Adult Children of Alcoholics | You? Or Someone Like You: Picking Up the Pieces Bit by Bit
Adult children of alcoholics are individuals who’ve grown up in a home where there was constant tension caused by a parent’s drinking. This tension takes many forms and is often passed off as caused by someone or something else, which is, of course, confusing to a child. To help us understand this better, Diana “ATL” Winslow, MSW, ACSW, LCSW, has shared this guest post. Diana is a blogger, writer and historian and is mostly known as a Mom and licensed mental health counselor in her native Oklahoma City. This post first appeared at Oklahoma City Examiner.com. You may ontact Diana at cultivatehope@ymail.com.
Adult Children of Alcoholics | You? Or Someone Like You: Picking Up the Pieces Bit by Bit by Diana “ATL” Winslow
You or someone like you. Wasn’t that a MatchBox 20 album name? First thing that came to mind when I began writing about trends I am seeing in my downtown OKC counseling office.
In my office, I have a list of ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) behaviors that many people look at and breathe a sigh of relief.
Their comments range from “Oh…. OH!” to “Why didn’t someone talk to me about this before?” to ” This is real?” to “Their problem is NOT MY FAULT!!!!!”, ” I haven’t seen my family in years!”, ” I never saw my family member drink or use, what are you talking about?”
Tried counseling, tried medications and just don’t seem to feel so good. But then this comes along and the possibility that “more may be revealed” becomes a hopeful reality, which can center and redirect the client, family and possibly the addicted.
Maybe they knew about the addictive disease in their family, maybe not.
But when they sit in my office and we begin to look more closely at those family traits, the bits and pieces of their history that they have carefully recounted for me in whole or in part begin to come together and we can sit as counselor and client and determine more clearly next steps.
Some people are enraged, feel their family of origin has been accused somehow.
Some people feel shame, as they think to formulate their history as marked by a previous generations choices somehow makes them less.
Others understand that we are standing shoulder to shoulder to consider a path by which the chaos might be looked at in patterns and a path of resolution might appear.
Addictive disease distorts the person who has the addiction and their loved ones, despite best efforts to avoid this as a consequence, fall out or result.
Addiction is a disease that can end in jails, institutions and death. It wears out the person with the disease, and it is a family disease, so it wears out the loved ones around the person too. Many families with addictive disease or history of same have physical abuse, domestic violence or sexual abuse as part of the history.
Addictions can be diagnosed. As much as 40% of people who have addictions have a concurrent mental health diagnosis.( Possibly more, as Oklahoma has one of the highest rates of diagnosed mental health problems in the USA.)
Having a mental health and addictions problem is referred to as a dual diagnosis, and both have to be treated simultaneously to increase getting a successful result.
Recovery is possible for the person with the “problem” and the family, friend or employer who accompany them in life. Addictive disease costs the US workforce millions of dollars annually, not just in the problems presented by the addicted, but also in the fallout that the family, friends and employers try to clean up, survive or cover up. Take a step today to get information, education, support or treatment as needed. Prevention is important as possible as diagnosis and recovery.
I encourage you to consider attending a meeting of Alanon or ACOA if you struggle with dealing with a loved one’s drinking or Alcoholics Anonymous if you are worried about your own drinking.
Lisa Frederiksen
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I would love to hear more about the behaviors of children of alcoholics. Do you have a resource that covers that information?
Hello – here are a few resources that describe the behaviors of children of alcoholics:
http://www.nacoa.org/
http://voices.yahoo.com/adult-children-alcoholics-acoa-13-characteristics-5654488.html?cat=5