ACOA

33 minutes late.

Last Friday, it was 33 minutes after when I normally start the commute to the office.

It needs to be Saturday.

I tightened the lid on my travel mug, patted Rocco goodbye and hurried to my car – computer bag, lunch bag, purse and coat all swinging from my arm.

Normally by this time of the workday, I am in serious work mode. To-do list recaps. Mental prep for meetings.

Instead, that day, I drove down the road thinking only of two people: Mom and Dad.

Over the last several months, I’ve had time to consider the resentment I feel for what my parents did and didn’t do that had a negative impact on me.

See, on this adult child of an alcoholic journey, one of my biggest challenges is resentment. I’ve long held onto resentment toward my mother and my father.

I was about 14 when it arrived so it’s been with me for 20 years now. I’ve always been resentful that my mother chooses not to get help. I resented how much joy I sacrificed to clean up her messes. I resented that she treated my sister and me the way she did. I resented that my father never got help for all of us and that he allowed Mom’s alcoholism-induced abuse to occur. I resented that I was the adult of the household by age 10. I resented that my 20s were as stressful and un-free as they were because of the continued chaos that flowed from Mom’s alcoholism when my sister was still so young.

Most of this resentment was directed to my mother. But after my dad died suddenly three years ago, I have since often wondered if he’d still be alive today if he’d acted to work on his co-dependency and help all us of get educated about Mom’s alcoholism decades ago. I resented his way of dealing. I think I resented his death, too. I miss him every day.

For a while now, I’ve been realizing that I need to let go and forgive.

But I wondered, how do you forgive an alcoholic parent? Is it even possible for a child of an alcoholic to forgive an alcoholic mother or father?

Over the last several months in my ACOA journey, I’ve realized that Dad – extraordinarily good-hearted man he was – was ill, too. Only now can I see that he was co-dependent to an extreme degree and completely uneducated about the effects of alcoholism. He absolutely did the best he knew how to cope.

As for Mom, she is extremely ill. While various emotions remain, I no longer feel resentment toward her.

I never actively worked on this resentment emotion specifically. I guess it has just slowly dissipated as I’ve focused on me and my life. Forgiveness is not for Mom or Dad, it’s for me. I realized I needed to give forgiveness so that I may move forward.

Eight years ago (the peak of my resentment) – heck, even two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined a time when I could wholeheartedly forgive Mom and Dad for the effects of Mom’s alcoholism on all of us.

But that morning, it was all very clear. I had already forgiven Mom and Dad.

So I called Mom.

Mom: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi. Don’t read into this because I’m not having a premonition about anything happening to anyone. I know life is unpredictable and uncertain and there is something I’ve realized that you need to know. The life you’ve had – it’s been very hard. I know the battles you face. For all the negative impact this has had on me, I forgive you.”

Silence.

Mom: “Okay.”

Me: “Okay. I need to hang up now.”

Mom: “Okay.”

You know how you can tell when someone is smiling when they speak – even only one word. She was smiling.

I was not. I was on the verge of vomiting .

Yesterday, I visited Dad’s grave and declared the same message.

I wish I could report that officially forgiving my parents felt like zillions of pounds were lifted from my shoulders. But it felt more like finishing a race. I was glad to reach the milestone but I felt completely fried. It feels draining, foreign and strangely, melancholy.

Forgiving them doesn’t change the fact that Mom and Dad were dealt these rotten cards in life, which dealt me and my sister similar, rotten cards. It doesn’t change the fact that I spent my whole life wrapped up in my mother’s addiction and tirelessly trying to fix her – fix everything!

This is sad.

But recognizing forgiveness frees up energy that can now be allocated to positive energy.

It’s already happening.

Today, I realized that there is another person who deserves forgiveness: me.

I need to forgive myself for everything I’ve done and not done that has negatively impacted my life – the guilt, the endless pursuit of satisfaction, the shame, the inability to care for myself , the pain I’ve endured. I am a victim of an illness, too – a 100% normal response to the world I entered.

This is a new, exciting, challenging part of the journey. It’s a long road, my friends.

I hope you are well.

How bad can it really be? Just how many kids have alcoholic parents?

Most people do not know how HUGELY COMMON it is for children here in the U.S. and around the world to live with an alcoholic adult.

When the topic of parental alcoholism comes up in my conversations with people, they are usually floored when I share the very stats that astonished me when I began learning about alcoholism.

Per a 2012 Reuters story on survey data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), “on average, 7.5 million children — about 10.5 percent of the country’s under-18 population — lived with a parent abusing alcohol during any given year.”

The National Association for Children of Alcoholics reports that one in four American children lives with at least one adult who abuses alcohol.

