Best Adult Children of Alcoholics

Ten years ago, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. Janet Woititz was the author of Adult Children of Alcoholics, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year. She wrote several other books, including Lifeskills for Adult Children; The Self-Sabotage Syndrome; The Struggle for Intimacy; Marriage on the Rocks; Healing Your Sexual Self and many others. Woititz was the director and founder of the Institute for Counseling and Training in West Caldwell, New Jersey. The medical model is accepted by all responsible folks working in alcoholism treatment. Because of the nature of this illness and the family response to it, certain things occur that influence your self-feelings, attitudes and behaviors in ways that cause you pain and concern. The object of AcoA recovery is to overcome those aspects of your history that cause you difficulty today and to learn a better way. Because there are so many alcoholic families and because we have been fortunate in being able to study them, it is possible to describe in general terms what happens to children who grow up in that environment. To the degree that other families have similar dynamics, individuals who have grown up in other ôdysfunctionalö systems identify with and recover in very much the same way. You may start a new and healthy relationship with them in the present but no amount of amends on their part will fix the past. That is why it is suggested that if you are recovering from an addiction, you need to focus on that first so that you will not be tempted to relieve those feelings in destructive ways. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher.

Using affirmations, visualizations, "inner voice" and "feeling" work plus guided meditations and other useful healing techniques, he realeases the shame that binds us to the. past. As I've delved deeper into the destructive power of toxic shame, I've come to see that it directly touches the age-old theological and metaphysical discussion generally referred to as the problem of evil. Centuries ago in the Judeo-Christian West, evil was considered the domain of the Devil, or Satan, the fallen angel. Biblical scholars tell us that the idea of a purely evil being like the Devil or Satan was a late development in the Bible. During the Persian conquest of the Israelites, the Satan of Job became fused with the Zoroastrian dualistic theology adopted by the Persians, where two opposing forces, one of good, Ahura Mazda, the Supreme Creator deity, was in a constant battle with Ahriman, the absolute god of evil. This polarized dualism was present in the theology of the Essenes and took hold in Christianity where God and his Son Jesus were in constant battle with the highest fallen angel, Satan, for human souls. The figure of Satan and the fires of hell have been demythologized by modern Christian biblical scholars, theologians and ­philosophers. Rather, it has been intensified in the twentieth century by two world wars, Nazism, Stalinism, the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the heinous and ruthless extermination of Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism by Pol Pot. While demons, Satan and hellfire have been demythologized by any critically thinking person, the awesome collective power of evil remains. They call us to personal wholeness and self-awareness, especially in relation to our own toxic shame or shadow, which goes unconscious and in hiding because it is so painful to bear. 'We must beware of thinking of Good and Evil as absolute opposites,' writes Carl Jung. Good and evil are potentials in every human being; they are halves of a paradoxical whole. 'The daimonic,' says the psychologist Steven A. Diamond, 'is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person.'. Shame is a natural feeling that, when allowed to function well, monitors a person's sense of excitement or pleasure. What I'll mainly describe in the first part of this book is how the affect shame can become the source of self-loathing, hatred of others, cruelty, violence, brutality, prejudice and all forms of destructive addictions. As an internalized identity, toxic shame is one of the major sources of the demonic in human life. Because toxic shame stays in hiding and covers itself up, we have to track it down by learning to recognize its many faces and its many distracting behavioral cover-ups. In the beginning of his book, Pocaterra tells us that 'in the end shame is a good thing, a part of everyday existence.'. He also describes shame as the 'fear of infamy,' which can lead a person to attack his enemy with passion. Long before Silvan Tomkins's treatise on shame, Pocaterra posited that our emotions are innate and that 'they are only good or evil as the end to which they are used.'. 'Therefore,' Pocaterra writes, 'there must be two shames, one natural and free from awareness and the other acquired.'. He thought the shame of children was like a seed that will become a small plant in youth and leads to virtue at maturity. Silvan Tomkins views shame as an innate feeling that limits our experience of interest, curiosity and pleasure. Figure 1.2 gives an overview of how the feeling of shame expands and grows over our lifetime. If we had a caregiver who was mostly predictable, and who touched us and mirrored all our behaviors, we developed a sense of basic trust. When security and trust are present, we begin to develop an interpersonal bond, which forms a bridge of empathic mutuality. In this earliest stage of life, we can only know ourselves in the mirroring eyes of our primary caregivers. -Shame as embarassment coming from making mistakes, especially neighborhood social play―juvenile sex play―social shame as related to belonging. dependence-full affect of shame experienced as limits put on child's autonomous need to separate and do things his or her own way. bridge Once securely attached―shame as shyness appears as a response established to being exposed to strange faces.codependence. The relationship between child and caregiver gradually evolves out of ­reciprocal interest, along with shared experiences of trust. Actually, trust is fostered by the fact that we come to expect and