I got up this morning, did some yoga, mediated, and spent an hour writing. Afterwards I had breakfast while I waited for my 12-Step phone meeting. At 9am I set up my easel and palette and got to work on my latest commission, an 11x14 of Thomas Jefferson High School. While I worked, I listened to a podcast called Adult Child, which is what’s currently holding my attention.
I first heard the term Adult Child of Alcoholics when I was in my twenties and was confused as to why I could relate to the symptoms so much. That was before people understood that growing up with other addictions, like food, sex, and money, as well as growing up with mental illness, could have similar effects on children as growing up with alcoholism.
Over the years I have read a lot about addiction, codependency, family dysfunction, sexual abuse, incest, mental illness, and so much more in an attempt to understand my deep unhappiness. As a fourteen year old I could barely hold my head up and look at the camera on Christmas morning as I opened presents. I was absolutely miserable with no one to talk to and no adult support. I kept it all to myself, and at 14, a few months after Christmas, I discovered alcohol, and the rest is history.
I drank alcoholically for ten years and quit when I was 24. I have been free of ‘partying’ for twenty-five years and sober from alcohol and pot for twenty. I drank a few times in my late twenties, but fortunately I’d moved to a new city and had no friends to party with. So I got a buzz and crawled into bed and cried myself to sleep a half dozen times and then quit for good just after my 30th birthday. I do not miss it.
But quitting drinking doesn’t make the pain go away, and it doesn’t solve the problems that led to drinking in the first place. I’m so grateful that there are so many 12-Step programs out there addressing many of the problems that exist in dysfunctional families. I think I’ve been to just about all of them just to see if it fits. Many of them do but I am taking it one fellowship at a time.
My favorite 12-Step program is Alanon. It’s for the friends and families of alcoholics. I’ve been to Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA), Codependents Anonymous, Sanon, and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, but I keep coming back to Alanon. If I could sum up what all these programs address it would be: trying to feel close to people without being intimate.
Intimacy takes courage. It includes being vulnerable, honest, and humble. I was incapable of those things as a child and young adult so I developed skills to help me gain a sense of closeness despite my inability to actually be close. I learned them from my parents, who learned them from their parents, who learned them from theirs.
I really appreciate people being so open and honest about recovery, addiction, and family dysfunction. The stories people have shared about their pain and suffering is what’s helped me to heal over the past 30 years. But I’ve been hesitant to pay it forward. There is something that’s been holding me back from being out and open about my struggles with addiction and mental health. Today I’m doing it differently. Whether I have something of value to offer or not, I feel as if I want to give back what I’ve been given.