NCJ Number
160652
Date Published
1994
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Adult children of alcoholics grow up hiding their emotions and consequently suffer a variety of emotional problems; these problems harm their relationships and sex lives.
Abstract
Because children of alcoholics are so emotionally abused by the emotional abandonment of a parent or parents obsessed with their addiction, they learn to survive with coping mechanisms that protect the world of feelings. These coping mechanisms include fantasies and rationalizations. In adult relationships of sexual intimacy and love, the children of alcoholics are drawn to those like themselves, most often other adults who are children of alcoholics. Since the parties are not loving themselves and healthily celebrating their sexuality, they do not signal their truest sexual drives, sensitivities, and boundaries. Each seeks to gain love from the other without opening up true feelings to the other. This produces a game of attempting to seduce loving and true feelings from the other without sharing feelings in return. The result is a relationship of mutual manipulation and control without an honest sharing of feelings, leaving both parties frustrated and empty. Positive change occurs as the children of alcoholics assume responsibility for the ownership of the facts of their lives. This means knowing and feeling what has happened in the family without the sense of being destroyed in the process. It means abandoning judgments about oneself, loving oneself in the midst of personal pain, and learning to relate to others through the sharing of true feelings.