Adult Children of Alcoholics

Are You an Adult Child of an Alcoholic who wants to move beyond your Family Legacy?

  If you grew up in a household where either or both of your parents were alcoholic, you probably learned how to adapt to an unpredictable world, where at times your life felt out of control. The parent you loved could turn into an ugly stranger, and  you learned  that feeling safe or happy could be transformed into fear and sadness without much warning. You may have taken on the role of a grown up even though you were only a child. If you are like most ACAs, you also learned not to talk about what went on in your home, and to pretend that everything was fine.

 Therapy can help you to learn how your childhood affected you in the past and how it is influencing you in the present.

  The distress of surviving an alcoholic family affects a person’s mood states, belief systems, behavior, and relationship dynamics.

As an adult, you may notice Patterns and Behaviors that are deeply familiar, and very Uncomfortable such as:

• Strong fearful or angry responses to authority figures
• Depression, Irritability or Anxiety; Fear of Abandonment;  Not knowing what you want or how you really feel
• Involvement with an alcoholic or workaholic, recapitulating your experience of being emotionally abandoned
• Co-dependency, attracted to people you can take care of
• Perfectionism and being super responsible, yet still feeling that whatever you accomplish it is never quite good enough
• Feeling a sense of worthlessness when someone criticizes you
• Engaging in risky or self sabotaging behavior
• Compulsive Behavior such as cleaning, shopping, spending, eating, sex, drinking, or using drugs
• Attempting to control your feelings, your environment, and other people

  In spite of their painful childhood experiences, many children of alcoholics grow up to be successful, responsible adults. Sometimes the most responsible. But even when their lives look perfect on paper, and all the boxes have been checked off, there is still a feeling of dis-ease, inner tension, or a sense of emptiness. This inner state is directly related to the emotional trauma of unpredictability and insecurity that was cultivated in their childhood alcoholic relationships.

  Psychotherapy can help you to:

• Learn to trust the people in your life and allow more intimacy
• Increase your inner sense of safety no matter what is going on around you
• Be able to relax without alcohol or other substances
• Put your own needs and desires first as long as doing so causes no harm
• Spend more time and energy doing what fulfills you rather than what you "should do"

  Psychotherapy is a process that can help you to cultivate a stable sense of well being and claim the inner happiness that has eluded you for so long.

  If you would like to discuss how therapy may be helpful you, I provide a free twenty minute phone consultation.  If you are interested in such a discussion, please give me a call at 

650 342-2245.

  My office is conveniently located in San Mateo just off El Camino near the intersection of Highways 101 and 92, with plenty of free parking.