High Bottom Drunk

Some of the personal stories from the website:

I Almost Choked to Death on My Own Vomit
Tim R., Longview, Texas
It takes what it takes.

Something to Live For
Carl A., San Antonio, Texas
Even cold hearts can find warmth.

Sober Since Seventeen
Jan P., Little Rock, Arkansas
You don’t have to be old and ugly to find recovery.

I Drank With the Best of Them
Barbara T., Charlotte, NC
You don’t have to be a big redneck man to drink like one.

You Can Get Off on Any Floor &
Tilex Changed My Life
Vicki M., Daphne, AL
“Accidental” sobriety brings self-awareness and serenity. In this case, Tilex was no ordinary bathtub cleaner.

Sober, Happy, and Free
Rick S.
When you’re no longer afraid to die.

Let Go and Let God
Klara R., Tylertown, MS
God takes care of me when I get out of the way.

A Brother’s Love
Joey (Anonymous)
Short and sweet.

Photo credit.

1.  From Susan Kingsley-Smith writing on A Journey: “I Had to Get Real About the Holidays That Were Not Often Happy and some Tips to Deal When You’d Rather Not”:

For years I’d tried to figure out how to survive the holidays with my dysfunctional family. In the end I realized that it wasn’t about surviving but learning how to live beyond it by creating a new tradition – for myself.

Holidays are one of those things that I did for years even though they were nevernot often anything to celebrate. My body would tell me it was that time of year again as my muscles tensed, I would start to shut down and be unable to function. I’d start feeling irritable, lashing out at those around me. Many days I’d not be able to get out of bed as the days on the calendar slipped from summer to fall and finally Halloween marked the beginning of the worst time of year for me.

I slipped further and further down as I knew what was waiting for me at our “family” get togethers. Finally I made a choice for myself to not go.

It was hard. But for me the only option as my family refused to respect my new boundaries and continued to shame me, make me the brunt of their jokes and cruelty. They would often tell me that I deserved to feel bad because I was such a worthless person and had not met their expectations, that I was the cause of their anger at me and if I was just somehow “different” – then they wouldn’t be mad and would love me.

I was constantly reminded that I was not “enough” and could never be “enough” to win their acceptance and love. I was often reminded throughout the year that I was not good enough for them to want a relationship with me. That I should be grateful they even spoke to me at all.

So for me – as over the years I noticed this same pattern in my life and my dread for what the world touted as a happy time – I decided to create some new traditions for myself.  I started declining invitations to these family get togethers.

I didn’t explain myself to them because that gave them power to again question my decisions and tell me something was wrong with me for not wanting to spend the holidays with them. And in the end they did that anyway – but I no longer felt the obligation to apologize and try to fix it.

This year will be my second year of my new Thanksgiving tradition where I volunteer at a local charity.

And I don’t want to leave you with the impression that making this decision for myself came easily – or quickly.

It in fact came at a very high price as I realized that there was absolutely nothing I could do to be good enough.

2. From Broken Brain-Brilliant Mind: “Where I get lost”:

So, despite starting the day feeling really good, I went to bed last night in a very emotional state. And I woke up this morning feeling just as emotional. What a change, from how I felt yesterday morning. It’s like something caught up with me, and it’s taking me down.

I think it’s the Thanksgiving time that kicks off the holiday season, which gets to me. All of a sudden, I have more to do, and less time to do it. I have things I have to finish before year-end, and at the same time, I have family and friends who all want to get together and do things. Meanwhile, I just want to crawl under a rock. I want to withdraw and remove myself from any and all interaction with others… just put my head down and work my way through the end of the year. I want my life to be simple, at a time when complication is the order of the day.

And the harder I try, the worse I seem to do. And I get lost. Very quickly. In the space of 12 hours, I can go from calm and collected, to a blubbering wreck who can’t stand thinking about yet another day of the usual screw-ups and confusions and try-agains and perpetual wondering if I really “got” what someone was saying to me, or if I really remembered what I was supposed to keep in my head. It can be very disconcerting, and I hate what happens to me, when it gets the better of me.

