Made a Decision

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    Alcoholic Parents and Children; Both Sides of that Fence.

Fairly early in my sobriety my Home Group brought in a Big Guns AA Speaker to share with us. We usually met in the church hall, but for this event we packed the main church itself. 

It was a gala occasion.

Big Guns got up and his opening line was: "I have yet to meet an alcoholic who didn't grow up in a dysfunctional family." 

And I remember that so well because my immediate thought was, "Well, here's one."

It took me a long old time in recovery to come to grips with the illusions I held about my childhood versus the actual reality of it. 

 SLOW-briety, remember?

To any child, their surroundings and the people around them are their normal. Some of us become aware when very young that other families operate in a different and perhaps even better way; some of us never question our "normal."

. 

The children in my home were taught that "Yes, we're different in our family, but that's because we are superior ... Well, maybe YOU aren't, kid, but all the rest of us in this family are."

That probably wasn't the message my parents intended to send, but it's the one I received. And I don't think my two older brothers got a different one. And they, in fact, in many ways had a much tougher childhood than mine. 

It is to my brothers' credit they didn't grow up resenting their pampered baby sister, so that in later years we could come to understand our different levels of difficulty adapting in life, following the lessons we learned in our family home.

While my parents gave me an appreciation of those things I still most enjoy, like reading, poetry, writing, art, gardening, adventure, people, cooking, baking, the maritime industry (odd, but true), nature, pets, and much more. 

They also instilled in me a deep sense of guilt, insecurity and anxiety, along with teaching me to lie, fear intimacy, and become a first class people-pleaser. 

My dad also taught me, since my mother had cornered the market for perfection in women, I should concentrate on things where I might actually be able to succeed. From that I gained a workaholic career drive and a lifelong insecurity about my own femininity.

In other words, while my parents were wonderful, intelligent, interesting and loving people, they were not necessarily the best parents for three sensitive children. 

And nor was I to my own four children. 

We all just did the best we could with what we had to offer. And the same is true I suspect - to a greater or lesser degree - for each and every one of us.

Some of us in recovery had truly dreadful parents, but they often had truly dreadful parents, too. No one had ever installed good parenting skills in them, so the beat - literally and figuratively - went on. 

Parenting is hard work. This is especially so for those given a faulty blueprint for parenting. Throw addiction into that mix and the recipe is guaranteed to cause harm. I'd love a do-over for my children, with me as a better parent. So would most alcoholic parents I know, but the best we can do is to stay sober and be supportive of our now older children - if they want that from us.

Neither one of my parents had much of a childhood and in both cases it had ended early. My Dad was working in a coal mine by the age of 13. My mother at that same young age was working as a nanny 150 miles away from her own family. 

So when I was born they gave me the childhoods they'd missed out on, and I'm sure never once considered if the perfect childhood they envisioned was a good fit for a timid little girl.

I was given ballet lessons, made to act professionally on stage before large audiences, give radio and newspaper interviews, study piano, and perform in music recitals. My Dad, an avid home movie buff, filmed me scaling tall (scary) ladders, riding big (scary) horses, and otherwise behaving like the Shirley Temple I wasn't. They regularly turned me loose in strange cities while they visited art museums and similar places. When they went out of town, my brothers and I were left for weeks at a time (separately) with people our parents knew. Sometimes we knew those people, sometimes not.

There's no doubt that the above made me into a stronger person as an adult, but it all scared the hell out of me as a kid. 

And, even though both my parents died in the 1990s, I still feel a twinge of guilt at writing everything you've just read. Family loyalty gets hardwired into us long before we ever step inside a school room. It's still there in me, but at least today I understand it.

As recovering adults we need to examine all aspects of our life, including what we learned in our families of origin, so that we can keep the good stuff and work on eliminating the not-so-good. Learning to separate out the many real gifts our parents gave us from some of the "issues" we learned, is an important part of our recovery. Especially when we can do so while remaining (mostly) guilt free.

Most children of recovering alcoholics - once they realize a parent is well and truly into recovery - can reestablish a good relationship with them. That's true in more cases than not. They come to realize their mother or father was both physically and mentally ill while drinking and has become a new person in recovery. The frightening parent they knew has become the person they were meant to be before alcoholism took over. 

