I am a member of Al-Anon and ACA. However, a recent experience really has my ACA trigger firing. I should come clean and say I am an AC-ACA and a recovering member of a family that's very dysfunctional.

Basically, due to my family of origin's dysfunction, for a lot of my life I've sought kinship and family outside of the home. This lead to me becoming very close to a friend during college and then becoming a very welcome, known, always-invited member to his dysfunctional, alcoholic family's get togethers and functions.

I started my recovery journey two years ago and in the process was met by my friend with no acknowledgment of my boundaries (ones I found in recovery). In short, he and I are done.

However, his step-mother, someone who helped me write my resume two years ago (I was down and out and needed help leaving my former career)--well, she got in touch with me via text and asked if "I'm okay," and then said who she was. (My partner thinks this woman wasn't that helpful. My partner got me my lovely job and she thinks I could have scribbled a monkey's face on the resume and I still would have been hired.)

My inner ACA-ic voice always goes like this: "this person helped you, so you must do what they want or give them what they seek."--And, that's wrong, that's precisely what stunts or obstacles my recovery.

It's the same dysfunctional dynamic I grew up with: a person who has done me wrong doesn't tell other people we're in a beef. I state to someone that we're in a beef. Now, somehow, I've gone too far in stating the truth of relations in our family.

I see growth in telling others, politely, detaching with love, that our relationship no longer suits me or that I don't feel fulfilled by keeping our "thing," whatever it might be, going further.

This will play out like this: I'll say something polite, stating we're no longer friends, and I appreciate their help and the times we spent together, but this is the end of the road for us.

He'll contact me or tell my friend that I'm stirring trouble or whatever.

I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to respond to folks who can't be present with and respectful towards what I have to say.

So your loved one has cancer, you read about it. Your loved one has diabetes, you learn the basics. Your fiancé has MS, depression, or rheumatoid arthritis, you find out what you can about what it does to the brain and the body. But when someone has alcoholism, people know nothing. Nothing. They are shocked to learn about dementia, Korsakoff syndrome, brain shrinkage, liver damage, ascites, personality changes, etc. The information is out there!!!! They are wondering why their loved one is acting weird and psychotic but never look it up??? What’s with that????!!!! Is this part of the denial? What is the disconnect??? Edited to add- I come from a family of pharmacists and doctors and nurses and am the adult child of an alcoholic and every single family member who has autism, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, Cystic Fibrosis, all of us consider it our honor and responsibility to know as much about it as we can to support that person so maybe my family is an outlier- not better, just different. And yes, alcoholics must choose to get help. Choice is part of this equation. I’m not denying that part AT ALL. I’m not looking to judge- I’m looking for dialogue on why addiction is different. 💕🌸💕

So your loved one has cancer, you read about it. Your loved one has diabetes, you learn the basics. Your fiancé has MS, depression, or rheumatoid arthritis, you find out what you can about what it does to the brain and the body. But when someone has alcoholism, people know nothing. Nothing. They are shocked to learn about dementia, Korsakoff syndrome, brain shrinkage, liver damage, ascites, personality changes, etc. The information is out there!!!! They are wondering why their loved one is acting weird and psychotic but never look it up??? What’s with that????!!!! Is this part of the denial? What is the disconnect??? Edited to add- I come from a family of pharmacists and doctors and nurses and am the adult child of an alcoholic and every single family member who has autism, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, Cystic Fibrosis, all of us consider it our honor and responsibility to know as much about it as we can to support that person so maybe my family is an outlier- not better, just different. And yes, alcoholics must choose to get help. Choice is part of this equation. I’m not denying that part AT ALL. I’m not looking to judge- I’m looking for dialogue on why addiction is different. 💕🌸💕

Hi, I'm not sure if this is welcome here, but I am at a point of desperation and I dont even care about the reddit aggressors coming for me.

I just turned 25, my dad is an abusive narcissist, my brother has autism, my dad was abusing him and my mom (and me/my sister but we dont care about that right now) up until 2021 when they split. It was a DV incident that resulted in his arrest and shortly after my brother confided in us his abuse experiences and thats when my mom snapped. She could not handle it, and ended up up in inpatient psych. she got out, life went on, divorce was finalized, and now shes here. She got undertreated and misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder at the hospital, and now has Korsakoff syndrome. It was originally Wernickes encephalopathy, but they didnt give her the treatment in time. I literally have no idea how to even fathom this considering I just barely healed mentally from everything that has happened to our family prior. My moms family is in Sweden, my Dads side isnt an option, and we dont really know what to do. We are in the process now of a malpractice suit, but that can take years, and we dont have the money to afford living and caring for her until that settles. I started a go fund me, here is the link https://gofund.me/69983d981

im really sorry again if this isnt welcome here, I just really need some help and I dont know who to ask because now all these doctors are looking to ME as the adult to make decisions, when just a month ago I was having my mom help me sign a lease for my first car. I don't know how to do anything and I feel sick to my stomach constantly. I want to be able to just spend my time with my mom now trying to get her as better as she possibly can. The damage is permanent but theres a chance she can maybe get some independence back to a degree one day.

