Janet Woititz: Adult Children Of Alcoholics

[aragorn]

Reading the big 5 books on psychology/narcissism was a life changing experience, to say the least. Still, I somehow felt that at least one piece of the puzzle of my childhood was missing. So, I went back to read "The Narcissistic Family" and there I found the mentioning of the book "Adult Children of Alcoholics" by Janet G. Woititz. It intrigued me, because my father besides from being a narcissist and perhaps even a psychopath, was an alcoholic (which eventually killed him).

So, I ordered the book and I've read ca 1/3 of it now. Perhaps this applies just in my situation and to my background, but I have to say: "Spot on!" She really describes my childhood in a nutshell. There are of course some "blind spots" or things that Woititz doesn't bring up, such as psychopathology, but I don't hold that against her - she focuses on the effects of an alcoholic on their family and especially their children.

There are obviously many similarities with the literature about narcissism, but this "angle" was for me the missing piece (there may be more...). I hope that the rest of the book is as good as the beginning. I apologize for not having read the whole thing before posting, but I wanted to share this in case someone is struggling with the same issues.

Actually, the book I ordered is called 'The Complete ACOA Source Book', and it's a compilation of three of her books: Adult Children of Alcoholics, Struggle for Intimacy and The Self-Sabotage Syndrome (and it almost as cheap as buying one of those). Amazon permalink: _http://amzn.com/1558749608

I couldn't find any excerpts (that could be copied) on the internet, but I did find a longer review that describes some of the contents (see below). You can also read big chunks of it on google books: _http://books.google.com/books?id=TPPVsA389gQC&lpg=PA257&ots=EUIPAfV40n&dq=janet%20woititz%20the%20complete%20acoa%20sourcebook&pg=PR7#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here's the review:

From: _http://www.alison-andrews.com/adult-children-of-alcoholics.html

Adult Children of Alcoholics

I first heard of a book called Adult Children of Alcoholics in 2007.
As the daughter of an alcoholic I was naturally intrigued. When I checked it up on Amazon I read that there were supposedly several characteristics that the children of alcoholics had in common. I ordered The Complete ACOA Sourcebook: Adult Children of Alcoholics at Home, at Work and in Love.

Reading the book was an enormously emotional experience as I felt as if I was reading a book specifically about myself! How did she know all this stuff about me?
The fact that most of these characteristics and patterns of behavior are common to all adult children of alcoholics was quite a revelation. I am not alone in these feelings, I am not such an oddball, in fact considering the environment I grew up in, I am totally 'normal'. When my siblings read the book they also found it hit home very strongly and described them very accurately.

Dr Janet Woititz spent most of her professional life working with Adult Children of Alcoholics and as the wife of an alcoholic she saw first hand the impact of that alcoholism on herself and her children. While the book focuses on alcoholism specifically, after the book's publication she learned that the material in the book can also apply to other types of dysfunctional families, such as drug addiction, gambling, chronic illness or religious fanaticism. In the introduction to the book Dr Woititz describes the premise of the book, which is that for the Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA), there is 'no database: Adult children of alcoholics do not learn what other children learn in the process of growing up. Although they do wonderfully well in crisis, they do not learn the day-to-day process of "doing life".'

'When is a child not a child? When the child lives with alcoholism.' She describes how the child growing up in an alcoholic home never feels like a child. Their home life can be described as 'chronic trauma.' While specific details may differ from one alcoholic home to the next, the overall environment is the same. There is a constant undercurrent of tension and anxiety, there is no laughter, no sense of the carefree, no chance to relax and be a child. There is no sense of constancy, no idea of what will confront you when you walk in the door each day.

No matter how you try you can never be prepared for what you will find when you get home. You live on hope, on the idea of how things could be if only the alcoholic stopped drinking. Retreating into a dream world is common. I drew pictures and words in the air, my sister told me I looked retarded. I frequently got into trouble for staring out the window in class. I escaped into fairy tales and television shows and imagined the worlds I found there to be real, to be how things could be for us too if only he would stop drinking. I always felt like an outsider, I always felt different. I struggled to form lasting friendships, and generally felt unwanted and left out.

Low Self Esteem

An overriding characteristic of all adult children of alcoholics is chronically low self esteem. This is not surprising as self esteem arises from things like 'respectful treatment', 'parental warmth' and 'clearly defined limits.' These are all generally absent in the alcoholic home. The alcoholic parent's behavior is affected by the alcohol, whereas the non-alcoholic parent's behavior is affected by their reaction to the alcoholic. There is consequently very little emotional energy available to meet the needs of the children. The way that children develop self esteem is by internalizing the messages of those around them. The most powerful of those messages are the ones received from their parents. They take what they are told about themselves to be true.

Their initial analysis of who they are and the building blocks of their self esteem come from the external messages they receive about themselves. Woititz describes how, in the alcoholic home, so many messages are contradictory. They don't make sense, such as 'I love you.' ''Go away.' The first message they receive is 'I love you', but the alcoholic parent is preoccupied with drinking, so the second message is 'go away.' The non alcoholic parent is preoccupied with the alcoholic so their message is also 'I love you, but please go away, I don't have time for you.' Another contradictory message is 'Everything is fine, don't worry' and 'How in the world can I deal with this?' Another is the judgment combined with excuses, e.g. 'He is a drunk' and 'It wasn't his fault, he was drunk.'

The alcoholic is excused because he can't help his behavior, he has a disease. But Woititz states that the real message here is 'If I am drunk, I can do whatever I want.' The child also takes on huge amounts of guilt for becoming angry with the alcoholic. They are told, 'it isn't his fault, he has a sickness', so they feel guilty, they feel they are the one at fault, the one to blame. How can they hate a sick person? They must be very bad themselves.

