Characteristics of ACOA

[MajestyJo]

Characteristics of ACOA

Janet Geringer Ph.D list several characteristics that are commonly shared by ACOA. I thought it might help to open communication a little and talk about these issues that many us may share. So here they are and by the way I have experience nearly all of these characteristics.

1. ACOA’s guess at what is normal
2. ACOA’s have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.
3. ACOA’s lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.
4. ACOA judge themselves without mercy
5. ACOA’s having difficulty having fun.
6. ACOA’s take themselves very seriously.
7. ACOA’s have difficulty with intimate relationships.
8. ACOA’s overreact to changes over which they have no control.
9. ACOA’s constantly seek approval and affirmation.
10. ACOA’s feel that they are different from other people.
11. ACOA’s are either super-responsible or super-irresponsible
12. ACOA’s are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
13. ACOA’s are impulsive. (Lock self on course of action without give proper consideration.

Can anyone share?

[MajestyJo]

So here they are and by the way I have experience nearly all of these characteristics.

1. ACOA’s guess at what is normal

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine. Normal for what or should I say who? For someone who grew up in a dysfunctional family. For someone whose father was never there. Whose mother often took her anger out on others including herself. If that is normal, than so be it! Is it normal to want what you don't or can't have? Is it normal to be worried about tomorrow when it hasn't got here yet?

2. ACOA’s have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

Have made the decision to quit the clinic. I am not willing to wait until July to get the information I wanted six weeks ago. I don't qualify for the physical part of the program. I haven't given up on my goal. I am doing what my sponsor said I should have done in the first place, take charge of my life and make responsible choices.

3. ACOA’s lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. Don't do this as much although I may not tell the whole truth which is lying by omission. I will often try to sugar coat things to protect other's feelings so it only stands to reason that I do it for myself. I think it is called denial.


4. ACOA judge themselves without mercy. I have always been my worst taskmaster. Things just never seem to measure up or meat my expectations. In early recovery, I volunteered to cook Sunday dinner for the girls in the recovery house that I went through. No matter what I cooked, it seemed like I found fault even if they had two helpings and asked for more. I had to make a salad, cook meat, potatoes, have at least two vegetables and dessert. It was a major anxiety attack every time I did it. I had to give it up because it was too much phsyically. I remember worrying about making pastry without my all purpose flour and Crisco and lamented all the time I was making it that I had to use pastry flour and LARD! I never had pastry fail after learning how to make it properly. There was still the fear that it would happen sometime and this time was going to be it.

5. ACOA’s having difficulty having fun. My whole life was fear of making a fool of myself and that someone would laugh at me. I was the country bumpkin trying to be a cool city girl and trying to fit in. When I went back to the country, I was this cook city girl, trying to impress everyone how much of a swinger I was. Everythng was about control. Do it with style and grace! LOL. I was raised to be a lady and spent most of my life trying to prove I wasn't one. When I thought I was going to lose that control, I would go into the bathroom, stick my finger down my throat and make myself sick so I could drink more. Heaven forbid that I would get 'drunk' and disorderly. I didn't want to be a falling down drunk like my Dad and my ex-husband.

6. ACOA’s take themselves very seriously. Life was serious. It was a real gift to learn to apply Rule 62 and be able to laugh at myself.


7. ACOA’s have difficulty with intimate relationships. No kidding! I guess I am living proof of that. It took me two husbands to get 10 years of marriage. I had two relationships that lasted more than two years. I long term relationship was generally about 4 months.

8. ACOA’s overreact to changes over which they have no control. This is what kept me coming back to Al-Anon. I was told that it wasn't my husband's job to make me happy. My whole attitude had been 'preform' make me happy. Then I would resent him because he wasn't doing his job or doing what I felt he should be doing.

9. ACOA’s constantly seek approval and affirmation. This is something God and I are still working on. The affirmation not so much, but the looking for approval is still there, especially when I am with people who I feel are better qualifed and have more expertise than I do in a field.

I always like playing and doing things with people who are more experienced than I have. I have thought it was a way of learning but I think it was also a way of trying to prove I wasn't stupid like I had been told I was all of my life. This was true about darts and playing pool and still holds true in today playing bridge.


10. ACOA’s feel that they are different from other people. I think the favorite last words, "Well you just don't understand." "You haven't been through what I've been through." If you had gone through what I went through, you would...."

