addiction

what is real

One of my favorite memories with Chris Graham is of a date we had. I think it was 2016.

We went out to dinner, a wings place near our house in the city, and had the best time. We had been missing each other, busy with life and kids and catching up felt exciting. We didn’t run out of things to say and, for once, it wasn’t me doing all the talking. Chris was just as engaged and vocal. He was paying attention. It felt magical.

He made me laugh that night. He hadn’t made me laugh in a while. I think my husband is funny, but not witty-funny. He’s awkward-funny. He’s dorky-funny. He’s I-didn’t-mean-for-that-to-be-funny funny. I find him entertaining, but probably not the way he’d like.

That night felt electric. We were happy. We were fed. We were together. We were content.

We drove home with the windows open. I can’t remember if it was spring or fall, but the feeling was we hadn’t been able to drive with the windows down for a while and now we could—it felt new and exciting. It might have even been one of those surprise winter evenings where it should have been snowing but instead it was unseasonably warm and every single person felt alive and free and hopeful.

I remember the feeling, and it matched our relationship at that very moment. Everything felt right and easy. We turned the music up as Chris zipped through the streets of our city making our way back home to our babies.

Chris was drunk that night.

I didn’t know it at the time, but he had been drinking most of the day. He wasn’t paying attention and engaging because that’s what people in love do on dates, but because he was drunk and trying hard to not show it. He wasn’t being dynamic and funny because he was feeling alive and free and hopeful like me, he was scared and hiding and pretending.

I’ve forgotten a lot of things about Chris being drunk and lying and hiding, but I’ve never forgotten that date. It still, almost five years later, feels like a blow every time I think of it.

That one still hurts to think about. How much I misread the situation. How much I enjoyed Chris’ personality when it was really another time he wasn’t showing up as himself because he didn’t know how.

There’s a part of me that feels embarrassed to say I had so much fun with Chris that night, and he had to be drunk for me to enjoy him.

——-

Last night as Chris was telling Ellie goodnight, he slurred a word.

She called me in afterward to let me know.

“I think you need to watch Daddy, he might be having a stroke,” she told me. “He slurred a word and then paused for a long time. Make sure he’s feeling okay.”

I assured her he was fine and then went to see if he was fine.

“Ellie thinks you’re having a stroke because you slurred a word,” I said. I wasn’t worried, exactly. But it’s hard to forget some things.

He smirked. “I was trying to think of a new word and I was halfway through saying ‘sleep’ before I could stop it.”

Ellie worries about her daddy. I worry about her daddy. Harper worries about her daddy. We all carry—in our own ways—the worries and anxieties of loving a recovering alcoholic. They show up differently, but they still show up. In our house, they show up as three Graham girls on high alert all the time. It is not the same exhaustion of active addiction, but it is still exhausting.

–—–

Chris Graham is silly now.

He’s silly with the girls at dinner. He’s silly with the dogs as he washes dishes. He’s silly with me as we sit next to each other at a baseball game in Louisville.

I don’t trust his silly.

Growing up in a home with abuse, addiction, and violence knocks the silly out of you really quick. I know Chris didn’t get to be silly as a kid. He didn’t get to be silly with his siblings. He didn’t get to be silly with his parents. It wasn’t safe to draw attention to himself so the last thing he’d want to do was be silly. He learned how to be quiet and not seen and ignored because that was what kept him safe as a child.

Adult Chris is safe now. And he’s starting to be silly again.

But, for me, silly means drinking. I fell in love with a quiet, hurting kid who thought the world required him to hide. It’s still challenging sometimes to recalibrate what I knew then to what I know now.

Chris Graham is sober. I know through his actions and through his words. I know through occasional glimpses of his AA work and friends. I know because of the way he’s showing up in the world now.

But I would be lying if I said my overwhelming urge to protect myself and my girls from that type of pain again doesn’t mean I still look at him suspiciously at times. That I brace myself when it looks like he’s having fun.

Trauma stole Chris Graham’s silly. My own trauma is tempted to do the same.

——-

Growing up in a home with violence, abuse, or addiction changes you forever. It alters the way you see the world and how you experience it, how you show up in it. That’s not just some weak way of excusing people’s behaviors, it’s actual science. When we’re children and growing, our brain stem is growing and developing as well. The experiences we have as children literally get “baked” into our brain stems; these childhood experiences create pathways we’ll use for the rest of our lives.

If your childhood was filled with trauma, chaos, and unsafe people, your brain learned that was the way life was and every single experience after that is filtered through that lens.

If your childhood was filled with safety, love, and stability, your brain stem learned that was the way life was and every single experience after that is filtered through that lens.

(You can read more about how trauma impact our brains in development here.)

Learning new pathways is possible. It’s a big part of recovery, retraining your brain to react differently. It is exhausting, hard work. A person doing this is constantly fighting their own brain, constantly uncomfortable and tired from the work of unlearning things that no longer serve them.

One of the ways Chris learned to be safe as a child was to lie. He lied about everything. He lied before he even thought about it. He still does this. Often, his first response to something is to lie, even when the truth is inconsequential. It’s so ingrained in him that sometimes he’s not even aware he’s doing it.

A lot of recovery, even now, is learning where the truth is. And for Chris, it involves being silly, being engaged in conversations, and making choices he doesn’t have to lie about later.

addiction in five stories

“Shawn met a woman, and she sobered him up,” my dad said. My aunt said. Everyone said.

“That’s not normally how that works,” I said, as gently as possible.

I understand the desperate desire for this to be true. The sudden death of his mom in a car accident, years of addiction, the loss of everything—his wife, his kids, his jobs, his house. I, too, want this new development to be true.

Even if I know it’s never quite that simple.

—–

Chris got the call in the evening.

“His liver and kidneys are shutting down, he’s in the hospital.”

Chris ran to put on shoes, to go see his friend. Matt, who had been a best friend in high school and after, who had been so easy-going and quick to laugh, who had been right beside Chris as he spiraled into addiction. Matt who didn’t have to hide his vices like Chris did. Matt who was now dying because of them.

He didn’t end up going to the hospital that night; Matt was already unconscious. He died the next morning, just shy of 40 years old.

This one, of all the ways alcoholism and addiction have taken from Chris, hurt the most. The reality of what could have been, what should have been, was too close to home.

“The only difference between Matt and I,” Chris said, “was that I had people who told me enough was enough. Who will tell you to stop when everyone is living the same life?”

She sat at the table facing the judge in a floral dress and short-sleeve sweater. She wanted her kid back.

“I’ve been clean 90 days today. I don’t have anyone to be proud of me for that, but I’m proud of me,” she said.

She wanted to get out of town, but she doesn’t have a car and she needs a better job to buy a car. But all the good jobs are in Indianapolis. And she needs a car to get there. Everyone here is someone she used to use with, so it’s easier to just not go outside.

She’s a prisoner in her own home, trying to stay clean and sober and get her kid back.

“I’m doing everything I’m supposed to,” she said, “but I’m also stuck here.”

I’m proud of her, but I can’t say that from where I sit.

—–

I wrote down this quote from a book I was listening to, but I didn’t write down the name of the book and I read so many books that I have no idea where it came from.

“I’ve been sober a month now,” Jeff said.

“All due respect, Jeff, but you’re not sober yet. You just don’t stink so bad,” replied Rhonda.

I stood next to a cornfield on a sunny afternoon in August. It was the kind of day you imagine summer in the Midwest will be: clear and blue, sunny and breezy. It was not too hot. There were puffy, fake clouds in the sky.

I thought about how long it takes to get the stink of addiction off. I thought about how it lingers forever.

I walked back home.

—–

My cousin ended up in the hospital. His new girlfriend—the one who got him sober—calls to tell us he’s not doing well. She is adamant to the doctors, the nurses, the custodians: he has not been drinking.

She would know, of course. She’s the one who finally convinced him to stop. She saved him. Her love saved him.