It is an extremely common, global problem and it is 2017. Yet it is such a taboo, misunderstood topic – still.

When my middle-grade novel was launched, I went to several schools and spoke to hundreds of children for free.  I gave away copies by the dozen to social workers and teachers. At many of those talks, I was not permitted to discuss the fact that the main character’s mother is an alcoholic. “It’s too sensitive of a topic,” one teacher told me. She feared that some parents may have drinking problems and the children would discuss the problem with them – because of my story.

Yes, my friends, that’s reality. It’s 2017 and we are still hiding one of the most destructive problems. The elephant in the room is still there. Most people think of alcoholics as the drunks – the homeless guys who slept outside of the liquor store – the ones who refuse help.  They don’t think about the moms and dads with children, mortgages and careers.

Friends have told me stories of parents showing up at school events clearly wasted – they have slurred speech, they’re walking funny and they’re arguing with basketball referees. “One of the families my kid goes to school with, has a dad with a drinking problem,” they tell me and go on to share sad details of a public display of drunken chaos.

“Your kid’s school has more than one family with an addicted parent,” I explain. “That’s just the only one you’ve seen with your own eyes.”

It is rarely obvious when a child has a parent with alcoholism.

Instead, parental alcoholism exists under the radar. We do not often see the signs because they are hidden so well by the kids and the parents.

My fifth-grade teacher said, “Jody, you have such a perfect mother.”

I would probably have been the last student she’d expect to have been coping with the chaos of my mother’s alcoholism.

Children of alcoholics become extraordinarily great at hiding any evidence of the effects of alcoholism. They are excellent liars and brilliant actors.

Just because they are “functioning,” alcoholic parents’ behavior has deep impacts on the children. As a girl, I was in a constant state of confusion. Sometimes, my mother showered me with love. Other times, she made me feel worthless. Thus, I blamed her drinking on me not being good enough and on me being a burden on her. And it became my responsibility and lifelong goal to fix her – to save her. Children recognize WAY MORE than we adults recognize. They see more, they hear more, the perceive and the internalize so much information.

Not only are we (society) not recognizing parental alcoholism, we may be unknowingly encouraging it. I’ve worked in marketing and PR for 14 years. As time on social media has become one of our most beloved pastimes, I see people reaching out to their social networks for emotional support and reassurance that their reliance on drinking to cope with life is not only OK, it’s what everyone is doing.

In this Minnesota Post story, Cecelia Jayme, director of clinical services at Hazelden Betty Ford’s Center City campus, comments on this issue.

“‘It’s everywhere,’ Jayme said. ‘I see people posting on Facebook about how “Mommy needs her time out,” and adding these little wine-glass emojis. I see it on TV and in movies. This idea of women drinking as a way to cope with everyday life has become so normalized.”’

Almost every day, I see lighthearted posts with images of wine glasses described as “Mommy’s little helper” getting boatloads of likes.

I’ve wondered how this would have played out when I was a little girl, if social media had been around then. It is likely that if my mother had shared content about her drinking, it would have been awarded likes. After all, she was pretty, sweet, kind and fun and no one would have any idea that her drinking so negatively affected me and my sister. It is doubtful that anyone would have suspected that I was neglected, that I was constantly – and I mean constantly – worried about my mother’s drinking.

Today, in some (certainly not all) cases, are we (society) essentially, unknowingly liking people’s addictions?

Last year, a beautiful 25-year-old French woman – Louise Delage – appeared on Instagram. Within just a few months, she had thousands of followers. She symbolized freedom and spontaneity and relaxation. As an Entrepreneur writer described it, “She’s the girl women want to be and men want to be with,” he wrote. “She’s beautiful, charming, outgoing and mysterious.”

With every post, she earned hundreds of new followers. At nearly 50K followers, the bomb was dropped by Parisian ad agency, BETC.

The campaign, called “Like My Addiction,” sought to raise awareness of alcoholism among young people. Society failed to see a depressed, addicted woman. This saddens me but doesn’t shock me. We just don’t see it, unless we’ve had a loved one with addiction.

Kids of alcoholics are abused, neglected and struggling in utter chaos. Parental alcoholism is occurring in every community, among every race, every socioeconomic background. Many COAs like me become mini adults as a very early age and quickly switch roles with their parents. This video sums this up well. The scenes here are so like some of my memories, it is painful to watch but so real and helpful in raising awareness, I’m glad to see it.

This is so moving ? pic.twitter.com/2dgx8UIJyT

— BBC The Social (@bbcthesocial) February 16, 2017

I hope people become more mindful and aware of the reality of parental alcoholism.

