lavendae

Wow, kc,thanks for mentioning that you lied in order to get friends. I didn't know what a real life was like either, and I lied & pretended I had one. Furthermore, I started to believe some of those lies growing up. I denied and denied alot of the things that happened. Didnt deny my dad's drinking, just what became b/c of it ... no steady job, no steady place to live, his health problems, the family mess.... and I still try to make excuses, I'm still embaressed.

KcCrystal

I'm embrassed to this day. I still battle the lies I make to make myself feel good. I need to learn that I need to reveal the real me before I ruin everything. I don't like loseing friends, when in the long run I just wanted to make them.

needtogrowup

How do I learn to cope with life on life's terms? I am a pothead, co-dependent, and adutl child of an alcoholic. Seems they all overlap. Add alittle incest.., verbal abruse and of course..thats why I am needtogrowup. Was not shown a way of life where you took responsibilties for your choices...It keep years of being beaten up by my choices...to finally come to believe that I actually really did have choices..I could realize it on an intelectual level but never on a gut level. Major fear and shame and depression were my comfort zone. thanks to this site...I faced the fear of stopping pot..to realize..I was powerless over my obsession to use weed to deal w/(or not deal w/) feelings. Everytime I quit for a few days the overwhelming saddness of the addictions of my family..(grandparents now deceased, parents deceased, sisters, nieces, aunts, children..) just awful..I'd feel such grief.. Guess what, now with 22 days off pot...I actually am proud of me...and like myself..have hope..love ya guys. randa
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Vee

I am equally stunned by those thirteen points and can identify with all of them. I am thirty two and had an alcoholic father whom i adored who died 5 years ago drunk to the end. I really thought (rather smugly) that I had dealt with his disease and his death well and had recently decided to retrain as a councellor to help the families of addicts. I now realise that I might just have a few issues to deal with about myself first before i am able to help others. I am thankfull that I found this forum before rushing headlong into this new career path.....isnt that remanicent of point number 13!!! Thank you for the insight and the answer to more than a few questions i had'nt even asked yet! Vee xxx

Gabe

Hey Vee,
Welcome to Sober Recovery. I'm glad you found us. Stick around.
Gabe

needtogrowup

I just wanted to say hi everyone...when to the dentis..taking care of myself. Need to have friends in recovery...so I e-mailed 2 women from a recovery phone list who had their e-mail numbers as well..Hope I don't bore anyone..its late and I so need to stay focused. I am in pain and confusion. I am tired and sad. My daughter uses..and my grandaughter. both make me feel in the way. I am homeless right now and staying w/them...and I am in there way..I am trying to look for a job when I feel well enough. I am afraid of rehab programs. Tried one for 10 days a few years ago..but left as I could not focus at the time on myself:too "in love" w an alkie bf..addicted to him. But now I know that I need to be serious about myself and my issues if I am EVER to learn to live a happy life. It is scary..and uncomfortable..but I've read that growth is suppose to be uncomfortable..and scary. I have a resolve I have never had before...every seed of past experiences around recovery and cog thpy's regard depression..has not been wasted..Guess it is a time in my life when recovery is more serious and relative than ever before. Like I have hit my bottem..I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and depressed and in my deseases..pot addiction..co-depentency...co-addict. I am going to learn to take care of myself if it kills me!!! I would rather die than to keep on doing what I have always done!!! God..people out there in recovery...hear my cry's...help me...It is so important that I stay away from drugs..first of all..NO smoking pot...and the rest will follow..I need friends in recovery to this...thank you for being there....I need you all...love randa

dragonlady

I'm an addict, child of an alcoholic/addict and spouse to an addict. I can't believe how much that discribes me! I've been in and out of NA and AA for years and I've never seen myself described so well. I was also sexually abused by 3 different people and I have been ANGRY :cussing: for years! And now that I'm trying to quit again I have to deal with my AH trying to keep me down. He doesn't believe he has a prob. He thinks we can still smoke pot and leave the hard stuff alone. I think he's f****** crazy! But I'm scared of taking the boys and leaving because I don't know how to live on my own! I've never had to do it before. Thanx for these forums and the good people who visit here.

Star Gazer

They all fit me but the one regarding finishing projects. I can finish projects but I always seem to keep expanding them. I can take something as simple as painting the kitchen and turning it into a complete renovation! I reach my original goal but I keep adding new ones.

eveie

oh great! another reason I am here on this forum, is there a place to just check all of the above? well ok, Im dealing with it all, one day at a time, one step at a time, and just thankful im clean and sober, but back away from my cigarettes that all just makes soooooo much sense. I grew up with the "chip on my shoulder" the hatefulness towards my parents went alonggggggg ways, too much time spent on that, I just learned to accept that that is my mom, that is my dad, cant change them 2 facts, but it hurts, now explains alot of behaviors, thanks for that post, another TADA moment!!

chess

Can u eloborate on what kind of lies are you talking about? I've been thinking about this and I think I lie too. I don't actually tell intenionally coloured stories but I leave out stuff and the thing I do most is answer that I'm okey even if my intension was to bring up a topic I wanted to talk about I still say "It was nothing" or " I'm okey" a lot. Does that count as lying?

