All Self Hate Is A Toxic Lie!

Self hate is something many ACAs struggle with. After being victimized by others when we were young, we often carry our own persecution forward. If you believed you were ACTUALLY bad, THAT gave you your only sense of control in an otherwise out of control, painful upbringing.

Believing the LIE that you are bad allows you to distance yourself from the pain and live with the illusion that you can somehow CHANGE things. Now you can spend the rest of your life in a futile attempt to either change THEM (not gonna happen) or your own "badness" (which is impossible because it doesn't exist).

From Donna Torbico's awesome blog on adult children of alcoholics:

"Being loved cannot be earned!"

TRUTH:

• ALL self-hate is a LIE
✶ it’s a defense mechanism to deny our feelings of abandonment. This a crucial point: S-H is a cover-up for all our abandonment pain.
• it’s a form of narcissism - making everything about US, when it rarely is. We make other people’s bad behavior our responsibility
• it’s an attempt at feeling powerful, to cover our intense sense of powerlessness & vulnerability

Read more here: HEAL and GROW for ACoAs: SELF-HATE & ACoAs (Part 1): "I’M NO GOOD & EVERYONE KNOWS IT so I have to be perfect to make up for it Self-Hate is the #1 deterrent to growth for all ACoAs. It undermi..."

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Digging Deeper- The Child Within

Have you ever experienced intense feelings yet could not identify their source? Many Adult Children of Alcoholics have trouble knowing not only what they feel but WHY they feel certain emotions.

The answer may lie in your past. A current situation that triggers a powerful reaction most likely is tied to an old feeling. This feeling may have become almost like an instinct. It has become ingrained, like a reaction that happens without much thought.

Take anger for example. There are certain times when it is appropriate but often it is used as a defense. It is a SECONDARY emotion that is protecting something else. Many people get stuck in angry reactions because they are unable to identify the primary feeling- hurt, shame, fear, etc., that underlies the anger. So the the angry person continues being reactively angry and the true issue never gets resolved.

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-"It may help to think of yourself as a child"-

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The "Digging Deeper" exercise can help identify and manage emotional reactions in a more constructive way. As you continue to practice this exercise it will get easier and faster. There are five steps:

1. Think about what happened just before you felt angry. Did someone do or say something offensive? Did something remind you of a similar situation?

2. Identify the root of the anger- the primary feeling. This can be difficult because of the habit of reacting defensively and the tendency to our ignore the importance of our true feelings. It may help to think of yourself as a child. Picture him or her in your mind and try to feel what he or she is feeling. Are they sad, hurt, fearful, feeling guilty or shamed? You may need to meditate on this for a bit before you "get" the feeling.

3. Ask yourself when you have felt this way before. You may get a vague recollection or a very clear image of past situations in which you felt this way. There may be very old memories that reveal a repeating pattern.

4. How did you respond back then? Did you hold everything inside until you wanted to explode? Did you lash out, feel victimized, isolate, get sad or depressed? Is this the same way you are acting now?

5. Ask yourself what you really need right now. Asking for what we really want can be hard for ACOAs. Feel free to begin by verbalizing the sentence, "What I really need right now is_______________". It could be "to be listened to and understood" or "I need some reassurance" or "I need to know that I'm not alone".

Recognizing a need is the first step to becoming your own loving parent. The fact that your inner child's need was simply acknowledged helps him or her feel better.

After a while, you may begin to experience a sense of relief and an increased ability to communicate your feelings and needs. You may begin to feel closer to those around you. You will probably experience greater success getting your needs met and increased intimacy.

A side benefit of being empathetic with yourself is that you will begin to show more empathy and understanding for others. Don't be surprised if you discover others acting differently towards you as they respond to your increased warmth and understanding.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Roy's Story

This is Roy's story as told by Roy himself. It's the story of one man's experience as an ACOA growing up in a dysfunctional family. It's as inspiring as it is courageous.

Roy shares his difficulties and pain without judging or blaming. Just matter of fact sharing in the hopes that it may help other Adult Children Of Alcoholics.

I don't know if Roy will ever read this but I want to thank him for his powerful share and for posting this video.



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

10 Myths About ACAs

From http://newlife.com/10-myths-about-children-of-alcoholics/



1. You should forget the past and only focus on today.



One of the survival tools learned by children of alcoholics is denial. You need to honestly examine the past to gain insight into the present. Recovery involves looking at today and yesterday.