So, I have to track all this. Thinking about how things have been going for me — or not going for me — my pattern-seeking brain can see the places where stuff falls apart:

• When I am overly fatigued
• When I am stressed
• When I am over-thinking things
• When I am reacting, instead of being pro-active
• When I am isolated
• When I am feeling threatened

All these seem to come to a head during the holidays, and I really don’t want them to get the better of me. So, I’m taking a closer look at my life, and I’ve found some places where I think I have answers about what happens — and why. I think I know where I get lost.

Photo credit.

The reprint begins with:

“Some of the personality types are:”

FAMILY HERO – An achiever, usually (but not always) the oldest child. Often a workaholic who can identify other’.4 needs and meet them, but is without an understanding of their own needs. This is often a child who uses their success to find a sense of belonging — the one who shows the family is “all right,” but who is unable to feel the benefit of his/her achievements. They feel like a fraud and are subject to depressions which they hide from those around them.

THE RESCUER – Similar to the Family Hero, -but without the visible success. The Rescuer finds those in needs, lets them move in or marries them or finds a job for them while supply other needs and is very understanding of the frequent betrayals. The rescuer has a deep seated self-hate that drives them to their role as a savior, because they know that anyone not already at the bottom of the barrel would have nothing to do with them. They tend to feel inadequate in their giving and unable to accept help for their own needs.

THE MASCOT – Often a younger child who uses humor or other distracting behavior, such as being exceptional clumsy or always in trouble, to take the focus of the family away from the problems of the family dysfunction. If the parent is violently drunk, the Mascot may take the abuse to “save” the rest of the family, or may be able to crack a joke at the necessary moment to take everyone’s mind off the pain of their reality.

THE ADJUSTER – The one who is never bothered by what is happening; there is no reason to be excited because everyone had to lie with family problems. The child never becomes too attached to goal or a desire because they have learned to change their direction at any moment. They float, knowing something is wrong but coping, often successfully, with one chaotic situation after another by surrendering their identity to the needs of the moment.

THE DOORMAT – The abused child who survives by lying down and letting others walk all over him/her, rather than risk an unpleasant or dangerous confrontation. This child is very understanding of the need someone else may have to injure him/her, but cannot identify his/her feelings about the abuse in the past or present.

THE ACTING OUT CHILD or THE REBEL – This child is in action at the slightest provocation, whether as an heroic action to prevent abuse to someone else (by distracting the abuser) or to protect himself/herself with wildness. This is the child who is most visible to the outside world and who may adopt alcoholism, drug addiction or other compulsive behavior early in defiance of the family system.

THE SCAPEGOAT or FAMILY JERK – This child takes the blame and shame for the actions of other family members by being the most visibly dysfunctional. This child serves the family by being sick or crazy to allow the other members of the family to ignore their own dysfunction. This is also the child who holds the family together — the family rallies to help the family jerk. He/She learns to remain dysfunctional to continue receiving the little attention available in a dysfunctional home by making the family “okay” by being the focus of all that is “not okay” which all members of the family vaguely sense.

THE BULLY – This child is usually the victim of physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse, who successfully makes the mental transition to stop being the victim by victimizing others. Often the Bully is genuinely remorseful for the pain and suffering caused to others, but will continue inflicting that abuse rather than face his/her own pain.

THE LOST CHILD – Often a younger (or the youngest) child, this personality type has learned to stay out of the way, not make his/her wants known and to expect nothing. They avoid feeling by denying that they have feelings. They adopt whatever behavior will allow them to stay invisible within the family, at work, at school or in a relationship. This is the child who can assume whatever personality those around him/her find least threatening.

THE LAST HOPE – Similar to the Lost Child, the Last Hope is the caretaker for the family when all other members have become unable to continue their roles. Often the Last Child is raised on comments like “You’ll never hurt me like so-and-so.” These children may work themselves to death trying to do “what’s right” for blood relations or adopted families, no matter what the expense to their own life.

Each of the personality types has special needs in Recovery, and each type can recover if they are willing to take the risk in believing they can change and heal.

Because the personalities of the family are mangled, the character traits of the children can be equally blurred. An Adult Child may have several of the above characteristics at one time, or may play a different role within the family at different times or depending on who they are responding to.

THE GOOD NEWS

After reading this far, you may question if any Recovery is possible.