Characteristics of ACOA's

There are thirteen characteristics of adult children of alcoholics. Some or all of these will apply to you if you are an ACOA. Maybe they will have applied at different times of your life. Some that I thought at first didn't apply to me, I later realized, did.

1. Adult Children of Alcoholics guess at what normal is

Nothing in an alcoholic household is 'normal.' There is no frame of reference for how things 'should' be or what patterns of behavior are appropriate and acceptable. Consequently adult children of alcoholics have to guess. They look at TV shows, they look at other families that appear to be normal and try and mimic that.
In the alcoholic household home life varies from 'slightly mad to extremely bizarre', as Woititz points out: 'in a more typical situation one does not have to walk on eggshells all the time. One doesn't have to question or repress one's feelings all the time. Because you did, you also became confused.' There is another aspect to this, which is that the ACOA has an idealized version of how things should be. There is no such thing as 'normal' but the child of an alcoholic 'bought the myth of normalcy' displayed in sitcoms and idealized advertising, and ''in so doing, developed fantasies about [their] ideal self, ideal others and an ideal family.....The ideal self [they] think about is the perfect child, the perfect spouse, the perfect friend, the perfect parent. Since the fantasy cannot exist, [they] spend a lot of time judging [themselves] because life doesn't work the way [they] decide it should."

2. Children of Alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end

In an alcoholic home, nothing happens as it is supposed to happen. There is no constancy or consistency, no reliability. If the alcoholic parent says they will do something, chances are it will not get done. The alcoholism takes the priority, there is seldom an example of how to see a project through from beginning to end. In addition, who has the time to sit with the child and discuss a project for the child to complete, and discuss how to break it down into smaller parts, how to make it manageable? The result is a person who often hasn't got a clue about how to manage things in their life, and again have an ideal version for how they think things 'should' be, and judge themselves harshly when they don't measure up.

3. Adult Children of Alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth

Dr Woititz describes 'just as easy to tell the truth' as being that the adult children of alcoholics derive no real benefit from the lie. Lying, covering up, and denying are central to the alcoholic household. Lies are told to protect the alcoholic: 'He can't come to work, he is sick' or to protect the children: 'Everything is fine' or 'your dad is just going through a tough time, things will get better.' Children start to lie to protect the family unit, if teachers ask questions they say: 'Everything is fine', or they start to lie to the parents, after all, the parents have enough on their plates dealing with the alcoholism. I remember never telling my mother that I needed things for school. I knew she had enough to worry about, I knew there wasn't any money. I didn't want to trouble her with my needs. I just did without. If she asked me how things were, I told her they were great. Lying became entrenched.

4. Adult Children of Alcoholics judge themselves without mercy

As the child of an alcoholic, you were constantly told that you were not good enough. In my household my father criticized us relentlessly. As a small child I was constantly told how stupid I was, what an idiot I was, how thick, dumb and useless I was. From the age of around eleven the criticism became sexualized, and I was constantly called a -jezebel-, a dirty -jezebel-, a titillating bitch. It becomes normal to internalize these messages so that anything that goes wrong in your life you interpret as a result of your own lack. According to Woititz the child starts to think: 'I am a mistake' instead of thinking 'I made that mistake; however, I am not a mistake.' That thinking carries forward into adulthood.

5. Adult Children of Alcoholics have difficulty having fun

The child in an alcoholic home is always on edge, always fearful, the atmosphere in the house is thick with stress and tension. They never have a chance to be a child. By the time they become adults they often have no idea of how to release that fun loving inner child. When I was a child my enjoyment in playing sports, riding bicycles or climbing trees was always overshadowed by my anxiety about what was happening at home, wondering what I would find at home when I got there.

6. Adult Children of Alcoholics take themselves very seriously

Number 5 and 6 are closely related. As a child in an alcoholic home, you don't have a lot of fun. There wasn't room for spontaneous fun, life just wasn't fun. The consequence of this is frequently an adult who takes themselves far too seriously.

7. Adult Children of Alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships

There is no frame of reference for a healthy adult relationship. You never saw your parents model this behavior. The relationship patterns you witnessed were extremely unhealthy. This is a particularly weighty issue, and the entire second volume of this book, called 'In Love: Struggle For Intimacy', deals with this.
'To be intimate, to be close, to be vulnerable, contradicts all the survival skills learned by children of alcoholics when they were very young.' Because of the contradictory message the child receives constantly through their childhood, that of 'I love you. Go away' adult children of alcoholics may find the person who is warm and loving one minute and cold and rejecting the next, to be absolutely addictive. 'The challenge to win the love of the erratic and sometimes rejecting person repeats the challenge of your childhood.'

8. Adult Children of Alcoholics overreact to changes over which they have no control

Dr Woititz points out that this is 'very simple to understand. The young child of the alcoholic was not in control. The alcoholic's life was inflicted on [the child], as was the environment.' For adult children of alcoholics there remains a fear that if they are not in charge of every detail, or if plans change outside of their control, that they will therefore lose control of their lives. According to Woititz 'it brings back all the plans that were never carried out, the promises that were never kept and the punishment that you could not relate to your crime.'

9. Adult Children of Alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation

While Adult Children of Alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation, when this is offered they find it very difficult to accept. The mixed messages from childhood leave adult children of alcoholics very confused. 'Yes, No, I Love You, Go Away' were the messages you received. Even when you receive approval and affirmation, you find it very difficult to accept. You would have to be 'bombarded with encouragement' to 'begin to accept it.' In my first few years as an employee I almost killed myself trying to be the best employee that had ever lived. If I did a thousand things right I would take it in stride, as if it was nothing, but if one thing went wrong I would agonize over it and feel that all my good work had just been undone. The third volume of the book deals entirely with adult children of alcoholics in the workplace. It is called 'At Work: The Self Sabotage Syndrome'.