—–

At the end of July, we went to Matt’s funeral. It is filled with people from Chris’ past.

He doesn’t want to go.

He has to go.

The friends have gotten older, fatter, like all of us. They look tired. They look like their high school selves—in the same style clothes, with the same shoes and cars—but worn out. Drugs and alcohol don’t age well. These people are, in many ways, the same people Chris left all those years ago.

Arrested development describes a person who is “stuck” at an early phase of emotional development. It happens in childhood or adolescences as a response to an experience that they are unable to resolve. It freezes you in a mental state, in a specific period of time, and, while you age, you don’t mature or grow.

At the funeral, we are surrounded by these boys who look like men, but who do the exact same things they did twenty years ago. It makes me want to weep. I wish things were different.

Sometimes I cannot carry the weight of the grief and loss I see. From people who have died. From people who only think they are living.

On my daily walks, I pass crushed beer cans and empty pints of hard liquor in the ditch. I know which ones are new and which ones have been there for years.

Fireball
PBR
Jack Daniels
Coors Light
Coors Light
99 Butterscotch

I do not, most days, think they are my husbands. I know better.

But some days, I think they are.

—–

“He was detoxing,” my aunt tells me when I text to check on Shawn.

“Never trust a drunk,” she replies.

It is, as I said, never quite that simple.

I’m not sure there’s any other way

She said: I find myself falling apart and angry as my husband is confronting childhood trauma and addiction issues—it’s been so much stress on me and I’m barely hanging on.

I know it feels like all your time and resources are being directed at his stuff, but, if you can, please find a therapist. You were not made to handle this on your own. If you want to survive this too, you need your own help. I would not have survived without therapy. Our relationship would not have survived without me in therapy.

It feels infuriating that early sobriety (from anything) is five years. Because it is so long and exhausting. But it’s true. Addiction layers go deep and the minute you feel like you’re making progress, something else comes to the surface.

Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. Also, addicted brains have coped with trauma and pain and abuse by hiding it. Addiction is a way for us to avoid looking at the things that are screaming for our attention. The longer someone is clean and sober, the more our brains remember. It takes time. Healing takes so much time.

And you never know what will trigger things that were hidden.

Recently, Chris’ maternal grandpa died. Chris hasn’t been in contacting with his mom since November 2017. I’ve written—in some general ways—about his childhood, but let’s just say it was awful. He grew up in a home full of abuse, secrets, mental illness, and shame. He no longer speaks to either of his parents. In the beginning on his estrangement from his mom, there was hope she would get the help she needed. Unfortunately, as time passes, she seems to be getting worse instead of better. (We’re still in relationship with his brother and sister and families; this isn’t the time, but it’s also important to say that when one sibling leaves a family full of abuse, the guilt about leaving the others behind and unprotected—no matter how old you are—is real.)

The bottom line is Chris’ sobriety is more important than keeping his parents happy. He is not required to ruin his own life to be in theirs. (And plot twist: they are never happy; they are victims always and forever. So even in relationship with them, they would be unhappy. They do not have the ability to be happy or the self-awareness to get the help to figure out why that is, so any guilt Chris has about their unhappiness is a catch-22. He is not the answer to their problems, but it’s easier to say that than take responsibility for their own actions and lives.)

ANYWAY. Chris’ grandpa died and we were talking about the funeral. Chris decided we wouldn’t go because he didn’t want to see his mom. Drawing any attention to himself at his grandpa’s funeral felt gross. We sent flowers and he called his grandma instead.

He doesn’t call his grandma often because she refuses to respect the boundary he’s set around their conversations. He doesn’t want to talk about his mom with her. No matter how many times he explains that, she insists on trying to guilt and shame him into calling his mom. She can’t have a normal conversation with him, she’s so intent on manipulating him.

(There are two reasons this could be happening: 1. She hasn’t been told the truth about why Chris is no longer in relationship with his mom. This is a bad sign because it means his mom is not taking responsibility for her dangerous actions. To change, heal, and reconcile, you first have to admit what you’ve done. 2. She knows the truth and doesn’t care. That’s a bad sign because, well, child abuse and secrets and the things that went on in that house were not okay. She should not be okay with them.)

So Chris can’t call his grandma very often. He has stated his boundary, she keeps ignoring it, and so he doesn’t call. It’s madness to keep allowing people to overstep a necessary, life-saving boundary you’ve made. People tell you who they are. We’ve got to stop pretending we don’t see it.

So death and family communication happens and, as always, it kicks up the dirt in Chris’ life. Some things shift and poke out, some things re-emerge. And his almost-four-years-sober brain lets some new stuff tumble out.

He tells me new things he’s remembering, things that have been haunting him when he’s awake and showing up in his nightmares.

And they are horrible.

I hate his parents all over again. Hate what they did. Hate what they allowed. Hate what they hid.

But he doesn’t hate them. He’s resigned and sad and grieves his childhood. But he’s not angry anymore. He’s thankful he survived. He’s thankful he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore. He’s thankful he can say the things out loud and not be immediately overwhelmed with shame. He’s thankful he doesn’t need to handle the memories with alcohol or drugs or hiding.

And, truthfully, I hate his parents only briefly. My anger doesn’t stick around like it used to. At some point, nothing shocks you, but also, I’m tired of being angry. Anger is a heavy weight to carry.

Chris is safe now.
He is loved.
He is cared for.
He is seen.
He is safe.
He is safe.
He is safe.
And he is clean and sober.

It took years to get here. And he is not done. This work will be for the rest of his life. But there are more good days than bad now.

But we had to get through a string of about 700 bad days to get here.

So what I want to tell you is keep going. As long as you are seeing progress and healing and change, keep going. It will not always be like this. It will not always feel like this. It will not always hurt so much.

But you can’t skip this pet either. You have to go through it—feel all of it—get angry and sad at every single part. Then you slowly come out the other side.

But do not avoid it. You’ll need it for the days—four years later—when a new heartbreaking secret tumbles out. You’ll need it because then you’ll have firmer ground to stand on, better coping mechanisms, and a more tender heart.

I am sorry it hurts so much right now. It will not be like this forever even though it’s hard to imagine anything else. Please take care of yourself. Find a therapist. Be patient and kind with yourself.

It’s okay if you’re falling apart. I’m not sure there’s any other way.

1096 days

Thanks for taking me to the hospital three years ago, he said as we sat on the couch.

He was watching football. I was reading a book with my feet in his lap.

You’re welcome, I said as I turned back to my book, and he turned back to the TV.

Today is the three-year anniversary of my husband being clean and sober. Three years of therapy, AA meetings, growing, healing, and learning. This is the first anniversary that hasn’t felt precarious. The first time in years it hasn’t felt like a bittersweet celebration, with excitement and fear, hope and reservations.

I’ve been trying to work out what I wanted to say about this milestone, but I don’t have a clear post for you. I guess I just have snippets.

Last week I was on my morning walk when I passed an empty Coca-Cola can on the side of the road. Bright red against the drying grass in the ditch, I knew it wasn’t there yesterday. This was fresh litter. My very first thought was should I pick this up and smell it for alcohol? My first thought was it was Chris’. My first thought was he’d thrown it out on his way home the day before.

Trauma is weird, because it bombards you with thoughts and feelings and emotions before you even have time to know what’s happening, before you know it’s there.

I knew I wasn’t going to pick up that can. Gross. I knew hundreds of people drove this road, not just Chris. I knew lots of people drink Coke, not just my husband.

My thoughts weren’t rational. I didn’t have other things happening at home that made this discarded can confirm my suspicions. It was just a can and my mind—without my consent—went to the scariest story.

Healing is slow for Chris. It is slow for me.

