HoopNinja

I am an ACoA and have married and divorced 2 alcoholics. My mom was the active alcoholic although my dad drank too. The pattern was generally she would drink to the point she would start belittling my dad and then he would either leave the house or slap her. I remember as a child hiding in my bedroom.

Since coming to SR quite a while ago I have been working on myself. I still have a ways to go on my recovery from codependency. As I read the list of characteristis of an ACoA in the stickies I see my own children (mostly my 10 year old son). I also have a soon to be 6 year old son. My kids have other issues that stem from them being in an orphanage the first 13-15 months of their lives and being neglected and abused. Now I look at the list and I can see in them many of the behaviors of an ACoA.

I can work on me. I am not sure how to help my kids aside from example. That worked for me a bit as when I was 10 a friend's parents knew what was going on and got me out of the house as much as possible--and I got to see how real people lived. But those characteristics were at the age of 10, already there. My kids are already seeing an attachment and trauma therapist. How do I help my kids recovery as non-adult children of an alcoholic? They still see their dad. I think for the most part he is sober when he is around them. But I think the damage has already been done.

DesertEyes

Hi there Hoop, and pleased to "meet" you

Way cool, good for you

I can only share my own experience, the rest of the gang will drop by soon. My parents were also alkies, I survived the standard abuse and neglect. Spent a little time in orphanages. The usual story. As an adult I got into recovery, found me a couple good therapists and now my life is humming along just fine.

What did me the most good was exactly what you said; the example of adults who were working on improving themselves. To me, that was _huge_. Without them I never would have _known_ there was a different way to live, never mind go looking for it. Had my parents done _anything_ to work on themselves it would have saved me years, maybe decades, of trudging thru self-help and therapy.

My experience has been that what does the most harm to a child is not the abuse, but the lack of love and protection in the home. My physical injuries healed very quickly, but the emotional ones just sat there raw and bleeding until I got out of the home and found that love and protection as an adult thru a Higher Power.

I think that if you keep working on yourself, to be the best Mom you can be, your kids will learn to trust you more and more each day. With that trust will come healing. If you look around the posts in this forum you see that we all heal in time, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. I think your kids and you will heal as well, just keep coming back

Mike

tabfan

HoopNinja,

Keep working on yourself. That's the best thing you can do. Tell yourself that YOU DESERVE TO GET YOURSELF IN THE HEALTHIEST CONDITION POSSIBLE! (Mentally, physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually!)

When I first went to Treatment in 1986, I picked a little saying out of a list and have repeated it to myself often. It is:

"I owe it to myself to take all the time I need to recover!"


It might work for you too. We all deserve happiness. I think that was the most engrained lie I had to un-learn since leaving my House of Origin.


-tabfan

Oh, and W E L C O M E !