A.C.O.A.

[MajestyJo]

Common Traits of Adult Children of Alcoholics

Many Adult Children Develop These Characteristics By Buddy T

As a result of growing up in an alcoholic home, many children of alcoholics develop similar characteristics and personality traits. In 1983, Dr. Jan G. Woititz in her landmark book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, outlined 13 characteristics of adult children which apply to other dysfunction families as well. Dr. Jan, as she is known, believes that these common characteristics are prevalent not only in alcoholic families, but also for those who grew up in families where there were other compulsive behaviors, such as gambling, drug abuse or overeating.
Children who experienced chronic illness, strict religious attitudes, foster care and other dysfunction systems, also often identify with these characteristics, Woititz says.

The Laundry List

Before Dr. Jan's book was published, however, an individual adult child of an alcoholic, Tony A., published in 1978 what he called "The Laundry List," another list of characteristics that can seem very familiar to those who grew up in dysfunctional homes. Tony's list has been adopted as part of the Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization's official literature and is a basis for the article, "The Problem," published on the group's website.

Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

According to Tony A's list, many adult children of alcoholics can:
Become isolated
Fear people and authority figures
Become approval seekers
Be frightened of angry people
Be terrified of personal criticism
Become alcoholics, marry them or both
View life as a victim
Have an overwhelming sense of responsibility
Be concerned more with others than themselves
Feel guilty when they stand up for themselves
Become addicted to excitement
Confuse love and pity
'Love' people who need rescuing
Stuff their feelings
Lose the ability to feel
Have low self-esteem
Judge themselves harshly
Become terrified of abandonment
Do anything to hold on to a relationship
Become "para-alcoholics" without drinking
Become reactors instead of actors
Attracted to Compulsive Personalities

Many adult children of alcoholics lose themselves in their relationship with others, sometimes finding themselves attracted to alcoholics or other compulsive personalities - such as workaholics - who are emotionally unavailable. Adult children will also form relationships with others who need their help or need to be rescued, to the extent of neglecting their own needs. If they place the focus on the overwhelming needs of someone else, they do not have to look at their own difficulties and shortcomings.
Often, adult children of alcoholics will take on the characteristics of alcoholics, even though they have never picked up a drink - exhibiting denial, poor coping skills, poor problem solving, and forming dysfunctional relationships.

Help for Adult Children of Alcoholics

If you identify with some of the above characteristics, or the 13 other characteristics outlined by Dr. Woititz, you might want to take the Adult Children Screening Quiz to get an idea of how much you may have been affected by growing up in a dysfunctional home. You will find more complete descriptions of these characteristics in Dr. Jan's book, Adult Children of Alcoholics. Many adult children have found themselves so profoundly affected by the experience of growing up in a dysfunctional home, they seek professional treatment or counseling to help them resolve these issues.
Others have found help through mutual support groups such as Al-Anon Family Groups or Adult Children of Alcoholics. You can find a support group meeting in your area or online meetings for both Al-Anon and ACOA.


Sources:
Janet G. Woititz, "The 13 Characteristics of Adult Children," The Awareness Center. Accessed November 2010.
Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, "The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic," (Attributed to Tony A., 1978). Accessed November 2010.

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/adult...Alcoholics.htm

[MajestyJo]

So here they are and by the way I have experience nearly all of these characteristics.

1. ACOA’s guess at what is normal

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine. Normal for what or should I say who? For someone who grew up in a dysfunctional family. For someone whose father was never there. Whose mother often took her anger out on others including herself. If that is normal, than so be it! Is it normal to want what you don't or can't have? Is it normal to be worried about tomorrow when it hasn't got here yet?

2. ACOA’s have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

Have made the decision to quit the clinic. I am not willing to wait until July to get the information I wanted six weeks ago. I don't qualify for the physical part of the program. I haven't given up on my goal. I am doing what my sponsor said I should have done in the first place, take charge of my life and make responsible choices.

3. ACOA’s lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. Don't do this as much although I may not tell the whole truth which is lying by omission. I will often try to sugar coat things to protect other's feelings so it only stands to reason that I do it for myself. I think it is called denial.


4. ACOA judge themselves without mercy. I have always been my worst taskmaster. Things just never seem to measure up or meat my expectations. In early recovery, I volunteered to cook Sunday dinner for the girls in the recovery house that I went through. No matter what I cooked, it seemed like I found fault even if they had two helpings and asked for more. I had to make a salad, cook meat, potatoes, have at least two vegetables and dessert. It was a major anxiety attack every time I did it. I had to give it up because it was too much phsyically. I remember worrying about making pastry without my all purpose flour and Crisco and lamented all the time I was making it that I had to use pastry flour and LARD! I never had pastry fail after learning how to make it properly. There was still the fear that it would happen sometime and this time was going to be it.