rely on the mutuality of response. The emotional bond allows the child to risk venturing out to explore the world. The earliest muscle development focuses on crawling and then gaining balance when standing up and walking. The early exploratory stage is characterized by touching, tasting and examining the many fascinating aspects of the environment. The psychologist Erik Erikson says that the psychosocial task at this stage of development is to strike a balance between autonomy and shame and doubt. This stage (eighteen months to three and a half years) has been called 'the terrible twos' because children begin to explore by touching, tasting and testing. At this stage the child needs to take possession of things in order to test them by purposeful repetition. The world is brand new―sights, sounds and smells all have to be assimilated through repeated experience. A child needs to have a caregiver available to set limits and express anger in a nonshaming way. The prepared environment is developmentally geared to the child's unique needs at each stage of development. Firmness must protect him against the potential anarchy of his yet untrained sense of discrimination, his inability to hold on and to let go with discretion. If a child can be protected by firm but compassionate limits, if he can explore, test and have tantrums without the caregiver's withdrawal of love, i.e., withdrawal of the interpersonal bridge, then the child can develop a healthy sense of shame. As preschool children grow older, they begin to explore their own ­bodies and their gender identity. A child's manners and modesty become a more sophisticated and complex guide that triggers shame as embarrassment and blushing. Preschool and school-age children become more social and have more occasion for unexpected exposure that leads to embarrassment and blushing. It may be an unexpected physical clumsiness, an interpersonal sensitivity or a breach of etiquette. In On Shame and the Search for Identity Helen Lynd writes, 'One's feeling is involuntarily exposed; one is uncovered.'. Richard was introducing us to a form of internal remapping called submodality work. Richard Bandler suggested that one of the major blocks to creativity was the feeling of knowing you are right. Our healthy shame, which is a feeling of our core boundaries and limitedness, never allows us to believe we know it all. Without the healthy signal of shame, we would not be in touch with our core dependency needs. Financial status, ethnicity, intelligence, popularity, physical appearance, athletic ability and talent all contribute to a person's sense of shame. But if children have a good, loving home with parents who model spiritual values, they can sift through the social garbage. As the sex drive fully emerges, the feeling of shame becomes more activated than at any other time in the life cycle. Thomas Moore writes poignantly about the mystery of sexuality in his book The Soul of Sex. Parents need to model and teach an awe and reverence for their own and their children's sexuality. Adolescence is the time when the major biological transformation from child to adult is taking place. Embarrassment is so excruciatingly painful in adolescence that teenagers are diligently on guard to protect themselves while projecting on others. If one has a good foundation prior to adolescence, the sense of self can be preliminarily defined. Adolescence is the time the brain (frontal lobes) is reaching full maturity. An adolescent needs to have the discipline of mind the philosopher Thomas Aquinas called studiasitas. Studiasitas is a disciplined focus on studies and thinking, a kind of temperance of the mind. Healthy shame at this stage is the source of good identity, a disciplined focus on the future and on studious limits in pursuing intellectual interests. The power of the interpersonal bridge, along with a sense of identity, form the foundation for a healthy adult love relationship. A toxically shamed person is divided within himself and must create a false-self cover-up to hide his sense of being flawed and defective. Having a secure attachment with one's source figures, and having developed a sense of self-worth, a person feels he is loveable and wants to love another. Most people have a way to go in terms of developing intimacy and connecting skills when they get married or enter a long-term relationship. Shame as the root feeling of humility allows each partner to appreciate and accept the other's foibles and idiosyncrasies. Giving and receiving unconditional love is the most effective and powerful way to personal wholeness and happiness. The philosopher Nietzsche spoke of the creative act as involving both Dionysian and Apollonian elements. The world is full of people with good ideas and fantasies that never come to fruition because they don't have disciplined limits. Being in a business that makes useful products that enhance the quality of life is generative work. Healthy shame is the source of awe and reverence when experiencing the immensity and mystery of life. Whether it be looking out at the immensity of space on a starry night, or experiencing the phallic and vaginal mysteries, or experiencing your own offspring being conceived, born and growing in their own unique way, or marveling at the mysteries of scientific discovery or the unexplained miracles that occur throughout our lives―all of this gives us pause and moves us to experience our own littleness in the face of the enormity of reality. Shame as awe and reverence leads directly to what the theologian Rudolf Otto called the idea of the holy. Otto studied the theophanies (the appearances of God) in all the sacred books of the world's religions. Anyone who has nurtured healthy shame and experienced awe and reverence for the immensity of life must acknowledge the numinous. We cannot experience our own finite limitations without questioning the meaning and purpose of life. And we cannot escape the common sense conclusion there are many higher powers that shape our lives. In The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Abraham Maslow, the pioneering third force psychologist, once wrote: No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher.