Last winter Chris’ counselor suggested he do brainspotting. Brainspotting is “a treatment method that identifies, processes, and releases core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, [and] trauma…” The idea is you can go back to the memories your brain has stored–maybe some you can’t even access completely–and rewire your response to them. For Chris, it meant going back to the abuse he suffered as a child and handled with his child-brain. Using the safety and security his adult-brain now has, he gets to use better coping mechanisms and heal from the situations.

Adult you goes back to kid you and tells you you’re okay, that the things happening to you aren’t your fault.

It sounds crazy, but it’s not. God, in His infinite wisdom, made our brains to keep us safe. It’s where fight, flight, or freeze comes from. It’s also why sometimes our brains hide things from us; our well-designed brains know we are not equipped (for whatever reason) to handle what we’ve experienced.

But our bodies and brains don’t forget what has happened. We live in the response and consequence of those things. And one day—if we’re lucky—we’ll have healthy, patient people who help us handle the things that shouldn’t have happened to us.

For the first time in years—as Chris went through brainspotting—he wanted to drink again. The farther way he gets from his drinking, the less appeal it has. But looking directly at the moments and places that broke your little kid self is exhausting. For Chris, it brought back intense feelings of loneliness. And loneliness is what caused him to drink. When you grow up in a home that doesn’t tell you you’re important or valued or worth keeping safe, it’s hard to learn a different story when you’re older. So every time Adult Chris had a negative experience (things we all have every day), it reinforced the lie that he wasn’t wanted or worth anything.

And if you believe you’re not worth anything, you can’t make good choices for your body, your future, or your life.

Working through months of brainspotting and painful childhood memories sober was challenging. Addicts and alcoholics don’t like to feel their feelings (that’s the whole point of using), so feeling everything that came up and not muting it was some of the hardest work I’ve seen Chris do.

But he did it. He remembered the things done to him. He remembered the people who covered it up. He remembered the loneliness.

And he stayed sober.

I’m just checking on you, man, because we’re a bunch of liars, Chris said into his phone this weekend. He was talking to a fellow drunk, someone he’s sponsoring in AA.

A few years ago, this would have made me cringe. Telling the truth is so foundational to my being, it feels like a personal attack to know someone has lied. I tell the truth even when it’s to my own detriment.

I know lying says more about the liar than the listener. The lies tell others what we want to protect. They tell others about the secrets we have, about the shame.

I am remembering that more easily now, with less internal crisis, than I was a few years ago.

Lies always have benefits for someone. An old friend lied about me to others, because it sowed division and made others less likely to ask me about the stories she was creating. Liars manipulate people to control the narrative. Chris’ mom lied to family and friends, because it kept people from realizing the truth of what she was allowing at home, the dangerous environment she was helping to protect. Lies keep selfish people safe. A friend’s husband admitted to making up things I’d said to save his marriage. He apologized to me, but said he wasn’t going to stop telling those stories. Liars love stories to save themselves no matter what the cost. Addicts and alcoholics lie. They lie to keep their secrets secret, to keep their needs hidden, to keep their pain covered up.

Recovery is freedom from lies.

It’s amazing the time and energy you have to do other things when you’re not so wrapped up in keeping all your stories straight, making sure your victims don’t cross paths and share stories, living a life you don’t have to hide from people.

Chris walks lighter these days. He still drags his feet like a child. He still ignores me when I tell him to pick them up. But the walk is lighter nonetheless.

After Chris came home from rehab, I asked my therapist when things would get easier. His recovery, learning boundaries, removing the dangerous people in our lives: how long does it feel so overwhelming and hard?

It takes a few years, she said.

Absolutely not, I thought. This is not sustainable. We will not survive at this level of upheaval for so long. Maybe giving up is easier.

But here we are at the three year mark, after a quiet, amazingly easy summer. This was the first summer we didn’t live so fully in the consequences of Chris’ bad choices. This was the first summer we weren’t taking two steps forward and one step back. Recovery is slow. So is building a new life.

I get asked a lot how I knew to stay. What made me not give up?

My answer has two parts:
1. I stayed, because Chris stopped drinking. If he was going to continue numbing his life using drugs or alcohol, I wasn’t going to.
2. I stayed, because we were slowly-but-surely always moving forward. We were (and are) inching toward healing and honesty and better conversations and less co-dependency. I stayed, because he kept up his part of the bargain. The minute Chris got comfortable with where he was, I knew he’d start using again. When he got lazy in his recovery, he was going to get lazy in his choices.

And, of course, Jesus. The AA mantra is “one day at a time,” but I think they stole it from Jesus. He constantly re-centers me: I cannot fix the past, I cannot control the future, but I can make wise, loving choices right here and now.

And so I do.

And so does Chris.

And here we are.

You were not made to heal on your own.

“Perhaps, in the age of pinging alerts, status updates, and other kinds of instant contact, we have been lured into thinking it is simple to say what we mean and be understood.” -Joe Moran in First You Write a Sentence.

I’ve been thinking about that sentence for a while, wondering if what I mean is being understood. That’s what we all want, right? To be understood? To understand ourselves and, in turn, others?

Maybe my stories the past few weeks have been misunderstood. Maybe not. I don’t really worry about what you do with my stories once they’re on the internet. I only write stories I’m ready for others to have, never giving away the ones I need to keep for myself or my family or for my friends.

These stories are for everyone.

At life group a few weeks ago, Kathy said, “There’s that laugh, I just love hearing Chris’ laugh.”

I laughed in response, agreeing. We all love Chris Graham’s laugh. If I had to describe life right now, in this moment, it would be we are living inside Chris Graham’s laugh.

You know when you hear something true and honest, something you just know is free?

That’s what my husband’s laugh sounds like. It feels light and unbound.

It’s comes up often, his laugh. People who knew him before he got clean and sober have mentioned it for a few years now. But Kathy’s comment stood out to me, because she wasn’t here for the other laugh. She didn’t know addicted-and-trapped Chris. She didn’t know what the fake, muted laugh was like.

So when someone new notices the laugh, I remember all over again what we’ve gained in the past few years.

I hesitate to tell you about the healing or health we have at home because if you’re not familiar with the whole story, it feels too simple. I’m not good at telling happy stories without throwing in the hard parts so you know it wasn’t easy, it’s still not easy.

But right now, I just want to coast on Chris Graham’s laugh.

We’ve been walking alongside enough people struggling with addiction to know a lot of people don’t get to this part. We feel lucky and thankful and committed, but also aware that it slips away quickly when you’re not paying attention to it.

We fight for healing and recovery every day.

So we keep going to therapy, both of us on our own. Chris still goes to AA meetings, still checks in on the people he’s encouraging in sobriety. We still don’t allow alcohol in the house and rarely go places where people are drinking. Chris has done a lot of hard work related to co-dependency and now leads others in a recovery study. He recently started a new therapy to help address some of the things he’s still not able to say out loud, some hurts that still feel too dangerous to look at. He’s still taking depression medicine and a drug that would make him seriously ill if he drank.

He only takes it because I haven’t asked him to stop yet. It’s probably time to discontinue it. I want to tell you I’m not scared about that, but that would be a lie.

Chris doesn’t have the desire to drink anymore. His brain doesn’t obsess about it; it does not consume his day like it used to. But the memory of him drinking in secret for years is still a little tender for me. I know it’s time to say enough with the medicine, but something in the medicine makes me feel safe. I could rationalize that away; I could tell you what that means for me in relationship to my own struggles and hurts, but I won’t. I’m not looking for your assurance or explanation. I’m just telling you the truth.

I know why I like the medicine.

I also know why I need to allow him to stop taking it.

Do you know what I mean? Do you understand what I’m saying?

It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.

Aundi Kolber in Try Softer says, “We can heal and that’s a miracle.”

We are living in a miracle, inside Chris Graham’s laughter and healing.

There’s this popular idea that we can heal ourselves, that everything we need to make ourselves whole and happy is inside of us.

That is a dangerous, dangerous lie.

