Send email
Any questions?
CFC#12020
CFC#12020
Today I will open myself to healing in my relationships. So much of life depends on the quality of intimacy with myself and so much of the quality of my intimacy is the quality of my relationships. It is synergistic. As my relationship with myself and my Higher Power gets better, my other relationships grow. Deep healing with people I care about has much more significance than might appear; it is soul – and life-transforming. I experience moments of quiet expansion when my heart and mind actually feel as if they are widening in all directions. Even though I cannot necessarily sustain this burst, part of it remains with me, integrates into my personality and becomes mine. I am willing to grow a step at a time and heal little by little. I can heal hurt relationships.
Learn more about NACoA’s monthly education and discussion group.
These online facilitated sessions can teach you about the impact of addiction on families,
and how we can help ourselves heal.
Judith Viorst wrote in Necessary Losses, “It is true that as long as we live we may keep repeating the patterns established in childhood. It is true that the present is powerfully shaped by the past. But it is also true that insight at any age keeps us from singing the same sad songs again.”
Click on any of the four steps below for thoughts to help you let go of the past and begin recovery.
Recovery begins with speaking our truth, naming our reality, our experiences. Exploring past history means asking questions such as “What happened that was hurtful to me?” “What didn’t I have that I needed?” One does not explore the past to assign blame but to discover and acknowledge reality. It is my belief that family members truly want the best for each other and that begins with honesty. We aren’t betraying our parents, or siblings when we become honest about our reality. If there is an act of betrayal, it is with the addiction, the dysfunction of the family system. When we do not talk honestly about our experiences we ultimately betray the potential health of the family and ourselves.
To let go of the past we must be willing to break through denial so we can grieve our pain. In other words, we have to admit to ourselves the truth of what happened, rather than hide or keep secret the hurt and wounds that occurred. It is difficult to speak honestly today when we have had to deny, minimize, or discount the first 15 or 20 years of our lives. There is no doubt denial became a skill that served us as a child in a survival mode. Unfortunately denial, which begins as a defense, becomes a skill that interferes with how we live our life today. We take the skill of minimizing, rationalizing, discounting into every aspect of our life. When we let go of denial, and acknowledge the past, it gives us the opportunity to identify our losses and to grieve the pain associated. It is the opportunity to genuinely put the past behind us. Exploring the past is an act of empowerment.
It is vital, however, that we go beyond the first step. Otherwise, the grief process simply becomes a blaming process. That has never been the intent of adult child recovery.
We continue with recovery as we move from the process of breaking our denial and grieving our pain.
Connect the past to the present means asking “How does this past pain and loss influence who I am today?” “How does the past affect who I am as a parent, in the work place, in a relationship, how I feel about myself?” The cause and effect connections we discover between our past losses and present lives give us a sense of direction. It allows us to become more centered in the here and now. This clarity will identify the areas we need to work on.
Challenging internalized beliefs means asking, “What beliefs have I internalized from my growing up years? Are they helpful or hurtful to me today? What beliefs would support me in living a healthier life?” So often we internalized beliefs such as, “It is not okay to say No,” or “Other people’s needs are more important than my own.” “No one will listen to what I have to say,” or “The world owes me and I am entitled.” “People will take advantage of me.” If these beliefs are getting in the way of how we want to live our life we need to take responsibility for what we do with them. We need to let them go and recreate new beliefs in their place.
Learning new skills means asking, ”What did I not learn that would help me today?” As well, some of the skills we learned were often skills and behaviors that were premature for our age, or learned from a basis of fear or shame. When that occurs there is a tendency to feel like an imposter. In those situations, addressing the feelings and beliefs associated with the skill will make it more likely we can feel greater confidence in those skills.
With the many different issues adult children may need to address, from healthier decision making to realistic expectations, setting limits, to expressing feelings, etc., these four steps are not always linear. In general, we do them in the order listed, but as you will quickly experience, you often keep coming back to a previous step to do another piece of work.
The knowledge that comes in owning our past and connecting it to the present is vital in developing empathy for the strength of both our defenses and skills. It also helps us to lessen our shame and not hold ourselves accountable for the pain we have carried. When we understand there are reasons for why we have lived our lives as we have, and that it is not because there is something inherently wrong with who we are, that we are not bad, that understanding fuels our ongoing healing. The change we want to create in our life will be made directly as a result of letting go of old, hurtful belief systems and learning new skills.
Addressing adult child issues is about taking responsibility for what we do with our life. It allows us to live with honesty and choices.
Emotional sobriety helps us to adjust the intensity of our emotional responses to life. It is tied up in our ability to self regulate on both a mind and body level, to bring ourselves into balance when we fall out of it. Issues with excessive self medication say with food, alcohol or drugs or compulsive approaches to activities like sex, work or spending tend to reflect a lack of ability to comfortable self regulate. Emotions impact our thinking more than our thinking impacts our emotions. When our emotions are out of control, in other words, so is our thinking. And when we can’t bring our feeling and thinking into some sort of balance, our life and our relationships show it. In order to maintain our emotional equilibrium, we need to be able to use our thinking mind to decode and understand our feeling mind. That is, we need to feel our feelings and then use our thinking to make sense and meaning out of them. Balance is that place where our thinking, feeling and behavior are reasonably congruent; where we operate in a reasonably integrated flow.
While NACoA provides increasing amounts of information to help children and families, especially with the broad reach of internet communications, it is not feasible to provide needed direct services to children and families across the country and around the world. Therefore, NACoA’s approach to addressing family alcohol or other drug addiction as effectively as possible is to work with a network of relationships with professional groups who serve kids on the front lines.
