Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

Did you grow up with a problem drinker?

SerenityRUS · ~*Service Worker*~

This is such a great read and thank you for sharing Aloha. This is kind of where I have been in my asking questions of myself and looking at the family history and how this has been generations of destructive behavior.

Hugs S:)

WildFlower · Veteran Member

This is an excellent pamphlet. Thank you for sharing it. I developed many of those issues not from being around a problem drinker when I was growing up, but from being exposed to severe fundamentalist religion, where a person could never do anything right. Damnation was always an inch away. I was called a whore from the pulpit for wearing lipstick. My brother, who became the alcoholic, grew up with it too.

Bo · ~*Service Worker*~

No, I grew up in an incredible family. I was raised well, by two wonderful parents, educated, successful, happy, and healthy families.

The disease of alcoholism didn't directly enter my life until I got married. Being in the bar/nightclub industry, I was exposed to heavy-drinkers, weekend warriors, power-drinkers, and know-it-all students of modern chemistry, LOL. However, then, it wasn't PERSONAL...It was simply business. Interesting dynamic. Thought-provoking.

DavidG · ~*Service Worker*~

Yes, yes, yes... ...other members of the family thought differently, of course!

We are all different things- to different people... and that is life plays out.

Aloha... I read that list long ago, now... and it still rings true, today... I can read them clearly now- clear, crisp and neat.

I was never a drinker, or a user- but I viewed the world through chronic emotional numbing... it was really tough.

So nice to read this- through the clear light of day! :D

-- Edited by DavidG on Friday 28th of June 2019 03:19:55 PM

Iamhere · ~*Service Worker*~

Thanks for sharing Aloha! I did not grow up with active alcoholism in my home. However, we did have a drunk uncle who died from this disease. Having said this, and learning more as I aged about my family history, both my grandfathers were alcoholic. This made both of my parents untreated Al-Anoners....and I can readily share that 'this' was intense and when I arrived at Al-Anon, I could answer Yes to many of these questions.

Arriving at the other side of the program more than 30 years ago, I spent a ton of time believing that I was greatly flawed and just got struck by 'the bug', 'the addiction gene' and/or 'the insanity of the disease'. I've since learned that not only did both of my grandfathers suffer from this disease, so did several of their siblings, their fathers, their fathers' fathers, etc. Of note - none of this information came from my parents (the untreated al-anoners) but from caring, loving aunts and relatives who felt I had a right to know.

My father had an uncle who jumped to his death in CA. To this day, he doesn't know that I know. I was raised in a home where there were generational secrets help close to the vest and have just come to accept it. My journey doesn't have to be about my past nor do I need a reason or life event to be in need of recovery. I am a real believer that the God of my understanding has a master plan, it unfolds as necessary and more will be (is always) revealed when I am ready.

My life runs smoother when I live and let live. My life runs smoother when I realize that all others have done their best at the time with what they have/had. I can't imagine what it was like for my parents living with active addiction and have no doubt if affected them greatly and formed their journey in ways I do not understand. I do not love them any less as I do know they showed me love in the only way they knew how to.

I always had more than enough - food, housing, friends, etc. We were never a hugely affectionate family and my parents were very critical with high demands/expectations. I left at 17 as I could not meet their needs...That was almost 40 years ago, and I just choose to not allow my past define me, thanks to recovery!

IamLynn · Veteran Member

I am so thankful that I was raised by a mother who talked to me about her past and my father's past. My dad learned to keep silent and secret something that only allowed us to see just him not where or what he came from. My dad was not an easy man to have a relationship with yet when I look back after I have been through life's ups and downs that he took what was given him from a hard childhood touched deeply by alcoholism and lived his life as best he could if not better. My mother also grew up in harsh times during the depression going to bed hungry on the dole for a time and enduring childhood trauma that must have seemed unendurable. That story of putting one through the fire until the steel hardens and shines is something I think about with them. Despite their flaws they attempted to make their life and ours better for us.
To expect and have expected perfection and all the right answers from my parents is so unfair and that was a flaw I had to overcome. I was a photo explorer on rainy days and it wasn't until later in life I would see the photos of their first years together and the shining look on their face was joyous. Then later in life raising children, working, and dealing with the outside world took a tole on them and they still persevered. It made me sad to see what a wearing down life here can be. Anyway when I look back I see and thank my HP for helping me see that I can't expect anything from those who came before and after me but only have me, now, the only one I can change and confront.
I miss them and am learning that often in life the ordinary to the outside world is actually the extraordinary. Sometimes when I'm feeling down I think of all the people who came before me from farther back than I care to count and somehow they endured flawed yes but passed to me another chance to shine like steel after going through a fire.
Thank you for this post Aloha.

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

I've heard if anyone shakes their family tree hard enough there's guaranteed to be a few alcoholics who come tumbling out of it.

I really grappled with the initial question of that pamphlet when I first encountered it. To my knowledge my mother had been sober all my life, and in my ignorance I thought sober=healthy. So I was always so baffled by why it was I could say "yes" to pretty much all the questions when I thought I hadn't grown up in a house where there was a drinking problem.

I learned in the rooms that un-treated Al-Anons can be just as sick, if not sicker than, the alcoholics. They pass their insecurities and coping mechanisms along in their families. My father's an un-treated Al-Anon for certain. I feel I learned more of those behaviors from him than from my mother, whom I later learned through the program that sober does NOT equate healthy. She passed her own set of insecurities and coping mechanisms to myself and my brother, as well.

So, even if you feel like you grew up in a loving home. You didn't witness your parents drinking in excess. No falling down drunk, no abusive tirades, etc. etc. you can STILL be affected by a family member's drinking. Even if said family member was a generation or two past.

-- Edited by Aloha on Monday 1st of July 2019 08:41:22 AM

SerenityRUS · ~*Service Worker*~

One of the best movies and it seriously made me feel uncomfortable it showed clearly how addiction affected the family is Saving Mr. Banks. Untreated alanon behavior of acting out. It was scary to think before alanon I was headed that direction. Hugs S :)

Elabella · Senior Member

Yes on all those counts. Grew up in an alcoholic home where my father was violent and abusive when drunk, (verbally, physically and sexually abusive). But whensober was an ok guy that everyone loved because he was charming and handsome. My grandfather (his father) was the same way. My aunt (his sister) was an alcoholic and died as a direct result of the disease. Family friends were alcoholics. Ive been so affected by the disease.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.

Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene