How does growing up with an alcoholic parent affect your job later in life? Well, considering that we spend at least 40 hours every week working, it’s no surprise that many of our ACoA traits pop up in our careers and everyday work. There’s a very noticeable connection to the way I work and how I grew up.
I’ve correctly identified several fellow co-workers as ACoAs or spouses with substance use disorders, long before they shared with me that they have had these life experiences. Most of them can relate to all or most of the following adult child of an alcoholic traits in the workplace:
1. You hate conflict, so you avoid it as much as possible.
I am in marketing for a national organization. Last week, we had a big meeting with leaders. Recent projects with some of the leaders hadn’t gone so well. I expected that there would be disagreements and finger pointing. This kind of honest dialogue is healthy and necessary for our organization to move forward but I LOATHE CONFLICT. I was not involved in those projects, but I felt the weight of anxiety and worry as if I did.
Conflict makes me anxious and uncomfortable.
We all know why. Growing up with a mom with a substance use disorder, conflict was the norm. When drunk, or when in withdrawal from not drinking, Mom would scream and shout and throw stuff and hit my dad. Over the course of my life, I had far more days and nights filled with extreme conflict than days and nights of peace.
So, I have never known healthy conflict. It’s necessary for resolution. Naturally, I avoid all conflict. When I can’t avoid it, such as at our meetings this week, I feel physically sick. “Are you okay?” colleagues asked. “You’re so quiet.” And then I felt guilty for not being the usual upbeat person, which leads me to the next biggie…
2. You are the f-ing office martyr.
When there’s a shit-ton of work to be done, you better believe I’m drawn to it like bees to honey. It feels comfortable there in that spot – the one who is always there to protect the others, to spare others from work, to take one for the team.
That’s a really F-ed up position to take on and yet we do it because it’s warm and familiar to be overworked and stressed.
Also, the praise for being the martyr feels good – it’s the recognition/approval we longed for as children. Good, old So-and-So taking one for the team again!
We’ve always been the martyr in the family – the one who cleans up the messes and takes on the responsibilities of taking care of everyone but ourselves. In the process, coddles and enables the sh*t out of everyone.
That’s my biggest work flaw. I have been actively working at this. How to stop being the office martyr: Ask yourself, Is this really your responsibility? Is this good for you?
3. You are the solution creator for problems that aren’t yours.
If you’re like me, you claim everyone’s problems as your own. “This is not your problem, Jody,” my boss reminded the other day.
We ACoAs are damn good at discovering problems that have nothing to do with us and then creating solutions and then presenting said problem and set of potential solutions.
The good bosses I’ve had have politely reminded that I am not the company problem finder and solver. But this is how my brain is programmed. I am used to creating solutions because spending my first 26 years in a chaotic, unpredictable life all centered around my mother’s alcoholism, that’s what I did all day, every day.
Whenever something goes wrong in another department or when another team has made a mistake, I think immediately of the ways I could have/should have prevented that from happening.
“Um. No. Nothing. To do. With you, Jody,” a colleague recently said slowly for effect when I described how I could have helped them avoid the mistake.
But it’s no use. She knows this is how I think. I have been working hard at focusing only on my responsibilities in my role and in my life to continue taking good care of me.
4. You’re hyperconscious of and concerned about everyone’s feelings.
Emotional sponges, we are.
We are so damn good at picking up on our co-worker’s emotions. We notice little sh*t no one else pays attention to; we see the frowns and tense shoulders, we hear the nearly inaudible sighs. So-and-So’s feelings must be hurt. So-and-So must be disappointed in me.
On the positive, this makes us compassionate and kind – aware of the effects of our decision making and behavior. On the negative, we can misinterpret signs and be too concerned about them, so progress is hindered.
5. You long for control and order.
You may like rules and procedures. After all, it defines predictability. It gives us a sense of control. Since there was so little of that when growing up with a parent with a substance use disorder, it’s no wonder we can have an over-reliance on policies and procedures.
“We need to follow the process,” has the been the start of many of my sentences at work. There’s a careful balance there; sometimes overreliance on the rules can make you inflexible. Being too rigid isn’t healthy for anyone.
6. You are never satisfied with your work performance.
Yep. I can’t get no satisfaction (FYI, dancing like Jagger as I type this). Nothing EVER feels good enough.
Why are adult children of alcoholics never satisfied? This is the one of the commonly talked about ACoA Syndrome characteristics. As young people, there was no pattern to praise. We were confused. We felt we caused our parents to drink. We tried to crack the code – it was a fruitless pursuit. When drinking, my mother spat and shouted the cruelest words at me. It was a sharp contrast to Sober Mom’s words. Even though my father tried to counter her words with encouragement, the words scarred. After all, I was a young person; it wasn’t easy to separate truth from out-of-her-mind-drunk words.
Our brains are programmed this way.
7. You may have picked the wrong career.
Maybe you’re in the right field. Maybe you’re not. Maybe life was so chaotic back in the day when you were picking your career – going to college or not. Maybe you were just trying to survive in the chaos or to get the hell out of the chaos.
I’ve heard many ACoAs share that they feel trapped in their careers but it’d be too expensive/hard/impossible to go back to school or start all over again. There is an all-or-nothing approach but it doesn’t have to be that way.
When I was 26, I had my big rock-bottom low in which I didn’t even want to go on anymore, I realized that I had to start writing again. I’d loved it as a girl but I had abandoned it because I was too busy in my corporate career and trying to survive (and help my sister survive) in the chaos of my mother’s alcoholism. I realized I HAD to write, speak and volunteer because I felt called to do so and I enjoyed it. I realized I could manage both my career and my side stuff.
Like every aspect of this journey of healing and building an awesome life, for a career that fits you, you must invest the time and energy. Maybe it means starting over and jumping into a new career. Maybe it means simply giving more time to what you love to do, on the side.
The life you deserve is worth the extra work to build it.
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.
