KissMyTiara

I'm a zero. I do however find a correlation that it wasn't environment in my case, but that all 4 of my grandparents were alcoholics. My Dad problems and my sister an alcoholic and drug addict. Genetics?

chickippo

6. but i sort of expected that!

on the outside - a high-earning upper middle class family. on the inside - an incessant nightmare.

BUT.

i'm in AA and did my steps 4,5,6 & 7 a couple of weeks ago. it has freed me enormously. i feel like i have given the small, frightened girl i was a hug and told her to hang in there - we're going to be ok.

life-changing.

Needinghelp82

I've had problems in my life medically. I ended up with bulimia and remember doctors trying to figure out if there was anything in my family which would have triggered it - nothing. The same can be said with my drinking. I was brought up in a very well rounded family. Their position on alcohol is that you have the odd drink at special times and not at any other time.

They are supportive of my recovery but they don't understand how I got here. Me either

autumn2

3

DisplacedGRITS

My score's a 1 and i was so young that i don't remember the first sexual abuse and i was older when the other one was attempted and i fought him off. I don't think either incident has had any effect on my life that i can understand.

I'm like you, Needinghelp. I was raised in a military family on base. There was a strong community spirit. My dad is a solid guy and my mom is a sweet, loving woman. I'm the lone alcoholic in the family. I was an intelligent kid and gifted musician. I was supposed to go to college and do great things. Instead, i dropped out, worked menial jobs for several years to support me and my husband. When he got his big job, i took a break from work, found that alcohol was my best friend when i was lonely and bored. I found that when i drank enough, i could drown out all the regrets i had and feelings of inadequacy.

I'm married, well provided for, loved by all my family and friends, living in perfectly fine houses, always had a car, i have pets to love and be loved by...and it wasn't enough. I can have all the luxuries in the world and have love and affection heaped on me...it's not enough if i can't live with the woman in the mirror.

I sometimes wonder why me? Why was it me and not my party loving sister? I think it's because i feel in extremes. When i'm happy, i'm REALLY happy. When i'm sad, i'm REALLY sad. I have never been comfortable in the middle. I'm always thinking. I'm wondering what i need to do to make people like me. What are they thinking about me? They're laughing. Are they laughing at me? They're laughing at me. I hate them. I hate me. I'm tired. I look back now and i see how i turned inward on myself and lived in a bubble. I looked at the world like some foreign land i didn't belong in but was forced to live in. My paranoia and low self esteem fed my fear and self loathing. Not measuring up to my expectations just about killed me.

The great thing is, getting sober is teaching me amazing things about myself. I'm growing in ways i never could have imagined. I live in so much gratitude. I've faced death and lived. I no longer mourn who i could have been. I embrace who i am becoming. Every day is a chance to live a meaningful life.

Needinghelp82

This speaks to me a lot. My sister travels to Bali every weekend (she lives nearby to it), she drinks sociably and always has done. She's never developed a problem.

Like you I go to extremes and am either really happy or really down. I'm never in the middle. I have a totally addictive personality but huge paranoia too. Personality trait I guess.

Aellyce

1, for my mother's chronic depression.

When thinking about early life environment and it's possible effects, I think it's important to remember that family (this is what the ACE targets) is only one possible influence. Most of us do not live our childhood and adolescence isolated and locked in the family house, so many other environmental variables come into the picture.

I, for example, had some pretty stressful ongoing (years) non-family social environmental influences that affected my personal development, thinking, and behavior in pretty profound ways and long-term (up to now, I should say). These definitely contributed to many of my obsessive tendencies. Also, inborn factors are not only genetics per se - nowadays there is a lot of solid evidence that the prenatal environment (effects during our time in our mom's womb) can play important roles, as well as some factors that can be inherited via mechanisms not directly based on DNA sequence (genetics). So the so-called "nature-nurture" concept is very complex.

soberlicious

This. It can be really crazy-making because if the facade is really strong, no one believes it was "that bad". To this day I still second guess myself and minimize and make excuses. I found myself doing it when I was looking through the questions on the ACE quiz. In my head the dialogue was "Well yes, but he didn't hit her all the time…and he never broke any bones…there was only bad marks that one time, so…hmmm…how to answer this one…"
I've always struggle with this, I've accepted poor treatment and abuse in relationships as a result. I'm learning how to stop that and see things as they really are, but it takes a lot of work and time to learn these things when you were taught not to believe or trust what you saw with your own eyes, but it can be done.
I don't think that has anything to do with my addiction issues though.

RobbyRobot

Six.

The tough get tougher. Going all armor has its disadvantages and advantages depending. Whatever else my abused early life brought me, it absolutely made me into a core loner for better or worse. Even when I lower my defenses I'm still loaded for bear. I can now mostly ask questions and shoot later but even so, my first instincts are to be fully aware of all exits. These kind of proceed-with-caution consequences are life-long, for me anyways. It is what it is, yeah?