Dr. Whitfield provides a clear and effective introduction to the basic principles of recovery. Cardwell C. Nuckols, Ph.D., is an expert on brain development and recovery who has been described as "one of the most influential clinical trainers in America." His recent DVD, "The Science Based Treatment of Addictive Disorders," provides a scientific basis for many of the ideas first addressed in Healing the Child Within. The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher.

In this updated edition of her bestseller she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of Adult Children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics.

But, they resist change because they fear losing the pleasure and stress-relief associated with alcohol, and assume giving it up will involve deprivation and misery. Here, Annie Grace clearly presents the psychological and neurological components of alcohol use based on the latest science, and reveals the cultural, social, and industry factors that support alcohol dependence in all of us. She grew up in a one-room cabin without running water or electricity in the mountains of Colorado and then, at age 26, became the youngest vice president in a multinational corporation. Annie's program has been featured in Forbes, the New York Daily News, and the Chicago Tribune. Annie is successful, happy, and alcohol-free and lives with her husband and three children in the Colorado mountains. I try to piece the previous evening togeth- er, attempting to count my drinks. I start to worry about my health, beginning the well- trodden road of fear and recrimination: What were you thinking? Just enough to shut down my brain, fall back asleep, and stop hurting. These early mornings are the only time I’m honest with myself, admitting I drink too much and need to change. If you ask me about drinking I’ll tell you I love it; it relaxes me and makes life fun. I am so busy that I don’t leave room for honesty, questioning, and bro- ken promises. I am no longer in control, and the only time I am brave enough to admit it (even to myself ) is alone, in the dark, at three in the morning. If my choice is to live a life of misery in diseased abstinence or drink myself to an early grave, I choose the latter. And I person- ally know self-proclaimed alcoholics who, rather than finding peace, fight a daily battle for sobriety. Recovering appears syn- onymous with accepting life as just OK and adjusting to a new reality of missing out. The idea of recovering seems to give alcohol more power even, and maybe especially, when I am abstaining from it. I want to make it small and irrelevant in my life rather than allowing it more power over me. Admitting that alcohol is a dangerous and addictive drug like nicotine, cocaine, or heroin has serious implications. It’s as if I have woken up from the Matrix and realized that alcohol was only dulling my senses and keeping me trapped rather than adding to my life. Experts imply that it takes months, even years, of hardship to stop drinking. A tough riddle can make you crazy, taking forever to solve. I offer a perspective of education and enlightenment based on common sense and the most recent insights across psychology and neuroscience. A perspective that will empower and delight you, al- lowing you to forever change your relationship with alcohol.

Your Sexually Addicted Partner shatters the stigma and shame that millions of men and women carry when their partners are sexually addicted. "This sensible and authoritative guide will serve as a comforting source for those with a sexually addicted partner and as a resourceful approach for counselors."

Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Schüll describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the market's desire for maximum "time on device." Ms Schüll has spent two decades studying the boom in casino gambling: the layout of its properties, the addicts and problem gamblers who account for roughly half its revenue in some places, and the engineering that goes into its most sophisticated products. Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas reads like a combination of Scientific American's number puzzles and the 'blue Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous." A richly detailed account of the particulars of video gaming addiction, worth reading for the excellence of the ethnographic narrative alone, it is also an empirically rigorous examination of users, designers, and objects that deepens practical and philosophical questions about the capacities of players interacting with machines designed to entrance them." Applying an anthropological perspective, the author focuses especially on the Las Vegas gambling industry, seeing many of today's avid machine gamblers as less preoccupied with winning than with maintaining themselves in the game, playing for as long as possible, and entering into a trance-like state of being, totally enmeshed psychologically into gaming and totally removed from the ordinary obligations of everyday life. "If books can be tools, Addiction by Design is one of the foundational artifacts for understanding the digital age--a lever, perhaps, to pry ourselves from the grasp of the coercive loops that now surround us." "Original, ambitious, and written with elegant lucidity, Addiction by Design presents us with a narrative that is as compulsive as the behavior it describes. Schüll's book offers a grim warning about the ways others can deliberately cut us off from natural and supernatural joys." "A fascinating, frightening window into the world of gambling in Las Vegas and the technological innovations that deliberately enhance and sustain the 'zone'--the odd, absorbed state for which extreme machine gamblers yearn. "This gripping, insightful, and poignant analysis of machine gambling offers a kind of object lesson in the intensified forms of consumption that computer-based technologies enable. An exemplary case of the way in which close, critical investigation of specific sites of capitalism can provide a deeper understanding of both intimate experience and widespread socioeconomic arrangements."

