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Top Articles for Adult Children of Alcoholics

Common Adult Child of an Alcoholic Traits Affecting Romantic Relationships

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If you grew up with an alcoholic mother or father, you might relate to these common traits of adult children of alcoholics (ACoAs) when it comes to matters of the heart. It’s important to recognize these traits so that you can work on them first in your healing journey. Do you identify with any of these traits?

Common Adult Child of an Alcoholic Traits Affecting Romantic Relationships

  • Codependency
  • Fear of commitment
  • Low self-esteem, causing controlling behavior
  • Lack of trust
  • Fear of abandonment
  • Trouble expressing feelings
  • Get walked on/never standing up for themselves
  • Addiction including workaholism

They’re all familiar to me. Fear of commitment and fear of abandonment have been the biggest struggles. They are what kept me super single for many years! It was easier to stay single than to fall in love and risk getting hurt. I was love-avoidant, while other ACoAs go the opposite way. One of the most surprising commonalities among adult children of alcoholics is how many of them end up in repeated, unhealthy romantic relationships. As kids, many children of alcoholics vow to never be with someone like their alcoholic parent. However, when these kids grow up, many find themselves drawn to partners who are alcoholics or addicted to something else.

What to Do About Your Common ACoA Traits

The good news is that by recognizing these common tendencies and characteristics, you can focus your healing efforts on those areas.

If these common traits of ACoAs are familiar to you, I hope you’re well on your healing journey. Check out these articles:

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3 Things to Know About Boundaries

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Boundaries are difficult to form and stick to, but they are mighty powerful in changing your life. They just might be the key to your healing. They were for me in my healing journey as an adult child of an alcoholic. Boundaries set me free!

Here’s what I’ve learned about ‘em:

  1. Creating and sticking to a boundary almost always feels wrong. Do it anyway. Later, it will be clear it was the right thing to do.
  2. Boundaries = freedom. Be thoughtful about what boundaries are needed in your system to heal and get unstuck in your life. The easiest way to identify what boundaries you need to set is to ask yourself one simple question: Is this good for me? Don’t overthink the answer.
  3. Stuff will happen and boundaries will fall apart. You’ll mess up. That’s okay. Reset your boundaries when you can. Never let too much time pass. The longer you put off resetting them, the harder it will be to get back on track.

The Most Powerful Boundaries of My Life

The most powerful boundaries made me feel like a horrible person at first.

After my father passed away, my mother’s alcoholism, fueled by her grief, dramatically worsened. My sister was only 17 years old and in her junior year of high school. The environment was stressful and unsafe. I made the difficult decision to move my sister out of the house and in with me. Leaving Mom alone felt like leaving a helpless, sick child behind. I sobbed for three days. It felt so wrong and selfish – like I was the worst daughter in history. However, I knew the longer my sister and I stayed close to Mom, the sicker we became ourselves. We couldn’t sleep and we were constantly worried. Fortunately, a few months after the move, we had all improved! My sister and I were healthy and happy in a safe environment together. We could grieve in peace and move forward with healing from everything we’d experienced. This forced Mom to be an adult and take care of herself without my dad or anyone around to clean up the messes she created. She improved by being away from us! Boundaries can help more than just you.

The next boundary-setting opportunity arrived about a year later. Through this period, I frequently spoke with Mom. Then I realized I was becoming ill and couldn’t process my own grief. Boundaries were needed. My mother had been calling every night when she’d been drinking. Nothing good ever came from those conversations, but I felt obligated to talk to her because she was lonely and grieving. When I didn’t answer, I felt so guilty, it disrupted my peace. Finally, I told her I wouldn’t be answering her calls in the evening. For three weeks, the unanswered calls continued. Every time I saw her name appear on my phone, I felt like a terrible daughter. However, Mom finally stopped calling at night and our relationship improved more than I ever expected!

As Melody Beattie wrote in “Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself”, it is clear that “guilt can prevent us from setting the boundaries that would be in our best interests, and in other people’s best interests.” Don’t let guilt prevent you from establishing the powerful boundaries that will set you free.

More Information

Check out this article about how to set healthy boundaries with your parents for practical tips:

How to set healthy boundaries with your parents

How to Make a Vision Board for Adult Children of Alcoholics

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Now is the perfect time to reflect on where you are on your healing journey as an adult child of an alcoholic (ACoA) and where you’d like to be. Creating a vision board is a useful tool to help you achieve your goals and dreams. I’ve been creating one annually the last five years or so and I know it’s helped me achieve many healing and life goals.

