Fellow adult children of alcoholics and anyone with dysfunctional families, there is a something you should know about: the law of attraction.

I believe it plays a major role in whether you have the life you want or not. The law of attraction says that your mind is more powerful than the external factors that you believe are defining your life.

Recommended reading:

• The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
• You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Cincero
• The law of attraction explained in simple terms
• Lisa A. Romano’s Adult Children of Alcoholics Law of Attraction in Action

 So, what is the law of attraction?

Here’s my interpretation: The law of attraction is a rule that applies to all things in the universe. It states that whatever you are giving your thoughts to, you are focusing precious energy on and therefore, you are creating a magnet. This magnet attracts more of what you are thinking about.

The common analogy shared is that you are like a radio broadcast tower. Your dominant thoughts are your frequency. With your thoughts, you are sending out signals to the universe. Whatever you send creates the frequency and you receive more of whatever that is.

Most people say that they already use positive thinking and prayers when they want something to happen. But they may not realize that in the process of doing that, they are unknowingly sending signals about what they don’t want.

The thing is when you focus on what you don’t want to happen, you’re confusing the universe. It only sees the images as the message. The terrible images of what you don’t want to happen play vividly in your mind like a movie. You feel the negative emotion. It’s easier to create these images because you likely experienced it firsthand before. When we create images of what we want to happen, we are generating the movie reels that the universe will use to deliver that to you.

For example, if you want your job interview to go well, you should imagine every detail of that positive interview – how the hiring manager laughs at your jokes, never looks away when you’re talking, asks exactly the questions you’re prepared to answer. You won’t think about the past job interviews that didn’t go well – the questions that tripped you up, the way the hiring manager looked away as you talked as if hoping you’ll wrap it up. Because if you say, “I don’t want that happen to them,” you’re unknowingly telling the universe, “Make that happen.” The more specific and detailed you are in your thoughts about what you want to happen, you will make it happen.

That’s my interpretation of the law of attraction today. It’s important to know that back in 2008, two friends told me about a documentary entitled, The Secret, that described this phenomenon. I listened politely and thought, WHAT MALARKEY!!

Law of attraction super user

My mind was closed. Oh, how I wish I would have taken the time to dive in and learn about it because I would have recognized that I was a being who could have been a law of attraction case study detailed in academic books. I had constructed a mammoth radio tower and every day, I was sending massive, powerful signals out into the universe. And the universe was responding.

It is no coincidence that when those friends were telling about The Secret, I was entering the darkest point of my life. The last thing I wanted to hear about was some woo-woo book that excited Oprah.

It was the start of the U.S. recession and I was working long hours in a job. I did not know how to manage stress, so I was perpetually stressed out. My mother’s alcoholism was dangerously out of control. She’d lock herself in her bedroom and binge for days. She also drove drunk and got a DUI. I was essentially raising my sister and was considering petitioning for custody. During this time, I was completely obsessed with my mother’s drinking. If I found out in the morning that she was already drunk, my day was ruined. The rest of the day, all my thoughts were tied to worry and creating what-if scenarios such as Mom drinking herself to death, drunk driving and killing people or my sister coming home to a terrible situation. Of course, these scenarios almost always came true. I do not know how I avoided a nervous breakdown.

As this went on, Mom drank more, my relationship with my father plummeted, my sister’s issues with anxiety began and I plunged deep into depression. My dominant continued to be getting Mom to stop drinking.

I wholeheartedly believed that if Mom stopped drinking, we would all be happy. I could move on with my life. I was angry, hurt and frustrated. I continued to clean up Mom’s messes and be the grownup in the family. I grew resentful and this put stress on all of us. I snapped at my dad. I couldn’t fake smiles for my sister.

Hopeless and seemingly helpless, I felt I didn’t even want to go anymore. I had nothing to look forward to and the weight of responsibility was unbearable. I knew that if I didn’t do something to change things, I would die. My sister needed me, so I couldn’t let that happen.

I started the journey to change things still believing that the solution to all our problems was getting Mom to stop drinking once and for all.

A new frequency

But I soon realized that I was ill and needed help. I couldn’t cure Mom of her addiction. For the first time in my life, I saw clearly that the focus needed to be on me. My dominant thoughts shifted to how what I needed to do for me to feel hopeful again. I had loved writing as a girl, so I enrolled in a creative writing course at the local community college. I remember almost not going to the first class because Mom was in bad shape, but I forced myself to go. That class provided an escape into a world I had long buried – my world. In that class, I met a lady who invited me to join a writer’s group she was invited with. There, I was surrounded by positive, healthy people who inspired me. I made friends with more people and joined other writer’s organizations. I had a new magnet with a new frequency. I was using the law of attraction for good – but didn’t even know it.