There is so much unseen in carefully edited social media posts but the children, they see/feel/live it all.

6:30 pm was the start of my sister’s Freshman Orientation meeting for parents at the high school. Dad was working. Mom was not expected to attend because at that point, she could be counted on for zero parental responsibilities.

So, I hurried from work and arrived in the packed high school parking lot a few minutes late. I was loading my purse with a pad of paper and pen when I noticed another car pull into the space three spots over. I was grateful that I wouldn’t be the only “parent” arriving late for the meeting. I nearly vomited when I saw my mother unfolding herself out of the driver’s seat.

She was completely wasted – not tipsy, not a little buzzed, utterly wasted. I could tell by her facial expression and the slow way she moved, exactly how drunk she was.

Panic enveloped my body. I HAD to stop her from going inside of the school and humiliating herself and our family. I HAD to get the keys and get her home safely.

I opened my car door.

“MOM!” I shouted.

Startled, it took a few seconds for her to recognize me.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” She screamed back with that familiar tone. (She often became angered whenever I had to step in and serve as my sister’s Parent Stand-in, which was frequent. In many ways, this is extremely sad to me. I know the anger was rooted in the fact that she wanted to be a good parent but the alcoholism had hold of her and she just couldn’t be a good parent.)

There was a man across the lot walking to the school’s entrance. He stopped and looked back at my mom and then at me as he heard our exchange. But then he continued inside of the school. I felt grateful that there were no other witnesses.

I hurried from my car without shutting the door and said, “I can’t believe this!”

She knew I’d try to take her keys and tell her to get into my car so I could drive her home. She quickly got back into her car. I was barely out of the way in time as she backed her car out of the space and squealed out of the lot.

My sister was at practice for sports or theater – I can’t recall which. I stood there in the now-empty parking space for a few seconds, debating whether I should call the police or not to inform them that my mother was impaired and driving. I felt I might pass out from the familiar punch of those mixed emotions: confusion/hurt/anger/fear.

I called my dad, reported the news, hung up when he offered nothing more than a defeated, disappointed but not surprised “well, that’s great,” and then I went into the meeting as if nothing happened. Is this nuts or what?

As the principal gave his presentation to attentive parents, I thought of the lady I saw jogging on the shoulder of the road minutes before I arrived at the school. Mom would take that same road back to the house. I had a hard time breathing. I spent the rest of the event overcome with fear that my mother would hurt herself or someone else on the road that night.

Pretty screwed up. These events with my mother potentially hurting other people were so traumatizing to me. I thought about them for days, weeks, months and years. In fact, I will never forget them. They sting.

To this day, I carry extreme guilt for not alerting the police when I knew how dangerous she was behind the wheel that night. I was 28 – with two years into my study about addiction, alcoholism and my common ACOA issues and way of thinking.

I knew better and yet I made the wrong decision because it was easier to protect Mom. This memory stings – big time.

I also feel guilty for pushing away many friends and family members over the years. You see, when you are busy being obsessed with the alcoholic in your life, it’s hard to balance everything and everyone. I hurt myself and many people who care about me.

When I walked into an Al-Anon meeting for the first time eight years ago, I felt I was 100% a victim of parental alcoholism. A bad set of cards. An unfortunate casualty of a horrific situation. It took me awhile to realize that I had, in fact, totally made our family situation worse by picking up the pieces and hold everything together during my mother’s most destructive periods as an alcoholic. This prevented my mom and dad from hitting rock bottom. They knew they always had me being the responsible adult. There was never any real reason to change. It wasn’t until I took those steps to help myself that I realized I had made A LOT of bad decisions. Amid the chaos, I couldn’t see clearly because I was not taking care of myself. I was a foolish, unknowingly destructive martyr…

When I started getting educated about alcoholism and learning that being a COA (child of an alcoholic) had caused many things to heal from as a grownup, I realized my faults and my wrongs and I took some (but not all) steps to fix them or make amends. (BTW, this step of admitting responsibility and acting to make up for your wrongdoings is part of the Al-Anon Family Group’s step program. If you haven’t explored Al-Anon as an option for you in your journey, I recommend that you try it. Commit to going to six meetings and then quit going if it is not worthwhile for you. It was very helpful for in the beginning of my journey.)

I cannot make up for things I did or did not do in the past. I can only focus on the future – being brave enough to make the harder choices.

This journey is hard, my friends. Some days, I doubt I’m making any progress at all.  Others days, fortunately, more frequent, I can see clearly just how far I’ve come.

I hope you’re well on your journey.

January.

The get-my-sh%%-together, resolutions month.

