Children of Alcoholics Survival Strategies Continue as Adults

Adult Child Syndrome

Tom O'Connor, Author

October 24, 2024

Topic

Old survival strategies for Children of Alcoholics often live on as adults.  As adults, these childhood survival strategies need to be unlearned and discarded.  When Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) tend not to receive emotional support during crucial developmental times in their youth, they do not know how to meet those needs when they become adults.

The adults have an Adult-Child Syndrome (ACS).  ACS is a term used to describe the challenges adults face when making decisions and navigating relationships due to difficulties with emotional maturity.  It can be caused by a variety of factors, including childhood trauma and mental health issues like anxiety or depression, which can affect a person’s ability to function, make decisions, and motivate themselves.

Additional Information For You

Research reveals:

You don’t outgrow the effects of an alcoholic family when you leave home. If you grew up in an alcoholic or addicted family, chances are it had a profound impact on you.  Often, the total effect isn’t realized until many years later. The feelings, personality traits, and relationship patterns that you developed to cope with an alcoholic parent come with you to work, romantic relationships, parenting, and friendships.  They show up as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, stress, anger, and relationship problems.

You might find it challenging to maintain relationships.  Growing up with an alcoholic parent can create an environment of unpredictability, fear of change and abandonment, feelings of inadequacy, difficulty forming intimate bonds, confusion, and distress.  These conditions affect your sense of safety, affecting how you communicate and relate to others.

Familiar childhood survival strategies in Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) that can remain include impulsivity, hypervigilance and anxiety, over-working and perfectionism, false guilt and shame, and fear of losing control.

Impulsive

Research reveals:

Those who had fathers with alcohol dependence were more likely to show signs of impulsivity than those whose fathers did not have alcohol dependence.  According to this study, children often learn to mirror the characteristics of their parents. Impulsivity can take many shapes.

An ACOA may quit a job due to a minor annoyance and lack of a plan for the future.  I did this.  ACOAs can suddenly break up with a romantic partner after a minor argument.  I also did this.

Impulsive behaviors can also be risky and self-sabotaging, too.  Examples would include speeding or driving carelessly, driving after drinking like your parent did, shoplifting, and experimenting with illegal drugs.

Hypervigilance

Research reveals:

When a parent is an alcoholic, you may have found you are on high alert, ready to respond accordingly and protect yourself.  That was me every day after my father finished work and was due to return home at a particular time.

Hyper-vigilance feels like waiting for the next bad thing to happen in your surroundings. As a result, you work hard in your mind to do everything you can do to avoid something terrible happening.

Hypervigilance stems from the shame and pain an individual experienced in their childhood with alcoholic parents. Knowing all the possible dangers is vital to a hypervigilent person, even though dangers may not be accurate.

Children who grow up with a parent who misuses alcohol are significantly more likely to have mental or emotional challenges such as anxiety and depression.  The state of hyper-vigilance is a common symptom of both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders that can result in panic attacks and paranoia.

Hyper-vigilance can also leave you so sensitive to potential threats that you perceive them even when absent.  As an adult child, that is me.

Overworking & Striving for Perfectionism

Research reveals:

Adult children often mistakenly believe that work is essential and that play is optional.  Work always comes first because that’s how we prove worthy of love and acceptance. 

We are afraid that if we aren’t perfect and productive, we won’t be needed, wanted, or liked by being perfect children—making the honor roll, excelling at sports and music, taking care of our siblings, following the rules, and so on.

In adulthood, you are afraid to let people down. You don’t want to do anything that might be displeasing to others or result in criticism, so overworking becomes a way to protect yourself from upsetting people.

False Guilt & Shame

Research reveals:

By learning to take care of yourself and taking time alone, these voices of guilt arise, and a lousy conscience may start yelling at you.  They will demand space.  Let them.  Expect to feel ashamed and guilty and have a bad conscience when breaking your old, non-constructive patterns.  These feelings will intrude upon your first forays into setting your boundaries.  The best you can do is not act on them.  As you build more and more resilience and practice feeling better about yourself, these voices will retreat.  They will become weaker and weaker, eventually no longer demand your attention.

Fearful of Losing Control

Research reveals:

Because of the instability in households of alcoholic parents, children often feel vulnerable and helpless.  This lack of control frequently results in an unhealthy focus on controlling one’s life, situations, or behaviors around them.  An intense need for control can lead to problems in forming and maintaining intimate relationships.

For ACOA, who grew up in unpredictable environments, letting go of control can be terrifying.  An adult child may have developed a strong need for control as a survival mechanism, and relinquishing that control can trigger anxiety and discomfort.

Avoiding Conflict

Research reveals:

As COAs, you often witness your parents embroiled in yelling at one another. You might have become conflict-averse if you learned to associate disagreements with rage, fear, and feeling unsafe; understandably, you would try to avoid these situations as an adult.

This effort to avoid rocking the boat may have served you as a survival tactic growing up.  However, conflict avoidance can cause problems in adult relationships.  When you find it difficult or impossible to express disagreement or speak up when people disregard your boundaries, you are likelier to do things you do not want to do.  You may often feel resentful towards others.  You can lose your sense of individuality and identity.

Struggling to Regulate Your Emotions

Research reveals:

COAs often have trouble developing emotional regulation abilities.  Dysregulated children by their parents tend to feel as if their emotions can spiral out of control and often have a difficult time soothing themselves in emotionally distressing situations.

Children primarily rely on their parents for guidance in identifying, expressing, and regulating emotions.  If your parent has alcoholism, they experience emotional dysregulation themselves.

When you don’t learn how to regulate your emotions, you might find it more challenging to understand what you are feeling and why, not to mention how to maintain control over your reactions and responses best. Difficulty expressing and regulating emotions can affect your well-being and contribute to relationship challenges.

Possesses Higher Risk Becoming An Alcoholic Yourself

Research reveals:

Having an alcoholic parent does not mean you automatically develop into another alcoholic in your family.  However, you are four times more likely to become an alcoholic than someone who doesn’t have an alcoholic parent.

Possible explanations for this fact include genetics, which can play a role in alcohol dependence and addiction.  Your traumatic childhood experiences with a parent having alcoholism with a chaotic and unpredictable home life may increase your vulnerability to becoming an alcoholic.  Also, a pattern of using alcohol as your parents and other family members may use alcohol to numb, avoid, or suppress emotions you never learned to express in healthy ways.

You are not to blame if you learned to use alcohol as a means of dealing with your childhood trauma, but you can take action to learn new and more helpful coping mechanisms.

Your Call to Action

●     Get educated on alcohol addiction and Adult Children of an Alcoholic Syndrome.

●     Explore your family history, starting with your first childhood key memories. It is essential to be honest with yourself during this step.

●     Connect the past as a child with the present as an adult.  This will establish a sense of direction. You are identifying how your past childhood pain and trauma has affected your behavior currently as an adult.  Your childhood survival strategies you possess must be let go to make new ones as an adult.

●     Setting and sticking to a healthy routine can help ease your Adult Child's symptoms. Developing a daily routine can help you know what to expect daily.

●     Experts highly recommend working with a seasoned, experienced Adult Child therapist. Your therapist can provide valuable insights, support, and guidance throughout your healing journey.  The right therapist can help you process unresolved traumatic experiences and develop tools to formulate healthy relationships.

●     Work with a seasoned, experienced Adult Child life coach to assist you in setting short- and long-term goals, creating action plans, and holding them accountable for progress. 

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