Why Has Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) Become the Ground Zero for Addiction?

Although I have been sober (Nov. 24, 2010) for 34 years, I hadn’t gone to an ACA meeting until last week. Having attended ACOA meetings 20 years ago, I was prepared for ACA to be a new ACOA. Well, to put it mildly, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Although there are 12 steps for ACA, the main format for the meeting hinges on using the Red Book and the workbook which can be purchased at ACAheadquarters.

The main difference between the ACOA I attended and the present ACA is that ACA has been built around someone identifying with “The Problem.”  The problem as stated in ACA is:

‘Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional household. We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people-pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat. We either became alcoholics (or practiced other addictive behavior) ourselves, or married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.”

‘We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Having an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we stood up for ourselves rather than giving in to others. Thus, we became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative. We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. Yet, we kept choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.’

‘These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us ‘co-victims’, those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and kept them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue. Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable relationships.’

‘This is a description, not an indictment.’

‘Adapted from The Laundry List .

1.  As I have stated in other posts, my favorite ACA (ACOA) is Amy Eden Jollymore. In her Guess What Normal Is, she single-handedly has made the dictates and recovery of ACA available to bloggers. She includes thought-provoking posts along with really good book reviews for writers in this field.

In this post titled “Setting Personal Boundaries and a ‘NoThanks’ Approach to Dysfunctional Family Dynamics”:

“How will you know (a) that your family-of-origin is still dysfunctional (because when you begin to grow and heal, you’ll sometimes forget…after all you’re trained to forget), and (b) how will you know that you’re really being a champion of your personal perspective, truth, and needs?”

“The answer is this:  when your family starts to get agitated, mad, throw emotional darts, stop talking to you, ask if you’re depressed or having some kind of early menopause or cancer of the smart, loyal part of your brain – that’s how you’ll know.  You’re finally knowing what you want, seeing things as they are, not blaming yourself, not excusing their behavior, and starting to move past surviving and into thriving when the boundaries you’re setting—and the loyalties you’re no longer recognizing—invoke emotional itchiness in those around you; they’ll reach for whatever blackmail techniques they reach for when they feel threatened.  It’s the abandonment that we fear—which I fear, the withdrawal of my family from me just when I’m actually, finally living and behaving from the center of who I really am.”

“When I first established some boundaries with my family of origin some years ago, I approached it with two priorities:  one, that my family not notice the presence of my new boundaries, and two, that I would feel less anxious around family, less angry.  It was good for me to do something to lessen my anxiety, but I was adding space at that point and not really changing any dynamics (not that space isn’t helpful, it can be!)  I didn’t know any better, but I knew something had to be done and I was trying. All good.”

“More recently, as I’m re-jiggering how I interact with family, they are noticing. (This time I was so focused on what I needed and wanted I forgot to prioritize not being troublesome or threatening to them!) They’re agitated, hurt, and mad.  In that way, it’s a bit lonely. But it’s OK.  I mean, did I really expect them to appreciate my personal, spiritual, getting-happy for me task?  Well, yes, but then, well…wrong family.  From the perspective of effective change, their agitation is a good sign. It means that I really, truly did alter my side of the dynamics, even if the new signal isn’t recognized or accepted.”

“I couldn’t be happier, or feel more…right, like finally, unapologetically right.”

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