ACoAs all too often become addicts themselves, engaged in a compulsive relationship with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, work or money as a form of mood management. Part of getting and staying sober involves facing childhood pain so that it doesn’t remain unresolved and inwardly active, which could trigger relapse (van der Kolk, 1987). Watching someone we love slowly become someone we cannot make sense of can shake us to the core.
What is the Adult Children of Alcoholics movement?
Because the limbic system has jurisdiction over our mood, appetite, sleep cycles and libido, deregulation in the limbic system can translate into a lack of ability to regulate our feelings, appetite, sleep or sex drive. Broad swings between states of emotional intensity and numbing are part of the natural trauma response. Oftentimes, the more dysfunctional a family becomes, the more isolated it becomes from other families. Having somewhere to go that feels safe and offers a different model of how to live can have a lasting, positive impact on a child that counters the effects of growing up with trauma. ACoAs often talk about grandparents’ houses, spending time at the neighbor’s, the house of a friend or relative, or a job where they could regain their balance and recognize that the world is full of options. These experiences restore a sense of hope and direction for the CoA.
They are disempowered by the very nature of their youth and dependency. Also, a young child, you felt really shy and thought this was normal. However, with insight, you know that you were emotionally neglected and didn’t get emotional support as a child. Also, being an adult child of an alcohol has really had an impact on you. It can be very painful going through the process of uncovering, discovering, and discarding.
Difficulties in Relationships
As a therapist for adult children of alcoholics, we call this dissociation. Sometimes, it feels like you are in a dream, or in someone else’s life with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. You may have physical symptoms, such as headaches, bowel issues, dizziness, or chest pains. Irritable bowel syndrome, digestive issues and stomach aches are very common with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. You may also experience friendship issues, conflicts with an intimate partner and general relationship difficulties.
This experience puts you at risk for long-term, post-traumatic stress effects or complex trauma later in life. It can also impact your relationships, self-esteem, and increase your chances of alcohol addiction. There is a marked prevalence of mental health issues among adult children of alcoholics who present higher rates of anxiety and depression, substance abuse disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The trauma and stress of living in an alcoholic household can contribute to these conditions, which may persist into adulthood if left untreated.
Adult Children of Alcoholics − Key Takeaways
According to a small 2016 study involving 100 children ages 7 to 14, those who had fathers with alcohol dependence were more likely to show signs of impulsivity than those whose fathers did not have alcohol dependence. These feelings can affect your personal sense of self-esteem and self-worth. For example, if you couldn’t depend on your parent to feed you breakfast or take you to school in the morning, you may have become self-reliant early on. As a result, Peifer says you could have difficulty accepting love, nurturing, and care from partners, friends, or others later in life.
Growing up in a home where a parent is an alcoholic often has a long-term impact. Children of alcoholics are also more at risk of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. As well as these issues, when a parent is an alcoholic, home life is often chaotic. Living with an alcoholic keeps your fight, flight, or freeze response in overdrive. You never know what’s coming and when conflict arises, you go into survival mode.
Unfortunately, children confuse a parent’s addiction and inconsistency in being a present and healthy parent as the child not being worthy of their parent’s love. Inevitably, this can lead many children with parent(s) who are alcoholics to potentially develop abandonment issues or low self-esteem. Behavioral therapies are another option for ACoAs.23 Treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you learn new ways to resolve conflict, communicate your needs, and cope with stress. Your therapist will teach you how to identify and monitor your emotions and give you strategies to deal with unwanted feelings like relaxation techniques. The goal is to interrupt your regular patterns of reacting to emotional situations and replace them with more positive behaviors.
If your parents abused substances, you may have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Research suggests a family history of addiction doubles your risk of drug and alcohol abuse. Scientists have compared DNA of family members with addiction issues and found groups of similar genes and the way proteins bind to them in relatives. These types of trends weren’t found in people without substance use disorders. I believe one of the eight alternative sets of steps currently being offered for consideration by the ACA fellowship in the recently posted survey on the ACA website, fits those criteria. Marty S., who many consider a “wise elder” highly involved in the development of some of ACA’s cornerstone literature, stated that what the adult child suffers from is not a disease, but a result of ongoing traumatic conditioning.
Mental Health Treatment
- This experience puts you at risk for long-term, post-traumatic stress effects or complex trauma later in life.
- Many ACoAs will continue to feel responsible for the happiness and well-being of everyone around them—an impossibly big task.
- They may also struggle with relationships, face academic challenges, and have a higher risk of developing substance abuse problems themselves.
