Growing Up With Alcoholism — And Becoming What I Was Trying to Escape

 

I didn’t grow up thinking my childhood was traumatic.

I thought it was normal.

I thought every kid learned how to read the room before they learned how to read books.
I thought every kid knew how to stay quiet when energy shifted.
I thought everyone learned how to disappear emotionally when things got heavy.

I grew up in a home with alcoholism.
And later, I became one myself.

Not because I wanted to be reckless.
Not because I wanted to hurt anyone.
But because I never learned how to feel safe in my own skin without numbing something.

Alcohol didn’t start out as a problem.
It started out as relief.

What Childhood With Alcoholism Really Looks Like

When people hear “alcoholic home,” they often imagine chaos all the time.
Yelling. Broken things. Obvious neglect.

Sometimes that’s true.
But sometimes it’s quieter than that.

Sometimes it looks like inconsistency.
Unpredictability.
Mood swings.
Promises that don’t get kept.

Sometimes it looks like love that’s there one day and gone the next.

As a kid, I learned very early that safety wasn’t guaranteed.
So I learned to become alert instead of relaxed.

I learned to scan faces.
I learned to listen for tone instead of words.
I learned how to tell if it was a “good night” or a “bad night” before anyone even spoke.

I didn’t think of it as survival.
I thought of it as being mature.

I grew up fast because I had to.

The Emotional Role I Was Forced Into

In homes with alcoholism, kids don’t get to just be kids.

We become emotional caretakers.
Peacekeepers.
Mood managers.

I learned how to regulate everyone else before I ever learned how to regulate myself.

I learned how to:

• Calm situations down
• Stay out of the way
• Not ask for too much
• Be “easy” to deal with

Because when you grow up around addiction, your needs feel dangerous.
They feel like too much.

So you start minimizing yourself.

I became the one who didn’t need anything.
The one who handled things.
The one who stayed strong.

But strength wasn’t a personality trait.
It was a survival response.

What Alcoholism Taught Me About Love

I didn’t grow up learning that love is steady.

I learned that love is conditional.
That love depends on mood.
That love disappears without warning.

So I learned to perform for affection.

To be helpful.
To be useful.
To be agreeable.

Inside, I carried this belief:

“If I don’t cause problems, I’ll be safe.
If I don’t need much, I won’t be left.”

That belief followed me into adulthood.

I didn’t choose partners who felt safe.
I chose partners who felt familiar.

Emotionally unavailable.
Unpredictable.
Intense.

Not because I wanted chaos —
But because calm felt foreign.

Carrying Childhood Trauma Into Adult Life

I didn’t leave my childhood behind when I grew up.

I carried it in my nervous system.

I lived in a constant state of alertness.

Always waiting for something to go wrong.
Always bracing for impact.
Always feeling like peace wouldn’t last.

I became:

• Hyper-independent
• Emotionally guarded
• A people-pleaser
• Someone who felt guilty for resting
• Someone who didn’t know how to relax without numbing out

I stayed busy so I didn’t have to be still.
I stayed distracted so I didn’t have to feel.

Because stillness meant emotions.
And emotions felt unsafe.

The Beginning of My Own Alcoholism

I didn’t start drinking to be wild.

I started drinking to breathe.

Alcohol did what safety never had:

It quieted my mind.
It softened my body.
It made me feel okay in my own skin.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t bracing for impact.

I felt normal.

That’s what nobody tells you about addiction —
It starts as medicine.

Not medicine that heals you.
But medicine that numbs the pain you never learned how to treat.

At first, it felt like freedom.

Then it became a habit.
Then it became a need.
Then it became a cage.

Becoming What I Grew Up Surviving

The hardest realization wasn’t that I had a problem.

It was realizing I had become what I grew up around.

Not because I wanted to.
But because it was familiar.

Chaos felt normal.
Numbness felt safe.
Avoidance felt smart.

I wasn’t choosing alcohol.

I was choosing not to feel.

I was choosing to escape the same emotions I’d been running from my whole life.

How Alcoholism Shaped My Identity

I didn’t know who I was without coping.

Without being strong.
Without being useful.
Without being “okay.”

My worth felt tied to performance.

If I was productive, I was valuable.
If I was needed, I was loved.
If I didn’t complain, I was safe.

So I became high-functioning.

But not healed.

On the outside, I looked fine.

On the inside, I was exhausted.

The Lack of Help in My City

When I finally realized I needed help, I learned something painful:

There weren’t many places to go.

In my city:

• Therapy was expensive
• Trauma-informed care was limited
• Support for kids of addicts barely existed
• Recovery programs focused on the drinker — not the damage

There was help for addiction.
But not much help for the roots of it.

So I carried everything alone.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

What Finally Changed

Healing didn’t start when I stopped drinking.

Healing started when I stopped pretending my childhood didn’t affect me.

I stopped asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

And started asking, “What happened to me?”

I started to see my addiction not as a moral failure —
But as a trauma response that went untreated too long.

That changed everything.

Breaking the Cycle

I didn’t choose the home I was raised in.

But I get to choose the life I build now.

I get to:

• Learn how to feel safely
• Learn how to rest without guilt
• Learn how to love without chaos
• Learn how to exist without numbing

I am not here to repeat what hurt me.

I am here to end it.

What Growing Up With Alcoholism Really Steals

Alcoholism doesn’t just take time.
It takes safety.
It takes identity.
It takes childhood.

It teaches kids:

• Their needs are too much
• Their emotions are dangerous
• Love isn’t steady
• Chaos is normal

Those beliefs don’t disappear when you grow up.

They just go underground.

Learning to Re-Parent Myself

Healing has meant becoming the adult I needed as a kid.

Someone who:

• Listens
• Slows down
• Doesn’t abandon themselves
• Doesn’t numb feelings
• Doesn’t run from discomfort

I am learning safety — not through alcohol, but through awareness.

Through boundaries.
Through stillness.
Through truth.

What I Want Other Children of Alcoholics to Know

If you grew up like I did:

You weren’t dramatic.
You weren’t weak.
You weren’t broken.

You were adaptive.

And maybe — like me — you became what you learned to survive.

But survival is not the end of your story.

Healing is.

Reflection

What did you learn about love in your childhood?
What did you use to survive that no longer serves you?
What kind of life do you want to build now?

Your answers are your beginning.

Final Words

I grew up in alcoholism.
I became an alcoholic.
And now I’m choosing something different.

Not perfection.
Not denial.

But healing.

And if you see yourself in this story, know this:

You are not alone.
You are not too late.
You are not beyond repair.

You are early in your becoming. 🌹⛓💥