Adult children of alcoholic parents

[happyone]

My title says it all really. For anyone that has ever wondered why I am a tad loopy,:wacko: part of the explanation lies in my title. Only part of the complicated jigsaw, but a big part.

I bought a really interesting book recommended on another forum about depression.(called 'Adult children of Alcoholics' by janet Geringer Woititz) It looks at how children of alcoholic parents grow into adults and where our ideas of ‘normal’ become distorted.

I for my part had two wonderful parents, who happened to drink too much, too often. My anxiety goes way back to my earliest memories of childhood and now with the help of counselling, time and self help in the way of books I am finding a way (hopefully) out of the guilt, secrecy, lies, lack of self esteem, and maybe even anxiety/depression.

I just wanted to post this as I think so many people have had their lives affected so much by being children of one or two alcoholic parents.

Everyone seems to know the stereotypical view of someone standing up at an alcoholics anonymous meeting and saying ‘My name is ******, and I am an alcoholic’ as that is part of the recovery, to admit where they are at.
Well, I think for some of the children left behind with the shame and guilt and countless other negative emotions, that probably the majority of parents did not mean them to have, need to feel free to admit something similar. It is not the childrens fault, it is mostly no-ones fault, it just is.

I am not going to do the whole stand up thing here (although, I kinda have eh?:blush: ) but I want to recommend the book for people to read (if they so wish obviously) and to say that I think the legacy of being children of alcoholic parents, can leave on people is underestimated and little known.

I am not looking for anything here. I think I just wanted to share what I think might be partly a conclusion and pathway for my recovery. I don't know, I can but hope.
(Tomorrow I may feel disloyal for writing this, but that is the guilt that I have been brought up with, today I break chains!)

Happyone
xx

[bearcrazy]

Happy one

Al-Anon is for everyone, have you tried them?

My kids faced the same as you every day, cept I was the dry one. feel guilty that I didnt protect them!

:hugs:

[happyone]

Hi bearcrazy,

I feel incredibly guilty posting that now. I didn't think about adults with kids. I by no means meant to sound judgemental on anyone, my parents were, my mother is wonderful.
I have only ever phoned al anon once but never had the guts to contact them again. It is only recently that I am getting over the guilt about sharing this 'secret' and i am 35!
I am sorry if I made you feel bad. I am sure you did wonderful by your kids and it couldn't have been easy for you being the dry one.
As I said, it is not about fault, it just 'is'
happyone
xx

[honeybee]

hi... this is something i think has contributed to my anxiety an awful lot during the last few years. i know it sounds awful and i wanna cry just typing this out but i moved back in with my mum when all my anxiety started and watched her make some terrible decisions. like all of us she is just going through life learning the lessons she has been sent to learn, she is truely a wonderful compassionate person but sometimes she makes really selfish decisions and some awful choices. after the death of my younger brother and sisters dad she turned to alcohol quite heavily and when i used to try and talk to her about it i used to get responses like "what the f**k has it got to do with you anyway?" or just a plain "f**k off"... this hurt because all my life i've had a really close relationship with my mum and suddenly i felt like i didn't know her anymore, i have so so so much anger locked up inside because of the things that have been said and done but i do understand she was going through a hard time and was just trying to cope the best she could BUT i also felt like i was her parent so much of the time when all i wanted was a cuddle and for her to be my mum, tell me she loved me and everything was gonna be ok.. i sound like a spoilt little brat saying that but it is so so hard being the parent of your parents... i just feel so hurt and angry when i think of the things that've happened, anyway in the great scheme of things it ain't that bad i suppose... life's too short to only learn by your own mistakes so you have to learn by others to, because of this experiance i know when i have kids i'll ALWAYS make an effort to LISTEN, and for that lesson she's taught me i can only be grateful


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[happyone]

Honeybee,
I can relate so much to a lot of what you are saying. The book I spoke about, goes over a lot of these feelings.
I spent many a time worrying about my mum, in the way that she should have been worrying about me. the roles do get reversed.
Alcoholism is an illness and I don't hold a great deal of bitterness because of this and I think you have to get to a point where you let go (I'm only just getting there, slowly)
i sound like a spoilt little brat saying that You most certainly do not! That is where things become cloudy, because we love our parents and need them to love us, we feel guilt for having these negative emotions. It is hard to love someone and feel bitter towards them at the same time.
Many a time, I have wanted love or comfort from my mum but she has been unable to give it and often instead I have been given rejection, scorn and ridicule. Only for all this to be aploogised for in sobriety. It doesn't take way the hurt of the words though. It helps to know they still love you, but once words are said it is hard for them to be unsaid.
I realise I am not sounding overly coherent here. I am still putting together my disjointed thoughts. I just wanted to make the point, that it is not the shame of the children. It is not bad or wrong to say 'I am screwed up because of this' but to also make a path to move on.
You sound like you have accepted a lot of it. I think being able to admit that you are an adult child of an alcoholic parent, whether it was your past or present, is a step towards recovery.
Take care honeybee and I am always here if you need someone to sound off to.
Happyone
xx