10. Adult Children of Alcoholics feel that they are different from other people

For adult children of alcoholics, feeling different is something that has been with you since childhood.
While the other children could immerse themselves in the game, you could never feel fully present, it was like you were just pretending to be a child, going through the motions, your fears and worries about what might be going on at home clouded everything. You and your entire family became increasingly isolated and, as a result, it is very hard to ever feel part of a group even now that you're an adult. You never developed the social skills necessary to feel comfortable in a group. Woititz describes how as a child you may have guessed at what would work to fit in. Like one child who tried to bribe her friends by giving them her prized barbie dolls. 'It is hard for adult children of alcoholics to believe that they can be accepted because of who they are and that the acceptance does not have to be earned. Feeling different and somewhat isolated is part of your makeup.'

11. Adult Children of Alcoholics are either super responsible or super irresponsible

You either do it all, or do nothing. I have played both parts. At certain times in my life I was so responsible it was frightening. At other times I behaved so recklessly that it was amazing I survived. After my father went into rehab, I dropped out of high school and began working to help my mother support my younger siblings. I took on the burden of the family's welfare and felt that it was all up to me, though no one asked me to feel this way. I just took it on. I felt total responsibility for my mother's depression and felt that everything my siblings needed I should be able to supply. I worked myself into the ground, and by the time I moved to London at the age of 22, I was burnt out. I gradually phased into a period of super irresponsibility, abusing drugs and alcohol. Knowledge is power and knowing these things about yourself and why you are the way you are, is an enormously powerful tool in being able to move past it.

12. Adult Children of Alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved

'The alcoholic home appears to be a very loyal place. Family members hang in long after reasons dictate that they should leave. The so-called "loyalty" is more the result of fear and insecurity than anything else; nevertheless the behavior that is modeled is one where no one walks away just because the going gets rough.'
For adult children of alcoholics this translates as, if someone cares enough about me to be with me, to be my friend or my lover, than I have a duty to stay with them forever. 'The fact that they may treat you poorly does not matter. You can rationalize that. Your loyalty is unparalleled.' Because the message you constantly received as a child was that the terrible behavior of the alcoholic, was 'not his fault', you have no idea about what is reasonable behavior. No idea about what can be deemed acceptable and what not. Therefore, almost any behavior can be empathized with, understood, and rationalized away. 'Your fears of being abandoned make it almost impossible for you to abandon others........You find yourself assuming that if he or she is no longer treating you as in the beginning, then there is something wrong with you.'

13. Adult Children of Alcoholics are impulsive.

They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess. Woititz states that 'This [behavior] can be best characterized as "alcoholic."' The alcoholic themselves operate in the 'here and now.' They want to have a drink. They do not think further than that one drink. They do not think of the consequences, the fact that they may have promised to stop drinking, the fact that they have work to do, or the fact that they promised to be home early. They don't think beyond that first drink. So adult children of alcoholics may unconsciously model this behavior. When you were a child, you never had the chance to behave impulsively, you were forced to behave like an adult when you were a child. So as an adult, you may make up for this loss. 'The situation is further complicated by a terrible sense of urgency. If you don't do it immediately, you will not get a second chance. And you are used to being on the edge of a precipice, living from crisis to crisis. If things go smoothly, it's even more unsettling than when you're in a crisis. So it's not surprising that you may even create a crisis.' Adult children of alcoholics also tend to 'look for immediate, as opposed to deferred, gratification.' This isn't hard to understand. As a child, if you didn't get it now, you never got it.

Promises were never kept. If you were told that you couldn't have it now, but you could have it for Christmas, or you couldn't do it now, but you could do it on the weekend, chances are you were disappointed. Something came up. There wasn't money, or there wasn't time, or they just forgot. There were more important things going on, the drama surrounding the alcoholic superseded everything else. You knew that if you didn't get it now, you wouldn't ever get it. For adult children of alcoholics there is a sense of 'This is my last chance' constantly. As Woititz says: 'You even become impatient with yourself when you decide to work on patience, and don't become patient immediately!'


For anyone who grew up in a home with alcoholism, or any form of addiction or severe dysfunction, I couldn't recommend this book highly enough. With a section entitled 'Breaking the Cycle' and many, many helpful suggestions of ways to deal with these issues, this book is a fantastic resource. Similarly, if you are in a relationship with someone who is an ACOA, reading this book could offer you tremendous insight and understanding. There is even a section entitled 'So You Love An ACOA.'' I feel that I gained an enormous amount of clarity in terms of my own life and relationships, and I have been able to move past and deal with most of these issues very successfully. Some I had already dealt with prior to reading the book, however it still helped enormously to understand where they had originated. Some issues I am still working on, but the self knowledge I have gained is invaluable.

I can easily identify myself in all the characteristics, at least at some point in my life. Many characteristics are still present, but at least now I'm beginning to understand more about where they've come from. :)

 

[mcb]

I can easily identify myself in all the characteristics, at least at some point in my life. Many characteristics are still present, but at least now I'm beginning to understand more about where they've come from. :)

I don't doubt that ACOAs (of which I am one) experience these symptoms, but so do LOTS of other people. Nowadays I think of ACOAs as a particular case of children from narcissistic families, rather than a separate group. It clicked when I read The Narcissistic Family three years ago.

I attended an ACOA group meeting a couple of times, many years ago. I was not at all impressed with that particular bunch of people, including one person that liked to show up drunk, so we parted ways quickly. Reading the ACOA materials that were available online at the time (on Compuserve -- it was that long ago!), however, was extremely helpful and was one of the major earlier steps that I took to begin to sort myself out.

