Adult Children of Alcoholics
Common Characteristics Among Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA)...
1. Guess at what normal is.
2. Have difficulty in following a project through from beginning to end.
3. Lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.
4. Judge themselves without mercy.
5. Have difficulty having fun.
6. Take themselves very seriously.
7. Have difficulty with intimate relationships.
8. Over-react to changes over which they have no control.
9. Constantly seek approval and affirmation.
10. Feel that they are different from other people.
11. Are either super responsible or super irresponsible.
12. Are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
13. Look for immediate rather than deferred gratification.
14. Lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternate behaviors or possible consequences.
15. Seek tension and crisis and then complain about the results.
16. Avoid conflict or aggravate it; rarely do they deal with it.
17. Fear rejection and abandonment, yet are rejecting of others.
18. Fear failure, but sabotage their success.
19. Fear criticism and judgment, yet criticize and judge others.
20. Manage time poorly and do not set priorities in a way that works well for them.
In order to change, adult children of alcoholics cannot use history as an excuse for continuing their behaviors. They have no regrets for what might have been, for their experiences have shaped their talents as well as their defects of character. It is their responsibility to discover these talents, to build their self-esteem and to repair any damage done. They will allow themselves to feel their feelings, to accept them, and learn to express them appropriately. When they have begun those tasks, they will try to let go of their past and get on with the business of their life.
THE PROBLEM
Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic household.
1. We had come to feel isolated, uneasy with other people, and especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same, we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
2. We either became alcoholics ourselves or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
3. We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Having an over-developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We somehow got guilt feelings when we stood up for ourselves rather than giving in to others. Thus, we became reactor, rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
4. We were dependent personalities -- terrified of abandonment--willing to do almost anything to hold onto a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. Yet we kept choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood
These symptoms of the family problem of alcoholism made us “co-victims” -- those who take on the characteristics of the problem without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and kept them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we confuse love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue. Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable relationships.
This is a description, not an indictment.