During that time, I also started regularly participating in Al-Anon support groups and reading books about the ACoA syndrome. I learned that I needed to reprogram my brain. I met people whose stories illuminated the path for my own healing journey. The more I thought about what I’d learned, the more opportunities came my way. My novel for tweens about addiction was published. I attracted all of it with my thoughts and energy. Now, with understanding of the law of attraction, I am more fully using it as I build the life I want.

Like attracts like

Every day, I write down what I’m grateful for without that exercise, I’m unlikely to give thoughts to all of them. I’ve been using it at work, too. Avoid complaining and instead focus on what’s going well. Not surprisingly, more good things have happened. Plus, I am managing stress better.

Acting as if

Focusing on what I want is powerful. Whenever I feel my thoughts focusing what I don’t have, I shift to thinking as if I already have what I want. It guides my decision making. I have a recorded voice memo that I play every morning before work and every night before I sleep. I help as many people as possible as an author, speaker and creator. Then I say the specific amount of money I make because my goal is to do this for a living. This life is coming to me, I know.

There are so many stories out there about the law of attraction at work for hyper specific things, it will blow your mind and slightly creep you out. I think this is where skeptical ACoAs like me have rejected the law of attraction. There’s a lot of info flying around that makes it seem like it’s about making stuff magically appear. People are not sitting on their couches with cash falling from the ceiling.

All I know is that for me, knowledge about the law of attraction is about making use of my mind to shape my future. You must have an open mind and put in the work for the opportunities to come because of the signals you’ve sent out.

Send signals out to the universe about what you want, and you will have it.

I hope you are building the life you want.

Take good care.

Jody Lamb is an author, blogger and adult child of an alcoholic on a journey to create an awesome grownup life. Visit JodyLamb.com. Twitter and Instagram: @JodyMLamb. YouTube: /JodyLamb. Facebook.com/JodyLambAuthor.

“Adult child of an alcoholic” had little meaning to me before I picked up a few books back in my 20s. In literal terms, I knew that because my mother is alcoholic, I am a child of an alcoholic. But until I began reading books about addiction, codependency and being an adult child of an alcoholic and getting educated about what had happened in my family, I did not understand “adult child of an alcoholic” as the very real clinical cause of my challenges as an adult. I realized that I think and act the way I do because of my experience having an alcoholic mother.

When I read The Laundry List in the Adult Children of Alcoholics big, red book and Jan Woitiz’ Adult Children of Alcoholics, I was still very focused on Mom’s addiction and finding the solution to cure her. I did not realize how ill I really was myself. But when I read those traits and characteristics of adult children of alcoholics, it was like someone had seen a film of my whole life and concisely captured exactly how I feel as an adult. For the first time, I recognize that many of my traits such as the seeking of approval, the extreme sense of responsibility, the guilt and attraction to people I feel I can rescue or save – are directly tied to me having the ACoA syndrome. Oh, my goodness. My reaction to those words I read went something like this – OMG. That’s me!! I’m so screwed up. But I’m so normal.

Now, identifying with those traits was life changing. My whole life, I was focused on my mother, my father and my sister. I did not see how much I had neglected myself and, in the chaos, developed an unhealthy way of thinking and living. Then, I felt overwhelmed by the realization that I had so much work to do to reprogram my brain. I began reading about and meeting fellow adult children of alcoholics, who like me, read those ACoA traits and felt they’d been written about them. In their words, I found inspiration. I felt very hopeful and excited about the future. I recognized that all the feels, all of them, are real and normal and common.

Though those traits and characters have defined me for the first third of my life, I know that my strongest trait is my determination and belief that the life I want and deserve is coming to me.

I hope you are so well in your journey today.

Jody Lamb is an author, blogger and adult child of an alcoholic on a journey to create an awesome grownup life. Visit JodyLamb.com. Twitter and Instagram: @JodyMLamb. YouTube: /JodyLamb. Facebook.com/JodyLambAuthor.

When I wrote a book about addiction, I was terrified that my mother would be so furious or hurt that I shared our secret of her alcoholism with the world. I feared she would go off the deep end. Instead, her reaction shocked me to my core. It was one of the most perspective-changing events of my life.

I wrote a novel for tweens called Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool. It is a coming-of-age story that addresses parental alcoholism. It’s scary to birth a book. What happens if everyone hates it and you get bad reviews?! But when it was published in 2012, I feared only one thing: my mother’s reaction to it.

The book was obviously inspired by own experienced growing up with a mother with a substance use disorder – and I would be speaking openly about that. This was a drastic flip from how this fact was treated my whole life. When I was 26, I was so depressed. I was exhausted and hopeless about the future.