The answer is a resounding YES. The ACA Central Service Board and Interim World Service organization issues a form of “The Solution” as an offering of shared experience, strength and hope in the experience of Recovery —

“The Solution”

The Solution is to become your own loving parent.

As ACA becomes a safe place for you, you will find the freedom to express all the hurts and fears you have kept inside and to free yourself from the shame and blame that are carryovers from the past. You will become an adult who is imprisoned no longer by childhood reactions. You will recovery the child within you, learning to accept and love yourself.

The healing begins when we risk moving out of isolation.

Feelings and buried memories will return. By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past. We learn to reparent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect.

This process allows us to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence. Our actual parent is a Higher Power whom some of us choose to call God. Although we had alcoholic parents, our Higher (don’t know where the rest of this is—will research at later date.)

(The above information is from the ACA World Service Organization. This information was copied in 2005. Be sure to visit this site as this is where the amazing book, the Red Book, can be purchased).

(My added information for family roles is below.)

I am pleased with what God has given me. Now that I am divorced, I feel this great surge of energy to receive the bounty that God has planned for me and all those that I love. I have had really remarkable people come into my life this year. I want to create enough business for the people that I love to be able to work together in spreading God’s love everywhere we go.

As some of you know, ACA used to be ACOA. When I found ACOA years ago, I truly felt home in a way I never had felt home in AA. I was drinking a six-pack of beer on Fri and Sat night when I quit drinking. I was fortunate enough to see my father’s progression and to know that that would happen to me, too.

I finally see myself in the Rescuer. I have a hard time asking for anything. I know now that I am in my addiction when I just want to keep giving and giving and hiding from my own needs.

Photo credit.

I think of ACA as adult children of addicts as I believe few people didn’t experience a confusing childhood. Addiction of any kind is in charge of the family dynamics if one or both of the parents is using the family energy to maintain and/or promote an addiction. Alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, money, power, religion, sex, food, gambling, shopping, and hoarding are a few of the main addictions. The most information is about alcohol because addiction recovery started with AA in 1935.

I also believe that most of our patterns of behavior were established in our family of origin. We use those patterns which generally helped us as children but now hinder us as adults. For this month of October, 2011, I am researching and writing about this legacy of ACA.

Please email me at changemaker.kathy@gmail.com if you have any ACA blogs that you know of.

I recommend the following blogs:

Child Abuse Survivor

Dynamics of Alcoholic Family

Guess what normal is

Just Be Real

The L.I.S.T. ACA Group (great resource but it seems to be no longer updated)

mamaTRUE parenting as practice

Realistic Recovery

Sophie in the moonlight

Photo by one of my favorite Flickr photographers, Mike Baird.

Tony A. included his list in his book, The Laundry List: The ACOA Experience.

The list is:

a. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

b. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

c. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism

d. We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

e. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

f. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. This enables us not to look too closely at our own faults.

g. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

h. We become addicted to excitement.

i. We confuse love with pity and tend to “love” people who we can `pity” and “rescue”.

j. We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (denial).

k. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

l. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

m. Alcoholism is a family disease and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of the disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

n. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

In the past few years, PTSD which has been long recognized as a byproduct of war and severe trauma, is now being used to define some long-time less severe traumas. Last year, at the age of 70, I realized I have lived with PTSD since I was about 5 years of age. I have based most of my major emotional decisions on the core belief that if I don’t expect much emotionally, I can’t get hurt. The reality is that other people are going to do what they choose to do.

For excerpts from 3 PTSD experiences, read “What is PTSD and How Do I Know if I Have It?” Also here is a PTSD test.

The symptoms for PTSD are generally considered to be: From “What is PTSD and How Can We Recognize It?”:

1. From Mark Goulston: PTSD Symptoms: 7 Signs That May Signal PTSD:

1. Feeling Bulletproof:Prior to the trauma, they often felt invulnerable as if nothing could harm them (the way a very wealthy person who can buy anything — and sometimes anyone — can feel all the way to a freshly trained soldier before they enter battle).

2. Horrendous Trauma: There is usually something horrific about the trauma. Horror has a way of destabilizing the acting, feeling and thinking parts of their brains so they can no longer work together. This may explain the use of the expressions: “Wigged out,” “Coming unglued,” “At wit’s end.”