11. ACOA’s are either super-responsible or super-irresponsible. I see this in my son. I know that he had a good teacher. I can be so either/or on this. Take things so seriously and other times just turn a blind eye, especially if it is something I want to do! I love to run away from home and often look for a partner-in-crime. I figure the 'dishes' will always be there when I get home and the 'laundry' will be open another day.

12. ACOA’s are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved. This whole thing has been like mirror, mirror on the wall. If you hurt a friend of mine, you hurt me too! If you are a friend of a friend, then I will stand by you and support you no matter what anyone says. Often I will dillusion myself into believing you are right although when it came to my ex-husband this wasn't so. He would get angry because he figured as his wife I should agree with him. If there were six people inthe room, I wasn't suppose to join forces with him in a united front. There was no way I was going to allow myself to be seen as an not a very nice person too!

13. ACOA’s are impulsive. (Lock self on course of action without give proper consideration. Ouch! I am glad this is the last one! I thought it was because I am an Aires. As I have said before, "The right foot is moving forward and the left foot doesn't know it has to move yet."

One day at a time, God and I are working on this. Thank God for progress not perfection! An even greater thanks that it is one day at a time and a living program that I can continue to grow and change and become the kind of person I want to be.

[MajestyJo]

It is a family disease. I thought my father was the reason I was an alcoholic and I thought it was in the genes. Yet when I looked back at my life, my father was never there, I had a lot of anger, abandonment and rejection issues, but my learned behaviors came from my mother who didn't know how to deal with my father's disease. As a result, she died as a result of her own disease. She used food to stuff and deal with her feelings. Often her anger was taken out on us. She took a willow switch to my sister's legs until they bled. She kept saying, "Wait until your father comes home." When he came home and wouldn't say or do anything. Often, just smiled and made her to look like the ogre when in fact she had been left at home with three kids wile he was out drinking and carousing.

My son has all the patterns, he is using, and there was a time he didn't want to be seen with me. He didn't want me to go to his baseball, floor hockey, and hockey games. I see him acting out in abusive behaviors and I call him on it but it is all he knows and has seen. Most I hear from his girlfriends is he is a nice guy except when he gets drunk. He still carries resentments against me. Often doesn't respect me, walks over boundaries and I have to reset them. Detaching and letting him do his own thing is difficult. It is his choice.

Thanks to this program, I have been able to change. I was the abused and became the abuser. Not to the extend of my ex, but I firmly believe we are products of our environment. I no longer go around screaming like a shrew and instigating arguments for arguments sake. I no longer use my tongue to tear someone down because I am feeling hurt and unloved.

I am powerless over his addiction, as much as I am over my own. When I surrendered and accepted my disease, I was empowered to do what I needed to do for myself.

Posted on another site in 2009 and he still choses to use in 2017.

[MajestyJo]

My sponsor told me to clean my side of the street. Take an inventory of what is mine and what is an old learned behavior that I need to change. I can't change other people, but I can change me with the help of my Higher Power.

My son continues to act out his anger. He still continues to use. He still continues to ignore boundaries. He came in here last night after work. It was after 8 p.m. I said, "Are you just getting off now?" He said, "Well I finished work about 4:30 p.m. but I had a few beers with the boys after work at the shop." He came to use my phone to call a guy about getting cigarettes and to use my bathroom. I gave him the left over pasta from my supper because I don't like eating it more than once. As it was, I had made it the day before, and ended up eating it again yesterday because I was too tired to make something new or he would have gotten the whole thing. He had food at home and wasn't planning to eat but he never turns down food unless he is using in the moment and that is the priority.

I told him "You stink! I am glad I didn't have to sit beside you on the bus!" He said, "Really! I didn't know." I have always hated the smell of beer, second hand is even worse. He knows he is not suppose to come here when he has been using yet when he wants something, the self-centered alcoholic and addict does what he wants anyway.

The worst was when he came here to use my bathroom and passed out on the floor. I was kind enough to put a blanket over him and go back to bed. The next morning he was on my couch. When he woke up, I said what happened to my rule about not coming here when you are using. His response was, "I was too drunk to walk home, your place was closer."

He says that I don't understand. I have been there done it. Didn't drink beer but I did take advantage of my father. I drank his liquor and mine. Ate his food and stayed in his home and became his drinking buddy until one night he had enough and kicked us out at 11 p.m. at night. My son was 10.

I don't use the same substance as he does but the feelings, thoughts and actions are all too familiar. The substance is but a symptom of the disease. I had the same feelings when I used relationships, work and food as I did when I used alcohol, pills and cigarettes.

