Congratulations, It's An Alcoholic!
When people have a child, they are generally congratulated on the birth of their new baby. 'Congratulations on the birth of your son!' or 'So wonderful to hear you have a new daughter!' This is because babies are considered an achievement, a blessing and a generally all round good thing most of the time. But what of the baby? A baby is not often congratulated on its parents, perhaps because it would seem absurd on the face of it.
Samuel Butler's 1872 book, Erewhon, was set in an imaginary version of New Zealand, after the general theme of Gulliver's Travels. However, instead of visiting a world where everyone is larger or smaller, the protagonist finds himself immersed in a topsy turvy upside down culture. In Erewhon, physical illness is punished with prison sentences, but having come down with a case of petty theft earns one the sympathy of one's friends and family. Death is celebrated with joy, but the birth of a child is cause for great concern, seen as a wicked act and results in the scolding of the mother for having allowed such a thing to occur.
On the face of it, the premises are all ridiculous, but by switching perspective, we often find things to examine which otherwise escape our notice. Samuel Butler's story allowed him to explore Victorian attitudes to various social issues in a new way.
It's this sort of about face approach which made me think of the title of this piece. Because as much as being born is generally considered to be a great thing (we call it the gift of life), the simple fact is that a great many people, myself included, are born to parents who have deep scars on their psyche and troubles with addiction that the baby slowly comes to realize as it matures – and not only to recognize as a problem, but be intrinsically shaped by.
What congratulations are in order for that child, who, born entirely innocent finds itself in the care of a person who cannot properly care for themselves? What sympathy do we have for the sorrows which are heaped upon a yet unformed mind, heart and psyche? A baby is not congratulated on its parents because a baby has no choice in them. It is the passive passenger of genetic chance. Instead of congratulations, all anyone can really offer an infant is a well meaning 'good luck'.
Of course, as one grows from infant to adult, one becomes less passive and more independent. But all children are, to one extent or another, the hapless victims of their parents a great deal of the time. The fortunate ones are nurtured by people capable of helping them to become functional, balanced, healthy adults. The less fortunate ones become a canvas for the parent's pain.
As the child of an alcoholic, what I have found most interesting about the process of growing up is that so many parental foibles are culturally forgiven, so much so that one starts to internalize the notion that one cannot hold one's parents responsible for anything short of having been severely beaten. If you're alive, it is immediately more or less assumed that it can't have been all that bad. Siblings forget, repress, or minimize certain events while playing out similar dramas with their own offspring. The parents who were responsible for multiple traumas claim that one's childhood was not only 'not that bad', but was perhaps ideal, idyllic even.
And what does that do to the adult who remembers holes punched in walls, hysterical screaming for no apparent reason, constant conflict, living in a domicile which simmered with barely tamed rage almost all the time?
Perhaps the hardest thing to first come to terms with as the adult child of an alcoholic is that these traumas occurred and were serious enough to impact not only our sense of who we are, but of what the world is like. That there is a reason why we might flinch when voices are raised, or keep an eye on the exit when tensions rise. We may even have trouble connecting with people altogether because we have come to expect erratic, hurtful behavior from those who are close to us. Or, alternatively, we may seek out chaotic situations and partners with substance abuse problems simply because those things feel familiar.
The next thing that is difficult to deal with is that these traumas may not be acknowledged by those that perpetrated them. Being the child of an alcoholic is a little like being the victim of a burglary which nobody will admit actually happened. Your sense of security and safety was stolen, but it's not a DVD player so there's no chance of getting it back. You can't replace it at the Warehouse for $29.99. Likewise, you can't insure your childhood innocence. Once that's gone, it cannot be replaced. Nobody offers full psyche cover at birth. There's no government branch ensuring that you manage to get through childhood with your faith in humanity intact.
Therapy, for me, has been as much about actually admitting to myself that what happened mattered. That my desire for independence, my refusal to get too close to people, my extreme discomfort with intimacy is all related to the fact that the person I sprang from, the closest human being in the world to me would regularly sink into drunk depressed states and tear the very foundations of life out from under me.
When I was born, my parents received a great many congratulations. Albums full of cards, balloons, gifts. They got an infant full of potential. And what I got (among many other things) was a front seat ticket to the life-long unraveling of a woman through the medium of alcohol. Congratulations to me!
I strongly suspect that this piece comes across in some ways as self-pitying. For a long time, I refused to think that I had gotten the short straw. After all, I'm alive, right? I have a home, a career, a loving partner. So my parents have to have done a good job. Right?
But that's just not the case. I did what I had to do because being exposed to that kind of unrest at that early an age makes you realize really quickly that you're going to have to take care of yourself – because nobody else will. A lot of adult children of alcoholics are professional, polished, competent people, but that doesn't mean we didn't all deserve a whole lot better, and it doesn't mean that we're not struggling with emotional issues which will plague some of us to the grave.