As adult children of alcoholics, the process of healing and recovery requires time and effort, and creating a vision board can be a helpful step in your self-care and healing process. In this article, we’ll dive into vision boards for adult children of alcoholics, including what they are and steps for creating your very own.

What is a Vision Board?

A vision board is a collection of images used to display your goals and dreams. Its purpose is to motivate and inspire you, not only as you create it, but every time you see it. Vision boards can be created either digitally or on a poster board.

The process of creating a vision board is a helpful step for self-care and healing on your journey, but the best part is that it will continue to inspire and motivate you all year long. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.

How to Create a Vision Board That Works

I’ve reduced overthinking things down into taking simple steps, and I’m sharing it with you here and now! Here are four steps for creating your very own vision board:

1.   Define Your Goals

The first step for creating your vision board is to make a list of goals you’d like to achieve in the next year. Vision boards are for manifestation, so think about where you are on your healing journey and where you’d like to be in the future. Start by thinking about the issue/area of your life you need to work on most. Next, identify how you want it to change and consider what it will take to achieve it. Then dive into making changes to that area. What do you want your life to look like? What boundaries do want to put into place? What action steps do you want to take to heal? What are some dreams, large and small, that you have? Create a list of the goals that are most important to you.

2.   Gather Images and Quotes

This is the fun part! Find images or quotes online that represent your goals and dreams and save them in a folder on your computer. Browsing sites like Pinterest or even just doing an image search on Google can help you find the images you’re looking for. Save images or quotes you find that speak to you and that represent the life you want to create.

3.   Put it All Together

Now it’s time to actually create your vision board. Using our free template, the process is easy. Simply copy and paste your images, quotes or other information onto the template. The best part of this step is that there’s no wrong way to do it. You can organize your vision board however it makes sense to you.

For example, you may choose to organize your board into sections, with similar images and words grouped together, or, you might prefer to organize by color. You might even choose to use no organization method at all. Design your board in whatever way speaks to you the most–this board is entirely yours to create!

4.   Display Your Vision Board

Now that you’ve finished your vision board, it’s time to make it useful–place it somewhere you’ll see it often. You might choose to print it and hang it somewhere around your house, such as on your fridge or by a mirror where you get ready. Or, you might prefer to keep it digital and use it as the wallpaper or screensaver on your phone or laptop.

However you choose to display your vision board, the important part is to refer to it often. The magic of a vision board is that it can continually inspire you. By seeing it often, your goals and dreams will be at the forefront of your mind. This can not only help you achieve your goals, but provide a source of comfort and hope even on days when things aren’t going exactly like you hoped they would.

Best tips for healing from growing up with an alcoholic parent

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So you grew up with an alcoholic mom or dad—or both. Now you’re an adult with a list of issues caused by your experiences growing up in that environment.  You’ve probably asked yourself some big questions: How do I heal from growing up this way? Where do I even begin to figure out what I need to do to move forward?

Well, my friend, I have three key tips to help you heal so you can create the life you love.

As an adult child of an alcoholic mother, I asked myself those questions countless times. I had no idea what I was doing when I began my healing journey. But I knew there are many happy people who were once miserable like me, and they all had to start somewhere. I knew I’d be overwhelmed and quit if I tried to take on too much too quickly, so I started doing what seemed fun and unintimidating. For example, I stopped agreeing to take on more assignments at work that kept me at the office late. I picked up new activities that sounded like fun, such as a creative writing course. I went on long walks. That led to more self-care and more fun activities. I also jumped into learning by reading a little bit at a time. I went to the library and checked out books about addiction and its effects on families. This led me to finding a therapist. Before long, I was navigating my healing journey! It gave me a sense of freedom I’d never felt before.

The perks of healing from being an adult child of an alcoholic

There’s nothing easy about diving feet first into healing from the effects of growing up with an alcoholic parent. Some people will never do it. It’s easier to block out the past and hold in the pain. But the longer all those memories and issues stay buried, the longer you’re trapped, never getting to live the life you love! “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse,” Walt Disney said. Just start. One of the main perks of healing from being an adult child of an alcoholic is that once you start, you’ll build momentum and soon you’ll be well on your healing journey! Then the best part happens: Hope and determination will arrive in heaps, and you’ll fully believe the life you want is within reach.

How to start your healing journey

The first step is recognizing that your parent’s drinking deeply affected you. Only then are you free to unpack the issues and pain you’ve spent your whole life burying deep down inside. The best way to know how to start your healing journey is to just start.

Back in 2009, I was at my lowest point. Dread blanketed me when I woke in the morning. I was completely wrapped up in the worsening chaos of my mother’s drinking and obsessed with getting her to stop. The future felt hopeless. My life was a never-ending series of obligations with nothing left for me to enjoy.