Last weekend, in a caffeine-fueled haze, I created a vision board on my bedroom door. I’d just completed another self-help, motivational bestseller. The author strongly recommended a vision board to stay focused on goals. So the vision board was made with a visual collage of all of the ways I want to contribute to the world – all the things I want to do, all the things I want to be. Epic. All epic. I felt accomplished and determined and clear on my priorities and accountability to see to it that I achieve ALL of these things. Like, stat.

Naturally, I woke up on Monday morning with my longtime soulmate at my side: Anxiety.

By 9 am, I was sitting in my office – disgusted with myself. Defeated before I even started.

I am so not good enough. I can’t do anything I want to do. I’m basic and boring and not capable of achieving anything on the vision board. I am already failing and will always fail because I am me.

And then recognizing my anxiety compounded my sense of defeat.

See, typical me. Freaked out by my own doing. My own worst enemy.

I really don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with myself and my life – no matter what.

My theme song:

Ever feel like that?

I know this is a common challenge for adult children of alcoholics, especially the eldest child.

How freaking sad!

We kids of alcoholics grow up to be adults and proceed with our lives in tireless pursuit of perfection and with it, a glorious holy grail of satisfaction.  Yet it never arrives and we never discover it, no matter how hard we try.

Our family and friends may shake their heads and list all the reasons why we’re ridiculous for our lack of satisfaction.

You nod because you know but there’s no changing how you feel about yourself.

A long-term effect of the unsteady environments caused by parental alcoholism.

I could give you 50 specific memories of mother’s wish-washy, on-and-off, utterly confusing pattern of loving reassurance (“I’m proud of you!”) and lack of reassurance (ignoring me – disconnecting for days, ignoring achievements). This situation programmed my brain this way.

So after nearly one week of staring at my vision board and swimming in internal disgust/panic/disappointment today I realized:

Desire for extreme epic-ness is paralyzing. Maybe our overachiever ACOA goals do more harm than good in our lives? Super ambition is supposed to be a very good thing but it’s only given me a bunch of half-done projects and list of unmet goals because I couldn’t make them perfect. It’s not a perhaps – it’s a fact. When I think about doing something, it must be epic or nothing at all.

This kind of thing occurs to a lesser extent with most people, I suppose. One month into the new year, I’m already hearing people’s complaints of their new-year resolution struggles. They’re always talking about their gym memberships that go to waste and the hour-long yoga classes that they never get to because they can’t fit into their schedules. Then they feel guilty for the broken plans. Mind, body and spirit takes a hit and they feel disappointed in themselves. But they seem to get over it quickly. I can’t get over it.

Maybe the only choices for us perfectionist ACOAs are:

1. Pursue an endless list of goals and just deal with the lack of satisfaction for the rest of our lives
2. Decide to just to do small, un-epic but meaningful things.

I can’t do everything epic. I hate this! Yet another thing I’ve long wanted to control but cannot.

Something is better than nothing. Start somewhere.

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel truly satisfied with myself and how I’m living this life but escaping the paralyzing grips of perfectionism sure sounds epic.

This is among the tallest hurdles in my journey.

Take good care of yourself.

The police officers were standing in the living room. They had pity on their faces – my worst nightmare. I wiped away tears as I described my mother’s patterns of drinking binges. Fear and shame enveloped me. I’d been on the verge of vomiting for hours – just as I had hundreds of times before because of Mom’s drinking. But that day had topped them all. 16 hours earlier, Mom had taken off and left my kid sister home alone. My dad had driven all over town searching for her. We all feared the worst. That’s when Mom stumbled into the house, right past the police officers and cursed at me for alerting the police. My fear morphed into relief and then quickly, 100% shame.

I couldn’t look at the sympathetic police officers as she stood across the room, calling me terrible names. I just stared at Mom as she hurled those sharp words at me. I was so humiliated that they had front row seats to our reality…to see what we endured…that I couldn’t fix my mom. I felt responsible for my mother’s behavior, for the worry and hurt my family felt, the work she caused the police officers. The shame was due because I felt Mom was an extension of me, a reflection of our family. 11 years since that moment, I still feel ashamed when I replay that vivid memory in my mind. Unfortunately, I’ve had a few more experiences with the police because of my mother’s actions while drinking.

Interestingly, every time, I feel a little bit less shame. It’s still there – strong, but nothing like the shame I felt that terrible day in my parents’ living room.

Why? Because I’ve come to acknowledge the fact that my mother’s alcoholism has nothing to do with me. We are two entirely separate people. She is ill and does not want help.

Shame causes unnecessary weight. We’re a whole lot freer when we learn to lose it.

Cheers to the journey in this new year.

Take good care of yourself.