The idea we can heal ourselves, that we were made to heal ourselves, infers that the things that broke us were meant to happen. It infers that we were made to withstand horrors and heartbreak and betrayal, like it is just part of the human experience. If we were made to heal trauma, then it also means we were meant to experience trauma.

And that is absolutely not true.

Listen to me: you were not supposed to be abused. You were not supposed to be cheated on, abandoned, lied to. Adults were not supposed to take advantage of your body when you were a child. You were not supposed to be hit, beat, or starved. You were not made to be controlled, left alone, or mentally abused. You weren’t supposed to be a pawn between parents or another thing to manipulate.

None of that was supposed to happen.

And because those things were not supposed to happen, our bodied and brains are not equipped to deal with them on our own. Your brain cannot think its way out of trauma by itself. Your brain wasn’t meant to do that. Because, in reality, trauma should not exist.

But it does. And because it does, we need counselors and therapists and doctors and good books and sometimes medicine to get well.

Anyone who leads you to believe your body can heal itself without outside help is dangerous. Yoga doesn’t heal trauma. Running doesn’t take care of childhood wounds. Controlling your food intact won’t make you feel safe. Drinking isn’t making your problems go away.

If your body can heal itself, it also would have prevented the hurting from happening in the first place. If it can heal you, it can also protect you from the hurt to begin with. It’s the same body. But since it did not, you need something outside yourself to find freedom.

We all have a wound or blind spot crippling our healing and awareness. We often need someone outside of ourselves to show us what it is and how to address it.

Do not believe the lie you can heal yourself. That’s what keeps addicts using, alcoholics drinking, abusers hurting others. It’s what makes people with mental illness stop taking their meds. We believe it’s just mind over matter and if we try hard enough, we’ll finally get it together.

And then we live our whole lives with fake laughs and heavy secrets.

We need each other for healing.
We need each other for guidance, correction, and encouragement.
We need people with gifts outside of our own to point the way when we can’t see it.

We were not made to do this alone. Isolation is a lazy, common trick of the devil to keep us trapped and hurting. It is freeing to realize everything is not resting on our own shoulders, that we do not have to carry on like this, with burdens slowly killing us.

We were not made to heal ourselves. If we were, there would be no need for God or others. What a lonely, lonely existence that would be. We were created for community, for connection, for needing others.

Do you know what I mean? Do you understand what I’m saying? I really hope you do.

adult children of alcoholics: where do we go from here?

The realities of growing up in an alcoholic home are devastating. It alters who God made you to be, what you think of yourself, and how you operate in the world.

But it is not a life sentence to repeat what you saw. Healing and health is available. Available because we have access to good therapy, wise medical professionals, Jesus, medication, and support networks.

(This would be a good time to note that most of the things needed to adequately address ACOAs needs or to recover from an addiction of your own are expensive. Good health insurance, time to attend meetings, being able to remove yourself from toxic family members are privileges many do not have. I don’t have a neat and tidy solution to this, but I am aware of the resources we have that some do not. Therapy is expensive. Even with insurance, medical help or in-patient/out-patient services are expensive. Support groups and meetings are free, but childcare is not. These are realities for a lot of people who need help. Telling someone there is help without admitting this help is easier for some to get than others is important to note.)

Healing and health is available, but it doesn’t just magically happen one day when you begin to see with new eyes how off track things got. That’s probably the first step in a thousand. Recovering from a childhood with an alcoholic takes a big dose of reality, painful honesty, and a ton of work.

((This would be another good time to remind those who are allowing children to live in a house with an alcoholic: you have more control over this than you are being led to believe. Do not let fear and doubt trick you into thinking this is still the best way. Your children deserve better. You have to be brave and strong. You can be brave and strong. If you don’t know where to start: go get a counselor familiar with addiction. Do nothing but find a therapist. Not for your spouse, for you. Starting with you–getting you healthy–will fundamentally change your family for the better. I promise you.))

Why so many asides, Mary? Seriously, calm down.

How do we fix this? Where do we even start as adult children of alcoholics? How do we move forward from this?

Janet Geringer Woititz, Ed.D in Adult Children of Alcoholics suggests you begin with acknowledging your upbringing was dysfunctional. We talked earlier about how abnormal your childhood was, but that’s probably not the best term to use. Really, what is normal? I tell my kids all the time we don’t want to be normal. Normal is overrated. The better way to describe it is you either had a functional childhood (one that makes you feel loved and safe while preparing you for relationships, adulthood, decision-making, etc.) or one that was dysfunctional (one that makes you feel unloved, unwanted, and unsafe while leaving you ill-equipped to be successful later in life).

Once you accept that things were dysfunctional, you go about learning what functional looks like. What should an intimate relationship look like? What should a home full of love and stability feel like? What value or lack of value have I given myself that doesn’t match up with truth or scripture? What skills did I learn as a child that are hurting me now? What is an appropriate way to handle conflict and confrontation? Am I able to see reality or do I often still choose fantasy?

You can answer these questions with Al-Anon or Adult Children of Alcoholic groups. You can begin to peel back layers with ACOA books and podcasts. Learning how to reparent yourself through positive affirmations or a trained professional might be helpful.

One thing that has been helpful for Chris is a life coach. That might sound like something you’d hear from a business professional or at a self-help conference, but if you grew up learning the wrong way to live, you might need someone who can start addressing those lessons and giving you practice and ideas on how to begin new patterns. My husband (and all kids) needed his parents to parent him. He needed them to make him feel secure and safe, feel loved no matter what; he needed them to make choices in his best interest and to care for him.

Those things did not happen.

As a result, he has to figure out how to do them for himself and for others with no model. A life coach is helping him do that.

At this point, I’m sure people are tired of hearing me say this, but ACOAs could greatly benefit from therapy. Some very specific things broke you and you need help outside of yourself to fix them. There is a very high chance you learned co-dependency from your family of origin and addressing that will begin to right a lot of wrongs. If you haven’t begun the work of healing your childhood, there’s a good chance you suffer from low self-esteem or anxiety. Addressing those issues, giving you skills and steps to handle them correctly, and hearing from someone when your thinking isn’t healthy will transform every aspect of your life.

Learning and practicing healthy boundaries (things that people who are co-dependent, enablers, or who suffer from low self-esteem often do not do) is good, healthy work too.

What about ACOAs who are parenting children of their own? Geringer Woititz suggests these things as you navigate a season you have no healthy experience of:
-work on yourself and your own person growth (the things above are good starts!)
-listen to your children
-tell the truth; be honest with them
-educate them about the disease of alcoholism
-encourage your children to attend Alateen (or any support group for kids growing up impacted by alcohol or addiction)
-give up denial
-do not protect your children from knowing the ravages of alcoholism (I learned appropriate information to give my children based on their ages in therapy; the older they get, the more they need to know)
-don’t be afraid to show affection to your children (I gently nudge Chris often to hug and kiss and snuggle with our girls; they need it and so does he, but it does not come naturally to him)
-define clear limits for your children
-allow your children to take responsibility for their behavior

Chris turned 36 a few weeks ago.

In our family, when it’s your birthday, my mom makes you a cake from scratch. Whatever your favorite cake is, delivered to your door for your birthday.

One night leading up to his birthday, he mentioned my mom texted him to see what he wanted.

What did you say? Was it something gross? I asked.

My husband and I have very different ideas about what good cake it.

Carrot cake, he said.

GAG. BARF. NOOOOO, I replied in a normal, not-dramatic way.

He laughed.

It would be co-dependent of me to change my cake order because you don’t like it, he said.

It would! You’re right! I don’t want you to change it, it’s your birthday. I’m just teasing you.

Silence for a second.

Wait, have you changed it in the past because I don’t like carrot cake? I asked.

Sometimes. And I think about it. I want a cake that everyone likes. I want everyone to enjoy it.

WHAT IN THE WORLD, I yelled. DON’T DO THAT. It’s your birthday. You get to eat a whole cake by yourself if you want. Who cares what other people like?