Writing a book for kids about addiction

Feeling like I didn’t want to go on any longer, I finally went to an Al-Anon meeting and realized I was ill and needed to get help. I started doing things that had brought me joy as a little kid. I’d love writing so I enrolled in a creative writing course at my local community college. Around that time, my mother was at the very worst point in her battle with alcoholism (up to that point in our lives). It was causing so much pain for my little sister. I was beginning my adult child of an alcoholic healing journey and devouring addiction, codependency and ACoA books by the week. I wanted my tween-aged sister to understand what was happening in our family. I wanted her to know that Mom’s alcoholism was not our fault and that we couldn’t make Mom get better because she had to want to get better. But I found next to zero books for children about addiction. I thought, how is this possible?! It’s the twenty-first century!

In the writing course, I found so much joy – just as I did a girl. I began feeling more hopeful about the future. Out fast came a story about a 12-year-old girl named Easter Ann Peters who had a plan to make seventh grade the best one yet. But her plans to make friends at school are derailed as she copes with her worsening mother’s drinking problem. The story came flying out of me, unexpectedly, as if Easter Ann was whispering the story in my ear. When the instructor asked me to read the first chapters aloud, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t planned to write a children’s story and felt those 18-year-olds in the class would expect something more sophisticated from the 26-year-old business woman who showed up to class 10 minutes early and turned in two writings, just for fun, for every assignment.

There was a young guy with a this-class-is-dumb attitude and black clothes and fingernails who showed up to class only sometimes. He was cynical about everything it seemed. I figured a story written for 11-year-olds with a voice of a cat-loving girl named Easter would be grating for him. My eyes met his when I lifted them from my paper and finished reading the last words on the page. I waited uncomfortably for someone’s polite “that’s cute” reply or something. Instead, Gothic Guy leaned forward and boomed, “I can really relate to that story. You captured the feelings exactly. That is a story you got to keep going with.”

And as we stared at each other, I realized that he and I likely had more in common than ANYONE could ever imagine. The adult child of an alcoholic story.

So, I kept going with the story. Before long, it was a whole book manuscript. I had mentioned to Mom my rekindled love of writing and that I had dreams of seeing my book in the hands of kids. She told me it was a waste of time because it’s so hard to get a book published. That was the last time I brought it up. For two years, I immersed myself in writing and polishing that manuscript. I joined writer’s groups and met the most amazingly inspiring and encouraging people. I attended writer’s conferences and workshops. I was determined to continually improve the story until it found a home with a publishing company. I was thrilled when my manuscript was selected to my reviewed by an editor with one of the big NYC publishers. It has great character development, she said. A realistic look at middle-school, she said. But that I really needed to downplay the Mom’s alcoholism stuff and focus on the friendship and bullying elements of the story.

What? No, that’s point of the story, I politely explained. One in five kids in the U.S. lives with a parent who abuses alcohol, I said. She respected my passion for the topic but said, “You won’t sell this book. The topic is too sensitive.”

Too sensitive.

I cried into my hotel room pillow. Several dozen rejection letters later, a small publisher in Michigan believed in Easter Ann and me. I was thrilled and excited that it would be a real, live book and would help people. But then I realized: I was about to expose our family secret, which I had spent my life covering up. All of the what-ifs arrived at once. How would Mom react? What if she goes nuts? What if she is so anger that she makes life hell for Dad and Brooke, my sister? What if she is so hurt, that she goes on a destructive binge that could kill her? What if she cuts me out of her life forever?

My father was supportive about the book and for sharing about our experiences. I suppose on some level, my father wished he could have helped me get educated earlier in life and he was happy that I was happier on my ACoA healing journey. He also knew, first hand, just how much loving someone with addiction hurts and he, too, saw that there weren’t enough people out there talking about it.

Dad reached out to friends and acquaintances on social media and email to announce that I had a book deal and that was going to talk to kids about alcoholism. He was proud. His support was important but Mom ruled everything.

Telling Mom

I told him I so feared Mom’s reaction. I don’t know if he tried talking to Mom about it privately in hopes she’d see it like he did. When the publisher sent me the first copy of the book, I gave it to Dad with instructions not to show it to Mom because I wanted to find the perfect time to sit down with her and explain that I just had to shed light on the topic.

But before I had a chance to have that formal conversation with Mom, Dad called one day and said the common words that gave me a stomach ache: “Mom’s not good today.” I hated those calls but they were necessary. At that time, Mom was in a really dark spot with her addiction and I had stepped in to be the mother role to my sister. Dad would be leaving for work around mid-afternoon. I needed to be aware that Brooke would be coming home from school to Really-drunk Mom. That meant I would need to hurry home from work and get her out of the house. “And,” Dad added. “Mom read your book.”

I was at work so I had to hang up without asking questions.

Waves of nausea hit me. Here we go.

I was angry at myself. How I could do this? Why couldn’t I have just kept it a nice, cathartic thing for me along. Why did have to feel this drive to share it? I was going to make life hell for everyone – even more than it already was.