I still feel so weird sharing things about me and talking about me. Does this get better in time?

Akell04

I'm new to all of this, forums I mean. Both of my parents were alcoholics, I say were because both are deceased one due to alcohol and the other to cancer. They may be gone, but the disease has taken its toll on us kids.

I remember many times when I was a child watching dad try and squeeze the life out of mom, and calling the police only to find out mom would not press charges on him (times have changed). He was never taken away even when he hurt one of us kids. Am I bitter? Oh Yeah!

When he died mom continued to drink even more so, and then she remarried an A also, and the process began all over again, you know the drill. Am I bitter? Oh Yeah!

Then when she died I thought the process was over and done with, but was it? Oh NO1

There's no drinking, but the behaviors are there that we grew up with. The 13 characteristics are all my story, and they don't look too good when I read them. It took quite a while to master them, and I know it will take time to learn new ways to function. I was glad to find this forum, so I can talk with individuals who understand. Spouse thinks I should just get over my childhood, but he has no idea, does he?

thanks for letting me go on and on.

alli61098

I was drawn to this forum and this thread because of the title. I usually post in Nar-Anon because my husband is a recovering addict. I first read this thread a few days ago, and it’s taken me this long to get my head around it.

The first characteristic was all it took for me to read on. To my shock and horror I’m 10 for 13. I had to ask myself why. I always thought that I had escaped any ill effects of my stepfather’s drinking. My five step siblings weren’t so lucky as all of them are addicts, alcoholics, or both but I never fell into to it so I thought I had escaped at. Apparently I was very wrong.

I don’t have many memories of my childhood. I don’t think it was a “bad� one but it certainly wasn’t great either. I remember that I could tell by how he closed the door how many high balls he would have that night after work. I don’t remember him being violent, or nasty. I remember a few drunken hugs with him telling me how he loved me as if I were his own. There were a few scary rides home from Christmas parties. Once I had to wake him up while were driving down the highway. The same night he hit the curb at the end of our street and blew out both front tires and we left the car where it was and walked the rest of the way. It was like an adventure to me because he laughed about it. The time he drove our truck into the huge pine tree next to our driveway and had to climb out the back window became a family story that I’m sure is still retold to this day.

I thought it was normal for someone to drink a case of beer on a Saturday afternoon while cutting wood. I thought everybody had fancy refrigerators by the pool to keep their beer in. I thought everybody got picked on because of their nose, or skinny legs, or whatever.

Funny thing is that as a family we never considered him an alcoholic. He just drank a lot, we’re Irish and that’s how it is. To my knowledge my mom never discussed his drinking with him. She would make a snide remark now and then, but other than to say not to talk to him about something because he was drunk, she never mentioned it.

I think back and I get so mad at her. How could she have let me get into a car with him? She knew he was drunk.

And now, I look at these characteristics and I see so much of it in myself and I’m floored. Call me clueless, but I honestly never thought his drinking had any effect on me what so ever. I worshiped that man until the day he died; he was the only true father I ever had. He’s been gone 8 years and I still have a hard time believing he is dead. And now to see that some of the things I have struggled with all of my life are related to his drinking…. Well you can see why it took a few days for me to get my head around this.

Alli

Gabe

Isn't it strange the things we thought were "normal" growing up? It takes getting beyond the boundaries of a dysfunctional family to see just how dysfunctional it is. Being aware of those characteristics is a good thing. Knowing where you came from is a part of getting to where you need to go.

Pepsifreek007

I can not believe how much that sounds like me only a couple are left out that don't apply. I have been a alcoholic most of my life though or at least most of my adult life. I guess maybe I have been trying to hide from myself most of the time and I got tired of running so here I am. Tired of myself, tired of running, tired of being me. I want change.

Merry

OMG, just like everyone else that describes me to a "T"!

Neasa

.

punkid

thank you for posting this-

I am not yet an adult, but i can see all of this in me. I have already been in juvenial detention (at 10 yrs old) because of rash and impulsive decisions, I am already in recovery because of addictions (entered recovery at 13). It was tough as a kid, but i have turned myself around. I am 17 and doing well in school, my mother has been sober for 5 years and i for 4. We are doing well, and i plan to attend college in the fall. I know that the memories of my childhood will stay with me forever, i just hope to be able to control my behavior, so that as an adult child of an alcholoic and addict myself i will be able to control my actions and my life.

Aquiana

Reading the characteristics of A Children was really interesting. The interesting part is that my dad is an A but I don't fit many of the characteristics. The thing is that my mother does. My grandfather was a very bad/abusive A. I know what happened to me, my mother protected my brother and I with everything she had from my dad's drinking. We knew he drank a few beers everyday but that was all we knew. I have to admit I don't think it entirely worked. My fiance is an A and guess what, he could have been cut off the same block as my dad. They have such similar qualities personality wise that it's unbelieveable. My mom said once that "They feed off each other" and it's sick but true. So I became a codie like my mom....with a fiance exactly like my dad.

Aquiana

By the way, you can control your behavior if you want to bad enough. It may not always be easy but everybody has control of how they want to live their lives.

historyteach

MG...
I pray that is so....
I am just overawed at this post...
Shalom!