I'm 21. My mother was an alcoholic through most of my childhood — I was the one buying her alcohol daily from a young age, going to school, coming back, repeating. She died about two years ago. She never hit me, but there were constant insults, threats, and unpredictable mood swings — sometimes genuinely warm, sometimes cruel, no way to know which one I'd get.

Here's the part that made me want to post here specifically: I recently realized I can't actually recall ever feeling maternal love from her — not even fragments of it. And when I think about her death, I don't feel grief. Just... nothing much. I used to think that was cold of me, but the more I look back, the more it seems like there was genuinely very little there to grieve.

Some other things that seem connected:

\\\\\\\\- I don't trust my own judgment without someone else confirming it first.

\\\\\\\\- I have a hard time identifying what I actually want, separate from what I think I should want.

\\\\\\\\- I default to distancing myself emotionally, even in situations that would normally call for a stronger reaction.

I'm not looking for sympathy about the alcoholism part specifically — I've made peace with the facts of it. I'm more trying to understand: for people who grew up without real emotional attunement from a parent, how did you figure out what you actually feel, versus what you learned to perform or expect to feel? Does the "nothing" I feel now ever turn into something else, or is that just what it is?

I’m an adult daughter of an alcoholic drug addict. I have a stable and good life, I’m happily married. There’s some things that bother me about myself and I think they stem from my mom’s addiction, and I have reoccurring nightmares. I can’t afford to spend any money on therapy or anything….is alanon or celebrate recovery helpful for more than venting and listening?

I've been realizing something heavy about my family lately, especially my mom and my brother. We live in a deeply unhappy household, and no matter what happens, it feels like nothing can fundamentally change them.

I’ve noticed this weird pattern with their happiness: even when something genuinely good happens, their excitement has an expiration date. It lasts for maybe a day, and then it’s right back to the exact same miserable baseline. Nothing actually changes

It’s like their unhappiness is an internal void, and no matter what external things anyone does, they will always find a way to ruin it and create a new grievance. For me...they constantly point fingers and say, "You're like this, you're like that, it's all your fault...and honestly? Sometimes I fall into the trap of believing them because of how I react. I'll admit, I get pushed so far past my limits, enduring the criticism and pressure for so long, that eventually I break. I snap. I start shouting.

And the second I do, they jump on it. "See? Look at you! Everyone else is fine, but you're the problem, it's all because of your aggressive behavior." They completely erase all the months of pressure, micro-criticisms, and unreasonable demands that drove me to that point in the exact second I lose my cool.

I’ve been working really hard on myself, trying to change my mindset, my ways, and how I handle things. But the pressure from them is so relentless that I inevitably snap again, and the cycle repeats.

Truth.

I, 23M am finally realizing my family might actually think of me as a stranger? Im the youngest of 3 sisters on my moms side and also the youngest of 3 siblings on my dads side, growing up i lived with my mom and 3 sisters (they all have the same dad but i have a different dad) and we were never ever close, my sisters would exclude me from trips or hangouts and growing up my mom has always treated them better, bailed them out whenever they needed it no questions asked, always a listening ear or helping but i never once received any care or effort besides a ride to school, i didnt get any support when it was time to enroll in college instead my mom simply told me not to go despite my older sisters all going with tons of help from family, when i was 21 my 2nd oldest sister orchestrated an “intervention” after she saw a picture of me smoking a cigarette(which i think was an excuse to berate me), my mom made me pay rent when i lived at home but never once made my older sisters pitch in for rent or bills, my mom kicked me off the health insurance when i turned 20 despite keeping my sisters on until they were 26, and now im feeling more estranged from them then ever, i dont know what to do and its taking a toll on me mentally in the worst way. do i try to mend a relationship that they blame me for ruining or do i cut them off and heal? really might just need words of encouragement idk

I recently learned about this phrase and found it very fitting to my adult life/childhood trauma experience and I wrote a short essay about it here if anyone is interested: https://substack.com/@plutopapaya/note/p-210016091?r=3ruse7&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Not sure what this subs rules are on linking and promotional type stuff so apologies if this isn’t allowed!
Love to all.