I wish there was a neat, tidy way of wrapping this all up in a bow with a sense of resolution and completion, but that's just not the case. Where I'm standing now, things are still messy. I'm still faced with the challenges and sorrows of an alcoholic parent. I'm still wrestling with the ingrained expectations I have of other people and the world. But at least, with therapy, I'm not doing it alone.
Samuel Butler's 1872 book, Erewhon, was set in an imaginary version of New Zealand, after the general theme of Gulliver's Travels. However, instead of visiting a world where everyone is larger or smaller, the protagonist finds himself immersed in a topsy turvy upside down culture. In Erewhon, physical illness is punished with prison sentences, but having come down with a case of petty theft earns one the sympathy of one's friends and family. Death is celebrated with joy, but the birth of a child is cause for great concern, seen as a wicked act and results in the scolding of the mother for having allowed such a thing to occur.
On the face of it, the premises are all ridiculous, but by switching perspective, we often find things to examine which otherwise escape our notice. Samuel Butler's story allowed him to explore Victorian attitudes to various social issues in a new way.
It's this sort of about face approach which made me think of the title of this piece. Because as much as being born is generally considered to be a great thing (we call it the gift of life), the simple fact is that a great many people, myself included, are born to parents who have deep scars on their psyche and troubles with addiction that the baby slowly comes to realize as it matures – and not only to recognize as a problem, but be intrinsically shaped by.
What congratulations are in order for that child, who, born entirely innocent finds itself in the care of a person who cannot properly care for themselves? What sympathy do we have for the sorrows which are heaped upon a yet unformed mind, heart and psyche? A baby is not congratulated on its parents because a baby has no choice in them. It is the passive passenger of genetic chance. Instead of congratulations, all anyone can really offer an infant is a well meaning 'good luck'.
Of course, as one grows from infant to adult, one becomes less passive and more independent. But all children are, to one extent or another, the hapless victims of their parents a great deal of the time. The fortunate ones are nurtured by people capable of helping them to become functional, balanced, healthy adults. The less fortunate ones become a canvas for the parent's pain.
As the child of an alcoholic, what I have found most interesting about the process of growing up is that so many parental foibles are culturally forgiven, so much so that one starts to internalize the notion that one cannot hold one's parents responsible for anything short of having been severely beaten. If you're alive, it is immediately more or less assumed that it can't have been all that bad. Siblings forget, repress, or minimize certain events while playing out similar dramas with their own offspring. The parents who were responsible for multiple traumas claim that one's childhood was not only 'not that bad', but was perhaps ideal, idyllic even.
And what does that do to the adult who remembers holes punched in walls, hysterical screaming for no apparent reason, constant conflict, living in a domicile which simmered with barely tamed rage almost all the time?
Perhaps the hardest thing to first come to terms with as the adult child of an alcoholic is that these traumas occurred and were serious enough to impact not only our sense of who we are, but of what the world is like. That there is a reason why we might flinch when voices are raised, or keep an eye on the exit when tensions rise. We may even have trouble connecting with people altogether because we have come to expect erratic, hurtful behavior from those who are close to us. Or, alternatively, we may seek out chaotic situations and partners with substance abuse problems simply because those things feel familiar.
The next thing that is difficult to deal with is that these traumas may not be acknowledged by those that perpetrated them. Being the child of an alcoholic is a little like being the victim of a burglary which nobody will admit actually happened. Your sense of security and safety was stolen, but it's not a DVD player so there's no chance of getting it back. You can't replace it at the Warehouse for $29.99. Likewise, you can't insure your childhood innocence. Once that's gone, it cannot be replaced. Nobody offers full psyche cover at birth. There's no government branch ensuring that you manage to get through childhood with your faith in humanity intact.
Therapy, for me, has been as much about actually admitting to myself that what happened mattered. That my desire for independence, my refusal to get too close to people, my extreme discomfort with intimacy is all related to the fact that the person I sprang from, the closest human being in the world to me would regularly sink into drunk depressed states and tear the very foundations of life out from under me.
When I was born, my parents received a great many congratulations. Albums full of cards, balloons, gifts. They got an infant full of potential. And what I got (among many other things) was a front seat ticket to the life-long unraveling of a woman through the medium of alcohol. Congratulations to me!
I strongly suspect that this piece comes across in some ways as self-pitying. For a long time, I refused to think that I had gotten the short straw. After all, I'm alive, right? I have a home, a career, a loving partner. So my parents have to have done a good job. Right?
But that's just not the case. I did what I had to do because being exposed to that kind of unrest at that early an age makes you realize really quickly that you're going to have to take care of yourself – because nobody else will. A lot of adult children of alcoholics are professional, polished, competent people, but that doesn't mean we didn't all deserve a whole lot better, and it doesn't mean that we're not struggling with emotional issues which will plague some of us to the grave.
I wish there was a neat, tidy way of wrapping this all up in a bow with a sense of resolution and completion, but that's just not the case. Where I'm standing now, things are still messy. I'm still faced with the challenges and sorrows of an alcoholic parent. I'm still wrestling with the ingrained expectations I have of other people and the world. But at least, with therapy, I'm not doing it alone.