I know, I’m learning that. But it’s hard.

Soon after, he headed off to the co-dependency class he’s taking at our church. I thought about that conversation all night. Even now as I type this, some of you will think Chris’ reasoning was sound. Well, he was doing what was best for everyone. He wants other people to eat his cake. It’s okay to not pick your favorite if others are around.

But the point of his birthday cake is to have a cake he loves. He’s important enough and valued enough that even if he has a cake no one else will eat, we will still celebrate him and his birthday. It is not rude to order a cake you like on your birthday. It is not selfish. It is not inconsiderate.

If going to a therapist or a support group isn’t in the cards right now, if it feels too scary or hard, just start with some books and podcasts. While I don’t recommend relying on them solely for healing and recovery, they are good baby steps to understanding hurts and patterns.

Here are some I suggest (if you have something that has helped you or someone you love, add it in the comments! This is in no way the best of the best, it’s just what I’m familiar with or have personal experience with):

Adult Children of Alcoholics: A Step By Step Guide to Discovery and Recovery by Wayne Kritsberg

Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz

12 Steps of Adult Children of Alcoholics workbook

Perfect Daughters: Adult Children of Alcoholics by Robert Ackerman

Codependency No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie

The Christian Codependence Recovery Workbook: From Surviving to Significance by Robert and Stephanie Tucker (this is what Chris is doing through our church and it is really good)

Christian Families in Recovery: A Guide for Addiction, Recovery, & Intervention Using God’s Tools of Redemption workbook by Robert and Stephanie Tucker (this is by the same author of the codependency workbook above; I read through this study over the summer helping my church review some materials and if I could send this to every person who reaches out to me about addiction, I would.)

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

Go here for a list of Al-Anon and recovery-related podcasts (I’m sure this isn’t all of them.)

Adult Children of Alcoholics world service organization is full of resources and recommendations

I have not yet listened to The Recovery Show, but I’ve heard from others that they’re a good listen. This episode is about ACOAs specifically.

And if you’re unlikely to read or listen to much right now, I assume you spend at least a little time on Facebook. Join a support group there to just listen for a while–see what you can learn. Here’s one I found after a quick search, but I’m not a part of it.

I’ve heard from lots of people this week who grew up in alcoholic (or drug addicted) homes who were unfamiliar with the “adult child of alcoholic” term. Or they knew the term but didn’t know the characteristics or weight of it. I’ve heard from brave people who are speaking up to their loved ones and saying this is me. I want to fix this. Dots are being connected, conversations are taking place, people are starting to search for help.

I’m praying for the challenging, good work you’re beginning. Please don’t quit when it gets uncomfortable. It will absolutely get uncomfortable. Please do not quit.

I’ve also heard from people this week who enable alcoholics. I’ve heard from co-dependent women who have lots of good excuses and reasons why this is not them, their house is different, their children will be different. How dare I group them with the other spouses of alcoholics.

I cannot convince people to get help. I’m not here to bully anyone into therapy or Al-Anon or to leave their drunk spouse. I know the least healthy people scream the loudest when someone points out their mess or responsibility in it. I also know your children will one day have to address this–your part and your spouse’s–and neither of you will come out of it unscathed.

What that looks like for our family is we are no longer in relationship with either of Chris’ parents: the alcoholic or the enabler. If we’re being really honest, more damage might have been done by his enabling mom than his alcoholic dad. There is no tally sheet to count up the damage Chris (and his siblings) experienced as a result of each individual, but the more work Chris does, the more he pays attention to his wounds, and the longer he is sober to remember and feel what he’s been avoiding for a very long time, it just adds more layers of guilt and responsibility on his mom.

He is just beginning to understand the level of manipulation she operated at to keep so many horrible things alive.

Chris and I were separated in September 2017. He had been caught drinking again and was not allowed to live in our home anymore. His mom and he were on their way to Ohio for a birthday celebration–his September birthday included.

Did you father ever touch you? she asked, eyes focused on the road ahead.

No, Chris responded.

I always wondered, she said as they sped down the highway. I always wondered.

The point of that story isn’t Chris’ answer. It might be true or it might not be. The point is my husband’s mom knew for years she was making choices that could possibly be hurting her children and she did not speak up. The point is the person made to protect her children did not want to know the answer to dangerous questions because it might not be what she wanted to hear, it might force her to make some changes.

So she never asked.

Accountability comes for all of us. It came for Chris. It came for his parents. It came for me. What you think you’re avoiding right now will not stay away forever.

Spouses of alcoholics: if you have a little whisper in the back of your head telling you that something is not right, that this isn’t a way to live, do not ignore that voice. It is not worth the consequences.

*Disclaimer: when I began this series, I mentioned that I was barely skimming the surface of what it looks like to be an adult child of an alcoholic. I wrote a couple essays this week to give you a glimpse of what it looks like for Chris and our marriage, but I am leave out a lot.

One night Chris was reviewing a post for the next day and he suggested something I should add. There are lots of things I could add, but I don’t have the time or the space. If your experience doesn’t match up exactly to ours, it doesn’t mean that yours isn’t right. It’s just the reality of trying to give a very complex idea some exposure to help others.

I am not the authority on ACOAs. I am not an ACOA. I’m sharing what it feels like to be married to an adult child of an alcoholic and how it impacts my life. These are my stories, my experiences. People with more experience, closer perspectives, and a lot more education have written about this a lot better than I have. I pray this week is just the beginning of your knowledge of ACOAs, not the end. There are parts of this struggle not made for the internet. There are parts of this struggle that didn’t affect Chris as much. Every story is different. This is mine.

*This is the final post in a four-part series on adult children of alcoholics. You can see the introduction post here, the second post here, and the third right here.

*DISCLOSURE: affiliate links used.

adult children of alcoholics and intimate relationships

Spouses of alcoholics want to argue the most about facts and research about raising kids in alcoholic homes.

That’s not how it is here.
This isn’t hurting my kids.
Our kids will turn out different.

Don’t you think every single spouse thinks that?

A spouse’s response to information about allowing children to live in an alcoholic home is in direct relation to how healthy or unhealthy the spouse is. No healthy adult can argue a child should grow up around addiction.

Let me say that again: No healthy adult can argue a child should grow up around addiction.

Any rationalization, excuse, or reason you have against that statement is steeped in your own issues. Any rationalization, excuse, or reason you have against that statement is twisted up with co-dependency, enabling, and possibly your own addiction story.

Adult children of alcoholics learn how to be in romantic relationship by watching their parents. If their parents go back and forth between being deeply in love and violent arguments, kids think love has to be intense all the time. If their parents live in the same house but don’t live the same life, kids think love is indifferent and cold.

ACOAs have no frame of reference for what a healthy, intimate relationship looks like because they have never seen one. You can’t have a healthy relationship with an addict or alcoholic. I know that seems like common sense, but you’d be shocked at the people who would argue that it is not true.

This disease does not allow room for healthy relationships, healthy conversations, healthy homes. Your alcoholic house is no different. Denial (and lying, like we talked about yesterday) is a large part of an alcoholic home. Yes, the family living with the alcoholic lies to others, but mostly they lie to themselves. Alcoholics and their families lie to themselves all the time.

Adult children of alcoholics grow up with an overwhelming fear of abandonment. Alcoholism is unpredictable. Lots of promises are made that aren’t followed through on. Lots of commitments are made that get forgotten or skipped. There is an underlying current of is this real? Is someone going to take care of me? in everything they do.

As a result, ACOAs carry that acute fear of being abandoned into adulthood. It’s what makes them stay in dangerous relationships. It’s what makes them keep trying to fix things that shouldn’t be fixed (but they don’t have the appropriate skills to fix a problem so it just keeps getting worse). ACOAs don’t understand what red flags and healthy boundaries look like so they sacrifice themselves at all cost to be loyal to someone they shouldn’t be.

Because that’s what they saw growing up.