2. Change must be immediate.



For most, the process of healing is gradual. Believing that change should be immediate is born out of perfectionistic childhood thinking. Adult children of alcoholics (ACA’s) tend to think in a mythical nothing-or-all format. This sets us up for defeat. Since most change is not immediate, we fail. After failure we conclude that we will never change.



3. Only the past determines the future.



Many adult children were taught that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We have been taught to believe the myth that what we are and who we are will never change. But, within each of us lies the capacity to grow and alter the way we act and feel.



4. God’s forgiveness is fine for everyone but me.



A key roadblock for most adult children of alcoholics is the sense of being unforgiven. While growing up, forgiveness was rarely modeled. Children learn to perform in order to be approved. ACA’s approach God under the influence of this myth “If I make a mistake, there exists no forgiveness, just punishment.”



5. Others must approve of my actions or I’m no good.



Needing approval is a basic childhood need that one never outgrows. The problem comes when we do not get approval from others and draw the conclusion that we must be bad. This is a result of being raised in a family that promoted shame.



6. I must be able to do what I should do to be healed.



If I cannot, there is something wrong with me. While growing up, ACA’s were often made to feel, stupid, inadequate, bad and guilty for their actions and feelings. One of the legacies of the dysfunctional home is negative self-worth or shame. In recovery we must suspend our constant self-criticism and invalidation and learn the new skills that we need to heal and make positive choices.



7. External events and other people must change or I’ll never be able to be healed.



ACA’s do not learn to trust themselves, take appropriate risks, and establish independence and autonomy. ACA’s want other people to confirm things in them that should have been validated by their parents. Yet, if we are to respond to the healing work of God within us, we need to be responsive to our inner self. The old adage is still true today, “A better world begins with me.”



8. God will be just like my human father.



While there will be exceptions, children develop a view of God based on the relationship they have with their parents. In particular, fathers have a tremendous impact on the experience ACA’s expect when approaching God. ACA’s often view God as being absent, cold and indifferent, distant and unloving. They think “If I measure up, God will love me; if I don’t, I deserve punishment.” In contrast, the Bible describes a God who wants to comfort, nurture, heal and support.



9. If I turned everything over to God, I would not have the problems I have now.



Most if us have tried to let God take over everything and still found ourselves hurting, confused and making destructive choices. God is not a magician who removes all of our pain, sorrow and difficulties. God doesn’t promise peace from the storms of life, but rather peace amidst the storms. Learning to turn ourselves over to God is a reflection of our needs, our imperfections and the flawed world we live in. Fellowship with God will allow us to develop a broader vision about our life.



10. It is selfish and bad to focus on myself.



Others count more than I do. Parents who teach this concept restrict their children to a life that is confused and solely other-directed. Recovery does not mean we replace other-centered living with only self-centered living. Recovery means seeking a balance between what I want, feel and need and what others want, feel and need.



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Music Medicine

Music has been used as therapy for seizures, high blood pressure, ADD, mental illness, depression, stress and insomnia. Since many of these symptoms are common in adult children of alcoholics, I was excited to find a source of relaxing music that anyone can access for free (see below).

Musicologist Julius Portnoy found that music can change metabolic rates, increase or decrease blood pressure, effect energy levels and digestion positively or negatively, depending on the type of music.

Calming music was found to have a very calming effect on the body and cause the increase of endorphins. Thirty minutes of such music was equal to the effect of a dose of valium.

Right now, Amazon is offering a free download of music that you can chill to. These mellow native flutes are mixed with guitars, drums and nature sounds. The sound is soothing, relaxing and is the perfect antidote for a stressful day.

Click here to sample and download this music for FREE: Native Flutes For Relaxation

There is no obligation to download this music. It is compatible with all MP3 players. May only be available for a limited time.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The New Truth About Depression

Adult Children Of Alcoholics are likely to fall prey to depression at one time or another. Newly uncovered evidence indicates that people with depression do NOT have low levels of serotonin! And the most effective treatment for depression costs nothing but the drug companies will not tell you about it.

In the video below, Dr. Mercola interviews Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker. Whitaker is the author of "Mad in America" and "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America".