3. Raw Vulnerability: As bulletproof as they once thought they were is as vulnerable as they have turned out to be. There is a belief that they don’t know how they survived the first trauma and an unconscious belief that they wouldn’t survive being re-traumatized. One of the reasons for anniversary reactions.

4. Brittleness: Not being able to find peace outside or inside their life or inside their psyche, leads to a brittleness where anything can set them off. This leads to the heightened startle respond common to people with PTSD.

5. Terror: Inside there is a deeply held belief that any re-traumatization will cause them to shatter and fragment and there is an feeling of impending inevitability that it will happen which creates a state of terror, difficulty sleeping, heavy self-medication (which also dulls ones rational thinking).

6. PTSD Symptoms: Most of the symptoms of PTSD from withdrawing to alcohol and substance abuse to not sleeping (since the experience of and fear of nightmares adds to the terror) are attempts to avoid re-traumatization.

7. Fragility: Feeling on the brink of going from brittle to shattering, fragmenting, losing their mind and never getting it back can cause a person who needs to be in control to take desperate measures. That is because to such a person, losing complete control is a fate worse than death.

Photo credit.

Although I never forgot that I was going to AA as a recovering alcoholic, my recovery changed over the years to encompass new learnings and teachings.

In 1976, when I came to AA, there were few female members. In my 3rd month of recovery, I had a profound spiritual experience which I have related in here. I quickly learned to shut up about God in 12 step meetings as many members wanted to talk about alcohol only. Being female and a God person almost insured that I wouldn’t have a lot of group acceptance.

The focus for my recovery took a profound change in direction when I discovered ACOA. I have never “forgot” that I am first and foremost an alcoholic and am deeply grateful to be in recovery. Nor have I ever considered myself as recovered. These beliefs about myself have helped me to stay centered and focused on recovery.

ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) has gone through several name changes. In 1977, (one year after the beginning in my recovery in 1976), a group of Al-Anon members realized that they were all children of alcoholics. This was the beginning of ACOA. In later years, ACOA became ACA and/or COA.

Up until 1983, any Al-Anon meeting I attended was to help heal that child inside me who grew up in a very troubled family. But when I shared at Al-Anon meetings about my alcoholism, I felt a subtle change in the group of some members feeling that I didn’t belong in an Al-Anon meeting.

But when I found ACOA or ACA meetings, I immediately knew that I belonged because they talked about feelings. I continued to be completely committed to my recovery with AA groups. But the AA groups were male-dominated groups whose members seemed to be proud of how far they had fallen to their bottoms. So I started attending ACOA and Codependents Anonymous as well as AA.

I can’t find any CODEP meetings here in Ft. Lauderdale but I notice that several of the AA meetings include AFL (affliated with family) so maybe some CODEP went there. CODEP was the most fun because it was full of the professionals who were there to lead the rest of us. Right!

By cloudzilla

Because there are so many great blogs about addiction recovery and/or mental illness, I will be choosing topics from their writings and posting the best of each. If you have a topic you’d like to have researched or another addiction recovery and/or mental illness blog that you’d like to have added, please email me.

These are some of my favorite ACO/ACA blogs:

Adult Children of Alcoholics/ ACAs ACOAs Blog

ACA World Service Organization: World Meeting List

Chaz Recovering

Child Abuse Survivor

Children of Alcoholics

Divorce 360

Drug Daddy

Guess What Normal Is: Become Your Center

Jayne Dough

Just Be Real

Mama True: Parenting as Practice

Understanding My Son

Writing: Overcoming Damaging Effects of Child Abuse and Rape

By jjjj56cp

“In the adult there lurks a child—an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and that calls for increasing care, attention, and education.  This is the part of the human personality that wishes to develop and become whole.”

Carl Jung

1.  Guess what normal is: “Own Your Crap: Trade Blame for Honesty about What You’re Feeling”

“You ever notice how when you go at your partner with strong emotions, it pushes him or her away?   Isn’t that weird? Ever wonder how that works, exactly?  How could your important, strong, emotions become a big cow plow, ramming the person you care about most out of your path?  I mean, you just want them close, right?  Your only (secret, inner) wish is that they would perceive your misery behind the emotional storm and thunderbolts you’re throwing–hug you, hold you, save you from yourself. “

“But they just see the storm.  And who wouldn’t?”