Actually, I did not realize my father was an alcoholic until I read through the ACOA material and put the pieces together. It was not something that could ever have been talked about in that family.

 

[Gimpy]

Actually, I did not realize my father was an alcoholic until I read through the ACOA material and put the pieces together. It was not something that could ever have been talked about in that family.

Same here, though in my family's case, it was just one of a bakers dozen in dysfunctions.

Currently, my mother is working on me to stay with her off and on in the event she has to have both her knees replaced, to avoid being at the mercy of my father, who won't take care of her beyond four days. (Because her job is to take care of him and run the household.... )

Thank you for this thread Aragorn, it keeps me from slipping into bad habits, and returning to a very toxic situation.

 

[Laura]

Yes, this sounds like an excellent resource and I've ordered a copy. Like Megan said, this can apply to a lot of people, not just children of alcoholics.

 

[Don Diego]

I can easily identify myself in all the characteristics, at least at some point in my life. Many characteristics are still present, but at least now I'm beginning to understand more about where they've come from.

Oh thank you very much Aragorn for the review and the excerpts!!!Another personal earthquake to come.Even if my personal case is different,i could also identify myself in all :O ,my mother became alcoholic when I was around 15, after a freudian treatment with chemicals she eventually found her own medecine...

Pleeeeeeease DCM, give me enough time to read all these books I have to!

 

[Breton]

Good info Aragorn.

While the book focuses on alcoholism specifically, after the book's publication she learned that the material in the book can also apply to other types of dysfunctional families, such as drug addiction, gambling, chronic illness or religious fanaticism.

And I suspect that maybe it is good info for kids of a rage-aholic as well.

 

[aragorn]

For the moment I think that the thing that effects me the most, mainly at my work place, is number 2: "Adult children of alcoholics have trouble following a project through from beginning to end."

I was glad to see that this book offers some advice in defeating "procrastination", or more rightly, to learn skills that we have never been taught. Even if you're not an ACOA (Adult Child Of an Alchoholic), I think that this chapter can be helpful if you feel that you are a procrastinator or that you don't have time to do/read all the things you'd like to. I've noticed that many (myself included) complain about not getting things done or books read on this forum.

As it happens, I'm in the early stages of planning my doctoral dissertation and it was funny that the case story was exactly about this. :)

So, I thought it would be worth while to transcript this chapter and quote it here. All emphasis are mine.

[size=12pt]Chapter 3

Breaking the cycle[/size]


2. Adult children of alcoholics have trouble following a project through from beginning to end.

It is time for you to find out whether you are the procrastinator you think you are or whether you simply lack information about how to complete a task. How does one follow a project through from beginning to end? How does that happen? It can, it does and it will. It has to be done very systematically. People who carry projects through to completion don’t do it casually. They have what we call a “game plan”. They may have developed it to the degree that it looks automatic but it is not. There is a process involved.

In the beginning, you need to be very aware of what the process is so that you can follow it and so that you don not get stuck along the way and begin to judge yourself. The first thing you need to do when you conceive the project is to take a look at the idea. Is it manageable? Is it possible to accomplish what it is you would like to accomplish?

You then need to develop a step-by-step plan in order to accomplish it. You need to set a time limit for each step. How long is it going to take you to do each part of your project? You don’t need to know exactly how long it’s going to take, but you need to have a sense of what all of the parts are an dhow much time you need to give to each part.

Once you have made that decision, the next step is to plan how you are going to meet the time limit. Is it realistic for you to do this project within this time limit, if all of these parts take this much time?

In developing the way you are going to meet the time requirements, you need to take a look at your own working style. The best way to do this is to reflect back on your learning style. When you were in school, how did you learn best? Were you the student who did best by doing a little each day or by cramming the night before? Did you cram the night before because you learned best that way or because there was no alternative? What ways were you most satisfied with what you were able to do? Study your own learning style.

If those steps don’t fall into place and the goal isn’t manageable, rethink the idea. Perhaps your idea was not realistic. If not, be willing to revise it. Perhaps you have taken on something more than you can do at this time. Or perhaps you need to approach the same idea somewhat differently. Be willing to revise the idea or the time limit. It may be that the idea is just fine, but you have not set aside enough time to accomplish it. Be willing at each stage to rethink and reassess. See if there are changes that might occur along the way that will make a difference. You need not get stuck along the way because you have not figured out how it is going to be accomplished.

An example of this proses should make it clearer to you. Paul is forty-eight years old and a very successful businessman. To a large extent, his business involves high-pressure situations such as twenty-four-hour time limits on preparing major reports. He goes from crisis to crisis and does it extremely well. Crisis is something that he, san ad adult child of an alcoholic, understands extremely well. He has used this aspect of his history to his advantage.

Paul decided that he wanted to get a Ph.D. After being accepted into a doctoral program, he came to me in a state of panic. “I cannot do this,” he said. “It is not possible for me to do this dissertation.” I smiled. He was overwhelmed at the project taking over a year to complete. Because he had no frame of reference for that kind of thing, he was scared. He is also intelligent enough to recognize that he was getting in his own way and needed help to overcome the problem.

The first thing we decided was that he had to limit whom he talked about it, because he was getting too much input, too many different approaches. This, plus not developing his own approach, increased his anxiety. I simply said to him, “If I am going to help you, I am the only one to increase your anxiety at this time.”

He also had the idea that his would be the most definitive dissertation of all time. He had to give up his grandiose notion and decide to research a subject that was manageable. He also had to name a committee of people whose input was pertinent and who wanted his project to be a success.

