Here's something that helped me a lot with coming to terms with my childhood.
www.joy2meu.com
There's a ton of stuff on that site about inner child healing, etc. One of the primary things that helped me was the idea that my parents were wounded as children, too. They were only repeating what they learned as children. I still don't have much of a relationship with my abusive mother (ironically, my dad was the alcoholic), but I do understand a little about why she is the way she is.
L