It isn't about what I used but why I used people, places and things to make me feel better. It is about why I kept looking outside of myself instead of going within to get my needs met.

Some of it is old, learned behavior and some of it is just the nature of someone who is human and chooses not to work the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions into their lives or doesn't know about them. To some people, what I learned in the rooms is something they do and believe all the time. I thought it was something new. I was surprised when I said to my cousin about living one day at a time and her husband and her looked at each other, and he said, "Doesn't everybody do that."

[MajestyJo]

We practice what we are around and then it becomes a part of us. I learned some very ANGRY habits and had to break myself of them. Lin

Really like these words and totally agree. We are products of our environment. We try to control what happens around us. Every thing seems to be our fault, and even when it isn't, we always felt blamed, even if the words were not spoken.

I found that once I received a message, I applied those words to everything, especially if I heard it repeatedly. I seem to hear things and for some reason, I continued to listen to the tape, until I became aware in recovery that it was me who pushed the play button.

The words "ANGRY' habits were new to me. I don't think I ever put the words togetehr in my own mind. I certainly was aware of them and acting out my anger on occasion but most of my anger was internalized. My biggest clue was my tongue and it was a tool that was very sharp and very cutting. The words bring to mind slamming doors, banging pots, or total silence, although I didn't often use that because it was like "Why cut off my nose to spite my face" (Why be silent when you want to talk), and I was guilty of a lot of verbal abuse, which often led to mental and emotional. It was like if you are going to hurt me, I will hurt you back.

So many of the characteristics of adult children are the same as those of an alcoholic, perhaps because they were from an alcohlic home and it is a family disease. Many ACoA members don't use the drug of choice of their parent, but pick up one of their own.

It can be an addiction to work, exercise, neatness, food, religion, games (for me it was darts and later bridge), and so many more things that don't come to mind. A lot of things you don't think of as drugs, but can all lead to the same soul sickness and habits.

[MajestyJo]

10. ACOA’s feel that they are different from other people. I think the favorite last words, "Well you just don't understand." "You haven't been through what I've been through." If you had gone through what I went through, you would...."

Don't know what I wrote before or what other's shared, just looked at it, and it spoke to me.

Such a true statement, certainly it was true for me and kept me sick for a long time. I said those words repeatedly. Again, it was always about the husband(s), parents, son, siblings, co-workers, etc. If you had a boss like mine, if you had a husband like mine who likes to use his fists, if you had my life, you would drink too. I am so stressed, all I want to do is sleep, hide in my bed and make the world go away.

I don't want to think, feel, see, or deal with anything, poor, poor me, POUR me another one or pop a few pills, and if that didn't work I would pop some Gravol, the candy that topped off everything and made it all work faster.

I have pain, we all have pain whether it is physical mental, emotional or spiritual. It is how we handle it that matters. Just complaining and doing nothing about it doesn't get me very far. I try to share how I handle it, what I do with it and my feelings when I get it, with the hope that someone who is hurting will try to do what I did and it may help them too. That is why I opened my groups "The Five As" a support group for people who suffer chronic pain with focus on fibromyalgia. My pain purpose is to let people know that the 12 Steps can help with pain too.

Perhaps my thinking on pain was because of my mother who suffered for years and died at the age of 40, 28 days before her 41st birthday. She didn't know about Al-Anon. I firmly believe she too had fibromyalgia. Everyone thought she had a thinking problem more than a physical one. If you have fibromyalgia, you know that the pain is very real.

When I get on my pity party, I try to get out of self and help others. When I am heading there or in it and go out, inevidably, my God puts someone in my path to show me that I have a lot to be grateful for and many are far worse off than I am. The thing with me is that I don't look sick. Mind you prior to the new medicaiton, people saw the difference in me and saw the pain in my face.

It isn't just about acknowledging it, by mentioning it, it is a way for me to look at my life and look at what I am doing wrong. I always try to remember what goes around comes around and what didn't I do or say, or what did I say and do that was not spiritual and the words by-passed everyone and thing and came back to me.

When I write things out I can see when I am on that pity party or whether I am judgmental or whether I am just full of myself and my own importance. My God has given me a lot of awareness and the reality of a situation pops up and it just looks me in the face until I do something about it.

I will really miss being able to post when I start working. I have a feeling although I will be working in an internet cafe, I won't have the same amount of time on the internet. Not sure of the changes they have made or whether they have more in store for me. That is good, it helps me to get out of my small space and be with others.

Always a good way to get of the band wagon, and play a different tune.

Posted on another site in 2011