I knew I couldn’t go on living this way. I desperately admitted I had lost control of my life and needed a complete reboot to get control of my destiny. I had no idea where to begin and there was barely anything helpful on the internet. All I knew was that I wanted to have fun.

I started doing things I loved to do as a child. I enrolled in a creative writing course at my local community college. The creative writing course completely changed everything. I made friends with other writers who encouraged me to keep going with my writing. I started watching comedies and standup shows. I started walking for fitness. I felt freer than I had in so many years!

Once I started doing these fun activities, I had enough hope to take on what I knew would be less fun but necessary: after years of avoiding it, I decided to attend an Al-Anon meeting. Al-Anon is a support group for family and friends of alcoholics. The Al-Anon meeting was the start of my healing journey and diving deep into the effects of growing up in the chaos of my mother’s addiction.

Start somewhere, even if you only have 15 minutes per day. When you decide you want to heal and make a commitment to seeing it through, you’ll be amazed at how much more time and energy you discover out of nowhere.

How to create your healing journey path

Learning how to take good care of yourself shines a spotlight on what your next step should be. When I first began my healing journey, I wanted a playbook from other people who had successfully healed. Unfortunately, playbooks don’t exist because everyone has their own unique journey!

My best advice on how to create your healing journey is to just start having fun, while admitting to yourself that your life isn’t what it should be because you’re still stuck hanging onto the issues stemming from your parent’s addiction. Once you start learning from other people who’ve healed, or surrounding yourself with people, things and places that bring you peace and inspire you, you will see what steps you need to take next.

Remember that life and healing are a journey. This isn’t a get-fixed-quickly process. Put in the work and continue to put in the work. I started this journey for myself in 2009. I know that I will be at this for the rest of my life. Just when I think that I figured everything out, I realize there is so much I still must learn! But the incredible progress you’ll make on your journey is what will propel you to move forward. I hardly recognize the woman I was at 26 years old, gripped by depression. Back then, I couldn’t have fathomed my life being what it is today. I felt I had a life sentence for feeling the way that I did, trapped in the hell of having a parent with addiction. I was very ill and didn’t know it.

How to successfully heal from the effects of your alcoholic parent

If I could go back in time and give advice to 26-year-old me, the first thing I’d say is buckle up for this lifelong ride. There is nothing easy about it, but it’s more than worth it. To successfully heal from the effects of your alcoholic parent, you must commit to continuous learning and growth. Personal growth means you must continue reading the books, following the inspiring people on social media and continuously reminding yourself of what you’ve learned.

Keep going even when you want to quit. Keep going if you feel that you’ve learned everything you need to learn. Keep going even if you feel that everything is all better. Life is unpredictable, and you never know when it will throw you for a loop and you’ll be back to your old ways and back to feeling stuck.

That’s it: my best tips for healing from growing up with an alcoholic parent. This is my sure-fire way to create the foundation to successfully heal from your experiences and create the life you love.

So, you’re dating an adult child of an alcoholic? Five things to know for a better relationship

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Dating someone who grew up with an alcoholic parent and confused by things they do or don’t do? Are your spouse’s past experiences as a kid in a dysfunctional home affecting your marriage and family today? Are you ready to better understand this person you love and how their experiences affect life today? I get it because I’m an adult child of an alcoholic (ACoA) and that has affected all my romantic relationships.

What if I said you can improve your relationship with an adult child of an alcoholic or someone who grew up in a dysfunctional home if you know a few key things? I am no relationship expert, but I’ve developed wisdom over the last 20 years of dating and studying other people’s courtships and marriages. My ACoA-ness affects my relationships less than it did before. Sorry, past flames of younger me!

Five things to know about the adult child of an alcoholic you love

1.      You’ll never truly understand the person you love if they have an alcoholic parent…and that’s okay.

Unless you’ve loved someone who’s addicted, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what it’s like. It brings life experiences that cannot be accurately recounted and understood unless you lived it yourself. Perhaps your partner shares fragments of stories, but just can’t find the right words to explain it fully. Maybe they would like nothing more to share with you, but it’s complicated to explain. Maybe your spouse keeps all those stories bottled up and their past is a massive mystery to you.

There is nothing easy about speaking or writing about what happened when we were growing up with an alcoholic parent. I’m a writer by trade and I struggle to string together the right set of words to paint the picture. It’s just so complex and painful.

I’m feeling relationship wiser in 2021!

So, how can you help the adult child of an alcoholic you love? Get educated.