Whitaker points out that in the US in 1985, 600 million dollars was spent on psychiatric medications. This has now grown to over 40 billion dollars per year.

According to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one in 20 Americans are depressed. Long-term studies indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.

It has been widely accepted that depression is due to a “chemical imbalance in your brain,” which drugs are designed to correct. Unfortunately, this is NOT a scientific statement.

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“The low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain,” Whitaker explains.
“But it was just a hypothesis borne to try to explain why the drug might be fixing something. In 1983, NIMH concluded that there is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients. And this was before Prozac was released. So there was never evidence that people with depression characteristically had low levels of serotonin."

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There is also a risk that long term drug use for treatment of depression may even cause cognitive decline.

Studies on exercise as a treatment for depression are also showing that there is a strong correlation between improved mood and aerobic capacity. One study conducted by Duke University in the late 1990’s divided depressed patients into three treatment groups:

*Exercise only

*Exercise plus antidepressant

*Antidepressant drug only

After six weeks, the drug-only group was doing slightly better than the other two groups. However, after 10 months of follow-up, it was the exercise-only group that had the highest remission and stay-well rate!

British doctors now actually write prescriptions for exercise their depressed patients. Since 2007, the rate of British doctors prescribing exercise for depression has increased from about 4 percent to about 25 percent.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Emotional Communication Intelligence

Adult children of alcoholics often have difficulty realizing and expressing their emotions. The following test was designed as a measuring stick for progress in this area.

From: http://recoveryissexy.com/emotional-communication/

-Test Your Emotional Communication Intelligence-

Answer “usually,” “occasionally” or “rarely” to the following questions:

I ____________ sustain eye contact when speaking.

I ____________ am comfortable with pauses when others are experiencing emotion.

I ____________ sense when someone feels troubled before being told.

I ____________ am comfortable with my feelings of sadness, joy, anger and fear.

I ____________ pay attention to my emotions when making decisions.

I ____________ have no problem expression my emotions to others.

I ____________ can reduce my stress to a comfortable level.

I ____________ enjoy laughing, playing or kidding around.

I ____________ don’t feel threatened by disagreements.


Answering “usually” to most of these questions indicates that you have a good start with emotional intelligence in your relationships.

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-Codependent Traits-

Here are 5 indicators of codependency. You can rate from 1 to 10 how each of these affect you.

From http://www.marconews.com/news/2010/feb/18/codependence-may-not-be-what-you-think/

Five core symptoms of Codependence:

Low self-esteem

Difficulty setting boundaries

Difficulty recognizing their own feelings

Difficulty to making decisions

Being unable to express emotions, thoughts and behavior appropriately


Your answers to the above may indicate areas you want to improve or simply serve as signposts for how far you've come. Thanks for listening!



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

16 Characteristics Of Adult Children

I really get a lot out of seeing the "Laundry List" in an alternative interpretation. A different wording adds a new perspective and fresh understanding. This author has embellished and added a bit to the standard list of characteristics. Nice to see that long held dogmas, much like ourselves, can evolve, change and improve.

The following was excerpted from "A Primer on Adult Children of Alcoholics" by Dr. Timmen L. Cermak

1. Fear of losing control. ACoAs maintain
control of their feelings and behavior. In addition,
they try to control the feelings and behavior of
others. They do not do this to hurt themselves or
others, but because they are afraid. They fear their
lives will get worse if they lose control and they
become uncomfortable and anxious when they
cannot control situations, feelings, and behaviors.

2. Fear of feelings. Since childhood and continuing
as adults, ACoAs have buried their feelings
(especially anger and sadness). In addition,
they’ve lost the ability to feel or express emotions
freely. Eventually they fear all intense feelings,
even good ones such as joy and happiness.

3. Overdeveloped sense of responsibility.
ACoAs are hypersensitive to the needs of others.
Their self-esteem comes from how others view
them. They have a compulsive need to be perfect.

4. Guilt feelings. When ACoAs stand up for
themselves instead of giving in to others, they
feel guilty. They usually sacrifice their own needs
in an effort to be “responsible.”

5. Inability to relax/let go/have fun.
Having fun is stressful for ACoAs, especially
when others are watching. The child inside is
terrified; exercising all the control it can muster to
be good enough just to survive. Under such rigid
control, spontaneity suffers.

