My friend said it slowly with sadness.

“You are always waiting for the shoe to drop.”

When things are going well, I worry about the next terrible thing that will happen that will turn my life upside down and cause me to have to scramble into survivor mode and solve the problem.

Adult children of alcoholics and anxiety

Anxiety disorders affects many people who lived in dysfunctional environments, particularly children of alcoholics or those with other substance use disorders.

When everything is going okay in my life, I am always thinking: This is temporary. What’s going to happen next?

I am perpetually afraid that something terrible is going to happen!!

That’s because throughout my life, calmness has not lasted long. I. was. Always. In. Survival. Mode. When you live in chaotic world, you can never let your guard down because at any given moment, crisis can hit. We have trouble fully relaxing.

As I make progress on my healing journey, I have trouble shaking the familiar fear that something bad is coming so I must stay in ready mode. Even as I key this right now, I had a flash of fear that I am attracting something bad by writing about the fear of it. Good grief.

How to stop worrying about something terrible happening

When I begin feeling like this, I do three things:

1.      Double down on self-care activities.

I intentionally focus on self-care activities like getting enough sleep to make sure I am thinking clearly and making healthy choices.

2.      Make sure that boundaries I set are intact.

The last thing I’d want to do is create problems to deal with by taking down the boundaries I worked hard to put into place.

3.      Review my goals for this awesome life I’m creating.

They’re detailed on a vision board and in a notebook. This keeps me focused. If I am taking good care of myself and focused on my goals, then I’m reminded that I don’t have time or energy to give to worrying or inventing the what-if situations.

I hope you are so well in your journey.

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.

Who am I?

Nine years ago, I finally got educated about addiction and realized that I’m an adult child of an alcoholic and I had been deeply affected by my mother’s substance use disorder. I’d spent my life taking care of everyone and raising my sister. At that time of awakening, my sister was getting older and more self-sufficient. I began focusing more on myself, I had a complete identity crisis.

I remember someone laughed when I told them I was having a quarter-life crisis.

I was a terrifying feeling. I had spent my whole life completely focused on other people. My 20s were all about working, keeping my mother alive and raising my sister. Beyond the roles of sister/mother, daughter/mother and Marketing Manager, I had no idea who I was.

Who am I?

I looked ahead. My sister would soon be a young adult and she wouldn’t need me the way she did as a kid. Years were passing fast – and I was getting older. I never formed my identity. There had been no time, no chance to do so because I was fully consumed by my mother’s problems.

There’s no way I can spend the rest of my life like this, I thought.

I know today that this is something that many people experience. They wake up one day after recovering from co-dependency tied to a parent, child, spouse or someone else. This can be related to substance use disorders or other addictions or simply unhealthy relationships and environments.

So, through my own education and experience, I’ve learned there are important things to do to discover who you are and the life you want and deserve:

1.    Connect with little-kid you.

There is a ton of clinical stuff about healing the inner child. I thought this was malarkey until I read up about it. This is very real and very powerful

Little-kid Jody Lamb had grand plans for life as a grownup. I wrote about it in my diaries. I would write books and start a good-cause organization that helps people or animals. I would do something new every day, even if I had the flu.

I thought about that little-girl who had to grow up too quickly because of my family’s dysfunctional home environment. https://youtu.be/Q0IOMsw1YDY

As a girl, I loved writing, so I enrolled in a creative writing course at the local community college. Writing again brought me joy and a cathartic experience. I began running and walking and spending more time outdoors. It gave a sense of serenity that I’d never felt before.

2.    Surround yourself with positive people who inspire you.

In the processing of giving more time to things I wanted to do, I met people who inspired and encouraged me. I hadn’t met those writers and dreamers, I wouldn’t be an author. I wouldn’t be typing these words and you wouldn’t be reading them. Those positive voices gave me confidence about my dreams and the life I want and deserve.

3.    Learn how to take good care of yourself.

Since we gave so much of our time and energy to care for other people, it’s no surprise that we don’t know how to take good care of ourselves.

I had to teach myself the physical basics about getting enough sleep, eating properly and exercising and emotional basics about setting boundaries and saying no.

When you can think clearly, you have power you never had before. In “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash, he sings, “Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind…” Word.  When you are taking good care of yourself, you can see your purpose, your talents, your wants, your dreams – and discover who you are and who you want to be.

The more I am me and the more time I give to living differently, the more confident I am in who I am, what my contributions are to the world and what I want this to be.

It’s never too late to find who you are and build the life you want and deserve.

I’ve met so many people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, who through the magic of the internet and the amplified voices about the effects of addiction on families, finally find themselves, buried under layers of codependency and trauma.

I hope you are so well in your journey.

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.

People often ask me if I drink. I speak for myself only on this topic.

1.    Substance use disorders and addiction run deep in my family.

I’ve seen what hell that brings for the people who experience that and the pain for everyone who love those people. Even though it’s the disorder and not the alcohol itself that causes this, I still feel it’s a poison that destroys lives.

