CHAPTER THREE

Family Rules

Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel

The Best Little Boy in the World (He Won’t Tell)

Peter M. Nardi

Michael was doing very well in school. In fact, he was the brightest kid in class, the teacher’s favorite, one of the best behaved. He never created any disciplinary problems and always hung out with the good crowd. The best little boy in the world. “Why can’t we all be like Michael and sit quietly?” Sister Gertrude would say in her most melodious voice. Conform, be docile, do well, and be quiet. Hold it in. Don’t tell a soul.

And now he was waiting at the school corner for his mother to pick him up. This was always the hardest moment. What will she look like, how will she sound? Michael could tell right away if she had been drinking. The muffled voice, the pale, unmade-up face. He really didn’t know what it was all about. He just knew that when Dad came home he would fight with her. Argue, yell, scream, and run. Michael could hear them through the closed doors and over the humming of the air conditioner. He wondered if the neighbors could hear, too. Hold it in. Don’t tell anyone.

He was still waiting at the corner. She was fifteen minutes late. It was so good to go to school and get out of the house. But when three o’clock came he would feel the tension begin to gather inside him. He never knew what to expect. When she was not drinking, she would be smiling, even pretty. When drunk, she’d be cold, withdrawn, tired, unloving, and not caring. Michael would cook dinner and straighten up the house. He would search for the alcohol, like egg-hunting on Easter morning, under the stuffed chair in the bedroom, in the laundry bag concealed among the towels, behind her hats in the closet. When he found it, he’d pour it down the sink drain. Maybe then no one would know that she’d been drinking. Maybe no one would fight. Don’t tell a soul.

She still hadn’t come to pick him up yet. She’d never been thirty minutes late. Sometimes she’d sleep late in the morning after Dad had already left for work, and Michael would make breakfast for his little sister and himself. Then a friend’s mother would take them to school. The biggest problem was during vacation time, especially around the holidays. He wanted to play with his friends. But he was afraid to bring them home. He was afraid to go out and play, too, because then she would drink. Michael didn’t want to be blamed for that. So he stayed in and did his homework and read. He didn’t tell his friends. Hold it in.

And still he was waiting alone on the corner. Forty-five minutes late. Michael decided to walk the ten blocks home. He felt that he was old enough now. After all, he took care of his little sister a lot. He took care of his mother a lot. He was responsible. He always did what people told him to do. Everyone could count on him for help. Everyone did. And he never complained. Never fought, never argued, never yelled. The best little boy in the world. Hold it in.

When he got nearer to home Michael’s heart felt as if it were going to explode. Her car was there. The house was locked tight. He rang the bell. He rang and rang as he felt his stomach turn inside out. He climbed through a window. No one seemed to be home. He looked around the house, in all the right hiding places. Finally, in the closet in his own bedroom, he saw his mom in her slip, with a belt around her neck and attached to the wooden rod. She was just sitting there, sobbing. She had been drinking. But maybe no one would find out. Michael wouldn’t tell anyone, ever. Hold it in.

Family Rules

Thousands of children like Michael are being, or have been, raised in homes where at least one parent is addicted to substances or a behavior. And like Michael, these children appear to suffer no apparent ill effects. They are typical in that, like most children, they leave home in their latter teenage years. When they do venture out on their own, they face the task of making decisions about school, work, careers, lifestyles, friends, and where and with whom they are going to live. Along with thousands of other young people, they are also making decisions about relationships, possible commitments, and whether or not to have children. In young adulthood, they are beginning to make some of the most important decisions of their lives and then spend years implementing those choices. At this stage of life they are focusing on external events, not sitting back and reflecting on their growing-up years. If they recognize that they grew up with addiction, they breathe a sigh of relief and pat themselves on the back for their survivorship. They then continue going on about their life, yet frequently remain socially and emotionally entangled with their family.

About the time a young person reaches his or her mid-twenties, the negative effects of growing up in an addictive home start to become apparent. These now-adult children begin to experience a sense of loneliness that doesn’t make sense to them. They become aware of feelings that separate them from others. There is a low depression occurring more frequently and lasting longer. They experience self-loathing and despair but are gifted in not letting others see it. Feelings of fear and anxiousness occur more frequently, but they don’t know why they are having these feelings. They often feel empty and have difficulty maintaining close relationships.