6. Harsh, even fierce, self-criticism.
ACoAs have very low self-esteem, regardless of
how competent they may be in many areas.

7. Denial. Whenever ACoAs feel threatened,
their tendency toward denial intensifies.

8. Difficulty with intimate relationships.
To ACoAs, intimacy equates to being out of control.
It requires love for self and expressing one’s
own needs. As a result, ACoAs frequently have
difficulty with sexuality. They repeat unsuccessful
relationship patterns.

9. Living life as a victim. ACoAs may be either
aggressive or passive victims. They are often attracted
to other “victims” in love, friendship and
work relationships.

10. Compulsive behavior. ACoAs may work
compulsively, eat compulsively, become addicted to
a relationship or behave in other compulsive ways.
ACoAs may drink compulsively and become alcoholics
themselves.

11. Tendency to confuse love and pity.
Because they don’t differentiate between these two
emotions, ACoAs often “love” people they can pity
and rescue.

12. Fear of abandonment. In order not to experience
the pain of abandonment, ACoAs will do
anything to hold on to a relationship.

13. Tendency to view issues in terms of
black or white. When they are under stress, the
gray areas of life disappear and ACoAs see themselves
facing an endless series of either/or alternatives.

14. Tendency toward physical complaints.
ACoAs suffer higher rates of stress related illnesses
(migraine headaches, ulcers, eczema, irritable bowel
syndrome, etc.) than the general population.

15. Suffering from delayed grief. Because the
alcoholic family does not tolerate intensely uncomfortable
feelings (such as sadness and anger), children
in such homes rarely, if ever, grieve over their
losses. Losses in their adult lives usually cannot be
felt without calling up these past feelings. As a result,
ACoAs are frequently depressed.

16. Tendency to react rather than to act.
As children, ACoAs became anxious and hyper
vigilant. They remain so in their adult lives, constantly
scanning the environment for potential catastrophes.
Problem solving and stress management
techniques are something they consider after the
fact if at all.


Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Adult Children and Forgiveness

Adult Children of Alcoholics and those from dysfunctional families often struggle with forgiving the wrongs of the past. I've heard it said that "Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having a better past."

To me this means that although wrongs were done, I no longer seek revenge or hold anger about them. I am free to live without the bondage of past injustices. This frees me to forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others for my wrongdoings.

Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend discuss the healing power of Forgiveness

Grace Is the Ultimate Fertilizer



The Nature Of Forgiveness



Empathy is Ultimately about Love and Grace



Q: How do you forgive hurts that are continuously being committed? (2:55)



Q: I am an only child of two alcoholic parents, and I am now fifty-seven. My mother is still alive and continues to be emotionally abusive. Would God want me to forgive and submit to this abuse, or is it ok to cut her out of my life?



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The Power Of Now

Jim Carrey on Eckhart Tolle:


Eckhart Tolle first gained attention as a spiritual teacher with his 1997 book, "The Power of Now". In 2008, Oprah Winfrey chose his follow-up work, "A New Earth", for her book club. Her 10-week online seminar with Tolle has since been downloaded 27 million times.

Listen to a fascinating interview with Eckhart Tolle-


Adult children of alcoholics can be prone to living in the past or fantasizing about the future rather than being in the present moment. There is a force within us that works to keep us from living in the now and experiencing the peace and serenity that is our birthright.

Tolle coined the term "the pain body" to describe a subconscious force in people that is fed by painful memories and thrives on them. The pain body is below the level of our awareness, yet reacts strongly to everyday events and affects our thoughts and behavior negatively. The pain body seems to be it's own sovereign entity, surviving alongside your conscious awareness and influencing feelings and actions.

Tolle came to this realization by observing that strong emotional reactions from people are often out of proportion to the event that triggered them.

"And so I realized that there's something in everybody that is a remnant of past painful emotion. And these remnants of past painful emotion from pain that you suffered as a child, perhaps even pain that was passed on from previous generations."

Tolle believes the pain body has two ways of feeding on further emotional pain. One is through YOUR thinking and one is through OTHER people's reactions.

"If you are sitting alone in a room and the pain body gets awakened from its dormant state because it needs to feed on an experience of pain, what happens is the old emotion, perhaps triggered by one thought in your head about your sad story from the past, the old emotion rises up into the mind, and suddenly your entire thinking becomes extremely negative. It reflects the emotional energy. So all your thoughts that you're thinking about your life and your life situation and your past and other people is deeply, deeply negative. Totally distorted, of course. It's distorted by the pain of the past."

