Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
Some of us grew up in a dysfunctional home and suffered from the neglect of parents who drank. As adults, we tend to repeat that life because it was the only life we knew and it became our identity. The following is a laundry list of attributes that identify us as ACOA's (Adult Children of Alcoholics) In my case, one parent was lost to her disease.
This was orinally printed in the ACOA group by our own Bill who came up missing during the transfer here. Everything on this list fits me perfectly however, I was fortunate to attend outpatient treatment which helped me deal with them. The post got 62 replies in one of the smallest groups on DS and rarely visited. Many can identify. Thought it was worth reposting here.
1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2.We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
3.We are frightened by angry people and any personal critcism.
4.We either became alcoholics, we married them or both,or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
5.We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by the weakness in our love and friendship relationships
6.We have a overdeveloped since of responsibility.of responsibility,and its easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us to not look too closely at our own faults, etc.
7. We get guilt feeling when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8. We became addicted to excitement.
9. We confuse love with pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
10We 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),
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self- esteem.
12We 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.
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
14. Para- alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
Tony A. ( 1978 )
What a blessing, to have been exposed to this information early in my sobriety and now A.C.A.or A.C.O.A. has it own Big Book.In 2006 the first edition was published. On New years Day of 2008 I went to a Alanon meeting in Tulsa, I had been working out town and life had become quite difficult with the significant other.The Alanoners suggested a A.C.A.meeting, which I had not attended in a number of years. It was a phenomenal meeting .I now have a Text book for living, a Blue Big Book (A.A.) and Red Big Book(A..C.A, Alcoholic/Dysfunctional Families) The Book includes an Introduction by both Claudia Black and Charles Whitfield . Along with so much information on the nature of being raised in a dysfunctional home its affects , step work to address the issue and everything needed to find an A..C. A. meeting in your town. It also info on how too start your own meeting.and so much more. The Laundry list has been read at ACA meeting in the beginning of the meetings since !978.
Billy C.
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
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I was recently separated from my wife of 33 years and it's complicated. Anyway I rented a room about 15 minutes away and I see my kids about once a week. I see the people who own the house I live in once in a while but other than that I stay in my room where I do my cooking, wash dishes in the shower, read, color, and sleep. I get out at least once a day. I grocery shop and I attend 2 meetings...
Without having grown up in a family where one or both parents were addicts I can easily relate to some of the items on your list. Thank you for sharing :-)
God Bless
God Bless
The past is the past. It cannot be undone. I don't whine over it. I look at he positive. I can get through difficulties, I learned this as a child. I feel that the past enabled me to overcome alcoholism. It gave me the strength to be a fighter.
When I was a teen, it was the last time that my father hit me, or I should say tried to hit me. I learned to duck. His fist hit the door frame and he was off to the hospital. :) I learned to reflect the violence. There is a whole box of survival tools that I have that those raised in a pristine environment, do not have
Thankyou for sharing,
Namaste