5. ACOA’s having difficulty having fun. My whole life was fear of making a fool of myself and that someone would laugh at me. I was the country bumpkin trying to be a cool city girl and trying to fit in. When I went back to the country, I was this cook city girl, trying to impress everyone how much of a swinger I was. Everythng was about control. Do it with style and grace! LOL. I was raised to be a lady and spent most of my life trying to prove I wasn't one. When I thought I was going to lose that control, I would go into the bathroom, stick my finger down my throat and make myself sick so I could drink more. Heaven forbid that I would get 'drunk' and disorderly. I didn't want to be a falling down drunk like my Dad and my ex-husband.

6. ACOA’s take themselves very seriously. Life was serious. It was a real gift to learn to apply Rule 62 and be able to laugh at myself.


7. ACOA’s have difficulty with intimate relationships. No kidding! I guess I am living proof of that. It took me two husbands to get 10 years of marriage. I had two relationships that lasted more than two years. I long term relationship was generally about 4 months.

8. ACOA’s overreact to changes over which they have no control. This is what kept me coming back to Al-Anon. I was told that it wasn't my husband's job to make me happy. My whole attitude had been 'preform' make me happy. Then I would resent him because he wasn't doing his job or doing what I felt he should be doing.

9. ACOA’s constantly seek approval and affirmation. This is something God and I are still working on. The affirmation not so much, but the looking for approval is still there, especially when I am with people who I feel are better qualifed and have more expertise than I do in a field.

I always like playing and doing things with people who are more experienced than I have. I have thought it was a way of learning but I think it was also a way of trying to prove I wasn't stupid like I had been told I was all of my life. This was true about darts and playing pool and still holds true in today playing bridge.


10. ACOA’s feel that they are different from other people. I think the favorite last words, "Well you just don't understand." "You haven't been through what I've been through." If you had gone through what I went through, you would...."

11. ACOA’s are either super-responsible or super-irresponsible. I see this in my son. I know that he had a good teacher. I can be so either/or on this. Take things so seriously and other times just turn a blind eye, especially if it is something I want to do! I love to run away from home and often look for a partner-in-crime. I figure the 'dishes' will always be there when I get home and the 'laundry' will be open another day.

12. ACOA’s are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved. This whole thing has been like mirror, mirror on the wall. If you hurt a friend of mine, you hurt me too! If you are a friend of a friend, then I will stand by you and support you no matter what anyone says. Often I will dillusion myself into believing you are right although when it came to my ex-husband this wasn't so. He would get angry because he figured as his wife I should agree with him. If there were six people inthe room, I wasn't suppose to join forces with him in a united front. There was no way I was going to allow myself to be seen as an not a very nice person too!

13. ACOA’s are impulsive. (Lock self on course of action without give proper consideration. Ouch! I am glad this is the last one! I thought it was because I am an Aires. As I have said before, "The right foot is moving forward and the left foot doesn't know it has to move yet."

One day at a time, God and I are working on this. Thank God for progress not perfection! An even greater thanks that it is one day at a time and a living program that I can continue to grow and change and become the kind of person I want to be.

Something I posted on another site

[MajestyJo]

It has been my experience that it can be another generaton, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc. I knew a woman whose father was military, very strict and she considered their home very dysfunctional.

It has been my experience that the 12 Steps fits just about everyone. I use it for my eating disorder, my chronic pain, my computer addiction, and I used them for quitting cigarettes.

There is a group for people who have mental disorders and are alcoholics too. If there is AA/Al-Anon, NA/Nar-Anon, if the group was large enough, there is no reason they couldn't have a Dual Recovery DR/Anon.

[MajestyJo]

My sponsor told me to clean my side of the street. Take an inventory of what is mine and what is an old learned behavior that I need to change. I can't change other people, but I can change me with the help of my Higher Power.

My son continues to act out his anger. He still continues to use. He still continues to ignore boundaries. He came in here last night after work. It was after 8 p.m. I said, "Are you just getting off now?" He said, "Well I finished work about 4:30 p.m. but I had a few beers with the boys after work at the shop." He came to use my phone to call a guy about getting cigarettes and to use my bathroom. I gave him the left over pasta from my supper because I don't like eating it more than once. As it was, I had made it the day before, and ended up eating it again yesterday because I was too tired to make something new or he would have gotten the whole thing. He had food at home and wasn't planning to eat but he never turns down food unless he is using in the moment and that is the priority.

I told him "You stink! I am glad I didn't have to sit beside you on the bus!" He said, "Really! I didn't know." I have always hated the smell of beer, second hand is even worse. He knows he is not suppose to come here when he has been using yet when he wants something, the self-centered alcoholic and addict does what he wants anyway.

