A Sufficient Alternative to The Original Twelve Steps Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families

It’s important to note that two individuals who experience the same trauma may be impacted very differently depending on many different factors. In counseling, we can help you believe in yourself again and let go of the negative memories of your childhood. Lastly, we can help you create freedom and confidence around these memories that still effect you.

Twelve-step programs can be a wonderful adjunct or even initial intervention to therapy. Twelve-step meetings provide a safe and constantly available container in which ACoAs can feel both held and less alone in their pain. There are a variety of 12-step programs that address common issues that ACoAs, who are seven times more likely to self-medicate than the average, also face. In addition, one-to-one therapy can offer the kind of personal attention and tracking that will help the ACoA to slowly form new, trusting bonds. Oftentimes, the more dysfunctional a family becomes, the more isolated it becomes from other families.

Difficulty Making and Keeping Relationships

It is impossible to explain to someone who has not been through it how many little things go awry in a home where addiction has taken hold. Sure, I can say routines were thrown off; there was constant crisis that wasn’t there before, but that doesn’t fully describe it. What really hurts is that you can no longer count on anyone the way that you once did. You watch the parent you love turn the face that once smiled at you toward a bottle of alcohol or sink into a lying and degrading behavior.

If you had a parent who struggled with alcoholism growing up, keep reading to learn more about various challenges you may be experiencing today– whether you realize it or not. Our small and welcoming beachside facility is designed to make you feel at home while you engage with a personalized array of interventions to help you move beyond childhood trauma and adult child of an alcoholic syndrome. We can help you in identifying adult child syndrome, and you can then participate in individual and group sessions with a handful of peers undergoing similar experiences. Adult child syndrome treatment usually involves therapy like CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) or other forms of behavioral interventions and counseling. Treatment for adult child is aimed at addressing underlying issues, improving coping skills, and promoting healthier relationships and self-perceptions.

Years after we leave our alcoholic homes behind, we carry the effects of them with us, we import past, unresolved pain into present day relationships–but again, without a lot of awareness as to how or why. It may seem like nobody understands what you’ve been through, but you’re not alone. In the U.S., there are over 76 million adult children of alcoholics,3 many of whom have shared experiences. Many children with parents who struggle with addiction also experience feelings of low self-esteem or low self-worth. This is because they may have interpreted their parent’s absence in their youth as a sign that they were not worthy of their parent’s love which can transfer into adulthood. There are several different signs and symptoms of PTSD and trauma exhibited by adult children of alcoholics.

Compassionate Care for Mental Health Treatment

Recovery.com combines independent research with expert guidance on addiction and mental health treatment. Our mission is to help everyone find the best path to recovery through the most comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers worldwide. The search for addiction and mental health treatment can be overwhelming. We created this guide to support you in finding treatment that meets your needs. Adults that act like a child disorder is treatable with the right combination of evidence-based interventions. We can help you with effective mental health disorder treatment in Southern California.

Emotional Dysregulation

In other words, they don’t know that they don’t know, they really and sincerely think that the source of their pain is outside of them, if only they could fix that person who is bothering them, they would feel fine. In my experience over the past 47 years in 12 step groups, the recovery process seems to be cyclical and ongoing as long as I continue to do the work. I can identify with the metaphor of recovery as peeling an onion one layer at a time. I have also adult children of alcoholic trauma syndrome heard of recovery being compared to ascending a spiral staircase with the same old or new issues, feelings, traits, defenses, or defects/assets being presented to me as I grow and change on this wonderful pathway forward.

• Conversely, Peifer notes that some children who grow up in these environments may become more attention-seeking in order to fulfill the needs their parents couldn’t meet.
• But a parent with AUD may not have been able to offer the support you needed here, perhaps in part because they experienced emotional dysregulation themselves.
• And that kind of unpredictability can create problems down the line.
• This is part of what makes living with addiction both traumatizing and contagious.
• Was your childhood chaotic with fighting, yelling, drunk, neglectful parents?

Walk and talk therapy by the Niantic Bay Boardwalk in Southeastern Connecticut support complex PTSD healing

Because the limbic system has jurisdiction over our mood, appetite, sleep cycles and libido, deregulation in the limbic system can translate into a lack of ability to regulate our feelings, appetite, sleep or sex drive. Broad swings between states of emotional intensity and numbing are part of the natural trauma response. Children create an understanding of their environment with the psychological equipment they have at any particular stage of development. Small children may come up with fantastical, magical solutions that are the product of their immature minds. They may learn to bend the truth, for example, to make it less frightening, creating “reasons” for their parent’s erratic behavior that are less threatening than the truth.

• Twelve-step programs can be a wonderful adjunct or even initial intervention to therapy.
• At different times of the month, the week, and eventually the day, the monster would take over my father, and I would have no idea where my “real” dad had gone.
• Adult children of alcoholics may feel the fear, anxiety, anger and self-hatred that lives on from their childhood.
• Couples therapy can also have benefit, according to White, if you believe behaviors rooted in your childhood experiences have started to affect your romantic relationship.
• Whichever camp you’re in, it’s important to remember that whether or not you develop issues from your childhood is not a reflection of your character.
• Children wonder if they are unloveable or unwanted growing up with abusive, alcoholic parents.

Overall, due to growing up around so much alcohol, now, you may also be a functional alcoholic. People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address or process these feelings openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to manage or ward off pain. Even if you don’t have a diagnosed mental health condition, the trauma of your childhood can affect you in many ways. Many rehabs offer trauma-informed programs to help you heal from your past, and learn healthy ways to communicate and cope. You may start to fear your own anger, needing to control it at all times. Through rehab and therapy, you can develop the skills to be able to mindfully react to feelings without feeling threatened.

What is Adult Children of Alcoholic Trauma Syndrome?

Being an adult child of an alcoholic is a relief in a sense because now you have a name and label. However, also, thinking of yourself as an adult child of an alcoholic, you also feel scared because this opens a whole new roller coaster of emotions. Now, your past experiences and intense anger makes more sense. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling can help you grow your healthy relationship skills and self-worth skills. From there, you can gain positive coping tools to heal anxieties about having to be perfect.

The statistics provided by multiple sources further break this down to about 76 million adults in the country who have lived or are currently living with a family history of alcoholism. Also, Type A traits and being in control helped you survive as a child. Now, your anxiety and trauma negatively impacts your growing children and adolescents. At Wisdom Within Counseling, you can gain holistic, creative, and somatic tools to heal childhood trauma.