As soon as he did this, his panic started to subside. The next step was to determine how long it would take to write the dissertation. He was in a panic as if it had to be done yesterday. The paper was going to take a year. It was going to take time to interpret the results and write the paper in a way that would be acceptable to the members of his committee. It could not be done yesterday, and it could not be done tomorrow. A year was the only realistic assessment of how long the project would take.

Once that was understood, we could take a look at his learning style. How did he learn best? Could he do this the way he had done other things in life? It became clear that he could not do this the way he did other things, in a cramming, last-minute way. In addition, he did not want to take a month or two off work to work exclusively on the dissertation. It was decided that he would work two hours a day.

We also needed to look at what this meant. Did it mean that he had to write two hours a day? Or sit at his desk for two hours a day? Could he think during this time? The conclusion was to do something related to the dissertation during those two hours. The time spent thinking would later translate to time spent in writing. He need not be rigid with himself. We also determined that the place he worked best was at home at a little desk he had in the back room, where he could have some privacy. The most productive hours of the day were the first two hours in the morning. He would thus use the time before the rest of his family arose and before the phone started to ring.

These decisions were very basic and simple. But they made the difference between accomplishing and not accomplishing the task. And they were arrived at by very careful consideration.

Paul had never had the experience of planning out anything before. This was the first time someone had sat down with him and said, “How are you going to accomplish this? How are you going to get this done? What is your game plan? How long is it going to take? Is it feasible?”

After working on the dissertation for two weeks, he said he could not work two hours a day, but he could work one hour. This was by far more manageable for him, and he felt he could accomplish what he needed to in less time. This was fine. He developed a game plan and was able to revise it, once there was a structure which made the task more manageable. He was no longer in a state of panic that drained his energy and got in his way. He will now have less difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

The steps outlined here apply to anything that needs to be accomplished. That wonderful idea that you have may or may not be possible. It does not come about through luck. It results through careful planning. As you have more experience with planning, you begin to do it automatically. The difficulty you have now may not be because you are procrastinating but because you simply have not known about the process involved.

Your young children do not have to wait until they are adults to resolve this particular problem. If their teachers have been saying to you that they have not been living up to their potential, that they don’t finish what they start, you can say, “My child needs to learn how to do it. My child may not be completing what he or she starts - not because she’s not interested, not because she’s not involved - but because we nee to teach her how to do it.” Sit down with the teacher, if he or she is sympathetic, and talk about how your child is going to develop the kinds of study habits that will make it possible to finish a project. Your children may not be doing as well as they would like to in school because they don’t have the experience of seeing something begun and finished. This is no time to judge yourself and decide that you are a terrible parent. That will take energy away from helping your child and structuring the environment - a necessity for accomplishment. You can develop and organize a structure with or without the help of a teacher.

Guidelines need to be established. You don’t need to be dictatorial; you can work them out with your children so that they become part of their life’s design. They don’t have to like it. It is time for them to begin to do things systematically. For example, homework should be done daily at a regular time and place for an agreed amount of time. This is the way to begin.

It is important to let them know they are not stupid, which they begin to believe very early on.

The difficulties results from lack of experience, but this is going to change. The family is going to enter into a partnership where they learn how to complete what they start. It is a process that everybody will be involved in, so they have more control of their lives. It also will improve your relationship with your children and break the cycle in the next generation (Woititz 2002, 86-90).

 

[Don Diego]

Great!!! and thanks again Aragorn :), it's currently my main problem...

 

[aragorn]

I hope that I'm not violating any copyright laws, but I just wanted to share with you a few more chapters and parts from this book that I found very helpful. I have a sense that these chapters could be helpful to others too, in case you haven't got the book. All emphasis mine.

Chapter 3

Breaking the cycle

7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships.

This has many aspects to it. The first is that adult children of alcoholics simply do not know how to have healthy, intimate relationships. Your fear for intimacy, of letting anybody in, gets in the way. Part of that fear is of the unknown. What is it? What does it consist of? Intimacy implies closeness. How do you get close? What are the ingredients in a healthy relationship?

Keep in mind that healthy relationships do not develop overnight. There are many elements involved in a healthy relationship and all of them must be shared. When entering into a relationship with another person, it is important to offer your partner that which you would want your partner to offer you.

The degree of intimacy is determined by the degree of sharing - by how much each member of the partnership is willing to give. It is, in effect, a contract which is best served when understood and declared. Many contracts are implied, but you need to find a way to check it out.

Several ingredients are essential to a healthy relationship? They apply whether the other person is a lover, parent, child, friend, spouse or even an employer or coworker.

The form or degree, however, may change according to the nature of the relationship. There is no attempt in this list to specify order or significance. What is important is that all of these ingredients should be present, and there should be mutuality. If any of them is missing, one cannot sustain a healthy relationship with that person.

Once again, bear in mind that intimacy is determined by the degree to which partners are willing to work at each one of these criteria. In certain types of relationships, this is more important and more appropriate than in others.

As you read the list, you might want to explore each aspect with respect to your relationships with people. Are they all present? This will show why some of your relationships are working well and others not quite so well. If any of these ingredients is missing, there seems to be a hole in the relationship.

1) VULNERABILITY - To what degree am I willing to let down my barriers? To what degree am I willing to allow the other person to affect my feelings?

2) UNDERSTANDING - Do I understand the other person? Do I understand what she means by what she says or does?

3) EMPATHY - To what degree am I able to allow myself to feel what he feels?

4) COMPASSION - Do I have a genuine concern for the issues that cause the other person concern?

5) RESPECT - Do I treat the other person as if she is of value?

6) TRUST - To what degree and on what levels am I willing to let the other person gain access to the things about me that I don’t want everybody to know?

7) ACCEPTANCE - Am I okay they way I am? Is my partner?

8) HONESTY - Is this relationship built on truth, or are there games involved?