The worst was when he came here to use my bathroom and passed out on the floor. I was kind enough to put a blanket over him and go back to bed. The next morning he was on my couch. When he woke up, I said what happened to my rule about not coming here when you are using. His response was, "I was too drunk to walk home, your place was closer."

He says that I don't understand. I have been there done it. Didn't drink beer but I did take advantage of my father. I drank his liquor and mine. Ate his food and stayed in his home and became his drinking buddy until one night he had enough and kicked us out at 11 p.m. at night. My son was 10.

I don't use the same substance as he does but the feelings, thoughts and actions are all too familiar. The substance is but a symptom of the disease. I had the same feelings when I used relationships, work and food as I did when I used alcohol, pills and cigarettes.

It isn't about what I used but why I used people, places and things to make me feel better. It is about why I kept looking outside of myself instead of going within to get my needs met.

Some of it is old, learned behavior and some of it is just the nature of someone who is human and chooses not to work the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions into their lives or doesn't know about them. To some people, what I learned in the rooms is something they do and believe all the time. I thought it was something new. I was surprised when I said to my cousin about living one day at a time and her husband and her looked at each other, and he said, "Doesn't everybody do that."



Shared at another site at an earlier date.

[MajestyJo]

We practice what we are around and then it becomes a part of us. I learned some very ANGRY habits and had to break myself of them.

Really like these words and totally agree. We are products of our environment. We try to control what happens around us. Every thing seems to be our fault, and even when it isn't, we always felt blamed, even if the words were not spoken.

I found that once I received a message, I applied those words to everything, especially if I heard it repeatedly. I seem to hear things and for some reason, I continued to listen to the tape, until I became aware in recovery that it was me who pushed the play button.

The words "ANGRY' habits were new to me. I don't think I ever put the words together in my own mind. I certainly was aware of them and acting out my anger on occasion but most of my anger was internalized. My biggest clue was my tongue and it was a tool that was very sharp and very cutting. The words bring to mind slamming doors, banging pots, or total silence, although I didn't often use that because it was like "Why cut off my nose to spite my face" (Why be silent when you want to talk), and I was guilty of a lot of verbal abuse, which often led to mental and emotional. It was like if you are going to hurt me, I will hurt you back.

So many of the characteristics of adult children are the same as those of an alcoholic, perhaps because they were from an alcoholic home and it is a family disease. Many ACoA members don't use the drug of choice of their parent, but pick up one of their own.

It can be an addiction to work, exercise, neatness, food, religion, games (for me it was darts and later bridge), and so many more things that don't come to mind. A lot of things you don't think of as drugs, but can all lead to the same soul sickness and habits.

I believe we are for the most part, products of our environment.

[MajestyJo]

Tonight on my way home from detox, I shared with my friend about how grateful I was that I had found AA before I went to Adult Children of Alcoholics.

If I hadn't gone to AA first, I would have remained in my denial a lot longer and may never have entered into the rooms of recovery for myself.

At my first meeting, it was like "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, which of us hurts the most of all!" I identified so much with what people shared, but I know that I would have taken it as an affirmation of my using, rather than the fact that I was a product of my environment.

My father was an alcoholic, my mother died as a result of her overeating, and I became an alcoholic and addict. In today, thanks to recovery, I know that they are not to blame, that I made my own choices, and that when I made the choice to stop, I couldn't, without the rooms of recovery.

Justification and rationalization darn near killed me, it kept me sick and in denial for a long, long time.

I was so grateful that I found out that alcohol wasn't the problem, it was but a symptom of my disease. My problem was an obsessive compulsive mind, a disease of perception, and one of denial that told me I was just "fine" and it was everyone else who had the problem not me, and if everyone just did what I thought they should, or acted the way that I knew the good Lord intended them to act, and if they would just not annoy me, and they would do as I say, then everything would just be just grand! LOL.

Sounds good in the telling, but in reality it is really sick! Thank God for the rooms of recovery and a second chance at life. Thank you for the gifts of self-honesty, awareness, forgiveness and grace.

[MajestyJo]

Live now

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

-- Annie Dillard

We lose the power of the moment because we're so rarely in it. We're reliving the past or speculating about the future. We continue to believe that tomorrow's the day when I'll be more capable, more wealthy, more fit and more loving. Meanwhile, I'm just putting in time, dreaming of better things but not making any concrete move to realize them.

When you find yourself thinking of the future or the past, bring your awareness into the present moment. Really experience how you feel and what’s happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each moment, our lives will be rich, no matter what we have accomplished.

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever."

-- Horace Mann

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to return,' you will become time conscious."

-- A. B. Zu Tavern

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

When we live in the moment, we become aware and learn to live in reality. We can recognize old tapes when they start playing, we can sense when we are not feeling comfortable, and we can take the Serenity Prayer and apply it in the moment and ask our Higher Power for the guidance, the strength and the courage to do what we need to do, and the willingness to let go and let God!