"It's an addictive thing. So it feeds on the one hand on your thinking. On the other hand, if there are people around you at the time when the pain body awakens the favorite way of feeding for the pain body is to provoke a negative reaction, for example, in your partner. It could be a little situation, something he or she says or does, and you push the buttons in your partner and you amplify something that otherwise would be a relatively insignificant thing perhaps. And you know the pain body has a certain cunning intelligence to it."

"It knows exactly what buttons to push in your partner or the person close to you or your family member. And it'll say those things that are most likely to provoke an intense negative reaction, and then it'll feed on the drama. So that's the second way, then, in which the pain body feeds, is the drama in relationships. And many couples recognize this truth and say, "Oh, yeah. That's true. Every week or every two weeks or every three weeks we go through our drama."

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"...there is a place inside me that is far more powerful than the continuous mental noise with which for many, many years I had been completely identified..."- Eckhart Tolle

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Tolle believes that the way to eventually become free of the pain body, is not to reactively reject it or the experience that triggers it but "just to see that it's there". The key is to be the awareness.

Recognize the emotion and allow it to be because it already is. Accept the reality of what is currently present. The goal is to reach a state of alert attention to what is, where compulsive thinking no longer operates. Being in the moment, in the NOW keeps you from jumping into regret from the past and fear of the future.

"This means you rise above thinking to a large extent in your life. Where you can face life without the interference of the mind, still being able to use the mind when it's needed but not being used by it".

"And then you become deeper. Or rather, you realize that you are deeper than the emotion. And that frees you from being controlled by the emotion. Then gradually the pain body weakens because it can't feed anymore on your relationship or on your thinking. And now if you have a lot of emotional pain from the past, you may always experience from time to time some painful emotion arising."

Tolle says, "The ultimate thing is the realization of the formless essence of who you are because if God has any reality in this world, it cannot be separate from who you are in your essence. And finding that in yourself, really, I see as the purpose of human life. And then the external world, the temporary world, the world of forms, also changes as a result of that. But the essence is finding who you are beyond form, beyond time."

Tips on developing still and alert attention, freeing yourself from mind noise and audio meditations can be found HERE- Exercises For Your Awakening.


Interview quotes are excerpted from: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/tolle/


Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The ACA Promises

Many adult children of alcoholics have heard "The Promises" of ACA recovery. If you haven't or if it's been a while, someone was kind enough to post a creative video of them on Youtube as seen below.

The ACA Promises



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Relationships Foster Resilience

We hear and see it all the time in ACA/ACOA meetings and literature: "The first step is coming out of isolation". This sentiment is now being echoed by those studying overcoming adversity and increasing "resilience".

A recent article from psychologytoday.com suggests that regardless of your past or your genetic ability to handle stress, anyone can cultivate resilience. Psychiatrist Steven Wolin, M.D., defines resilience as "the capacity to rise above adversity". His findings are based on 20 years of his own research on adult children of alcoholics. Most of them, he has found, do not repeat their parents' drinking patterns.

Those who overcame adversity yet lacked strong family support systems growing up, sought and received help from others—a teacher, a neighbor, the parents of peers or, eventually, a spouse. They were not afraid to talk about the hard times they were having to someone who cared for their well-being.

Resilient children often hang out with families of untroubled peers. As adults, the resilient children of alcoholics marry into stable, loving families with whom they spend a great deal of time.


Psychologist Edith Grotberg, Ph.D., urges people to propagate their own resilience by thinking along three lines:

1. I Have: strong relationships, structure, rules at home, role models; these are external supports that are provided

2. I Am: a person who has hope and faith, cares about others, is proud of myself; these are inner strengths that can be developed

3. I Can: communicate, solve problems, gauge the temperament of others, seek good relationships—all interpersonal and problem-solving skills that are acquired.

It's often been said that the path to healing and maintaining recovery involves being around healing, balanced people; a safe group, family, friend, recovery org., therapist, church group, etc. The biggest challenge to improving resilience may be to overcome the long standing isolation that once provided protection from trauma and dysfunction.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200305/the-art-resilience

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children