9) COMMUNICATION - Are we able to talk freely about issues that are important in the relationship? Do we know how to do it so we are understood and the relationship goes forward because of the sharing?

10) COMPATIBILITY - To what degree do we like and dislike the same things? To what degree does it matter if we differ in certain attitudes and beliefs?

11) PERSONAL INTEGRITY - To what degree am I able to maintain myself as well as offer to the other person?

12) CONSIDERATION - Am I mindful of the other person’s needs as well as my own?

These are the ingredients that people have shared with me as essential to a healthy relationship. These are the parts of which it is made.

The bottom line in a healthy relationship and the one premise upon which everything else is based is, “Am I seen and do I see the other person realistically? Am I able to see him for who he is? Is he able to see me for who I am?”

If you are not realistic, the attributes does not matter. They are neither relevant nor valid. The ability to be seen and to see the partner realistically, regardless of the nature of the relationship, is critical to its health. It is perhaps more critical than if you had a different history because you will react in ways that are inconsistent with developing a good relationship.

If you are realistic, you and your partner can talk about and learn from problems which can bring you closer together. If the relationship is based on fantasy, it may not be sustainable.

For example, adult children of alcoholics are afraid of being abandoned. When a problem arises, they panic, so the problem hardly ever gets discussed. If you are with someone who needs space and you panic, it will be extremely destructive. Try saying to your partner, “I have a problem in that I panic when we have a conflict. It’s hard for me even to look at the problem. I know that you react differently, but promise me that even if you’re angry at my behavior, you will reassure me that you love me. That way, we may be able to get back to the problem.

In a healthy relationship, these reactions are discussed. They should be discussed ahead of time so that when they come up, they are seen for what they are. The discussion itself will take away some of the fear of abandonment. Then you can say, “Now what was the problem that we had before I panicked?”

In any relationship, many of the problems that com up have to do with one’s relationship with oneself. They are often disguised as problems in the relationship and can also cause problems in, and even destroy, the relationship. Let me give you some examples.

Cheryl is the adult child of two alcoholics. She is ending a ten-year bad marriage and has a very loving relationship with a young man named Ivan. It is the healthiest relationship she has ever known. One of the problems that she has is that he wants to touch her. He wants to hold her and be physically demonstrative, and she finds that she backs away from this. She is almost averse to the touching, except periodically. It seemed that her reaction was an overreaction, since he didn’t seem to be an oppressive person. He was willing to hive her whatever space she needed, along with time by herself.

Ivan was not oppressive in his demand, but he needed to touch and be touched as an expression of feeling for her. He had been brought up in a physically demonstrative family. Her negative reaction was causing great problems in the relationship.

Since it was clear that she was overreacting, we needed to look at her history to find out why.

It happened quite unexpectedly, when her mother came for a visit. She came around noon, started to drink and continued to drink all afternoon. As she became drunker and drunker, she made more and more demands on her daughter. “Please touch me. Please hold me. I need you just to hold me.” Cheryl said, “I did as my mother had asked, but it turned my stomach. She had been doing that to me since I was a little child.

When she told me about this, it was pretty clear where her aversion came from. It was no longer a big, dark secret, and now we could begin to overcome it. She reported to Ivan what was going on. She needed to let him know that her reaction had nothing to do with him; it was a result of her being a child of an alcoholic. That eased the situation somewhat, and we can now begin to work on changing her reaction to Ivan. If they hand’t been able to talk about it and had lacked the ingredients of a healthy relationship, especially the ability to see each other realistically, this problem might have ended the relationship.

Kelly, too, is working on a new relationship that she is determined will be healthy and good for both her and her partner. Kelly, a nurse, cam into therapy with this as her primary agenda. The child of two alcoholics, she had never seen nor had a healthy relationship. And she felt that, if left to her own devices, she never would. Her friend, a doctor, seems to be a considerate and thoughtful person who is willing to work on building a good relationship and who wants to share his life with her.

One night she said, “This is it. It is done. It is over. I am finished with him. I never want to see him again. I thought maybe we could make it, but now I know that it is simply no good.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Last Wednesday night,” she replied, “we talked about going out to dinner, and I decided that I really could not do that because I really had to clean the house. Once I get an idea in my head, that’s the end of it. I knew that if I wen out to dinner, my mind would be on cleaning the house and I wouldn’t have a good time. So I said, ‘I will see you tomorrow but I am going to stay home and I am going to clean the house.’ Then, an hour later, he stopped by with a bottle of Lestoil and some Chinese food. His statement to me was, ‘I knew you had to eat anyway and I thought I would help you clean the house. Can you imagine such a thing?” she said. “I went right off the wall. I don’t think I have been quite so angry in my life.”

I said to her, “It sounds to me like he was being thoughtful. Sounds to me like he was looking to spend time with you, and didn’t want to miss out on it.”

She answered, “That’s what he said. He said, ‘I knew you had to eat anyway and i wanted to help you clean if you had to clean. I don’t care what I do, as long as I spend time with you.’”

I told her I thought that was a wonderful thing for him to do. So we began to explore what mad it difficult for her to accept his kindness. No one had ever said, “Let me help you out. Let me do this for you, just because I care about you.” It was an experience that was foreign to her. As a young child, she went out begging on the streets because it was the only way to keep her and her brother out of a children’s shelter and the authorities from finding out that they were being neglected. Her friend’s kindness did not fit her frame of reference, so instead of accepting it, she became angry (Woititz 2002, 98-103).

 

[aragorn]

Chapter 3

Breaking the cycle


8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over they have no control.

On the surface, adult children of alcoholics appear to be very rigid people. They seem to want things their way and no other way. This may be true, but there is more to it than meets the eye. The issues that seem very simple to adjust to for others are a big deal for the adult child of an alcoholic.