This realization shifted something in me. In Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz, Ed.D, she explains that “the fear of abandonment gets in the way of the development of a relationship. The development of any healthy relationship requires lots of give and take, and problem solving. There is always some disagreement and anger which a couple resolve. A minor disagreement gets very big, very quickly for adult children of alcoholics because the issue of being abandoned takes precedence over the original issue.”

This plays out all the time in my marriage. Something comes up that needs to be addressed. I bring up the issue so we can talk about it. Chris immediately begins to panic because what if this is the issue that makes me leave? He says and does what he feels is the best thing to make the conversation go away as quickly as possible: agreeing to things he won’t actually do, admitting things he doesn’t actually want to admit, saying yes to things he has no intention of following through on.

I think we’ve had a conversation. In reality, Chris has just avoided confrontation at all cost because he fears being left.

So then the issue comes up again because nothing was actually handled. I’m angry this time and he’s back to running interference so he’s not abandoned, and we continue this vicious cycle where nothing gets handled because my husband doesn’t know how to get past the fear of being abandoned. Issues keep piling up and nothing ever changes. It is madness.

ACOAs didn’t learn how to love themselves. As children, they didn’t experience unconditional, safe love in their homes. So now they look for love from others instead of learning how to love themselves. This co-dependency means Chris’ value is found completely in how I’m feeling about him at the time. If I’m happy with him, he’s happy and feels loved. If I’m annoyed, he’s scared and unloved.

Understanding this dynamic in our relationship broke my heart. I didn’t grow up with a completely healthy home life, but I grew up with no doubt of my worth, knowing my parents loved me, and understanding they would take care of all my needs no matter what. I don’t struggle with self-worth. I know my value as a daughter of the King and as a human, no matter what others think or say. It was so foreign to me that someone could not understand this. It was inconceivable for me to hear Chris found his worth in me.

At first, I was repulsed by this idea. That type of weakness insulted me.

But then I started to learn how that happens, what children growing up in alcoholic homes learn about love, and what they don’t get from their parents.

Then it just made me more compassionate.

There is a very specific balancing act that has to happen now in our home. I have to make sure Chris knows he is loved and valued outside of anything he does or says. But he is also required to work hard at healing and recovery for his loved-and-valued-self to stay in our marriage. I’m not sure I always walk that line well. My thinking tends to be black and white and this is a gray area. Again, another reason why I keep going to therapy. To check that I’m being fair and not expecting too much. To make sure I’m holding a good boundary and not a bad one. To allow someone else to ask hard questions about what I’m doing and how I’m helping or hurting the ACOA I’m married to.

“Being the child of an alcoholic causes the ordinary difficulties to become more severe.” (p. 71)

That’s the simplest way to put it. Life is hard for everyone. Life is just hard. For adult children of alcoholics, the every day hard becomes more difficult because they were gifted a handicap as children.

We can heal this.
Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about how.

*The information I’m sharing didn’t originate with me. I’m a constant consumer of information, never satisfied with one or two books on a subject. But a lot of the research I’m sharing comes from Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz, Ed.D. Don’t let the ugly cover throw you off, this book is a wealth of information. ((I’ve also read parts of Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome: A Step By Step Guide to Discovery and Recovery by Wayne Kritsberg and it has good stuff in it too. I’ll share a more complete list of resources tomorrow.))

*You don’t have to be married to an ACOA to benefit from this series. Once I started studying this, I realized a lot of my close friends were also adult children of alcoholics. Understanding their stories better makes me a more compassionate friend.

*Finally, Woititz points out in her introduction that many characteristics of ACOAs can be found in adults who grew up in similar dysfunctional households. Sin is sin and if you grew up around violence or untreated mental illness or another addiction, you might also see yourself in parts of this series.

*If you’re just joining this series, this is the introduction and here’s the second post.

what you grow in an alcoholic house

Science fiction saved my husband.

When he was younger, he consumed sci-fi books. Walking along a busy road at way too young an age, he’d trek to the local library to checkout stack after stack of books. The librarian knew his name, what he liked, and recommended books to him.

It sounds like an idyllic childhood, but it was really one of survival and escape. Home was unsafe, unreliable, dangerous for a quiet kid who didn’t want to draw attention to himself. So he read books, hours and hours in his room, at the library, away from his unpredictable dad and his checked-out mom.

I’m an English teacher obsessed with reading who wants so badly to tell you when her husband–no longer a little boy–consumes himself with books, it’s because he has a love for the English language or prose. But the truth is, he uses it as an escape, as a way to avoid the things in front of him. (He does this with television too.)

A skill he learned in childhood that might have saved him, now working against him. Avoiding his wife and kids and responsibilities and conversations now means he will lose those things.

Adult children of alcoholics often grow up steeped in fantasy. It might not be so literal with science fiction novels, but they soothe themselves and the chaos around them by creating worlds in their heads that aren’t as bad. Imagining what it would be like if Dad was sober, if Mom paid attention. They fantasize about what their family would look like it there wasn’t so much fighting or violence or instability.

ACOAs don’t always know how to turn the fantasies off. That became clear for us when Chris’ drinking finally came out of hiding. It completely confused him that I was miserable in my marriage. It was unfathomable to him that our kids were suffering or scared of him. Everything was still fine in his head, what did reality have to do with it?

Denial, rationalization, and manipulation are daily visitors in the home of an alcoholic. It seeps into the kids, into the spouse, into the fiber of their beings. And when kids leave, they can’t shake it off; it tags along as they date and marry, have kids and try to build new lives.

Reality hurts so there’s no need to look too closely at it.

Part of the zoning out children do is a result of the adult things they’ve been made to do far sooner than they should have been. When we give adult problems to children (worries about bills, too much information about intimate relationships between parents, job stress, excess responsibilities at home or in the care of siblings), they grow up too fast. Giving them these jobs doesn’t make them automatically capable of handling them though.

Child development follows a stair step model, gradually increasing once certain skills are mastered. You learn this and this and now you can do this. It is a continuous cycle of practicing and learning, growing and adapting. But ACOAs get too much too fast. They learn skills to survive instead of to safely mature. So they begin checking out of childhood as a coping skill. For many, it’s the major coping skill they bring into adulthood: avoid and ignore.

One struggle ACOAs have as they try to parent their own kids is they have no frame of reference. If an ACOA didn’t have any normal fourteen year old responsibilities, they don’t know what is an appropriate level of responsibility for their own child. They don’t know what is normal teenage behavior and what should raise red flags. There is no healthy past experience able to help them navigate their own child’s emotions, feelings, or questions.

Adult children of alcoholics don’t know how to parent because they weren’t parented.

This is hard for me to admit because the reality for our house is I am, more often than not, parenting two daughters and a husband. As I talk through problems or worries with my pre-teen daughter, I’m also modeling it for my husband. We spent a lot of time this summer dealing with the results of Chris’ lack of impulse control, his lack of ability to see the long term effects of choices he is making.

ACOAs are impulsive. They grew up around selfish people who thought of themselves first. Sure, alcoholics can manipulate you into believing they have your best interest at heart, but no one who truly does will continue on the path of alcoholism (this would be a good time to talk about the disease of alcoholism and how the disease doesn’t really allow for that logic, but that’s not the point today).

If you grow up seeing someone only think of themselves when they make choices, you do the exact same thing. I can hear the alcoholic’s arguments now: I’m not a selfish parent! But your disease makes you selfish. Even if you wish you weren’t. Alcoholism functions on a love of alcohol above all else.

Chris and I have been married for almost thirteen years. It has been just very, very recently that he has started asking himself how a choice he’s making will affect anyone but himself.

