Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families

So to get mad at our spouse or our child, for where they are lacking, is to compound the trauma.

We learn if you are in the undesirable situation where you have a child that's addicted to drugs or alcohol or has mental health issues other than that, and you end up in an Al-Anon meeting or a Codependence Anonymous meeting or a Families Anonymous meeting or an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting, which is really about adult children of dysfunctional families or really just about adult children, If you find yourself in one of those groups, you will learn that your life and your serenity are your responsibility.

It's not the qualifier.

It's not the addict, not the alcoholic, not the child that's responsible.

The girl deserved a lot more cussing out.

But yeah, she recommended this book, Adult Children of Alcoholics.

She also recommended this podcast episode.

It is called Save Your Life by Letting Go of Codependency.

I have gone to fellowships that I don't go to anymore.

I used to go to adult children of alcoholics, except it got to be kind of unbearable because I had six alcoholic children, you see.

And I'm an adult children of alcoholics.

Both of my parents were alcoholics.

We had a speaker the other night from Milwaukee, and it suddenly hit me.

Am I

an alcoholic? Well, of course I am.

Did I belong in adult children of alcoholics? Oh, of course I am if it's a 12-step program.

And so that is pulling some members away, you know.

I think somebody was asking me something like that like wow you know like it's hard to get activities going well because they have a lot of activities as well and so people aren't as what do you say like when I came around Narcotics Anonymous that was it like there was AA NA Cocaine Anonymous, you know, like Al-Anon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, CODA.

That was it.

There wasn't, you know, a whole lot of.

We were talking about, um, We were talking about how affected we are by the other one's mood and how we wish we weren't.

And I was like, we should just go to like Codependents Anonymous or Al-Anon or Adult Children of Alcoholics or any of those.

They all work on that.

Yeah, there's also a really good book by Anne Beatty called... codependent no more codependent no more and uh

that's deeply affecting the quality of my marriage now or being a parent now.

So I need to go to CODA or ACOA or Al-Anon to deal with my codependency because that comes up from my ACEs and it's affecting my life and my family's life today, as well as maybe the people that I'm choosing to date or the people I'm choosing to marry because I have these unaddressed issues.

So I keep seeking out people like my mom.

I couldn't save my mom, but I can save this person I'm going to date and save her.

Today, I am most privileged to have with me Abby Morgan, LCSW, who is a trauma therapist, EMDR certified therapist and consultant and founder of C-Level Counseling and Wellness in Norfolk, Virginia.

She specializes in treating perfectionism, complex PTSD, ACOA experiences, and attachment trauma with advanced training, an EMDR, and an attached trauma-informed Enneagram approach lens.

Abby also provides consultation and mentorship to wellness professionals through the C-Level Wellness Collective and is a proud alum of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program and is my business bestie.

Welcome, Abby.