- Another limitation is that it is not possible to determine whether the health problems and health-related risk behaviors were present before or after the initial event of violence exposure.
- In a 1991 talk at the 7th Annual ACA Convention in Orlando, ACA co-founder Tony A spoke of feeling like he was often on the verge of tears from unresolved grief.
In the absence of a stable, emotionally supportive enviornment, you learned to adapt in the only ways you knew how. As an adult, though, you can learn to manage and change specific behaviors that no longer help you, which can improve your overall well-being, quality of life, and relationships with others. The parent is the one who holds they keys to the house, the car, the refrigerator and the bank account. When the parent is the one who is causing the stress, it’s a double whammy for the child. Not only is the child scared and hurt, but the person they would normally go to for comfort and solace is the one who is scaring and hurting them.
Signs of an alcoholic family
First, are you stressing out every day and feeling anxiety due to memories from your childhood? Is thinking about your childhood overwhelming since your parents were angry often? Was your childhood chaotic with fighting, yelling, drunk, neglectful parents? Also, do you feel small and afraid around authority figures or parents? Do you wonder if you have complex post-traumatic stress disorder from growing up with alcoholics? As well, do you seek approval and feel lost about your identity, even though you may have a good job?
Speeding, sexual acting out, spending money, fighting, drugging, working too hard or other behaviors done in a way that puts one at risk are some examples of high-risk behaviors (van der Kolk, 1987). When we feel that nothing we can do will affect or change the situation we’re in, we may develop learned helplessness. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change or move a situation forward; we may give up and collapse on the inside or adopt a permanent position of victimhood (van der Kolk, 1987). Basic intelligence is a factor in resilience along with the child’s own organic structure. Some children seem better equipped by nature to cope with adverse circumstances in spite of their gender or position in the family.
Then sure enough, you sense tension creeping in, you observe moments fraying around the edges, situations devolving and unraveling before your eyes, and you know that it’s coming. The gap between the worlds that had temporarily closed up begins to widen, and your addict disappears into some crevice, some wormhole in the universe, and he is gone as mysteriously as he came. You see the disappointment on the faces around you; you see the confusion, the humiliation and the hurt. And simultaneously you see those family members shake their heads, square their shoulders, and mush on because the world is still chugging along even though the alcoholic has stepped off. You appreciate the ones who are able to plow through, even with blinders, because someone has to, because there are school buses to make, homework to be done, and appointments to get to. Twelve-step programs can be a wonderful adjunct or even initial intervention to therapy.
Your addiction does not have to define who you are.
Personally, I used a combination of therapy and a 12-step process in order to do this. I have made great strides in healing the trauma and dysfunction from my past, but for me it is an ongoing process. The progress of healing is evidenced in my present-day relationships and marriage. When as adults, unresolved childhood pain gets triggered, the ACoA may stand there, looking like a grown-up, but feeling, on the inside, like that helpless, frightened, trapped kid. Naming and defining the ACoA syndrome gives us a way to finally understand ourselves, to feel our way out of our frozenness, so that we can finally grow up on the inside.
They reason that by avoiding honest and authentic connections they will avoid being hurt–and so they isolate. Unfortunately social connectedness, though natural to our species, still needs to be learned and practiced. The more we isolate, the more out of practice we become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us. By clicking “Submit,” you certify that you have provided your legal name and phone number, agree to the terms and conditions and privacy policy, and authorise Paid Advertiser to contact you. You consent to receive SMS notifications and promotions from Paid Advertiser. Addiction Resource does not offer medical diagnosis, treatment, or advice.
Not only are they being hurt, but their access to the comforting side of their parents is interfered with because of parental dysfunction. “Emotional sobriety,”22 a term first coined by AA founder Bill Wilson, is what people in recovery gain once they learn to regulate their emotions. Because this is often a major theme for ACoAs, learning to feel and work through emotions healthily is a crucial step in the recovery process. ACoAs are up to 10 times more likely to become addicted to alcohol13 themselves. Having a father addicted to alcohol increases both men’s and women’s risk of alcoholism while growing up with a mother addicted to alcohol tends to increase women’s risk more than men’s. And ACoAs are also at greater risk for addiction to drugs other than alcohol.
Research suggests childhood trauma could double your risk of mental illness later in life. Your own addiction can increase your risk for mental health symptoms. Drug and alcohol abuse impact the reward center of the brain, and you can develop mental health symptoms as a result. adult children of alcoholic trauma syndrome Because living with addiction is often traumatizing, ACoAs may be left with a post traumatic stress syndrome in which painful feelings and relationship dynamics from their childhood become relived and recreated in their adult relationships.