As a result, I have spent a lot of our marriage cleaning up messes I didn’t create. Learning about what enabling looks like for me has altered the last few years, but we are still actively living in the results of bad choices Chris doesn’t have the self-control to stop making. This is wearing and heavy. It is one of the reasons I still see a counselor regularly, to make sure my responses to his choices aren’t enabling. (This is a characteristic of an adult child of an alcoholic, but also a characteristic of an alcoholic. Remember yesterday when I said the rates are high that ACOAs will grow up to have their own addictions? That’s where it gets extra messy for us, it’s all intertwined so closely now.)

Impulse control comes with maturity. ACOAs do not mature at the rate of normal kids so they often lag behind in maturity and the better choice-making that comes with maturity. Developing his own addictions in his late teens further slowed the maturity process in Chris; active addicts and alcoholics stunt their maturity. We mature by learning lesson from mistakes and doing better next time. We mature by succeeding and failing, growing in confidence, getting wiser and not just older. Addicts don’t do those things. Alcoholics don’t do those things. Addiction freezes emotional development.

In an alcoholic household, instant gratification is all there is. If a parent promises something and it doesn’t happen right away, there is a low probability it will actually happen. Promises get broken all the time. The child learns that it’s now or never. And they bring that attitude into adulthood with them.

It never crossed Chris’ mind to think it might hurt me or our family as he drank at work. As long as he didn’t do it at home, it was fine. The disconnect between wants and the consequences of those wants is huge. I grew up in a house where we were taught how to be thorough and conscientious. Chris grew up in a house were no one cared for possessions or took care of things. I learned to clean up after myself, leave things the way I found them, and to be aware of who would hurt or be put out by the way I did things if I did them wrong. Chris learned how to survive without drawing attention, to not engage in a family, and to be gone as much as possible. He learned to take care of himself and no one else. No one else was going to take care of him; why should he have to take care of others?

I remember years ago having a cookout with Chris’ family at our house. I stood in line for food behind his sister. As she squirted mustard on her hot dog, it exploded all over the top of the bottle and ran down the side. Globs of mustard went everywhere. Instead of cleaning up the mess she made, she just shut the lid making a bigger mess, put the bottle down, and moved on down the food line.

“Are you going to leave the mustard like that?” I asked.

“I didn’t know if anyone else needed some,” she said.

“And you thought we’d want the stuff all over the lid if we did want some?” I asked confused.

I know it’s just mustard but it wasn’t. That was the Graham motto. Leave a giant mess and let someone else handle it. I was so confused by the mess she made and how she was just able to walk away from. Someone else could clean up the mustard explosion, she got what she needed.

Alcoholic families leave overwhelming mess behind. They often don’t address it themselves, instead shoving it off for someone else to clean up, someone else to fix, someone else to manage.

Our families of origin determine so much of our futures that it is sometimes overwhelming to think about.

But it also lights a fire in my soul to make sure we are not replicating that story, that trauma, that environment for our own children. For a million reasons, Chris has to be sober and actively working on healing and recovery to live in our house. A huge part of that is he is not allowed to pass this legacy onto our daughters. They don’t deserve that just like he didn’t.

You can do that too. If you’re an adult child of an alcoholic. If you’re currently raising kids in a home with an alcoholic. You can stop this cycle if you want to.

It has to stop somewhere. Even if I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into all those years ago, it has become my life’s work to make sure we don’t give this mess to our daughters.

We are not passing on the Graham legacy of hiding, of immaturity, of ignoring, of lying, of manipulation, of co-dependency. It is a curse I will not allow them to accept.

*If you’re just joining us, I started this series on adult children of alcoholics yesterday. You can see that first post here.

adult children of alcoholics

I had never heard the term “adult children of alcoholics” until about two years ago.

I didn’t know it was a thing.
I didn’t know the way it scarred you.
I didn’t know the way growing up with an alcoholic stunted your emotional development.
I didn’t know that it meant a life of playing catch up, missing social cues, and trauma recovery.

But I know now. And it makes perfect sense.

This week I’m writing about what growing up in an alcoholic house does to children. I’m writing about what it looks like in those children who grew up to be adults. I’m writing about some unflattering characteristics that could be clouded in shame and embarrassment.

But I pray you find hope in this too.

With more knowledge comes better awareness, more tools, more acceptance about where you might be and how you can more forward.

No child chooses to grow up with an alcoholic parent. This isn’t something a child would ever pick. Most kids growing up in alcoholic homes don’t know their normal isn’t really normal. They won’t see that until they’re older, until they start to see how the non-alcoholic houses live.

Then they’ll have to grieve and heal.

If you’re raising kids in an alcoholic home, let this be a glimpse into their future. Maybe this can be a jumping off point to make some changes. Let this be your wake up call. The reality is your kids are learning or have already learned many of these characteristics. It’s not a death sentence, but you’re in control of how much more they carry into adulthood.

Please take that responsibility seriously. I live with a husband whose “healthier” parent did not do that. If you’ve been reading any of our story for any length of time, you know how destructive and hard it will be to handle this later.

It’s not too late for your kids.

If you’re an adult now, it’s not too late for you either. I pray you see that this week. No one is too far gone.

I’m using Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz, Ed.D as an inspiration for these posts. I’m just skimming the surface of this topic. Her book and others, plus Al-Anon and therapy can all be used to heal. But if this topic is brand new to you, I’d highly recommend you start with her book. It’s an easy and accessible first step to a subject that can be–at times–really overwhelming.

And finally, before we get started: my hope, as always, rests in Jesus. He is the Ultimate Healer. While a lot of people use that term in a way that implies God can heal anything He wants (and I believe He can), I understand it normally means He’s given us tools, people, and communities to aid our healing. We are not helpless creatures with no where to turn. We have the Bible, wise counselors, the Holy Spirit, and medical professionals who have gifts and talents from God who can lead us through recovery. Prayer is powerful so don’t forget that either. All of God’s generous resources are at our disposal so don’t count any of them out. All of them together are, possibly, what God wants your miracle to be.

Let’s get started.

What does an adult child of an alcoholic look like? According to Geringer Woititz and others in her field, adult children of alcoholics:
-guess at what normal behavior is
-have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end
-lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth
-judge themselves without mercy
-have difficulty having fun
-take themselves very seriously
-have difficulty with intimate relationships
-over-react to changes over which they have no control
-constantly seek approval and affirmation
-usually feel that they are different from other people
-are either super responsible or super irresponsible
-are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved
-are impulsive

Here’s a funny and not funny story about the book I’m referencing. Chris asked me to order it for him at the beginning of his sobriety work.

He read half of it.

He was marking up parts he related to, questions other adult children of alcoholics were sharing, and then just stopped. He was reading a book explaining why he often can’t follow through with things and then quit it.

*insert a confusing laugh-cry combo here*

Self-awareness means you have to address the issue. It’s why so many of us don’t want to know more about ourselves, our wounds, our tendencies and scars. Because it would make us accountable for them.

Accountability is hard.

If you’re friends with, married to, or in a family with adult children of alcoholics, this information will be eye-opening and connect a lot of dots. But it’s not to be used as a weapon to hurt someone who is already hurting. We don’t learn and read and grow to hurt others. If that’s your motive, you can skip this series, please.

When I met my husband, I mistook his actions for confidence instead of low self-esteem. I saw his indifference as attractive instead of the reality that he didn’t know how to care for himself or others well. You don’t know how to do something you didn’t learn; you don’t know how to do something no one modeled for you.

Healthy child development includes parental warmth, clearly defined boundaries, and respectful treatment (p. xxiii). Alcoholic households don’t have those things. The alcoholic parent is too consumed with self and the other parent spends the majority of his/her time caring for the alcoholic. There is little left for the kids in the house. Healthy child development involves not giving children adult problems. Adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) are given very adult problems very early in life. There are no carefree days. Innocence is lost early.

The loss of innocence changes everything.

Every single thing.

Children learn identity from the people around them. If the people around them are damaged, selfish, manipulative, addicted, and unreliable, they too will become these things.

