daydream

I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. Neither of my parents has ever touched a drop of alcohol, neither do they use other drugs. They just acted like drunks. I grew up a screw up. I did get the physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. I felt so hopeless that I attempted suicide 3 times and started self-harming (hammering myself, burning, eventually cutting). I lived in constant fear that my father would kill me and he threated to do so. There was never a single time I can remember affection from either of them. I am 38 and neither parent has ever said I love you. I am extremely passive. I let people walk all over me and berate me, while I hang my head or shake from head to toe. I have made some progress over the years, thanks to NA, but I still am terribly plagued by nightmares, fear of authority figures, anxiety and irrational thought processes that cause me to seek approval or avoid interactions entirely. When I was in rehab 1989 they had an acoa group there and we were told that our parents didn't have to be alcoholics for us to belong there. But, that was rehab and rehab doesn't necessarily follow traditions. Yes I've been in therapy for most of my adult life, to no avail. Do my parents have to be alcoholics for me to be a member? If so, maybe i could find some open meetings. But when I went to the world acoa site online yesterday it showed no meetings within 50 miles. Then I looked up coda, but I don't really know what codependency really means, or how coda would be different from acoa. I'm at a bottom right now, due to some intense recent nightmares about my parents and an upcoming event where some people who hurt me badly will be. I'm feeling a real desire to find help. Any input welcome.

justicej

Hi, I too wondered if I fit. I qualify in the characteristics, but neither of my parents are classically alcoholic. My paternal Grandmother certainly was, and possibly my maternal Grandmother was too. I am the adult child of adult children.

I have read up on Codependency and Adult Child Syndrome. All the while dreaming and dreading going to a ACoA meeting, afraid that I would be rejected (not qualified). Trying to do it on my own.

I knew I needed community. I finally got up the nerve, went to a meeting, and guess what. I wasn't rejected. I keep hearing that if I define myself as such and feel akin to the plight, If I agree to respect the 12 steps and 12 traditions that I too can participate. As much fear of rejection and abandonment that I live with everyday makes it hard for me to accept this, but I really felt welcome at the first meeting I attended.
I am going to keep going to meetings. I need the community.

Ngokpa

I went to ACA for years, and neither of my parents were alcoholic. However, I was subject to abuse and emotional abandonment, but their drugs of choice were work, anger, control.

There's a lot of good material for ACA's which apply, which was helpful in going through the "core issues" phase. Not Al-Anon material necessarily. Part of the deal is that in AA and NA, there's a lot of talk about how destructive negative emotions are, but in ACA they're a fact of life. They're part of the raw material we have to work through. Therapy was essential for me, but that meant doing a lot of journal work, which I sometimes switched for primitive artwork with crayons. That neglected child is still kicking around in us, and it needs nuturing, and my therapist seemed to be more like a spirit guide helping me through some scarey territory. Eventually we can see that our parents did the best they could, but they blew it because of their own issues--but we have to get there honestly, not by stuffing feelings. We are capable of forgiving our parents because we're a lot like them--we just found different ways of doing the same things, but like them we did it because we didn't know any better.

It's a lot of work. I found it harder than early sobriety, and it took a lot longer. But I got to grow up and work through a lot of crap I thought I was stuck with forever. Oh, and about that not belonging because you're not technically ACA? Feeling like you don't belong is one of the symptoms!

utopia

(((daydream)))

I am sorry that you had to endure the pain of your past. But you are not your past and you have this present moment now. you were never a screw-up, you were and are human though. My heart goes out to you with much love and compassion and if you feel that you want to go to the meeting then it is up to you to decide. Alcoholism is a cunning and baffling disease, drinking is just one of the symptoms. When i first went to alanon i didnt think i had alcoholism in anyone i knew, i had no clue what that disease was or that it was a disease. it took me ages to even remember bottles in the house, it took me ages to stop comparing my trauma levels with other members, to accept that my mother was an adult child of an alcoholic, that all my definintions of who was an alcoholic were never 100% and that noone ever, ever grilled me about my authenticity in belonging.sometimes i feel that if it is important to me than it IS imporant. my whole life i felt that i was on the wrong planet, i was raised in a way that made me feel worth less than human. so i felt worthless and undeserving. this is HUGE HUGE stuff, not some walk in the park and thank god that recovery is a gentle and gradual process and that ultimately, we decide what addiction we have and what fellowship is right for us. i used to do the things that you listed in your post but as i have grown to love myself i now do things like bubble baths, hot meals and massages. keep coming back and i hope that you find the peace and love and understanding that i have found, one day at a time. i know now that i belong here because god put me here and for the one very important fact despite everything

I AM STILL HERE.

YOU ARE STILL HERE and YOU ARE ALIVE.

peace and love.

GingerM

You can belong here if you want. We don't turn away anyone. It doesn't matter if your parents ever touched a drop of liquor in their life - the way they treated you and the lasting wounds are what matters now.

Have you ever been to a cognitive behavioral therapist? They can help tremendously with negative self talk. Speaking from experience on that one and still working on it myself.

DesertEyes

Hey there daydream, and welcome to this little corner of recovery.

Yes, you are welcome in ACoA. From what you have described you definetly qualify, and here's the reasons why.

- Adult Children of Alcoholics was founded as an off-shoot of Al-Anon, which itself came from Alcoholics Anonymous. These "roots" came from a time in history where alcohol was the main drug, and all the rest were still mostly unknown. Times have changed, but the names have stuck. Nowadays there's all kinds of drugs and very few people who are addicted to just one. Families that hurt children are now called "dysfunctional" or sometimes "toxic".

- There are so many different drugs, and so many different ways to hurt a child, that it would take pages and pages in a book to list every single one. It would be more accurate to say something like "Adult Children of Alcoholics, Coke heads, Pill poppers, Rage Aholics, Heroin addicts, Narcisitic personalities, Sociopaths, Pedophiles ...... " but at some point you just run out of air. So we just stuck with the word "alcoholic" to keep it simple and not have to reprint all the literature.

- If you look at the 13 characteristis of ACoA's at the top of this forum

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-children.html

you will see that _none_ of them mention the diagnosis of the adults who caused us harm. Recovery from childhood abuse has _nothing_ to do with "them" and everything to do with _us_ taking charge of our lives.

Here in Las Vegas the programs of Al-Anon, Nar-Anon and ACoA have merged. We all share many of the same issues, and we use the same recovery. About half the people are also members of AA or NA, and we call ourselves "double-winners". I don't know if there's been any "merging" like this in your part of the world.

My recovery is a mix of programs. I attend AA to help me cope with my physical addictions, Al-Anon for the rest. I spend a lot of time outside of meetings with people who have similar childhood issues as me and in the past I went thru a lot of therapy. Basically I customized my own recovery program to fit my needs. You can do the same by shopping around for meetings that meet your needs.

That was the long winded way of saying that yes you belong here and we're glad to have you join us.

Mike