The Characteristics of Our Problem
Adult children seem to have several characteristics in common as a result of having been brought up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family system. IF you identify with some of these characteristics and want to change, the ACA program is available.
A) We become isolate and afraid of people & authority figures.
B) We become approval seekers & lose our identity in the process.
C) We are frightened by angry people & personal criticism.
D) We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another compulsive personality to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
E) We live life from the standpoint of victim’s, & are attracted by that weakness in our love, friendship & career relationships.
F) We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility & it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. This enables us not to look too closely at our faults or responsibility to ourselves.
G) We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving into others.
H) We are addicted to excitement.
I) We confuse love with pity & tend to “love” those we can rescue.
J) We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhood & have lost the ability to feel, or express our feelings because it hurts so much. This includes our good feelings such as joy and happiness. Our being out of touch with our feelings is one of our BASIC denials.
K) We Judge ourselves harshly & Have a very low sense of SELF-ESTEEM.
L) We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment & will do anything to hold onto a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings which are associated with having grown up living with sick people who were never there for us.
M) Alcoholism is a family disease & we became para-alcoholics & took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up a drink.
N) We are reactors rather than actors.
O) We Guess at what normal is.
P) We have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.
Q) We have difficulty having fun.
R) We have difficulty with intimate relationships.
S) We take ourselves very seriously.
T) We over react to changes over which we have no control.
U) We usually feel different from other people.
V) We are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
W) We tend to lock ourselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing; loss of control of our environment. As a result, we spend more time cleaning up the mess than we would have spent had the alternatives & consequences been examined in the first place.
X) We tend to look for immediate rather than deferred gratification.
Y) We generally over react out of fear.
Z) We are either super responsible or super irresponsible.