As I was driving come and crafting how to deal with Mom’s volcanic reaction, I received a call from my parents’ phone.

“Hi, Brooke,” I answered.

“Jody, your book,” Mom said. She was sobbing.

I braced myself for F bombs. For her wishes that I’d go to hell. For declarations that I am a selfish bitch.

“My book?” I whispered.

“I read it,” she said. “I. I. I think you will help kids.”

It was hard to make out the words because she was crying hard, so I thought I’d heard it wrong.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ll help people,” she said. “It is good.” Sobbing. More sobbing.

I can’t remember if I pulled over or not at that point but I should have. I was stunned.

“Thank you,” I said.

“But,” she continued.

Here it comes. The flip. Here comes the anger and the hurt.

How could I write about her? How could I tell people about something so personal? How could I make her look bad? Just how could I?!!

Instead: “That’s how I felt when I was a little girl. That’s. How. I. felt.”

OMG.

My mother’s father died of a brain aneurysm likely induced by his extreme alcoholism.

She spoke very little of her father and when she did, it was only of good memories – such as how he would make a rink in their backyard for my mom and her seven siblings to skate on every winter. So while I knew she was affected by his alcoholism and his death, I knew next to nothing about how that affected her today.

In that moment, I realized that my mother was an adult child of an alcoholic. Just like me. But sadly, unlike me, she slipped into the grips of addiction before she could get educated and treatment to heal from the substantial trauma she experienced.

Then she shared memories about my drunken grandfather I’d never heard before – such as how Mom would be mortified walking to school in the morning with other kids when her father would be stumbling down the street from the pub. She’d cross the street and pretend she didn’t know him.

Not once did she mention any anger or shame that I would be sharing a story that was obviously inspired by my own experience with her addiction.

I understood my mother better.

She didn’t attend any of my book events, of course. We never talked about the newspaper stories that came at launch. I don’t think she was ever comfortable with knowing the secret had been exposed but she recognized that it would help people.

Today, we do not talk about my efforts with this cause. She knows I write and that I’ve heard from people all over the world who’ve been through hell. She doesn’t ask about it and maybe she prefers not to know the details.

For that, I’m grateful. But even if she suddenly took issue with it, it wouldn’t change anything. I feel called to share my journey as an adult child of an alcoholic and as a 35-year-old woman in 2018 creating the life I want.

At the Nov. 2012 launch of Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool

Since the book was published in 2012, I was invited to speak to schools. I did it for free on my days off from work – except that in most situations, I was asked not to speak directly about addiction. One fourth-grade teacher asked me to talk only about writing and avoid alcoholism because “some parents won’t want their children to know about addiction yet.” She didn’t want the phone calls.

Um, I offered, do you realize that more than a quarter of your students are living with addiction right now and they have no idea what is happening?

Yes, she said, but it’s just too sensitive of a topic for a fourth grader.

Sigh.

2013 elementary school visit

Since then, I have heard from hundreds of people, of all ages and backgrounds, from around the world who read Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool who appreciated.

But it was all worth it before it was even available to order. I heard from Jerry Moe, head of the children’s program at the Betty Ford Center. He’d given his copy to a 12-year-old girl whose mother was in treatment. She’d said the book was her favorite of all time because it helped her realize that she hadn’t cause her mom’s addiction.

I hope you are so well in your journey today.

Jody Lamb is an author, blogger and adult child of an alcoholic on a journey to create an awesome grownup life. Visit JodyLamb.com. Twitter and Instagram: @JodyMLamb. YouTube: /JodyLamb. Facebook.com/JodyLambAuthor.

What exactly are boundaries? I view boundaries as guidelines for how you structure your life to take good care of yourself.

I’m an adult child of an alcoholic. Addiction runs deep in my family. I have long been the family martyr. For more than 26 years of my life, I did not take good care of me because I did not understand the importance of setting boundaries. Since beginning my ACoA healing journey, I’ve learned there are three foundational ways to set effective boundaries with alcoholics and others.

1. Acknowledge and accept that your only job in life is to take good care of you.

That’s it. You are responsible for your safety and health. This is not easy for most of us who have spent our lives caring for everyone but ourselves. But recognizing and living by this fact will guide your decision making.

2. Recognizing that what is right for you and your well-being may feel wrong.

For me, it has felt very wrong every time I set boundaries in support of taking good care of me.

3. Consistently keep your boundaries in place.

Personal examples in this video:

Setting boundaries helps clear the fog. When you have boundaries in place, you can think more clearly and make decisions that propel the good life for you.

I hope you are well.

Jody Lamb is an author, blogger and adult child of an alcoholic on a journey to create an awesome grownup life. Visit JodyLamb.com. Twitter and Instagram: @JodyMLamb. YouTube: /JodyLamb. Facebook.com/JodyLambAuthor.