I’m an Adult Child of an Alcoholic,

When your husband holds your hand and says, “It's going to be okay, I am here for you.”

Sometimes we need to get outside help. It’s been hard to admit but even since writing a book about breaking the cycle of addiction and family dysfunction, I am not healed yet. That’s the way it goes though, is it not? When the student is ready the teacher appears, or some shit like that.

We continue to peel those layers of the onion and just as we find a bit of a reprieve, like a whack-a-mole game something pops up out of nowhere.

These emotional wounds that are ready to come up and out are triggered and we find some deep, dark shadows lurking underneath the facade of a “perfect life.”

We try to bludgeon it back down into submission and keep our smile pasted on. We act like nothing is wrong. If we avoid it, it will go away, right? Don’t give it any attention and life can go on as normal, so we think.

Eventually, we have little emotional wounds popping up like sores all over our bodies. We try to bandage them by working out more or eating healthier, maybe we join a class or try to be more active in our communities. We may attend church or try a new supplement. We go to energy healers, Reiki, and more yoga.

These things may help to improve our mindset for a bit, but when there are deeper issues sometimes hitting the ground is the only solution.

I’ve been struggling lately and it is showing up in my work and home life. I have kept my emotions tight and have stayed in a bubble trying to swim upstream. I have kept trudging not wanting to stop, as if I stop I may sink. I’ve tried to “stay strong” and remember that “this too shall pass.” but things came to a head recently and I’ve been concerned about my own mental health.

In the past, I have used therapy and medication for years, decades, really, but in the last 5 years, I have been unmedicated and have moved to a new state. I have come full-circle in my healing journey and I am here to say, I still need help.

We can’t do this alone and even if I attend all the recovery meeting to keep up my abstinence from drugs and alcohol the deeper traumas and grief needs to come to the surface and I need to feel safe enough to let it. I need to know that I am supported and safe. I need to feel loved and that is hard for an Adult Child of an Alcoholic to feel.

Recently, my husband held my hand and said, “I am here for you.” He asked how I was doing and I broke down in tears. It’s not often that someone we care about asks us how we are and means it. We go through life divvying up chores like groceries and laundry, running kids to sports, and working our jobs, but we never really stop to look our loved ones in the eye and ask, “how are you really doing?”

It caught me off guard and everything in me wanted to tense up and run. I’d been googling some pretty scary things as of late and my mind has been a battlefield.

He asked at the perfect time where I was too sleepy and groggy to fight or run. I wasn’t angry. I was just sad. Deeply sad. Deeply, deeply sad. Like Glennon Doyle says, I had the ache.

He listened while I talked and cried and we thought up solutions to the deep wounds I have been carrying too afraid to fall apart. Moms need a place to fall apart and so do dads. We all need a safe place to let loose and be present with our strong emotions, but we’ve been trained to push them down and have become quite good at finding a vice for each ailment.

I’ve reached out to a doctor and a therapist to feel less alone and this deep longing already feels a little better.

I do believe we deserve to feel joy in this life. Someone recently told me it’s our birthright, but getting down to the layers where our pain no longer blinds us is key. Our hurts hold us hostage and our minds suffice to the relentless cursing and should have’s. The if onlys, the blaming, the grief, and loss.

Social media doesn’t help, being in a pandemic doesn’t help.

I find myself wanting to numb out. I think many of us do, especially if we have addictive tendencies. I know there is a better way and I am open to it.

I fully surrender to a life beyond my wildest dreams. I know it is possible. I need to stop sabotaging myself and get out of the way. Stuffing and avoiding have never helped me get better. Coming clean and being open have been the best forms of therapy I have found.

But I’m still in it.

I’m still fighting.

And for that, I can be grateful. I still have a chance. I am still a work in progress and that’s okay.