[honeybee]

Honeybee,
I can relate so much to a lot of what you are saying. The book I spoke about, goes over a lot of these feelings.
I spent many a time worrying about my mum, in the way that she should have been worrying about me. the roles do get reversed.
Alcoholism is an illness and I don't hold a great deal of bitterness because of this and I think you have to get to a point where you let go (I'm only just getting there, slowly) You most certainly do not! That is where things become cloudy, because we love our parents and need them to love us, we feel guilt for having these negative emotions. It is hard to love someone and feel bitter towards them at the same time.
Many a time, I have wanted love or comfort from my mum but she has been unable to give it and often instead I have been given rejection, scorn and ridicule. Only for all this to be aploogised for in sobriety. It doesn't take way the hurt of the words though. It helps to know they still love you, but once words are said it is hard for them to be unsaid.
I realise I am not sounding overly coherent here. I am still putting together my disjointed thoughts. I just wanted to make the point, that it is not the shame of the children. It is not bad or wrong to say 'I am screwed up because of this' but to also make a path to move on.
You sound like you have accepted a lot of it. I think being able to admit that you are an adult child of an alcoholic parent, whether it was your past or present, is a step towards recovery.
Take care honeybee and I am always here if you need someone to sound off to.
Happyone
xx

thank you, what a lovely post.. i have so many mixed emotions but i just feel so so so so so so much guilt for feeling negatively about my mum. if anyone were to say a bad word about her i'd do nothing but stand up for her 100% but there sometimes i feel so ashamed she's my mum (god, that is so bad isn't it? i cant believe im saying this...) oh anyway i'm gonna look up that book. is it called 'adult children of alcoholic parents?

[honeybee]

i forgot to say that i completely understand where you're coming from with all the bits you said and i highlighted

[Quirky]

Hi Happyone,

I can't add anything here as I have no experience of this subject but I'm proud of you for facing up to these things and for writing that :hugs:

Lisa x

[happyone]

Hi honeybee
thank you for your reply.
the book is actually called 'adult children of alcoholics' by janet geringer woititz
I think that guilt and anxiety are closely linked. In my case definately. We did not ask to have this guilt and if our parents had been able to make other choices, let us hope that they would have.
Thank you for undersatnding. Until I read this book, I found it hard to believe anyone could feel the same as me. Not just the book, my counselling has helped immensely.
I meant what I said about if you ever need a place to sound off without judgement. I don't think you are bad for the things you say. I love my mother dearly and woe betide anyone who said a word against her to me. that is the conundrum we live with hun.
happyone
xx

[happyone]

Thanks lisa hun

I will probably waken tomorrow and think OMG! But, you have been with me on this roller coaster ride hun, you and others. I am trying to shake off a guilt that I shouldn't have and I am going to pursue this through my counselling or through AL anon.
Happyone
xx

[Quirky]

I am trying to shake off a guilt that I shouldn't have and I am going to pursue this through my counselling or through AL anon.
Happyone
xx

Very positive step, well done :hugs:

Lisa x

[yorkylover]

Hi I can relate in some ways,my dad used to drink when I was a child.And my brother is an alcoholic.:weep:

[Coni]

Hi happyone,

I can relate to a lot of what has been said here by you and honeybee. My mum started drinking heavily after my dad died when I was 18. I know she was struggling to cope but I also felt I had to be the parent, while trying to grieve for my dad. That weighed heavily on my shoulders...I was so scared (she was suicidal too), angry, upset...I didnt know what to do. She continued to drink throughout my adult life until she died a year and a half ago. I have so many mixed emotions. Your both so right, the bitterness and anger and guilt are difficult while you still love someone. I also feel a strong sense of loss and probably grief for what 'might' or 'should ' have been. There are many other things mixed up withthis for me too but sometimes I feel so much like a child and I just long for someone to give me cuddle,tell me Im ok and look after me for a while.

Hugs to you all :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:

Coni X

[W.I.F.T.S.]

