Skip to content

“Being the child of an alcoholic is a thing”

Alcohol Awareness Week tends to focus our thoughts on those who drink. But what about the clients who grew up with alcoholics? Are there particular aspects of this experience that we need to be aware of? It was only after he started working for the National Association for Children of Alcoholics that Josh Connolly started to confront the reality of his own childhood. Here, he shares his story, and the vital importance of validation in his own therapeutic journey.

I was aged 25 when I found Nacoa (National Association for Children of Alcoholics). When I walked in with the thought that I wanted to become a volunteer, I had no idea what I was about to learn about myself.
 
I had always wanted to help children in some way, and had experienced my own issues with alcohol. I learned that Nacoa had a national helpline that anyone impacted by a parent’s drinking could call, completely anonymously. And so I enrolled on the training to become a helpline counsellor.
 
Within the first hour of the first session, I began to understand everything that I had ever suffered from, and that was the result of my dad’s drinking. The realisation hit me hard. But it was the beginning of massive change in my life, and ultimately a journey of healing. I now recognise that, for those first 25 years of my life, I had been desperately running away, trying to find ways to survive. I had not been looking at the true reasons for my struggles.
 
My dad was a chaotic drinker, a chaotic influence on my life. As a young boy, I remember spending a lot of time upstairs listening to the carnage that came from downstairs. I became hyper vigilant to atmospheres, to sounds and to how people looked. In some ways, I found comfort in picking apart chaos. You could say it was my first addiction. It has stayed with me: even today, despite my knowledge, when I am around large groups of people I still become enthralled in dissecting atmospheres and latching on to the ways people are feeling. It can be exhausting.
 
In a home that is under so much stress from something like alcohol misuse, finding ways to cope takes precedence over anything else. You learn not to trust, not to feel and not to talk. There is no room for exploration or curiosity about the ways you feel. It is about surviving in a small and frightening world, the only one you know.
 
To the outside world, we were a normal family: always fed, well-clothed, never missing school. But this concealed a lot. My dad’s drinking caused problems, yet for me it was the behaviours and feelings it created that caused the lasting damage.
 
There were times when the barrier of secrecy was broken, like when the police showed up. I remember one caring and loving policeman attempting to comfort me. He told me ‘everything was ok, that there was no need to worry’. In these moments I decided there was something wrong with me. Nothing felt ok and I was beyond worried.
 
I never once felt ashamed of my dad: he was my hero. What I felt was personal shame, like there was something wrong with me. He died when I was nine, and it became too painful to be me. By the age of 12, I was naturally drawn to the escape that alcohol and drugs offered me, and so the cycle began again.
 
Finding Nacoa changed my life because, far from giving me an excuse for my struggles, they gave me validation. That is what I needed to be able to make real change in my life, and the space in which I felt safe to acknowledge my life in all its grueling detail.
 
Today, there is much more acknowledgement for people who suffer as a result of their own alcohol abuse. Yet I had to wait until I was 25 to accidentally stumble upon the fact that being the child of an alcoholic is a ‘thing’, too, for which we also need recovery. It was shame, the deep-rooted idea that I was bad, that kept me quiet. And it is validation that could have saved me. What I really needed when I was younger was a space to really feel: no judgment, no trying to make me better, just a safe space to get curious about how I felt.

/PE/media/PE_New/Articles/Josh-Connolly.jpg

Josh Connolly

Josh Connolly is an ambassador for Nacoa (National Association for Children of Alcoholics). As someone who suffered first hand the consequences of growing up with an alcoholic father, Josh now works as a life coach and speaks nationally about his experiences and subsequent learnings (www.joshconnolly.co.uk).

Related Blog Posts

Here are some similar posts that may interest you.