‘I thought I left it all behind me when I left my parents’ house. But I was wrong.’ : Children of Alcoholics Put Painful Pasts Behind Them

Howard recounted his story about life as a child of alcoholics to the group of 40 men and women gathered in a circle.

The room was quiet, everyone’s attention focused on him. A few nodded their heads in agreement. Some fidgeted nervously in their seats. Others stared stone-faced at the floor.

Fifteen years after moving away from home, Howard said, he still finds himself dealing with the emotional wounds.

“I thought I left it all behind me when I left my parents’ house,” he said. “But I was wrong.” He said he came to this chapter of Adult Children of Alcoholics in the San Fernando Valley as a last resort.

Today, after nearly 2 1/2 years of meetings, much of the pain has come and gone.

He said he has walked back through it, and filled in most of the gaps in his memory caused by the trauma and abuse he suffered and witnessed. Finally, his anger has begun to subside.

“But it’s only in here that I’ve started to deal with the sense of betrayal I’ve felt toward my mother for keeping me trapped in the situation and using me as a buffer against my father’s anger.

“Most of my long-term relationships before ACA ended disastrously,” he said. “I could never figure out why I picked women looking for a savior, and then ran once they wanted to get close. Today I know.”

This month, ACA celebrated its one-year anniversary as an official organization in Southern California. But ACA meetings have been taking place on an informal basis in Los Angeles for more than five years, helping some of the estimated 50 million adults who come from homes of alcoholics.

Like Alcoholics Anonymous, ACA allows its members anonymity. No statistics or membership rolls are kept, but attendance at the meetings ranges from from 10 to 100.

Joe A., office manager and recording secretary for ACA’s Central Service Board, said there are more than 135 weekly meetings from San Francisco to the Mexican border. In the Valley, five ACA groups meet in hospitals, churches, clubs and classrooms in Van Nuys, Encino, North Hollywood and Woodland Hills.

In an atmosphere of acceptance, understanding and mutual identification, these adults say they are finding the necessary support in each other to confront their own particular system of denial. It is a journey back through painful memories of fear, mistrust, abandonment, broken promises, verbal and, all too often, physical and sexual abuse.

Training Therapists

“For some it works and for some it doesn’t,” said Cynthia Cooley, a therapist and director of the Chemical Dependency Certificate Program at the California Family Study Center in Toluca Lake. Her department trains therapists to handle all aspects of counseling related to alcoholism, especially adult children of alcoholics. She has sent patients and other therapists to ACA meetings.

Having grown up in an alcoholic home, Cooley said she is well aware of the special needs of adult children of alcoholics, both from a personal and a professional viewpoint. “I am just grateful they are out there. It helps clients not to feel alone,” she said of the meetings.

ACA is completely non-professional and has no leaders. The groups function with the guidance of a higher power, as defined in each member’s spiritual belief system and as expressed through a group conscience or vote.

The groups are all independent of each other and self-supporting through their own contributions. ACA is free; members don’t have to contribute if they don’t want to or if they don’t have the money.

Expense of Therapy

It was important to Laura, 26. She is a computer specialist and lives in Tujunga. Laura, who has spent about $4,000 on professional counseling, has been going to ACA for 14 months. She found ACA through her therapist.

“ACA being free was real attractive to me,” she said. “I’m glad it’s not professional. This way we’re on our own and helping to give and create our own structure.”

Laura believes that money is an important issue for other adult children of alcoholics. “A lot of people can’t afford therapy. ACAs have a habit of spending more than we make,” she said. “We can find false security in spending money.”

The only real qualification for membership in ACA is an identification with what is called “the problem statement.” The statement is a laundry list of personality traits commonly shared by children of alcoholics and children raised in families with other problems.

They include: an addiction to destructive behavior, an attraction to unhealthy relationships, problems with authority figures, an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, a tendency to rescue others, a tendency to isolate oneself, low self-esteem, self-loathing, an inability to trust oneself or others and guilt.

The ACA “solution” offers ways to overcome these traits. They include: talking about what happened in the alcoholic home, recognizing and accepting one’s needs, desires and feelings, and ending the impossible dream of perfection.

Bill B., 36, of North Hollywood is a former therapist who works in a bank. He has been divorced once and is separated from his second wife. He also has an 11-year-old daughter. Bill has been attending meetings for 22 months.

He said going to ACA has increased his self-worth substantially. In fact he’s started to go to professional therapy in addition to ACA.

“Now I feel I’m worth paying $25 a week for therapy. ACA has helped me feel that.”

What finally drove him to find a meeting, he said, was “a difficulty in holding onto a relationship and a severe case of career burnout.”

“I was a rescuer, overly concerned with everyone else--all the people in the world,” he said, adding, “that world didn’t include me.”

His father died from an alcohol-related disease.

Bill said that as a child he was physically abused and sexually molested by his father.

Anger Toward Mother

He felt “rage and anger” toward his mother. “She was the adult. She could leave.” But he also said he felt guilty for being angry at his mother. “How could I feel angry at this woman who was supposed to be so saintly because she stayed married to this man who abused her?” he asked.

Today, Bill said, he is on his way to forgiving and accepting his parents but “certainly not condoning what they did.”

However, he said, the most important changes have occurred in the way he conducts his day-to-day life. “I’m more in touch with my feelings and my tendency to please,” he said. “My assertiveness has increased and my ability to trust is increasing.”

Laura said she originally started therapy and attending ACA meetings because “I was burnt out on life, in all areas.” She said she was an overachiever and always wanted to be in charge of everything, “maybe because I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

Her parents are divorced. Her father was the alcoholic and she describes him as very abusive, drunk or sober.

“I didn’t like him and didn’t love him growing up,” she said. “I lived in great fear of him.” Laura said she suffered both physical and emotional abuse at his hands.

“He slapped and knocked me around. He would also have physical fights with my brothers.” Laura said everyone in the house would try to “avoid or pacify” her father so he wouldn’t get angry.

‘Didn’t Respect Her’

Her relationship with her mother was different. She said she loved her but didn’t like her. “I didn’t respect her,” she said. “I couldn’t understand why she would stay and take that abuse.” Her mother, she said, was also battered by her father.

Watching her parents, she said, made her feel “pretty crummy” about marriage. “I couldn’t understand what a commitment was.”

Her relationships with her parents today, she said, are much different. Laura said her father has joined AA and made amends to her. She has forgiven him but she hasn’t “left him off the hook.”

She, too, credits therapy and ACA for the changes. Laura said that today she likes and accepts herself. She also steadily dates a man for the first time in her life.

“I’m starting to know who I am today. I’m seeing myself and my relationships realistically, and I’m starting to trust people,” she said.

“It’s a great sense of relief to feel healthy today. Now I know I wasn’t responsible for what happened to me as a child.”

An ACA meeting guide can be obtained by writing to ACA, P.O. Box 35623, Los Angeles, Calif., 90035 or by calling (213) 651-1710.