In fact, many describe themselves as relationship nomads, going from one relationship to another, yet never feeling close or emotionally intimate. They also find they are in relationships with others who are hurtful, disrespectful, abusive, as well as engaging in addictive behaviors. A lack of meaningfulness begins to permeate every aspect of their lives. For many, the repetition of the addiction has begun. Their drinking and using has become an important part of their life, or they are engaging in other behaviors in an addictive manner, such as work, spending, and gambling, or they have disordered relationships with food. Should any of this be occurring, their rationalizing and defending is blocking the ability to see this as a problem.

To break this cycle it is necessary to recognize the many processes that have occurred.

Don’t Talk

The Family Law: DON’T TALK ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES.

The real issues: Mom is drinking again. Dad didn’t come home last night. My mom showed up loaded at the school event. My dad was drunk at the ball game and passed out in front of my friends.

Some say it is a rule; I believe, for most addictive families, it has become law. As one nine-year-old daughter said, “When you have a rule in your house for so long, to not talk about Dad’s drinking, it’s r-e-a-l-l-y hard to talk now—even when he is sober.”

In the earlier stages of addiction, when a parent’s drinking or using seems to become a more noticeable problem, family members usually attempt to rationalize the behavior. They begin to invent excuses: “Well, your dad has been working hard these past few months,” or “Your mom has been lonely since her best friend moved away.” Rationalizations become the normal way of life. Family members may see the problems but do not connect them to the addictive behavior. There are many excuses offered but, occasionally, one seems even more absurd than the others. Alexa told me that when she was about ten years old, her mother told her that she believed her father’s irrational behavior was because he had a brain tumor and was going to die. The mother told the children their father wanted them to hate him before he died so it would be easier for them to accept his death when it happened. Alexa said, “It didn’t feel right, but who was I to question my mom? She had enough problems as it was. And, besides, she had this odd smile when she told me, and I seldom saw my mom smile. I didn’t want to be the one to take that smile away.” Alexa said she simply thought her father was likely dying from a brain tumor. She now understands that while her father acted crazy, his erratic behavior was due to his drinking. His increasingly controlling and tyrannical moods, his inconsistent behavior related to his blackouts, as well as his hallucinations (which were withdrawal-related), added to his appearance of craziness.

It is often easier to invent reasons for crazy behavior rather than naming it as addiction. Should the drinking or using take place outside of the home and the parent doesn’t act falling-down drunk or in a stupor or if the kids don’t see the parent, children may more readily accept what the other parent tells them—drinking/using is not the problem.

Children are like adults in that they, too, will believe addicts are the stereotypical homeless person or street junkie without a job or family. If children do not understand addiction, it is difficult for them to identify their parent as addicted.

Mara said she knew her father wasn’t an alcoholic because “My Dad loved me and I knew that.” No one ever explained to her that alcoholic people are also capable of loving others. She believed because her father loved her he could not be alcoholic. Mara had heard about alcoholism only once at church where a recovering alcoholic told his story. But what she heard was that particular person’s story of his drinking. She could not relate that story to her father. Her father certainly didn’t sound, look, or behave like that man. Such fragmented information is typical of children’s lack of knowledge concerning addiction.

Another way family members rationalize the erratic behavior is not to discuss or in any manner talk about what’s really happening at home. Thirteen-year-old Steven said, “I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was the only one in my house who knew Dad was an alcoholic. I didn’t think my mother or two sisters knew.” I asked him why he believed this to be true. He answered, “Because no one ever said anything.” Steven described an incident that occurred when he and his father were at home alone. In a semiconscious state from drunkenness, his father had fallen, hit his head on the coffee table, thrown up, and was on the floor bleeding. Steven’s mother and sisters had returned home within moments after his dad had hit his head. Seeing him on the floor in his own vomit, bleeding from the back of the head, they ran over, picked him up, cleaned him up, and carried him off to the bedroom. What was most significant though is that no one said anything about it then or later. No one spoke to anyone else. No one said, “Oh my gosh, Steven, what happened? Are you okay? When did this happen?” Nothing was said. After I was told of this by Steven, I asked the other family members if they remembered this incident and they all did. Then I asked why they had not talked about this incident with Steven. They all responded, “Because he hadn’t said anything, and we hoped he hadn’t noticed.”