Primary Care Physicians see children suffering from the physical and emotional results of addiction in the family.
The Court System sees the ravages of parental addiction to alcohol and other drugs in their courtroom every day.
Social workers touch every system that seeks to help children cope with a variety of family problems, many of which are rooted in parental addiction for many generations.
Educators may notice that a child is withdrawn or unable to do school work because of the chaos at home caused by alcoholism/addiction.
Early childhood Professionals see children from birth through age three, the youngest and most vulnerable population to be affected by parental addiction.
Faith leaders are often the first to be contacted by a spouse who needs help for themselves and their children.
Working in compassionate professions that touch the lives of traumatized children and teenagers regularly can emotionally exhaust and at times physically impact the best of professionals. Depending upon the level of daily involvement, these responsibilities have the capacity to even elicit PTSD-like symptoms, especially if you grew up in a family that struggled with substance disorders that created trauma in your earlier life. It is important for anyone working in these professions to exercise appropriate self-care, and if necessary consider attending Al-Anon or Nar-Anon meetings. NACoA provides a wealth of information for those professionals who see children every day: profession-specific research, kits, books, online educational opportunities, trainings and videos to educate and support those who are in the best position to identify and assist children who live with alcohol or other addictions in the family.
Our training and program resources equip professionals and individuals with tools and knowledge to help provide support to children and families impacted by a loved one’s alcohol or drug addiction.
The library of webinars provides an archive of critical topics on addiction, its impact on the family, children and the community. The speakers are all well-known and knowledgeable subject-matter authorities, providing key insights and information for the listener. The webinars range from 1 ½ to 2 hours in length.
The library of webinars provides an archive of critical topics on addiction, its impact on the family, children and the community. The speakers are all well-known and knowledgeable subject-matter authorities, providing key insights and information for the listener. The webinars range from 1 ½ to 2 hours in length.
This NACoA-developed kit provides all the tools needed to implement educational support groups for children of clients in treatment for addiction, for educational support groups and other educational prevention activities in schools, and for support groups and educational programs in youth-serving community based and faith-based organizations.
The Celebrating Families! curriculum is an evidence-based cognitive behavioral support group model written for families in which one or both parents have a serious problem with alcohol or other drugs and in which there is a high risk for domestic violence, child abuse, or neglect.
It only takes one caring and understanding adult to change a child's life.
When a child’s family struggles with alcohol or substance misuse/addiction issues, the most powerful assistance to the child can come from a caring adult in their lives. Often the child turns to a relative or friend of the family who has acknowledged in some way that they are concerned and available, thus making it feel safe for the child to talk. It could be the mother who is terrified of what is happening to her children as she watches her husband’s addiction grow more concerning, the grandmother who knows her son has a problem with prescription drugs, the best friend who is worried about the mother who routinely is drinking to excess and passing out before dinner, the older brother who works close by and is contacted regularly because no one picked up his younger brother from basketball practice, and many others, whom the child can trust with their “biggest worry.” The goal here is to put tools in the hands of these caring family members who take on the role of caretaker so that they might do the following things:
As a result of broken promises, harsh words, and the threat of abuse, children in many families dealing with parental addiction learn the “Don’t Trust” mantra all too well; silence and isolation can become constant companions. Perhaps the most important gift is the bonding and attachment children attain in healthy relationships with others.
In their book The Resilient Self, Drs. Sybil and Steven Wolin describe "Relationships" as an integral part of the Resilience Mandala.
In her ground-breaking research, Dr. Emmy Werner noted that resilient COAs often had a nurturing adult in their lives. Building trust is a process, not an event; time is the key. Simply caring about a child is all that it takes to start. Listening, regular time together, playing with, validating, respecting, and empowering a youngster will build a positive connection.
Jerry Moe, national director of the Betty Ford Center Children's Programs, often reminds us that "children don't care about how much adults know until they know how much adults care."
There simply can’t be resilient children unless caring adults lead the way. As bonding grows, a nurturing adult’s words take on added meaning and significance as the youngster deeply considers the source. A child may hear accurate information about alcoholism in a brand new way. Moreover, a kid can build upon his or her strengths and resilience as a result of the conscious modeling provided by that caring adult.
Whether we have children of our own or not, many of us can become a nurturing adult in a young child’s life. A youngster desperately in need of such an alliance is very close by. Downloading and reading through the Kit for Kids with a child is a great start to helping them cope with their situation.
Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of approaching someone about problem drinking. But when a child’s well being is at stake, you may be the one to begin the process of reaching out to the problem drinker.
The Road to Recovery series, provided by the SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, features eight episodes focused on the field of recovery. Click here for a special episode dealing with intergenerational issues, and the hope that early intervention can bring for years to come.
At times, the best efforts to help the person struggling with alcohol and/or drugs are not met with a willingness to acknowledge and understand what is happening to him/her and heart-wrenching deterioration in the addicted person — physically, spiritually and socially — continues. The increased concern, anger, and feeling of helplessness grows as the family experiences alienation from the person they love who, in their view it seems, is choosing a relationship with alcohol over one with them.
Watching a person struggle with addiction is incredibly painful. Denial can be strong, shielding a person from admitting that the addiction is affecting day to day living, performance at work, and/or the family. It is often thought that it requires significant challenge – losing a job, one’s family, a tragic accident or experience – to “wake up” a person to the truth that there is a problem. This epiphany, it is believed, results in a commitment to treatment and recovery. Unfortunately, the desperation at this level of challenge can make successful recovery appear insurmountable, and actually may be too late for effective behavioral change. Instead, structured family intervention with the assistance of a professional can help lead a loved one to accept help and the possibility of recovery, before such devastation occurs.
