Growing up with an alcoholic is scary. It’s not always because they are physically abusive, verbally abusive, or emotionally abusive. It can be something as simple as the unpredictability that accompanies their addiction. As a child, unpredictability will cause a lot of fear because children thrive in routine and predictable situations.
As you get older you don’t realize what this fear has done to your subconscious. If you try hard enough, you’re able to take yourself back to your childhood and experience the same feelings, a deep feeling of fear and what might happen. Adrenaline will start to flow and you feel like you are on the verge of fight or flight. Can you remember your first situation of feeling a deep fear? And can you see how it has shaped some of your decisions throughout your life? I just want you to observe these feelings when they come to the surface. So often these early situations of fear form a basis for what we do without us fully realizing it because our reactions become almost involuntary.
Growing up in an addictive household also impacts your ability to trust others. As a child you trusted your caregivers with your wellbeing, and in an addictive home, that trust was broken repeatedly. As we grow, we then replicate this lack of trust in our adult relationships, often subconsciously.
Being raised in an addictive household will also impact your ability to effectively communicate your feelings and needs. You may have learned to keep quiet to avoid escalation. You may have learned that your feelings are invalid. You may have grown to be a people pleaser as a means of survival.
It’s important to understand that these patterns may have served you in your childhood as a form of survival, but these same patterns as adults are what keep us stuck and cause harm to our relationships.
One of the first steps in healing from this type of upbringing is having the courage to acknowledge it. The next step is finding professional help, whether that be through an individual therapist, group therapy, or even programs like Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA), which are free and support groups that meet regularly. There is also a book called “Adult Children of Alcoholics” that is an incredible resource and a must read if you grew up in an addictive household.
I work with many adult survivors of childhood trauma through coaching and hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy is particularly useful in healing childhood trauma, as it allows you to address the memories and feelings at the subconscious level, which is where these experiences are stored. I help people to rewire their subconscious beliefs and patterns so that their past no longer continues to interfere with their present. If you’re interested in learning more about how I can help you, please reach out.
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