

I don’t have to sit at the lake house and I don’t have to take a pottery class and I don’t have to worry about my ovaries aging – I don’t want to have my own babies anyway!

Today, I wrote all day. By myself. I didn’t feel guilty about it.

I hope you trust yourself and your intuition about how to spend your time and live your life.

Related video

Like many adult children of alcoholics and other people who’ve grown up in chaotic, dysfunctional environments, I’ve landed in grownup land in a helper role. I am the go-to person when there’s a problem.

It’s super difficult for me to recognize when doing or not doing something is TERRIBLE for me because it’s usually wonderful for other people. I don’t think of the impact on me, organically. I’ve had to train my brain to consider me in the decision making. In my ACoA healing journey, I’ve recognized that the best decisions I’ve made in my life felt wrong – really selfish and against my sense of duty to save the day for everyone.

Since I know that my only responsibility in life is to take good care of me, I think of this simple decision question to help me make decisions:

Is this good for me?

If yes, do it.

If no, don’t it.

No matter how it feels.

I hope you are well. As always, take good care.

In 2009, I needed an escape from my out-of-control life. I didn’t see a way out of the gripping sense of responsibility over my alcoholic mother, my co-dependent father and my young sister. I had to keep going. But I couldn’t smile anymore. For the first time in my 26 years, I finally realized that I couldn’t fix Mom and I couldn’t cover up my sadness or disappointment in how grownup felt. It was my rock bottom. Only then did I start my healing journey.

As a girl, I loved writing stories. So from that rock-bottom point, I enrolled in a community college creative writing course for fun. Out quickly came a story of a girl named Easter Ann with an alcoholic mother. Writing the story was cathartic. I felt more hopeful and more like the grownup me I hoped to become. I felt free-er.

My instructor Jane Ratcliffe said, “Keep going. You really must keep going.” She asked me to read the first chapter aloud to my classmates. A young man, dressed all in black and seemingly angry at the world (and having to go to class) said: “I totally connect with that character. Brings me back to what I had to go through with my dad. This story must be told. That’s a book there.” If not for their encouragement, this story may have been a forgotten homework assignment.

Before long, I had written the full Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool manuscript – the kind of story I wish someone had written and given to little-kid me. I discovered very few books for kids that included anything about parental alcoholism. Alcoholism and addiction in families affects several children in every classroom, in every city, in every country. How could there be so few books about it?

For that reason, I felt Easter’s story had to be a real, live book. I joined local writers’ groups and national associations for children’s book writers. I edited and attended workshops. The story was rejected by dozens of publishers. The NYC-based agents and editors said the topic was “too niche” and suggested that I downplay the parental alcoholism element and focus more on the bullying and friendship themes.

They didn’t believe in the message or the mission. I almost gave up but my sister encouraged me. I wanted to set a good example for her so I kept trying. Finally, in 2012, a small publishing company just got it. Scribe Publishing Company published Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool, a middle-grade novel for ages 8-13. I am forever grateful for their belief in the message and in me.

Various news outlets and bloggers kindly spread the news. I heard from people around the world who shared their personal stories and gifted me encouragement to continue writing about my experience as an ACoA. “It’s so needed,” they said.

Over the last five years, I’ve met thousands of young and adult children of alcoholics around the world. In school visits, I’ve spoken with kids about writing, my book and my experience growing up with an alcoholic mother. All those kids were inspiring but one visit left a mark on my soul. I went to a school for kids who’d experienced trauma; “emotional challenges,” the principal said. A bright, bubbly 9-year-old girl told me all about her love of writing, reading and her plans for grownup life. She was the most mature and enthusiastic 9-year-old girl I had ever met. Then she leaned in and said, “I never want to leave school, Miss Lamb. Every day, when I get off the bus, my stomach hurts. I don’t know how my mom and her boyfriend are going to be. Because before when they were not good, they hit me. But when I get older, I don’t have to worry about that because I’ll have my own house and life.” She said it with the kind of confidence, determination and hope that I know with certainty she’ll make a great life. I think of this girl every time I think I’ve had a bad day.

When there are people like her in the world, how can you ever lose faith in the power of hope? I am so grateful for the people connections that have come from this book.

After five years, Scribe Publishing Company decided to focus on their non-fiction titles and graciously returned the rights to the book to me. This week, I’m celebrating the re-release of Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool through my own publishing company. I am so excited.