This seminal book has enabled millions of smokers to quit easily and enjoyably using Carr's simple, drug-free approach. Allen Carr was an accountant and smoked 100 cigarettes a day until he gave up and wrote this bestselling book. It seems likely that the years he spent curing smokers in smoke-filled sessions at his clinics must have contributed to this illness, but Allen Carr remained positive; "Given that I am informed that I have cured at least 10 million smokers on a conservative estimation, it's a price worth paying."

When the ratio of nutrients to calories in the food you eat is high, you lose weight. In this new edition, which incorporates the latest scientific nutritional data, Fuhrman's restrictive diet plan is designed for clinically overweight people who suffer from a spectrum of lifestyle/obesity-induced conditions like diabetes and heart disease and need to drop a significant amount of weight fast—about 20 pounds in the first six weeks. Although proven and sound, this guidebook is not for someone who wants to lose those last 10 pounds or fit into her wedding dress; this is a serious undertaking for dieters whose umpteen previous efforts have failed and whose health is endangered. Fuhrman’s nutrient-packed, healthful approach to nutrition combined with quick weight loss can be expressed in this equation, health=nutrients intake/calories intake.

The healing touchstone of millions, this modern classic by one of America's best-loved and most inspirational authors holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its stultifying hold on your life. In Newsweek magazine, Dr. Drew Pinsky named Melody Beattie's Codependent No More one of the four essential self-help books available today, calling it the "grandaddy of addiction tomes."

This is the only A.A.W.S.-authorized e-book version of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Their vivid case studies (reminiscent of Oliver Sacks) in Stuff show how you can identify a hoarder—piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders “churn” but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage—and illuminate the pull that possessions exert over all of us. Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep? Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder--piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders "churn" but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage--Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. A major feature of hoarding is the large amount of disorganized clutter that creates chaos in the home. Rooms can no longer be used as they were intended, moving around the house is difficult, exits are blocked, and life inside the home becomes dysfunctional. Many hoarders describe themselves as information junkies who save newspapers, magazines, brochures, and other information-laden papers. This takes many forms, including the sentimental association of things with important persons, places, or events, something most people experience as well, just not to the same degree as hoarders. Finally, some people hoard because they appreciate the aesthetic appeal of objects, especially their shape, color, and texture. At the time of acquisition, people who hoard often experience a sort of high or euphoric sensation during which their thoughts center on how wonderful it would be to own the object in front of them. These thoughts are so pleasant that they dominate thinking, crowding out information that might curb the urge to acquire. We do suspect there is a connection between hoarding and traumatic experiences, or chaotic or disruptive living situations, earlier in life. Only about 20 percent of people with hoarding problems report any significant OCD symptoms, like checking or cleaning rituals. In fact, the distress we see in hoarding comes from the byproduct of the acquiring and saving--the clutter--or from thinking about discarding things. For these reasons, many scientists who study hoarding have recommended that it be classified as a distinct disorder separate from OCD. People can just pick out the picture in each sequence that comes closest to the clutter in their own living room. This requires some degree of judgment because no two homes look exactly alike, and clutter can be higher in some parts of the room than in others. In general, clutter that reaches the level of picture #4 or higher impinges enough on people's lives that we would encourage them to get help for their hoarding problem. Amassing stuff is normal in our materialistic culture, but for millions it reaches unhealthy levels, according to the authors of this eye-opening study of the causes of hoarding, its meaning for the hoarder, and its impact on their families. Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College, and Steketee, dean of the social work school at Brown, gather much anecdotal material from conversations with extreme hoarders and find that for such people, intense emotional meaning is attached to so many of their possessions… even trash. They even speculate that a hoarder's attention to the details of objects may indicate a special form of creativity and appreciation for the aesthetics of everyday things. This succinct, illuminating book will prove helpful to hoarders, their families, and mental health professionals who work with them.

Using the real-life stories of actual patients, Brain Lock explains this revolutionary method and provides readers with the inspiration and tools to free themselves from their psychic prisons and regain control of their lives. Sinai School of Medicine An estimated 5 million Americans suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and live diminished lives in which they are compelled to obsess about something or to repeat a similar task over and over. In Brain Lock, Jeffrey M. Schwartz presents a simple four-step method for overcoming OCD that is so effective, it's now used in academic treatment centers throughout the world.