SadieJack

I got a whopping 10!! I feel so dysfunctional now (just kidding)

LBrain

6 or 7 depending ... My parents stayed together and there was never physical abuse between them. I grew up with screaming and yelling. The belt and the slipper. Or being held up from your wrist and getting swatted with the other hand. NO BLOCKING OR YOU'LL GET HIT HARDER. But they loved me.
3 of 4 grandparents alcoholic - all dead waaaay before I was born. Dad drank every day but "wasn't" alcoholic - both his parents died before he reached hi school age. Dad from drinking, mom maybe. Quit drinking later due to health issues. Died too young.
3 older brothers special needs - I was on my own. Had my first sip of beer from my dad's quart when I was about 3 or 4. I remember now it became a ritual to get a sip from dad's beer every night - I have a photo of one of us drinking beer in diapers - How cute!

I vowed to live to 90+ and be a fully functioning happy individual. I have no doubts I will do it.

Carlotta

Same here

nez

Yeah this is me as well. When I was still struggling for sobriety and recovery, I would have used the questions asked to fuel my low self esteem and my drinking...oh my gawd, I have no one to blame for my alcoholism, no excuses, I am just a weak and pitiful excuse of a man...

In the past, I have spent far too much time on the "why" I am an alcoholic, with only meager results to show for it. Focusing on "how" to be sober and live a life of recovery and growth, is yielding far more productivity and positive results.

Grateful09

I scored a 4. I also wonder about genetics - my dad was a problem drinker though successful professionally. However, after retirement the drinking problem got worse and worse through his 70s and 80s. He was yellow the last time I saw him alive. My mom now struggles to control her drinking. She doesn't think my siblings or I know, but I can see the signs because I have experienced them myself! I am committed to learning from their older age years though, and not repeating those myself.

Fusion

Another zero score here, notwithstanding I becaime addicted.....and yes, my Inner Critic beats me up, saying 'look at people who scored more than 0, they have reasons to turn to drink - but Tatsy you're pathetic, no childhood abuse, or family history of problem drinking - yet you still you became addicted, you're disgusting".

Scd619x

There is a reason for how we are as we weren't born alcoholics or addicts as that would be an absolutely mental theory! The poet you mentioned was a real alcoholic not a have a day off in between so he wasn't destined for too old an age.

kittencat

Love this, nature- nurture. I am convinced that it’s both today. Might change my mind tomorrow. Are genetic blueprints written in indelible ink? I don’t think so. Oh let me cozy up to Lamarck.

Have you read Survival of the Sickest? Dr. Sharon Moalem. It’s a fun exploration of why we need disease. Read it, please?

TomTriesAgain

1 (divorced parents). I was a latchkey kid, left to my own devices most of the day, most days. I actually enjoyed it, it was a good childhood and I had every freedom I could imagine, but I did things with my friends that my parents wouldn’t have been happy about if they’d known (including smoking and drinking at an early age). It made me the independent person I am today, but it also got me into some bad habits.

AwkwardKitty

10 - very traumatic childhood.
I'm really interested in ACEs. People with higher ACEs have poorer life outcomes across the board, from health to employment to life expectancy.
Its obviously extremely complex but experiencing trauma at a young age literally impacts on the development on the brain. I have several mental illnesses. That's not to say people who don't have a traumatic life cant experience Illness or addiction, or that theyre somehow at fault because "they dont have a excuse"...but it's interesting and it's important.
Despite all my difficulties, I have a really good job (been continuously employed for 20 years),a really lovely husband and a wonderful son. I'm really proud of that.

kittencat

I don’t think I had any trauma in my early years but some of them I just can’t remember. I wonder if I’m blocking out something (I’m in a fragile state of mind right now). My parents didn’t drink or smoke or anything. They were very young and I had the best father ever. My mother said ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’ too often but other than that? Nothing I can remember. I do know my mother was wonderful until she went to work. I recently realized it harmed her, she told me she hated having to work, but did so my father didn’t have too. I didn’t know this, we traveled all over the US and had so much fun, visited all the national parks, etc. All by the time I was 8 years old. My parents did their best. No alcoholics in the family. Ohhhhh I dislike the word alcoholic. No drinkers or smokers in my family. According to them I’m over sensitive. I remember when I was a teen barely awake they were discussing my ability to work. My father thought and said I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to work a 40 hour week but he said it in a very kind and lovingly way. I found something I loved at the time- fashion- and enjoyed it. Then Borders recruited me and gave me a jewel of a store and I excelled. I would have worked any amount of hours recommending books and sharing them with others. I loved it so much and gained so much I was the best store in the district and region. Borders Group, Inc went bankrupt and I’m still grieving.

I started drinking too much wine when it happened.