If we tell our children to be kind yet we are never kind, they don’t learn kindness, they learn how to be mean. It’s the same way with an alcoholic parent. It doesn’t matter how much the alcoholic parent says don’t be like me or the other parent tries to overcompensate, it doesn’t get cancelled out. Children learn by modeling what they see. Children will model what they see no matter what words you use to tell them differently.

ACOAs grow up confused about love and identity. When we are young, we learn who we are by our parents and the house we grow up in. Eventually, we get to determine that on our own, but it starts in childhood with our families of origin. Children of alcoholics get warped messages about what love is, what relationships should look like, and what is acceptable within love and relationship. There’s a level of drama and chaos that comes with an alcoholic household that is hard to shake.

It feels normal and “safe” and reliable. That sets up future relationships to be dangerous.

ACOCs hear their parents lie all the time. They lie when they show up to family functions to cover for the alcoholic. They lie to bosses on the phone when someone can’t come to work. They lie to friends who try to come over. They lie to themselves and each other other. Lies take up a lot of space in an alcoholic home.

Communication is a big part of parenting, especially as kids get older. Talking through problems and worries, parents help kids practice thinking things through, anticipating consequences, and weighing risk. When a two year old heads toward a flight of stairs, a parent runs to grab him because his brain isn’t developed enough to understand cause and effect. Teenagers, hopefully, are starting to put cause and effect together. We don’t run to catch our kids every time they fall at this age, but we do talk about possible outcomes, or if things went south, what to learn from the mistake.

Children of alcoholics don’t get that. More than likely, the parent doesn’t have the maturity to have those conversations, but they also don’t have the time. They’re too busy putting out fires they keep lighting or living in the isolation of their addiction.

So kids grow up without the skills other kids are getting.

Strike one: growing up in a chaotic household.

Strike two: not having the skills and maturity other kids their age have.

Strike three comes in the form of a high likelihood of repeating the patterns they witnessed as a child, either turning into an alcoholic themselves, marrying an alcoholic, or–the grand slam for ACOAs–both.

*Today is the overview; I’ll share more tomorrow about how these characteristics have played out in our marriage, how we’re beginning to address them, and what Chris is doing to recover from a really ugly start.

To the “father” who raised my husband

I’m writing letters this week: to people who will never read them, to my younger self, to you. Because we all have things we wish we could say to someone.

To the “father” who raised my husband:

A few months ago, Chris had to write a letter to you for an assignment in counseling. His therapist asked him to write to you–anything he wanted–and he had two weeks to get it done. He didn’t have to send it. You’d never see it. He could write anything he wanted.

He had nothing to say to you. Absolutely nothing.

It took him two weeks of processing and stewing to write a page with very little actual content. Just empty words.

I was stunned.

You couldn’t think of anything to say to your father? I asked incredulously. I could think of lots of things to say to him.

I don’t have anything to say to him, he said again.

When he returned from his counseling appointment where he read his letter to you, I asked how it went. He didn’t want to talk about it.

He never wants to talk about it. Not right away, anyway. He needs a few days to sit with the work he’s doing before he shares bits and pieces with me. I ask because I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring it. But I know he won’t answer much that first night.

A few nights later, he was ready to talk.

I don’t know what to say to him, because I don’t have any idea what he was supposed to do. My experience as a child was so wrong that I don’t have a frame of reference for what a healthy dad would do at home, with his kids or his family. I don’t even know what to be upset or disappointed about.

I know I’ve already used the word “stunned” in this letter and my English teacher sensibilities tell me to pick another word (maybe yours do too?), but that’s all I’ve got: again, I was stunned.

You let addiction and selfishness and lust ruin your life and your family and your kids. You let it ruin their childhoods, their memories, their innocence. You didn’t do this on your own, I know, but you led the charge.

You used to come to our house drunk when Ellie was a baby. I wasn’t used to being around drunk adults, but Chris was so I followed his lead.

And his lead was to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, to pretend it wasn’t happening, to pretend we didn’t notice.

I fell right into the enabling behavior your house ran on. Except when you left, I wasn’t quiet about it. You came over smelling of half a bottle of cologne with a side of cigarettes and alcohol and we had to wash our baby, her blankets, and Febreeze the couch once you were gone. You left our house, and we went into overdrive to wipe away the stink you left behind.

We’re still doing that. We’re still doing that every single day.

Raising children with someone who didn’t have a healthy childhood is hard. Chris learned from you that when things get hard, you should tune out with alcohol and movies. You shouldn’t discuss or address issues, you should hide them. You should show up to family functions with fake stories and armor to hide the wounds and scars. You should avoid, numb, lie, and run.

Your son shouldn’t have had to come home from school worried about what he would find: sometimes you naked and blackout drunk on the garage floor, sometimes crying and depressed, sometimes with the thought in the back of his mind that you’d killed yourself during the school day. Your son should not have been punished by having food or money for food taken away. Your son shouldn’t have been relied on to drive siblings to games and practices well before he had a license because you were too busy drinking.

You were too selfish, too consumed by your addictions, to see your children.

You tried your best to send Chris off into adulthood ill-equipped and with a heavy dose of low self-esteem, depression, and co-dependency. You and your wife healed no wounds of your own so you passed all of them on to your children. Hard work was too hard for you so you did not do it.

Thankfully, a lot of people love your son more than you do. (Nothing you did was loving; don’t believe the lie you want to tell yourself that any of his success or goodness now is a result of anything you did.) Chris left the toxic influence of his parents and found new parents in a work family, a church family, and the families of friends.

The people God put in your son’s life to step up when you were unable to is an overwhelming gift full of grace and compassion.

Today Chris turns 36. He is patient and loving, smart and funny. He is a good provider for our family. He is reliable and steady in his work ethic. He can remodel a kitchen or a bathroom like a professional. He can rewire a room, fix a car, or build anything he has a picture of. He tucks his daughters in every night with prayer and a back scratch. He makes their lunches, takes them on hikes, and teaches them about music and animals. He shows up to their games, cheers them on no matter what, and joins all the daddy/daughter competitions and camp outs. He’s navigating daughters who are getting older with increased hugs and I love yous.

He’s stopping dads he admires for advice, observing other families, asking for help. He has been clean and sober for almost two years, and he is working hard to rebuild a marriage addiction destroyed. (Actually, a better way of putting that would be addiction didn’t allow a marriage to be built correctly the first time so we’re starting from scratch.)

I would be lying if I told you your absence doesn’t hurt him. Everyone wants their dad to love them, show interest in them, care about them, to be proud of them.

That is not an invitation to come back. The need doesn’t trump the reality which is you are dangerous to him and our family. Even before he stopped answering or returning your calls, you had stopped asking about our kids or our lives. Your phone conversations were full of stories of people Chris didn’t know, about your life, about how great you were. You stopped asking about Chris and our kids or leaving room for anything but your voice some time in 2016. It destroyed Chris to talk to you. After you’d hang up, he would cry. It took days to recover from your phone calls.

We don’t need anymore reminders about your selfishness. He has a childhood full of examples, enough to carry him through the rest of his life.

I realize so much of the story I learned about you when I started dating your son was wrong. Your family–good or bad–still agreed to present the manipulated story of your demise (and theirs) to everyone they met. You were the bad guy, the drunk, and everyone else was your victim. I know that’s not true. I know that it takes two parents to run the dangerous household you were a part of. I know it takes a really unhealthy partner to keep things together that long. I know that’s not love. I know choosing your marriage over your children’s safety and security isn’t love or loyalty, it is fear and mental illness. And I know you’re a victim in a lot of ways too. But victims grow up to be adults who have to take responsibility for their actions.

You probably won’t ever do that.

The good news for Chris and our family is forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do with you. You don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to be sober. You don’t have to change. You don’t even have to be alive. He can heal your damage completely separate from you. He can free himself of your legacy, of your illness, of your sin without involving you in any of it. You had plenty of time to do that for yourself and you chose not to.

Now he’s doing it without you.
-Mary

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