Since there are over 600,00 deaths each year from alcohol, it naturally follows that many children are born into an a family with at least one alcoholic parent. Many people discover that they have several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic household.
They came to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect themselves, they become people pleasers, even though they may lose their own identities in the process. At the same time they mistake any personal criticism as a threat. Often, they lose the ability to feel empathy for others, and rarely "walk in the moccasins" of the Other.
They either became alcoholics themselves, married them, or both. Failing that, they found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, a person in high need of control, or other similar wounds to fulfill their insatiable need for abandonment.
"Need"? Yes, because in that way, when others tire of the drama and detach from them, it feels both terrible and wonderful at the same time. The "wonderful" part results from the recapitulation of their childhood with the alcoholic caretaker. That, of course, is a primary reason for why people choose their partners: to replicate that same chaos, pain and fear, in order to 'do over' that period of time., hoping that it will turn out differently. Of course, without recovery, therapy, etc., they just replicate the pain of their youth all over again.
ACOA's live life from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed, or under-developed sense of responsibility, they preferred to be concerned with others rather than themselves. They get guilt feelings when they trust themselves, giving in to others. They become reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
Often, beginning life as independent, proud children, they eventually become dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. For women especially, they view a relationship with a theme of passivity rather than feeling, and acting upon, their true personal power. Their lives are fraught with complex opposites: the "show" of a confident, independent person, while they are being quite dependent.
While yearning for a true loving relationship with a person who honors their unique individuality, they tend to pass that up for another person who is angry, non-empathic, demanding, and who does not truly value them as a human being. They content themselves with charming lip service from partners, as long as they can avoid any sort of symbolic judgment...as long as the scale of abandonment plus non-abandonment remains finely balanced. To balance that scale, they do things which will create abandonment, replicating the roots of their life. Until therapy has progressed, they keep choosing insecure primary and secondary relationships because they remind the ACOA of their childhood relationship with the alcoholic parent(s). This is an emotionally exhausting process for the ACOA, and even more so if they have children.
These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism made them 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. ACOA's learn to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue. And..... they confuse love with control.
Even more self-defeating, ACOA's became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.
This is a description, not an indictment.
Some of the hallmarks of the ACOA are:
1. Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.
2. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.
3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.
4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without rational mercy. As a result, they judge others in that same rigid manner, completely overriding mercy, and understanding.
5 Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun. Even when they claim to be "having fun", they generally display a false self, in that they cannot simply "let go" into an easygoing joyfulness. Those around them sense this without any problem, and the "air" is laden with anxiety.
6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously, and lose a free flowing adaptability and acquiescence. Acquiescence for the ACOA is threatening to their core. They see it as a measure of weakness, rather than a serene acceptance of their foibles.
7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships, and often recreate the abandonment see-saw with ones who love them. Push-pull dynamics, ones that say, "Go away----come here", as well as passive aggression are most common.
8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over which they have no control.
9. Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.
10. Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.
11. Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.
12. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, and even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
13. Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsively leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.