“If I get honest about this, it is also a setup for then being honest about the other things I don’t want to be honest about,” Steven’s mother ultimately confessed. “It only makes me feel more guilty and more hopeless.” Helplessness, despair, and hopelessness cause family members to believe if you just ignore it, it may not hurt; if you just ignore it, it may just go away.

Fear and control often fuel the Don’t Talk rule. Skip described his father as controlling the family with silence. “My dad didn’t talk to me at all, and my mother wouldn’t acknowledge that there was anything wrong. My life was filled with this engulfing terribleness, and I thought it was me. I wanted my father to tell me there was something wrong. I wanted him to tell me it was his fault. I wanted to hear it was not my fault. Later, as I got older, I needed him to tell me he was proud of me. I didn’t get any of those things. I only got his silent rage.” Skip’s answer to this was to keep a lid on his feelings. Keeping the lid on fueled a major eating disorder. By fifth grade, Skip weighed 250 pounds, and he would ultimately weigh 400 pounds. It was only when his father died that Skip would begin to shed his weight. With the need for emotional control over, the behavioral manifestation of his powerlessness no longer gripped Skip and his recovery would begin.

Many adult children have told me that they were instructed not to talk about things that would upset their mother or father; or they simply learned by themselves that things went much easier when they did nothing to rock the boat. Andrew said, “Dinner was pretty quiet. Anything we said rocked the boat. And then, if we were too quiet, that rocked the boat!” These children not only don’t talk about boat-rocking issues, but they don’t talk about or share their fears, worries, or hurts with anyone.

In many families, the rule of silence is a quiet collusion. Children will share the same bedroom with a sibling for years, both hearing the arguing taking place between their parents. Or, they hear their mother crying night after night. But they only hear. They never speak to one another about it, although they may each cry—silently and alone. In one family, the six children were between the ages of twelve and twenty-one when the father sought treatment for his addiction. Three to four months prior to seeking help, the father would return home late at night after having been drinking for several hours. Not having seen his children all day, he’d make his nightly rounds, passing from one room to another. He would scream, shout, and harass each child before moving on to the next room. All of the children were awake as he went from room to room, but they never spoke to each other about these nightly episodes. The family simply acted as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Well-adjusted children who experience childhood problems would, most likely, talk about these things with other family members. In another family, young Billy told me how he was taking the air out of the car tires so Dad wouldn’t drive when he was drinking. His youngest sister, Ann, was putting water in Dad’s vodka bottle; his oldest sister, Lisa, was hiding her father’s drinking stash. Each was unaware of the other’s actions concerning their father’s drinking because they were unable to talk about the real issue—his substance abuse.

Because of the denial, seldom are any of these children’s problems recognized. Moreover, the family problem—addiction—is never discussed. These children do not perceive others, inside or outside of the family, to be available to them for help. Many adult children have questioned where their aunts and uncles were when they needed them. Many wondered why grandparents weren’t more concerned for them. Nora told me no one would have believed what her home life was like. “They wouldn’t believe me, because if it was so bad, I couldn’t be looking so good. They never saw my mother getting drunk every day; they never saw her raving like a maniac, passed out upstairs. They never saw her bottles all over the house. They just never saw.”

While many children fear not being believed, they may also feel guilty. They believe they are betraying their parents and their family if they talk honestly. Children feel very loyal to their parents and, invariably, end up defending them, rationalizing that it isn’t really all that bad, and continuing in what has now become a denial process. Finding the family situation so confusing, they feel inadequate in attempting to verbalize the problems—they just don’t know how to tell others. This makes it very easy to succumb to a sense of hopelessness or helplessness.

As the alcoholism in my family progressed, the family got more and more silent and the house got more and more quiet. We withdrew from each other. It got to the point that we didn’t talk to each other about much of anything. We couldn’t even talk about safe things, such as a television program. How could we ever talk about the things we knew weren’t safe?