I remember Martha falling apart because plans to go to the city fell through at the last minute when her friends chose to do something else. It was a very big deal. Joan burst into tears because someone was late. He was not very late, but just the idea of being late set her off. At one point, another adult child of an alcoholic had her phone disconnected unintentionally. She decided that she was being punished, which was devastating to her.

These things on the surface do not seem big. Yet, if you are reading this and you are the adult child of an alcoholic, you know how big they are.

Yet, they are all overreactions, which generally are related to one’s past history. Something like this has happened many times before, usually in childhood. A seemingly inconsequential incident is like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It brings back all the plans that were never carried out, the promises that were never kept and the punishment that you could not relate to your crime.

This is what happens when plans to go to the city are disrupted, when someone is late, when the phone company inadvertently disconnects your phone. The pain you experienced as a child is experienced in the moment and nobody, nobody is ever going to do that to you again.

Coming to grips with this issue requires a great degree of self-awareness. The first thing that you have to do is recognize it when you overreact. You may be able to do that for yourself. Is your reaction inappropriate to the circumstance? Is somebody whose opinion you respect saying to you that you are overreacting? Have you become irrational? Is the situation worth reacting to as strongly as you are reacting? What is your response when someone says to you, “Why is it such a big deal?”

If you become defensive with that question, then you have overreacted. If you are not reacting in an appropriate way, you need to ask yourself, “What was the circumstance in and of itself that made it so big?” Why did it really matter to you that the change occurred without your helping to effect it? And what did that mean to you? When did it happen before?

Lack of awareness created the feeling that an injustice has been done deliberately against you. The extension of this kind of thinking is a paranoic attitude toward life. “They’re out to get me, because they changed the plans at the last minute, or they were late, or they unintentionally disconnected the phone. They did it deliberately.” This extreme attitude can develop if you don’t understand that your overreaction results from your history.

The first and perhaps most significant way to overcome this is to increase your awareness of overreactions and what has happened in your past that causes them. Another way to change is to deliberately change your normal routine. Take a look at the day. Are you rigidly locked into everything you do? Can you go home in a new way? Is it possible to to shop on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday? Can you shift things around without causing yourself a lot of turmoil?

You may find that it is harder than you think to break your routine. But it is a place to start being somewhat flexible. Flexibility in one area will generalize to other areas. You probably will be surprised at the degree to which you have settled into a routine and how carefully structured you days are. You might, from time to time, throw it all up in the air and run in another direction, almost as if you are rebelling against yourself. But, in terms of the overall design, you are probably are very routinized. Easing that up will help to ease you up, which will help you develop some freedom to affect the things you can an dot accept the things that you can’t. This doesn’t mean that you have to like everything that happens. You don’t have to be the adult child of an alcoholic to be disappointed when a change occurs that you did not anticipate or you did not want, but you do not have to be devastated by it and that my be the difference. It does not have to affect your whole being (Woititz 2002, 106-108).

 

[SovereignDove]

Thanks for sharing this Aragorn.

I too can identify with this list of characteristics, now or at other times in my life. There is a lot of alcoholism on both sides of my family. In my immediate family it was my father and grandmother. These excerpts have been helpful.

I am currently reading Trapped in the Mirror, and am planning on reading Adult Children of Alcoholics next.

 

[SovereignDove]

Chapter 3

Breaking the cycle


8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over they have no control.

On the surface, adult children of alcoholics appear to be very rigid people. They seem to want things their way and no other way. This may be true, but there is more to it than meets the eye. The issues that seem very simple to adjust to for others are a big deal for the adult child of an alcoholic.

I remember Martha falling apart because plans to go to the city fell through at the last minute when her friends chose to do something else. It was a very big deal. Joan burst into tears because someone was late. He was not very late, but just the idea of being late set her off. At one point, another adult child of an alcoholic had her phone disconnected unintentionally. She decided that she was being punished, which was devastating to her.

These things on the surface do not seem big. Yet, if you are reading this and you are the adult child of an alcoholic, you know how big they are.

Yet, they are all overreactions, which generally are related to one’s past history. Something like this has happened many times before, usually in childhood. A seemingly inconsequential incident is like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It brings back all the plans that were never carried out, the promises that were never kept and the punishment that you could not relate to your crime.

This is what happens when plans to go to the city are disrupted, when someone is late, when the phone company inadvertently disconnects your phone. The pain you experienced as a child is experienced in the moment and nobody, nobody is ever going to do that to you again.

Coming to grips with this issue requires a great degree of self-awareness. The first thing that you have to do is recognize it when you overreact. You may be able to do that for yourself. Is your reaction inappropriate to the circumstance? Is somebody whose opinion you respect saying to you that you are overreacting? Have you become irrational? Is the situation worth reacting to as strongly as you are reacting? What is your response when someone says to you, “Why is it such a big deal?”

If you become defensive with that question, then you have overreacted. If you are not reacting in an appropriate way, you need to ask yourself, “What was the circumstance in and of itself that made it so big?” Why did it really matter to you that the change occurred without your helping to effect it? And what did that mean to you? When did it happen before?

Lack of awareness created the feeling that an injustice has been done deliberately against you. The extension of this kind of thinking is a paranoic attitude toward life. “They’re out to get me, because they changed the plans at the last minute, or they were late, or they unintentionally disconnected the phone. They did it deliberately.” This extreme attitude can develop if you don’t understand that your overreaction results from your history.

The first and perhaps most significant way to overcome this is to increase your awareness of overreactions and what has happened in your past that causes them. Another way to change is to deliberately change your normal routine. Take a look at the day. Are you rigidly locked into everything you do? Can you go home in a new way? Is it possible to to shop on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday? Can you shift things around without causing yourself a lot of turmoil?