Others, and sadly for all concerned, never recover from the trauma of their drunk-drama childhoods, especially if their parents divorced and they grew up with an embittered ex-spouse. Young minds are, after all, impressionable. These kids grow up hating the alcoholic for what he/she did to their family home. They remain hard and cynical, unable to forgive.

Learning and healing take time. Forgiveness takes both desire and effort. Estrangement usually ends, but not always. Acceptance of whatever develops remains the key. 

Hanging onto our own parenting guilt isn't helpful either. I had a lot of guilt over the fact that, of my four children, my eldest was wanted at birth in every sense of that word and my youngest, born less than five years later, arrived into the turmoil of a fracturing marriage and my escalating alcoholism. In other words, my baby got the short shrift. 

It took a very wise woman in AA to point out to me that each of us has our own lessons to learn in life and that the conditions for our growth have to exist from the beginning. 

"Call it Karma if you prefer," she said, "But each child gets the design they most need for their own soul's development and eventual fulfillment."

I took some real comfort from that. I hope you can, too.

 

Made a Decision 

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              Alcoholism and Codependency                                                      

Feelings of guilt, pity, and obligation are to the codependent what the first drink is to the alcoholic. Beware of what happens next! - Melodie Beatte

What? Why are we not talking about alcohol? What does codependency have to do with drinking? 

Quite a lot, actually, at least for many of us, along with all the other addictions we can easily slide into after putting the plug in the jug. Things like overeating, overspending, over-lusting, and just plain over-doing in general. 

But we usually don't slide into codependent behaviors for the very first time when we get to AA - we arrive with them fully in place.

And the difference is, all our newly-adopted over-the-top behaviors will fade away as we learn, over time, to rely more-and-more on surrendering them to our Higher Power.

 (And then leaving them there.)

 But codependency is truly in a class by itself and deserves a closer look. 

Recovering alcoholics/addicts eventually often discover codependency is one of their key underlying issues. That's because substance abuse and dependency lead to guilt and shame, the same two emotions that can also lead to codependency. 

And, like alcoholism, recovering from codependency can be hard work. It requires our full attention and commitment, but it's worth it because it can take us to a more fulfilled and joyful life. There's also the fact (and motivator) that codependency, just like alcoholism, can be a killer. More about that in a minute.

I made the discovery that I was a raging codependent in my ninth year of sobriety. Up until then I had been sailing along, happily sober, sponsoring other women and active in other kinds of service work. Only gradually did I notice the women I sponsored were becoming healthy enough to enjoy supportive and loving relationships. Many of them married, had children, moved on ... I hadn't.

Then, one night while waiting for a meeting to begin in a treatment centre where I had gone with my group to carry the AA message, I glanced at a pinned-up notice on a cork board. It was a test on the "laundry list" outlining codependent behaviors. I was amazed to find that, just like in those written tests offering symptoms of alcoholism, I passed the codependent test with flying colours, too.

I brought the matter up with my sponsor. 

She told me I was very codependent, but that she hadn't confronted me with it because I was sober and seemed happy. 

I was happy.

But I was also lonely. 

In those days I still hoped for a loving relationship, but was afraid to become involved with anyone. I had already painfully learned getting out of any relationship was nearly impossible for me. That's a classic codependent symptom for some of us, by the way. One of many. 

Here are some others: People pleasing; lack of boundaries; poor self-esteem; caretaking; reactivity; poor communication; lacking a positive self-image; difficulty making decisions in a relationship; difficulty identifying our own feelings; valuing the approval of others more than valuing our own, lack of self trust - and that's just for starters.

Codependent givers and takers have a lot in common, but their differences make for unhealthy - even toxic - relationships, ones that can lead to desperation, depression, despair, abuse, violence and even death (homicidal or suicidal). 

A codependent person tends to give continuously to a narcissistic partner who takes. They're both codependent, just flip sides of the same coin. 

(They can sometimes also, in a different relationship, play the reverse role!)

Blackouts are one symptom of alcoholism (not all alcoholics have them, but no non-alcoholic has them!) and domestic violence is one symptom of codependency (not all codependents get caught up in domestic violence, but many, many do). 