It is as if you are wearing a pair of eyeglasses with clouded lenses from which to view the world. Perceptions are altered, reality distorted. You continue to discount and minimize; learning to tolerate inappropriate behavior. You learn to live in denial. It is most despairing to be a child in an addictive family, to feel totally alone, and to believe talking to someone will not help.

Sometimes I pretend my mom is not drinking when she really is. I never even talk about it.

Don’t Trust

I am always on my guard with people. I want to trust them, but it is so much easier to just rely on myself. I’m never sure what other people want.

Children raised in addictive families learn that it is not safe to trust others with the real issues in their lives. To trust another means investing confidence, reliance, and faith in that person. Confidence, reliance, and faithfulness are virtues often missing in the addictive home. Children need to be able to depend on parents to meet their physical and emotional needs in order to develop trust. Parents are not consistently available to their children because they are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, physically absent, mentally and emotionally consumed with their addiction, or preoccupied with the addicted person.

When Jayne comes home from school, she can’t count on her mom to be attentive about what she has to say. Her mom doesn’t smile after hearing about something funny nor is she sensitive to Jayne’s sadness. Her mom is preoccupied with what happened or didn’t happen last night as the result of her dad’s drinking.

Karl doesn’t trust people to see his feelings as important. He may be angry about something that happened on the way home from school, but he usually doesn’t say anything about it because “There’s enough to be angry about at home. Who needs more? Besides, they wouldn’t understand.”

Sean cannot trust the decisions his parents make. He can’t rely on his dad to remember a promise to go to a ball game on the weekend or the permission he gave Sean to spend a night at a friend’s house. Nor can he count on his mom to support him if his dad goes back on his word.

Sara cannot rely on her mom to be sober for her birthday, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. While Sara cannot rely on her mom for sobriety during special occasions, Jason knows his mother will be loaded on those holidays. He said the uncertainty, the never knowing for sure how his stepfather was going to handle his mother was most confusing for him.

Nate, age thirty-two, described an incident when he was eleven years old. He had returned home from school and found his mother intoxicated. As he came through the door, she started an argument with him. She began to scream and shout at him, and he began to scream and shout back. This was a typical after-school scene, but this time his mother picked up a broom and began hitting him about the head and shoulders. While his mom was screaming and hitting, Nate was ducking and hollering back. He ran for the phone and called his father. (His parents were divorced.) Nate was surprised when his father answered, but he did at least answer! Imagine the scene of this eleven-year-old yelling into the phone explaining what was happening, ducking the broom, while his mom is screaming and continuing to hit him. His father shouts back, “Don’t worry, she won’t remember it tomorrow.”

Twenty-one years later, when Nate related this incident to me, he spoke with no expression or affect in his voice. I asked, “Nate, does that sound like a healthy or appropriate response to you?” He looked at me quizzically and slowly said, “I don’t know. I guess I have never really thought about it.” Of course he had not thought about it. Nate could not rely on his mother to respond appropriately to him emotionally, psychologically, physically, or to meet his needs in any way when he was an eleven-year-old boy. He could not rely on his father to understand his needs either, let alone offer protection while he was being physically abused. It wasn’t emotionally safe to allow himself to respond with hurt, anger, or disgust to his mother’s beating or his father’s lack of concern. But he did find it safe to detach and not to think about the incident. Like so many others with similar experiences, Nate learned to not trust.

In order for children to trust they must feel safe. They need to be able to depend on their parents for help, concern, and guidance in response to their physical and emotional needs. In families affected by addiction, children often cannot rely on parents.

Kristin tells how she never feels safe bringing friends home because “It is always possible Mom will be drunk and do something to embarrass me.” Scott said, “It is never safe to play in our yard because Dad always seems to be sure to belittle me when my friends are around.” These children live in a chronically fearful environment. For some, their lack of safety is more psychological; for others, it is psychological and physical. Children often tell of frightening times with a parent who is driving recklessly or when fires are caused due to drunken neglect. Children’s physical safety is directly threatened when verbal harassment turns violent, when furniture is being broken or, certainly, when persons in the home are physically and/or sexually assaulted.

