12-Step Alternatives

· Can only guess at what healthy behavior is.
· Have trouble completing things
· Lie when they don't need to. Lying might have been a survival tactic in the home. (She explains that perhaps the child learned from parents who lied to cover up problems or avoid conflict. Or simply to avoid harsh punishment, or to get needed attention. But as an adult, that tactic is no longer appropriate.)
· Judge themselves without mercy.
· Have trouble accepting compliments.
· Often take responsibility for problems, but not successes.
· Or they go to the other extreme and refuse to take any responsibility for mistakes while trying to take credit for the work of others.
· Have trouble having fun since their childhoods were lost, stolen, repressed.
· Take themselves very seriously or not seriously at all.
· Have difficulty with intimate relationships.
· Expect others to just "know what they want." (They can't express it because they were so often disappointed as children that they learned to stop asking for things.)
· Over-react to things beyond their control.
· Constantly seek approval & affirmation.
· Feel different from others.
· Are extremely loyal, even when facing overwhelming evidence that their loyalty is undeserved.
· Are either super responsible or super irresponsible.
· Tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. (This impulsiveness leads to confusion, self-loathing, and loss of control over their environment. The result is they spend much energy blaming others, feeling victimized and cleaning up messes.)

Pam

After reading this, for the first time I truly understand my mother. Now I know why she does certain things and acts a certain way. Her father, my grandfather, was an alcoholic.

Taylor

I battled my own addictions many, many years ago (of course, it is on going), but mine were not driven by my parents, who never drank.  But his mother, her father, his father's mother, they were all alcoholics.  I gave him one of the books about COA's, and it made him take a different look a things.  It also made him have a heart-to-heart with his own daughter, who drinks as well.

He is handling one addiction at time right now.  His drinking is "controlled", his porn was not.  He has done an outstanding job with the porn.  I think I handle these things well because I love him first and foremost, and I love myself as well.  I can deal with him with empathy and compassion, and stick to my boundaries. 

He has scheduled a two day spa trip this july.  No drinking, no smoking, it will be quite interesting how he handles it.

Pam