Codependents don't all grow up with alcoholic parents, either, but they also don't grow up in healthy and nurturing conditions. Codependency is almost always rooted in adverse childhood experiences. And those who do grow up in an alcoholic home are exposed to a full slate of negative conditions. Here they learn while very young to neglect their own needs for the sake of their parents' needs and demands. 

To survive their traumatic upbringing such children become shapechangers, able to immediately take the temperature of any emotional atmosphere and adapt to whatever is found. (We never lose that superpower, either. I still have it.)

Growing up this way, having no one listen to us, or otherwise affirm us, leaves us feeling isolated and emotionally abandoned. 

And when we grow up with one or both parents being alcoholic, we're probably going to have at least a few codependent issues surface when we establish homes of our own. This is particularly true for those of us destined to also go on to become alcoholics ourselves.

As adults, we see others having safe intimate relationships and we long for that same experience. But our attempts at relationships devolve rapidly. We carry into them a sense of shame, along with fear, that leaves us unable to share who we really are. 

We often don't have a clue about who we really are anyway until we're well into long-term recovery from other addictions. Shapechangers, remember?

Some question calling codependency an addiction, but therapists don't. They often even use the term "codependency" interchangeably with "relationship addiction." When we lose ourselves in a relationship, make our "significant other" the most important part of our lives in every way possible, and compromise our own beliefs and values in the process, what else can we call it other than addiction?

We did the same with our drinking, after all. We made alcohol the most important part of our lives in every way possible, compromised our beliefs and values over and over again to keep on drinking, and eventually lost ourselves in the process.

We codependents find no lasting joy in a relationship other than in doing things to make our partners value us. We're in it for the long haul, too, even when knowing our partner is hurtful, even dangerous. We'll do anything we can think of to please and satisfy them, no matter at what expense to ourselves. Our relationship becomes more important than anything else, including our own well-being.

And here's where people who are not codependents become baffled and often wade in with advice to, "Just leave the bastard," or "You are too nice a person to let someone treat you that way, get out while you can." or - and this is the one that once broke my own heart - when the best friend I'd ever had walked away after telling me: "I can no longer be your friend and watch you self-destruct because of him. We're done."

There's an obvious (to me) similar situation created by our drinking, because we  hear the same kinds of messages from friends and family:  "Why don't you just have a couple of drinks and then stop?" ... "Why can't you see what your drinking is doing to you? To us?" ... "It's either the bottle or me. I can't stay in this any longer and watch you kill yourself."

Now step back and think about how we felt when those same kinds of comments were aimed at us over our drinking. Then consider what it means to judge anyone about anything. People are formed from such different circumstances, motivated by different situations, shaped by their own personal suffering. We cannot even hope to understand the behaviors of even those closest to us. 

We see all things in one dimension. Only our Higher Power sees things from all sides, inside and out. Our relationship with a Higher Power is the one that can bring about lasting positive change.

Even so, I have never personally experienced a healthy intimate relationship.

The last time I ventured to attempt one ended, as always, in painful failure. It took me to the edge of suicide before I finally surrendered that intention, on my knees, to my Higher Power.

I have never stepped back into the relationship arena again, and now I've left it too late. That's a shame really, because I'm a pretty nice person today. But when I was of an age to be in a relationship I didn't have enough recovery from my own codependency to operate safely in an intimate partnership. 

So I will suggest you don't do as I did. If you think codependency is one of your issues, get honest about it now. There is help available. 

Get a copy of the book Codependents Anonymous for a full outline of what you are dealing with and the tools needed on how to recover.

 Get a support system. Join a group to find the experience, strength and hope you'll need to heal from your codependent issues. 

Every internal conflict has many levels, but over time our emotions can be healed  - unless we avoid them or try to hide from them. 

Most of the time what we want and need is just to feel listened to and understood. Go find those people who will give that to you. We're all miracles of recovery from alcoholism. It may now be the time for you to go get yourself another miracle. 

 

Made a Decision

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           Guess What? It's Gratitude Week!

We're right now in the middle of AA's Gratitude Week that began on 9 June and ends June 15. But it's not too late to celebrate right here in the middle! 

Way back on June 10th, 1935 (nine years before I was born), Bill Wilson and his friend Dr. Robert Smith, set out to find the best way to reform alcoholics - and Alcoholics Anonymous was born. 

We acknowledge this 85th birthday anniversary by taking part in AA's Gratitude Week. 

AA members celebrate by holding gratitude meetings in their home groups, or by making a special donation to the General Service Office (either as an individual or by having a separate passing of the pot to send in labeled as your group's gratitude contribution), or by our just taking time every morning this week to be grateful for all that AA has given us personally.

Before our founders cobbled together our amazing program of recovery - drawing on medicine, religion, science, and their built-in first-hand knowledge of how alcoholics think and behave ... 

        ... there was NO SOLUTION for drunks like us.

 To be diagnosed as an "alcoholic" before 1935 was a death sentence. Alcoholism meant suffering a long, slow, painful decline into insanity, followed by death. So living in a time when AA is readily available is truly a miracle for every single one of us. 

            Stop and just think about that for a minute. 

Remember when you hit the last stage of your own drinking? Remember the fear, the hangovers, the self-disgust, the scornful looks and remarks from friends and family, your own bafflement at not wanting to drink, but continuing to do so? 

Or can you recall your denial you even had a problem until the cell door slammed behind you, or the family left, or you got fired? Or all of the above? Remember? 

What if there had been no way out for you? What if the hand of AA hadn't been there? What if there hadn't been AA members to show you the way out? What if there had been no AA meeting to become your safe place?

               Think about that for a minute, too.

As our book says, we are people who would not normally mix, coming as we do from different countries, political, economic, social and religious backgrounds. But mix we do, and we are saved because of the common solution AA offers to, and through, each one of us. 

Every single member of AA has something to offer our fellow alcoholics (yes, this means you, too). Our presence alone is a comfort, our experiences resonate, our strength supports, our hope is contagious. And even when we're struggling we contribute, because by sharing our torment we open the door for others to help, and we clarify our own minds in the process.

Give a thought to what our AA friends offer us, of their caring, friendliness, understanding, support, and when we most need it  - a jolt of truth - delivered with an honesty seldom found elsewhere. And we do the same for them. We are needed! 

We, who were once slaves to our drink, have become free in AA. Freedom is what recovery is all about. We are free in sobriety to become who we were meant to be before our addiction(s) derailed us. We have become free to enjoy all that life has to offer. 

Does being free mean we'll always get our own way? Uh, no. Sorry. We learn, we grow, and then we get more opportunities to learn still more. Many of our sober lessons will be difficult, because that's how we continue to grow to become better people.

We are where we are for a reason. Growth is work. We must be willing to do the simple things that our newer understanding asks of us. That's how we get to that "more will be revealed" part of our recovery.

All of us pray when we are hurting. In recovery we learn that if we pray regularly, when we continually try for that conscious contact, we won't have cause to be hurting as intensely, or as often.

Recovery - like old age - isn't for sissies. It's all about continuing to do-the-doing in both good times and bad. "Slowbriety" will get us where we need to go - one day at a time - and best of all, we'll get there sober. 

Recovery is also all about being and remaining grateful for ALL our sober experiences and not just the ones we like. There is much to be learned about living from both joy and from pain. Both offer us reasons for gratitude. 

When we are active in our recovery we change every single day … one day at a time  This growth is not the result of wishing and hoping, but of action and prayer. 

And science now tells us we cannot hold a negative thought and a positive thought at the same time. So making a gratitude list is a guaranteed path out of the doldrums. Try it. It works every time!

"We are not saints," and we will never be, but it's a healthy sign of our recovery when we really wish we could be ... when we truly want to be better and are willing to do everything it takes to become the best person we can be.

What an amazing gift AA is to people like us who, without it, would be doomed to an almost certain ugly and painful death.

Your disease wanted you to die alone and unloved at the bitter end of a shortened life. It still does. It doesn't want recovery for you. 

Your disease wanted/wants you isolated, lonely, depressed, suicidal - and dead. Recovery in AA is your salvation. Recovery is also an ADVENTURE. So put on your pith helmet and be willing to explore all the many aspects of it. 

Above all, never ever stop being grateful that you are alive and sober in - and because of - Alcoholics Anonymous!