It is difficult to trust a person who constantly embarrasses, humiliates, disappoints, or puts you in physical jeopardy. It is even more difficult to trust when family members minimize, rationalize, and/or blatantly deny certain events are taking place.

Part of feeling safe is feeling secure. Security is seldom present for any length of time in addictive homes. Tim comes home from school one day to discover his dad has lost his job for the fourth time in three years. It means the family will be moving again. For Tim, it means giving up some newfound friends at a school that was just beginning to become familiar to him. And it means giving up the opportunity to make more friends through Little League, which he just joined—another disappointment. Tammy finds out her dad gave away her purebred pet rabbits to a drinking buddy. She had been raising them from kits (baby bunnies) with the intention of entering them in the county fair—another hope shattered. David learns the family’s long-planned summer vacation has to be canceled because Dad loaned the vacation money to a stranger he met at a local bar—another promise broken. Children are continually confronted with reasons to be insecure in their surroundings, to not trust.

Joe described his inability to trust this way. “Trust? My dad couldn’t ever seem to take care of himself wherever he was. There was always a problem—at home, at work, with the car, with grandparents, with friends. If he couldn’t take care of himself, how was he going to take care of me? No, I couldn’t trust him for anything. And my mom, she was there, but that’s all I can say. She was physically there, but I don’t remember her ever trying to help us cope or understand. She was simply there.”

Children constantly hear mixed messages, which teach distrust. A parent often gives a child false information intentionally in a feeble effort to protect the child from reality. A mother may tell the children she is happy when she is actually miserable. A father may reassure a child that nothing is wrong when the child can see Mom is acting strangely. The child is confused because one message is coming from his parent’s words and a contradictory message from the body movement and tone of voice. Such confusing messages propel the child into a life of second-guessing what is really happening.

The single, most important ingredient in a nurturing relationship is honesty. No child can trust, or be expected to trust, unless those around him are also open and honest about their own feelings. Addicted people lose their ability to be honest as the disease progresses. As the addict continues to drink or use, he has to rationalize his negative action and do it extremely well in order to continue his behavior. An addict’s life is consumed with feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, and remorse, causing him to drink or use more in an attempt to escape. It becomes a never-ending cycle because of the psychological and physical addiction. Enabling parents are fearful of being honest with their children. They don’t want them to experience the same pain they are feeling. Moreover, they don’t want to acknowledge that the problem exists in the first place.

While children don’t require verbalization of all the feelings their parents experience, they do need validation and/or clarification of certain specific situations and feelings. This validation or clarification doesn’t happen in a home where talking and trusting do not exist.

A person takes a risk when he reaches out to trust another. Those persons who have learned to take the risk have experienced trusting to be a good process. They have also experienced a sense of security and a feeling of self-worth, both derived from feeling loved. All young people need to feel valued, to feel they are precious and special. While parents may tell them they are special and loved, it is the parents’ behavior that allows a child to believe it.

Children need focused attention, as it represents not only physically being with a child, but also interacting with the child in a way that says, “You have all of my attention—mentally and emotionally.” It says to a child, “I care. It’s important for me to be with you.” Children are highly sensitive to the degree of focused attention they receive. A child receives no sense of value from parents who are forever absorbed in their own affairs. While children don’t need exclusive attention, it is the lack of focused attention that causes them to feel unimportant. As a parent’s addiction progresses, it fuels isolation that makes them less available to their children. The other parent’s increasing preoccupation with both the addict and their own helplessness and hopelessness decreases their availability for the children.

Although these children are not totally ignored, as the addiction progresses, the availability of focused time decreases. When these families do spend time together, that time is often centered on the addictive behavior. Tim, age fifteen, told how he was spending special time with his father. Both liked to fish and did so quite often during the summer. Although Tim always looked forward to the two of them spending time alone together, he was almost always disappointed because his father normally brought along a drinking buddy. Dad and his buddy got so involved in their drinking and carrying on that Tim might as well have been totally alone. Tim spent time with his dad, but the time spent did not allow Tim that special time meant just for him and his father. The father’s attention was always focused elsewhere—with or without Tim around.

