THE POWER OF SELF-CARE AS ADULT CHILD OF AN ALCOHOLIC

As an adult child of an alcoholic, one of the things I struggle most with is acknowledging that I am responsible only for myself in life. I’ve failed to do this for most of my life. I constantly work on this. I am not good at it because I’ve never done it. As the child of alcoholic, I switched roles with my mother very early on. I’ve been in more of a mother role and my mother, the child. I felt I had to watch out for her, clean up her messes and be super vigilant about her life, preventing as much bad from happening to her as possible. From listening to other adult children of alcoholics, I know I am far from alone in this behavior. They say the oldest children of alcoholics most often take on this flipped parent-child role. Just as I’m about to do something, I ask myself if doing it helps me take good care of myself. About 99.9% of the time, doing it is not good for me. Full disclosure, I don’t always make the right choice. But sometimes I do. As an #acoa, your job in life is to take good care of yourself. That's it.

Take good care of yourself.

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[timothyrafalski]

Thank you Jodi. It's nice to know that others feel the way I do. I appreciate your strength and honesty. I hope you are doing well too.

[cosmonucleus]

Thank you for your videos I am a ACOA and a alcoholic myself in recovery. My dad was the addict and my mom started drinking after their divorce 16 years ago, her drinking is now getting to the point where it's really getting destructive. I intellectually know that I can't fix her but it's so frustrating seeing her spiral further into poor health.

[nmikloiche]

I play the role of the fixer, the hero and with little pomp or circumstance I do fall upon my sword and secretly and desperately pray that someone, anyone will just thank me. Today was Christmas and I’m not sure about you all, but I’m very uncomfortable (putting it mildly) receiving gifts. I always say, “Please, please don’t get me anything. I assure you I have all I need and I don’t want you to spend your money on frivolous things” and every year, I get a sack of lovely, sweet presents. I watch everyone else open their gifts - they laugh, smile, show excitement and glee. I try my best and there are moments but I usually cry and I will say something like, “I just don’t deserve all this”. I just can’t get over that obstacle- I have told myself that I am so blessed to have my nuclear family and my job and I really am truly blessed as I don’t deserve the grace that the universe has given me. So I think I’m quite a ways away from taking good care of me and I’d love to hear anyone’s brutally honest truth - is it possible or are we so deeply wired to be the caretaker that allowing others to care for us, or for us to care for us is just not really ever a true default behavior. Even saying that, ir typing it, made me feel shameful as it would be selfish.

[CincyPlasmaTech]

Take care of yourself. I will do the same. This is the first time I am seeking help. I had a meltdown and couldn't understand why. I only knew that the help I was providing for people would never be enough, and helping others helped me forget my own problems. My father comes from a family of nine children with parents that died when he was eleven.

[johnpeterson]

To save my life, I went to Graduate School which was 1600 miles away when I was 21. I really didn’t feel free until my parents died (both chemically dependent). I think they had a better life without me being close by, even though they were homeless in their last ten years of life.

[kevinjconroy]

thank you for these videos.  thank you for being brave enough to face the reality of a difficult situation and for trying to deal with it as sensibly as possible.  my father was an alcoholic.  you are doing something very valuable.  I know what you are going to say before you say it.  we all need to find our own way to deal with the trauma of our childhood, to understand the confusion. the child of an alcoholic takes an emotional pounding, and when you are a kid, you cannot understand, except to know that something is seriously wrong.  I think I can honestly say I have spent my whole life trying to undo what my father did to me and to my brothers and sisters.  I don't drink.  I could make the same video.  but you do it better than I could.  I would get angry.  that wouldn't help.

[jailandbail]

Thank you for your videos. It is very helpful to me this now. This is something that I am currently exploring and realising. How much my dads addiction has had on how I act as an adult and how much it actually has affected my life, and I relate to your message because it is so hard to take care of yourself. But so important to do so. Take care and thanks again. :-)

[juanmalugan]

Thank you very much for all your videos
Much love!!!!

[MoonLight-wxyu]

❤️ thank you. My relationship with my mum is very different she doesn’t struggle with addiction but she is a worrier and goes through moments of anxiety and she speaks openly about her feelings with me. I guess this gave me food for thought about my relationship with her taking away the message. I guess my struggle has been putting her feelings before mine and shutting down parts of myself and sacrificing myself for her so she would feel better, but making myself not feel good. It’s challenging we all go through different experiences. Also would feel triggered as I would be criticised for being myself, I guess somethings triggered her anxiety and she would project that onto me- which sucked. She would then vocalise that and it would sting because I felt like I wasn’t accepted by her and she’s my mum. :/