My dad is an alcoholic, although he'd never admit it. As far as he's concerned, you have to have a bottle of Vodka for breakfast to be an alcoholic. For most of his life he's gone to the pub every night and drunk until he's drunk, very often ordering two pints at last orders. He also goes out in the afternoons and gets steaming drunk. He's not a pleasant drunk either. When my parents separated I used to dread him coming home from the pub when I stopped at his house because he'd make me feel so guilty and bad about myself that I'd end up in floods of tears. He also used to go to the pub all afternoon when he had me and my brother for visiting and, because kids weren't allowed in in those days, we'd be sat outside the pub all afternoon waiting for him.

His parenting skills are pretty woeful. I was deeply upset about my granddad's funeral on friday and (sober) he started on me about not going to work during the morning and allowing someone else to drive to the crematorium. I'm starting to think of him more an more as a sadistic older brother than a father, he seems to get pleasure out of knocking me down and telling me what a useless waster I am. I currently live with him and my gran and he loves 'stirring' it with her, so that when I come home she's got a bee in her bonnet about something and she starts on me straight away. I think that he has a lot of issues. He seems to be getting more kind of arrogant: "are you making me a cup of tea?" (as soon as I come home from work), "are you giving me a lift to the pub?" (to my brother, as soon as he arrives to visit him....most people would have spent some time with my brother first and then got a lift as he was leaving). My brother's wife has a rule that everyone has to take their shoes off at their house and he wanders through in muddy shoes and decides to put the tv on and watch some horse racing! This is all whilst he's sober, by the way. He also has a tendency to lie....he told my mum whilst they were married that he had a collapsed lung!

At the moment, I really don't think that he's a very nice person. I think that much of my anxiety, depression and self-loathing is attributable to him putting me down and telling me I'm useless all my life. When I came home from London after having suffered a breakdown he said "don't you think it's all a bit of an excuse?". I think that my perfectionist qualities come from trying to impress him and earn his love. I can only ever once remember him telling me that he's proud of me. No wonder, that nothing is ever good enough for me and that I feel that I can't do this or that "because I'd be disapproved of".

I think that most of my neuroses are to do with an oversensitivity to how my dad and my gran view me and how that affects my standing amongst the rest of the family. That was one of my biggest concerns when I had my breakdown: I've cocked up and let my family down, they were expecting so much of me. I came home from London and got a 'proper' job in a factory (even though I've got 4 A levels and a degree) to try and win back their approval. I stuck it for three and a half years, hating every second of it, because I felt pressured by them into stopping there in case I got myself into another mess. It takes the biscuit really, when my dad quit a job with a large chemical company after 30 years or whatever to go and be a security guard in a supermarket, then an icecream man and now a bookie!

If anyone's a waster, he's a waster. He spends his life at work, in bed, in the pub or watching telly. Unbelievable that he can make me feel so bad about myself, when he's got so little to write home about himself. The thing is that I do try and talk to him about what's going on with me and I do try and make an effort to spend quality time with him, not least because he's had heart trouble, but it feels like a one way street a lot of the time.

[happyone]

Hi
sorry to hear your mum passedaway Coni,
I think the death of a parent heightens the feelings that we have in terms of them drinking too much. My father passed away a few years ago and the guilt of saying things negative about him, weighed heavily.
I see guilt as such a destructive emotion and it confuses everything. It has taken me a while to realise that I can still love my mum dearly, but feel a sense of loss for what I didn't have as a child. Yet, I also had so much love as a child, it was just either very good or very bad. Just never normal. This book I am reading highlights that many parents who were children of alcoholics don't know what 'normal' is. My parenting skills are something I get so anx about, but on looking at them rationally, they are not that bad. I just have a strange yardstick to measure them by.

sometimes I feel so much like a child and I just long for someone to give me cuddle,tell me Im ok and look after me for a while. We are all children really coni. We all want someone to look after us for a while and that is not wrong. I spend so much time wanting to be 'strong' and 'not needy' that I fail to recognise that I am indeed an individual who has fears, doubts and pain like any other person.

WIFTS, a lot of what you describe sounds so sad, yet so typical of being brought up in a household like this. I couldn't even begin to guess the psychology behind your fathers behaviour, but I would imagine that if he drinks that much, he is always to some degree affected by alcohol. Some people are never truelly sober as there is always alcohol in their bloodstream somewhere.
It doesn't sound though as if you are in the ideal situation for your anxiety and mental health.
Remember, this is not your problem You are not a bad person and the only person you have to prove yourself to is you. You don't even have to do that really, we shouldn't need to prove ourselves.

Take care folks

Happyone
xx

[Under~The~Stars]

Happy, what a very brave post, well done you :hugs: I know that must have been hard.

I'm so sorry for everyone who has been affected by alcoholism. I can relate to that.

My thoughts are with you all xxx