The fact that you are reading this article shows how much you care about them. Education about the effects of addiction on the people will help you understand why your partner is the way they are. Check out this list of the best adult children of alcoholics books. Read them – and you may better understand the adult child of alcoholic better than they understand themselves if they haven’t started their the ACoA healing journey yet.

Best books for adult children of alcoholics (ACoAs)

Fact: You won’t be able to solve all the problems. Accept that.

The thing about being in a committed relationship is that you want to solve problems for the person you love. Hold your eagerness to advise. It’s not fun when a non-ACoA dishes out unsolicited advice in heaps. My past boyfriends grew up in healthier family systems so they couldn’t relate to mine. I struggled to explain why having a mother with a substance use disorder shaped who I am and how the effects of it will always be with me. While I have come so far in my healing journey, I am forever the daughter of an alcoholic and there will always be pain tied to that fact. Acknowledging – not ignoring – my past and my feelings today will always be important to my ability to continue healing and creating the life I want.

I once told a boyfriend about how I struggle with a particular boundary with my mother and how I wonder what life would have been like if Mom had recovered from addiction. He replied with a speech fit for a high school sports team after a tough loss. Just move forward and forget the past, he advised with sports analogies.

Related:

How to set healthy boundaries with your parents

He hoped to help, but all that conversation did was make me feel weak, misunderstood, and frustrated. I shut down, unlikely to ever share similar thoughts with him again

If you’re in a relationship with an adult child of an alcoholic, the best thing you can do is to keep showing them what a healthy relationship looks like by simply listening. If they open up about their past experiences growing up in a dysfunctional family, be understanding. Never minimize or downplay their feelings. What happened to them growing up in a house with addiction was so powerful, it programmed their brain to make them think and feel in certain ways. That’s all foreign to you unless you’re also an adult child of an alcoholic. Never act like you know how it feels. Consider replying like this:  

I am so sorry that happened to you. I can’t imagine how that must have felt, and I can’t begin to relate, but I am here for you whenever you want to share more about those memories and how you feel today.

2.      Your partner’s lack of satisfaction has nothing to do with you.

ACoAs struggle with satisfaction in every way, especially with themselves. If they get promoted at work, they’ll say it took too long. If they are a good parent, they’ll say how they could do better. If you tell them they are hot stuff, they’ll point out their flaws.

People who grew up with an alcoholic mother or father never had a predictable pattern of response from their parent. One moment, they were showered with affection and the next moment, they were ignored or dismissed. So, they grow up lacking confidence they’re good enough, and spend their grownup days seeking an elusive sense of satisfaction with themselves.

For those who love ACoAs, this lack of satisfaction may feel personal at times, and you may wonder why you can’t make them feel whole with the life you’ve built together. Know they love you, and accept their never-ending quest for satisfaction has nothing to do with you. As children, they constantly sought unconditional love that never came, and therefore, they cannot fully love themselves and allow themselves to feel good enough.

You can help someone combat perfectionism by frequently reassuring them they are fulfilling expectations for all their roles, and they are more than enough for you. Remember that their personal struggle with satisfaction is part of the ACoA Syndrome and don’t let it affect your confidence in the relationship or in yourself.

3.      ACoAs are still learning what’s normal.

Often scratch your head over something your spouse does or doesn’t? Remember, ACoAs grew up in unhealthy family systems and environments; what is normal to you is new and abnormal to us. As grownups, we are exposed to healthy ways of thinking and acting, and it takes time to adopt them and to understand what’s normal.

Let’s say you’re a foodie who loves to cook, but you’re dating someone who views cooking as a chore and would much rather grab take out than spend time cooking at home. This may seem very strange to someone who has wonderful memories of cooking with their families growing up. But if you were a child of an alcoholic, the kitchen may have been the warzone to avoid. Cooking may not have occurred, or if it did, the experiences could have been marred by abuse occurring during that busy time. Before jumping to conclusions about why your beau doesn’t want to do something, consider how their views on everything today are influenced by their past experiences, which are very different from yours.

When I was searching for my first house, my realtor was stunned when I said the kitchen had little meaning to me. She said, “It’s the heart of the home where families gather!” She explained most people focused most on the kitchen when buying a home. It was the least important thing for me. In that moment, I realized why I didn’t enjoy cooking, and why I was often quick to leave the kitchen. I have zero good memories of the kitchen when I was growing up because it was epicenter of my mother’s addiction storm. Naturally, as an adult, I was conditioned to avoid that room – and everything in it. Fortunately, now, I’m making good memories in the kitchen and reprogramming my brain.

