Laundry List

The Laundry List for Adult Children of Alcoholics:

Characteristics of an Adult Child  Written by Tony A. 1978
From Adult Children Alcoholic/Dysfunctional Families "Big book" C. 2006

1.) We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures. 

2.) We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process. 

3.) We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism. 

4.)  We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs. 

5.) We live life from the view point of victims, and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships. 

6.) We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it is easier fro us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc. 

7) We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others. 

8.) We  become addicted to excitement. 

9.) We confuse love and pit to tent to love" people we can "pity" and "rescue." 

10.) We have "stuffed" our feelings and from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial). 

11,) We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

12.) We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living in with sick people who were never there emotionally for us. 

13.) Alcoholism is a family disease; we became para-alcoholics (codependents) and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink. 

14.) Para-alcoholics (codependents) are reactors rather than actors.