It’s kind of like eating a certain food and getting food poisoning. You have an aversion to it because of bad memories.

2.    I had my own love affair with alcohol.

Just because I’m the child of an alcoholic that doesn’t mean I am guaranteed to suffer from a substance use disorder myself. However, the research shows that I am much more likely to face that due to my genetics and because I grew up in a dysfunctional environment with an alcoholic mother and extremely codependent father.

I wouldn’t believe science if it wasn’t true that I had found myself on a slippery slope with my own alcohol use and dependency. For a three-year period, from around age 18 to 21, I had quite a relationship with alcohol.

If you’re interested in more about that period of my life, see My Story.

While my friends were drinking because that’s what people in college do, I drank because I found it gave me a magical effect. When I began drinking alone and I felt like I needed it to do things that scared me such as meeting new people, I realized that my relationship with alcohol was an unhealthy one. It was a slippery slope that felt so comfortable and warm. Like it was where I was supposed to be forever and ever. I knew that was a place that my mother and many, many other family members had stood before and slipped down, never to make their way back.

3.      I’m not a good drunk, despite what it looks like.

I may wear a smile and tell more jokes, laugh harder and dance better. Inside, I feel terrible. I’m not in control. I can’t think clearly. Since I crave stability and predictability, this is not a fun state for me. My emotions are intensified. Those thick layers of anxiety may disappear with the first few drinks but after that point (and I have trouble stopping after a few), they reappear so I never end up enjoying the experience at all.

4.      There are cooler things to do.

Drinking activities take up a lot of time. About 10 years ago, I realized that there were more interesting things to do.

I have a friend who, in our 20s, knew all about the stuff that was going on in my life at home. That was the peak of my mother’s alcoholism. She knew I was raising my sister. She invited me to hang out with her group of friends. In the summer, they spent the day on the lake, drinking, and in the evening, they gathered around a bonfire, drinking. Around that time, my closest friends were getting married and settling into grownup life. All social activities were tied to drinking.

I wanted to get out and do different stuff. So, I joined writing groups and met other people with similar interests. My friends they didn’t have those interests. They got used to it and they definitely wanted me to be happy, so they understood when I declined some invitations. Also, they realized that I could still have fun with them, even if I wasn’t drinking.

5.      I’m so OK with living differently.

Drinking is embedded in our society. We make it sexy. And btw, you can still do many things that are tied to drinking and not drink.  I live in Michigan, which btw, is the #4 state with the best breweries in the country, where drinking is the thing to do. Yet we’re living in this amazing, free world. You can do anything with your time. I’ve come to the realization and acceptance that I am so free to spend my time as I want, which may be very different than most people. I have other things that bring me joy. We all have our own journeys. I hope you are well in yours.

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 was a kid, teenager, young adult and well into my late 20s, I was wrapped up in my family’s unhealthy, dysfunctional life. My mother’s substance use disorder created constant chaos. For all of those years, my life was my family’s life. I didn’t have my own. We basically had one, big, unhealthy life. When Mom was not doing well, I wasn’t doing well. I felt completely trapped in this life. I wish I could go back in time and give younger me a glimpse at my life today after I started my ACoA healing journey. I wish I could give that kind of confidence that I would have the life I have today. Because I can’t (unless you have a time-traveling something to loan me), I want you to know that I am living proof that you can create the life you can’t even imagine – if you get help and put in the work to heal and create the life you deserve and want. 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago, I could never have imagined my adult child of an alcoholic life would be what it is 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 you grow up in a dysfunctional environment, the odds of having a great grownup life are against you.  But how you grew up doesn’t define your future. You and I have the power to create it.

My mother has a substance use disorder. The effects of her alcoholism deeply affected me. Also, addiction runs deep in both my father and mother’s families….generation after generation, the cycle continued.

So, according to science, the odds are very high that I will develop a substance use disorder myself and/or that I would suffer as an adult with many struggles due to growing up in a dysfunctional environment and family.

Thanks, science.

The same goes for children of parents with mental illness and others who experienced tough times.

So you and I am grow up and have a perpetual backpack filled with giant rocks. And we’re trying to build a life with that weight on our shoulders. It makes getting shit done much more difficult.  It is way harder to create that life.

So, yeah, other people who grew up in healthier environments with stability and predictability, do not have that backpack with rocks. They did not experience the trauma. They have an advantage and the odds of a great life are better for them.

But here’s the thing – you and I have seen the bad and the pain. We know what’s down that road. You and I are fortunate enough to recognize that we have the freedom to venture on an unfamiliar, healthier road. We are free to heal, to recover, to grow and to create and thrive in an awesome life. See, we have the wisdom and the power to make it happen.

We want the good life more than the people with the better odds.

When you get educated, when you live by the truth that your only job in life is to take good care of you, when you heal, when you focus on you, the rocks drop out of that backpack.

I hope you are well in your journey.

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.