Being in my kitchen and learning to like cooking and has been a focus over the last few years in my healing journey to create the life I want!

4.      Give them recurring affirmations. We need it, even when we say we don’t.

ACoAs are tough. We rarely express what we need, and we are used to pretending everything is okay. We are highly unlikely to tell our significant others we are afraid they’ll cut and run, and we’re always a little on edge because we learned to bottle our emotions. Growing up, we were constantly let down with unreliable affection from our parent. When we needed our alcoholic mom or dad to be there for us, they often bailed so it’s natural we grow up and fear our partners will let us down, too.

Tell your partner you love them often, and all the ways they’re succeeding and show it through actions, too, because even when we say we don’t need the affirmations, we do. Deep down, we’re afraid we’ll lose your love, and all the good things in our lives…because that’s what happened to us before.

5.      Take good care of yourself. We are more likely to work on healing and self-care if you do, too.

Every human has issues and adult children of alcoholics are not the only ones who have healing to do. It’s the nature of being alive. If you get educated about your challenges, go to therapy, practice self-care and work on healing from your own issues, you’ll inspire the people around you including the adult child of an alcoholic you love. Talk about your issues and your healing process. Be vulnerable. Some ACoAs never learned proper self-care skills. Some are avoiding healing from the effects of their parent’s addiction. The healthier the people are around us, the more comfortable ACoAs are in their own healing journey.

There ya have it! My go-to ways to improve your relationship with your significant other who’s an adult child of an alcoholic. You know have the tools to get educated and help them overcome challenges related to matters of the heart! Start your education journey about adult children of alcoholics with more JodyLamb.com articles.

3 habits of healed adult children of alcoholics

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Are you among the millions of adult children of alcoholics in the world who has realized that your past experiences are affecting your life today? Developing new habits is key to your recovery and creating the life you want. Not sure how to get started? About 12 years ago, I was in that exact spot. Fortunately, there are many resources. Plus, millions of adult children of alcoholics (ACoA) have healed and shared their stories to help others to do the same. By learning and listening, I’ve been successful in my recovery and creating the life that I want. If you’re getting started with yours, you should know about the three key habits of healed adult children of alcoholics. The faster you pick up and stay committed to these habits, the faster success you’ll have in your healing journey.

Here are the three habits of healed adult children of alcoholics:

Habit #1: Begin with belief that you’ll heal.

Have you ever thought, “I have so many issues because of everything that happened when I was a kid. I’m destined to live with this baggage because I was dealt these bad cards in life.” This is a self-sabotaging mindset.

Healed ACoAs began their healing journey will firm belief that they could heal from the effects of their parent’s substance use disorder and teach themselves new ways of thinking and living to create the lives they want. Have this positive, outcome-based mindset as you begin working on healing. Pick up all the books and content you can consume; these valuable educational resources will help you accomplish your goals. Whatever you believe becomes reality. You WILL heal if you believe you will – just like millions of other ACoAs have, too.

Habit #2: Prioritize yourself.

If you’re like me and most adult children of alcoholics, you likely never developed this key habit, due to the environment. It took me nearly 30 years to discover that I only had one job in life: to take good care of myself. I did not know how to do it because I’d spent my whole life prioritizing everyone else and trying to solve problems that were not mine to solve. The powerful, terrible codependency gripped me. 

Healed ACoAs know that taking good care of themselves begins with prioritizing themselves and they truly living by this fact. It’s their guide for decision making – from minor, everyday decisions to the major stuff. Before they agree to do anything, they ask themselves, “Is this good for me? Is this someone else’s responsibility?” This helps ACoAs become master boundary setters.

Habit #3: Never stop learning.

You may be eager for the feeling that you’re fully healed but the reality is that healing from the powerful effects of a dysfunctional environment and the ACoA Syndrome is a life-long effort. Over time, you will make so much progress that you will hardly recognize your former ways of thinking and living. The more you heal and grow, the more you realize how much there is to learn and that there is always opportunity to grow in new ways.

Healed adult children of alcoholics know how important it is to keep learning and growing, even when they’ve reached important milestones in their journey. They keep reading, going to therapy, attending Al-Anon meetings, going to therapy and stay committed to other personal growth activities.  If you stop giving time to education, you can easily slip back into your old, destructive ways of thinking, behaving, and living. Stay committed to growth.

There you go. Now you know the three habits of healed adult children of alcoholics. Remember that there are millions of ACoAs who experienced extremely tough times and were deeply affected by their parent’s addiction. They decided to break the cycle and create the life they want. They put in the effort and made it happen. You will, too.