You may find that it is harder than you think to break your routine. But it is a place to start being somewhat flexible. Flexibility in one area will generalize to other areas. You probably will be surprised at the degree to which you have settled into a routine and how carefully structured you days are. You might, from time to time, throw it all up in the air and run in another direction, almost as if you are rebelling against yourself. But, in terms of the overall design, you are probably are very routinized. Easing that up will help to ease you up, which will help you develop some freedom to affect the things you can an dot accept the things that you can’t. This doesn’t mean that you have to like everything that happens. You don’t have to be the adult child of an alcoholic to be disappointed when a change occurs that you did not anticipate or you did not want, but you do not have to be devastated by it and that my be the difference. It does not have to affect your whole being (Woititz 2002, 106-108).

The similarities between this quote and a few quotes from Trapped in the Mirror were interesting. FWIW

Many children of narcissists are oversensitive, which means that we overreact to what other people say and do, are hurt and confused by the belief that someone intends the worst. We perceive neutral behavior in a negative light. Being hypersensitive is like having skin so badly burned you cannot lie beneath a sheet.


A common problem for children of narcissists is that we do not know when to stop being mistreated. We do not even know when we are actually being mistreated since we accept suffering as a means to winning favor. The possibility of favor gives pain a pleasurable coloring.

Children of narcissists do not expect the best. We are on familiar ground when all turns out badly. We are flustered, frightened, and sometimes pleased when it goes the other way, if we can see it. On the other hand, hypersensitivity to how one is treated or to what one fears can have the paradoxical outcome of making us under-sensitive toward others. To safeguard our skin we ferret out and overreact to anticipated mistreatment. We run from it and accuse the person of intending to mistreat us. Our charges are hostile but we call the other person aggressive and charge him or her with having sinister motivation. Our tone is one of trial and punishment. We retaliate in the present for wrongs we have suffered in the past, the sufferings of our narcissistic home.

We have to learn if our reaction to people’s errors and shortcomings is magnified by the injuries we suffered as a child. Children of narcissists can have bitter views. Hypersensitivity swamps the picture and unless we lower our standards and accept imperfections we will have no close friends. We need to turn our hypersensitivity into sensitivity to others’ feelings.

There is also mention of addiction and procrastination.

 

[aragorn]

Thanks for sharing this Aragorn.

I too can identify with this list of characteristics, now or at other times in my life. There is a lot of alcoholism on both sides of my family. In my immediate family it was my father and grandmother. These excerpts have been helpful.

I am currently reading Trapped in the Mirror, and am planning on reading Adult Children of Alcoholics next.

I'm glad you found the quotes helpful. I recently noticed that the book can be found also as a kindle version:

Link: http://amzn.com/B004FN1RLY

Have you thought of sharing more about your experiences relating to the above? A good place to share more sensitive information is The Swamp.

 

[SovereignDove]

Thanks for sharing this Aragorn.

I too can identify with this list of characteristics, now or at other times in my life. There is a lot of alcoholism on both sides of my family. In my immediate family it was my father and grandmother. These excerpts have been helpful.

I am currently reading Trapped in the Mirror, and am planning on reading Adult Children of Alcoholics next.

I'm glad you found the quotes helpful. I recently noticed that the book can be found also as a kindle version:

Link: http://amzn.com/B004FN1RLY

Have you thought of sharing more about your experiences relating to the above? A good place to share more sensitive information is The Swamp.

Thanks, I did see the kindle version and was planning on purchasing it. I had never heard of this book before this thread, so it was exciting to read the exerts, and then to see it would be useful information to look further into.

I have been thinking of posting in the swamp, to organize all those family experiences, so I will do that soon. The recommended reading I have gotten through so far has given me perspective I hadn't considered before, especially realizing that the various dysfunctions were dysfunctions in the first place.

 

[Chad]

For me, these snippets are great timing, thanks Aragon...

It's a tough subject but it is one of the reasons i was looking forward to participating here.

Whilst there are a number of behaviours i can relate to (and what a relief to read!); the most distressing aspect of the experience for me was the 'denial of reality' (by the apparently sober).

The constant flipping between excuses, then apportioning blame, then - and this really bites - there's nothing unusual about the situation at all, perhaps if you are/were an overly sensitive child then you will react like a victim.
And will continue to.

Even with a local news report it was implied that it was mainly my makings..

In the present day (14 years later), my issue is that til the situation has been acknowledged for; what it was, the effect it had, the reasons why it happened cannot be addressed and the behaviours (of those affected) will continue.

It also means, as mentioned in the blurbs, a slight which has similarity to the traumatic experience, can evoke great sadness - and all the accompanying errors this can cause.

Like many, once i was able to get out and create my own experiences, i did. Mainly through friendships, living with familiar faces, on top of each other, coping with the adjustment of being responsible and processing your past with people who had lived through same. As a guy, having alot of female friends (ie. the ability to talk about sensitive topics) has been very beneficial.

Those family members effected are left to sort out what was a recurring nightmare, and in my situation all have coped differently. Where i have wanted to bring the dark to light in order to process the situation with no time limit and in safety, others are unable to face facts, perhaps because the memories are to painful and the guilt too heavy.

I have tried to distinguish between blame and acceptance of responsibility or even just of facts.

Needless to say, the work continues, and though i will error and perhaps at times feel too sorry for myself, one of the few benefits i think i see, is the opportunity, to re frame the relationship, who you are now, what you want from it and whether it is worth your time.

The latter, due to those abandonment issues, can really cloud the thinking. When should one give up?

For the moment i persist, the work on myself and the understanding of others.

That while i may not fathom their thinking, i am no longer at the mercy of it.