After a difficult few years after my loss of my father, I’m thrilled to be actively contributing to this cause again and making strides in my ACoA journey. I’m currently writing the first of several non-fiction books that I intend to make available for free to my fellow ACoAs.

Thank you so much for your inspiration on this journey.

Take good care.

I envy people who can easily “draw the line” between what is good for them and what is not.

For me, the boundaries are not neat lines at all. They are tangled, blurry and difficult to identify. That’s the way my child of an alcoholic (CoA) brain is programmed and why boundary setting is challenging.

But I know that boundary setting is CRITICAL to my ACoA journey. While I have a lot of work to do on this front, I have successfully a few boundaries with my alcoholic mother.

I won’t take phone calls from Mom when she’s been drinking. These conversations only left me upset and she rarely remembered them anyway. In the months after my father died, this was terribly hard for me to not answer her calls. I felt so guilty. She needed me. For three weeks after I told her about this boundary setting, she called me every night. She left angry messages about how selfish I am. Worse, she left messages in which she sobbed quietly into the phone. But after those three weeks, she finally respected the boundary and stopped the drunken phone calls.

For a long time after that, I called Mom every morning to say hello (a.k.a. making sure she was alive). Those calls gave me a sense of relief from the guilt of not talking to her the night before. But as I’ve continued with my ACoA healing journey and paid attention to my body and my self-care, I realized how much those early morning phone calls caused me anxiety. Sometimes she’d sound still intoxicated …or she’d be so hungover that she couldn’t even have a conversation like a functioning human being. After those conversations, I’d arrive at work already stressed. So I decided to reserve those calls for Saturday mornings. Now, I arrive at work feeling far free-er.

It’s a boundary that not long ago, I couldn’t have imagined being able to identify and adhere to.

I’ll celebrate this communication-with-Mom boundary as an adult child of an alcoholic milestone.

I hope you are well.

Three years ago, I’d relapsed in my ACoA recovery, triggered by my father’s sudden death. Years of study and learning erased from my mind in those horrific seconds after I discovered my father’s lifeless body. I thought, “Oh my God, my dad is gone.” Punch in the gut. Then I thought, “Oh my God, now I’m 100% responsible for Mom.” And the following statement may only be understood by fellow children of alcoholics: That second thought terrified me more than the first.

Within three weeks of that worst day of my life, I had moved out of my apartment and into my parents’ home because I had to be there for my sister…and I feared something horrific would happen without me there (i.e. Mom would burn the house down, drink and drive or intentionally or accidentally kill herself). All the while, I was working full time and spending the rest of my time figuring out my parents’ financial mess. It was all on me. Mom spiraled out of control. I didn’t sleep. I cried all the time.

My aunt and uncle urged me to see my counselor so I reluctantly set up a series of appointments with the husband of their yoga instructor (yeah, random). I was too miserable to refuse. My previous experiences with therapy were not helpful. But this counselor was an ACoA and an alcoholic with several years of sobriety. He just got it…and his questions made me think differently about my life and my whole situation. After three months in the extremely toxic environment with Mom, my sister and I packed up our stuff and moved out. I got back on the CoA healing journey.

I didn’t need the counselor’s visits after awhile. But I still think of his questions and suggestions years later. He once suggested that I place a photo of little-kid me on my bathroom mirror. This way, every morning, I would be reminded to be good to me now that I could be free. I needed to think of the little-kid in me to ensure I was taking good care of myself. This would guide my healthy decision making, he said.

I laughed. It seemed so ridiculous, so corny, so Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. 🙂

“Please just try for me,” he said.

So I did. I taped a photo of eight-year-old me onto my bathroom mirror.

Every time I saw that photo, I didn’t see me. I saw a little girl who’s counting on me. I remembered that little girl’s diary entries that detailed grand plans for grownup life. I remembered her immense hope, powerful belief in freedom and excitement about doing “something new every day, even if I have the flu.” I felt anger that she had to grow up so fast and take on adult responsibilities. I felt sadness. She’d be so disappointed in how grownup felt.

That inner-little-kid stuff – corny as it may seem at first introduction – is powerful. It inspired me. Maybe it will for you, too.

Today, I put little-kid Jody back on my refrigerator. She smiles for the world without trepidation or shame and wholeheartedly believes in her light.

I must live in the way that tiny girl intended to live these grownup years. I owe her that.

I hope you are living for little-kid you, too, and if you are not, I hope you find the courage and inspiration to start your healing journey.