Wonderful share, mama! 

Although our stories are different, many of us share similar characteristics from growing up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes.  If you can identify with The Laundry List, this is the right place for you!

My Narcissistic Mom raised me to believe that I couldn't do anything right.  My alcoholic Dad was out partying and womanizing and did not support our family.  They divorced when I was 7, and she remarried another alcoholic when I was 12.  Suddenly, our family expanded by four Step siblings.  Arguments were constant.

I thought this was normal.  My Brother said when he had dinner with his friends, their families didn't fight! 

In adulthood, I was always depressed but didn't understand why.  No wonder, when Mom told me that "fun" was a waste of time!    I latched on to one alcoholic/dysfunctional boyfriend after the next.  My "picker" was broken, but I blamed it on men!

Thanks to the ACA Program, I am getting better one day at a time, and learning to enjoy life.

If this speaks to you, pull up a chair and join our experience, strength, and hope!  Click on the New Member link on the top right you can join us and see our daily readings and personal shares. 

In Recovery,

Princess K.

The Laundry List 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8. We became addicted to excitement.
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to love people we can pity and rescue.
10. We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

Tony A., 1978