“When I’m in the heat of an emotional snafu, I don’t get what’s obvious.  Not at all.  Later, when I’ve cooled to a normal, human temperature, it’s all too obvious:  Duh, my partner can’t “hear” me (well, he can sure hear me, but not hear the issue), not when I’m in a flurry and talking (in circles, scratching an emotional itch) about what sounds a lot like…blame.”

2.  Just be Real: “Survival Mode–Pretending”:

“My teenage years were the darkest for me. I shiver just thinking about how awful they were. I grew deeper and deeper into depression and isolation. Had no one to talk to. Sometimes I felt I lost touch with reality. Creating my own fantasy world with my own dialog and cast of characters in my head to ease my pain and to have some kind of life. As sick as it was. That was my survival mode. La La Land.”

“This late in my journey, some 40 years later, I am just now feeling some compassion for my mother. The Lord is showing me that she too was in her own pain. She did not know how to comfort me. She was in her own misery of guilt. She was hurting and she went into her own survival mode.”

“How have you survived?”

“Some of us become perfectionists to cover up our pain that we can even drive ourselves crazy with our rituals. Pretending all the way nothing is wrong. Which can drive us harder to perform perfectly for people. To please others. To somehow think our pain will ease if people will accept us.”

“But God does NOT ask for such sacrifices from us. It is NOT our job. God is aware of our brokenness. Our pain. He does not come to shame or condemn us.”

“So very easy to put on paper. Still it is a big pill to swallow. Sure my walls have thinned considerably around my heart, but some still remain. All in time. All in God’s time. The more I am willing to let Him continue do His surgery, the sooner I will be able to heal into the person I was intended to be! That surely will be freedom then!”

3.  Understanding My Son: “The Letter”

“We updated our letter from last year to make it current and it went out to the classroom parents this week.  G’s teacher was very enthusiastic about the idea and specifically told us we were doing a good job advocating for G.  I feel like it was our choice this year, vs last year when we were trying to head off problems with parents.  DH already got some positive feedback from another dad.”

‘Yet I still feel conflicted.  I know this is a proactive and positive step but I can’t help but feel that we’re betraying G’s privacy.  It’s a bit hypocritical of me, I talk about his autism with other parents often.  The difference is that is one-on-one where I can get a feel for the individual person before I say anything.  This feels more like taking out an ad in the paper.”

“However, I know this is necessary.  The first few days have gone smoothly, as is typical.  We generally start seeing problems during week two that stretch into the remainder of the first month.  By giving parents a head’s-up, we’re garnering a little leeway while we work through the issues.’

“I know not everything relates to alcoholism, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the true root of my discomfort.  When you live in an alcoholic home, you spend an extraordinary amount of time and effort covering up your family problems.  You create a facade of perfection so that nobody will suspect anything dysfunctional is happening behind closed doors.  Sending out this letter feels like I’m exposing our family secrets.  There is nothing shameful about autism, it’s just a fact of life, but taking this action goes against everything I’ve ever done from the time I first realized my dad wasn’t like other dads.”

“Maybe the issue isn’t really one of betraying G’s privacy.  Maybe the issue is really with me and my fear-based need to be seen as perfect.”

By Madison Guv

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Janet Geringer Woititz

ISBN 1-55874-112-7

Amazon link

Janet Woititz wrote her dissertation for her doctorate in the middle 1970s about “Self-Esteem in Children of Alcoholics”. She started the first 12-step program for those of any age who had grown up in a dysfunctional home. This group was called ACOA-Adult children of Alcoholics. The book about ACOA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, was first published in 1983 and sold only by mail order. Book stores only carried after the public demand was high. By 1987 the book was on the New York Times bestsellers list.

The basic principles about ACOA people are the following:

1) Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.

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

3) Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4) Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy.

5) Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun.

6) Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously.

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

8) Adult children of alcoholics over-react to changes over which they have no control

9) Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10)  Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.

11) Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.

12) Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.

13) Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.