Children need focused attention most when they are under stress. Unfortunately, in an addictive family this is when they are least apt to receive it. Stress often becomes the norm in this environment and the attention centers around the addict. Thus, instead of turning attention to the child who may be having a problem, attention is turned away from the child with no opportunity for support, nurturing, or problem-solving.

Due to broken promises and unpredictability, children are confused. They find they don’t trust caring acts and are suspicious of focused attention when it occurs. A child may enjoy a day at the zoo but will question the motivation behind the trip. Although both parents may have agreed on the excursion, the child perceives only the addict’s sense of guilt or the other parent’s dominance over the situation. Or, the child thinks the parents do care in this one instance, but that thought is overshadowed by the knowledge that neither parent may be relied on to be available at another time. They may wonder, Did Dad bring me this present because he didn’t come to my piano recital last night or because he saw it and wanted me to have it out of his love for me?

While children can and do demonstrate a multitude of strengths, they will nonetheless struggle in some areas of their lives because their circumstances have made it impossible for them to feel safe, secure, or to rely and be able to trust. Trust is one of those vital character-building blocks children need in order to develop into healthy adults. Being raised in an addictive family structure often denies or distorts this portion of a child’s development.

I have a hard time trusting my mom.

Don’t Feel

No, I wasn’t embarrassed. I was scared for my father, but I wasn’t scared for myself. It didn’t dawn on me to be scared for me. I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t really think about it. I never got angry with him. There was nothing to get angry about. I didn’t cry much. What was there to cry about?

It has been my experience that by the time a child raised in an addictive family is nine years of age, he or she has a well-developed denial system about his or her feelings. Should the child identify having feelings, those feelings are often taking on the feelings of others. As nine-year-old Chris said, “One time my dad got upset when he was drinking and he slapped me. I looked at my mom and she started crying. So I cried. I wasn’t crying for me, I was crying for my mom.”

Denying feelings is a way to bring stability and consistency into children’s lives. It also makes it easier to cope; it’s a survival mechanism. The role adoption described earlier assists children in coping with the inconsistencies in their lives. Learning to focus on the environment or on other people or learning to detach from the family assists children in not feeling.

The family law Don’t Talk and the premise Don’t Trust teach children that it isn’t safe to share feelings. Children learn not to share and, inevitably, deny their feelings. They don’t think family members, other relatives, or friends will validate their feelings. They don’t believe their feelings will receive the necessary nurturing. Children don’t perceive others as resources; therefore, they live their lives emotionally isolated. Being alone with feelings of fear, worry, embarrassment, guilt, anger, loneliness, etc., leads to a state of desperation or being overwhelmed. Such a state of being does not lend itself to survival, so children learn other ways to cope. Some learn how to discount and repress feelings, while others learn simply to not feel. These children do have access to their feelings but only with the help of a trusted person. For the majority of children growing up with addiction, however, trust and trusted persons are not a consistent part of their lives.

Demi is a cheerleader for her high school’s basketball team. One evening, at an out-of-town game, her father arrives noticeably drunk. After having spent much of the evening yelling out to Demi during her routines, her father, who by this time is unable to walk himself out of the gym, drapes himself over the top of Demi, relying on her to get him out of the gymnasium and to the car. As she is slowly moving the two of them out of the gymnasium, he begins to yell and jeer at several students just behind them. His remarks are crude and vulgar and then he begins to scream racial slurs. With determination, Demi pushes her way through the crowd, holding her father tight to her. Behind her she hears the escalating remarks of the crowd. Suddenly, they are outside. She rushes him to a car driven by one of his friends, leaves him, and then quietly makes her way to the school pep bus.

Embarrassment, humiliation, fear, and anger are the common emotions of a child in this situation. But for Demi, none of these emotions are conducive to helping know how to handle the problem. Instead, the reaction of this most-responsible eldest child is to take care of the situation and to get her father out of the gymnasium before he or others gets hurt.

Demi has learned if she lets feelings take over when an incident like the one just described occurs, it will only result in pain for herself. It doesn’t occur to her to talk to anyone (a chaperone on the trip, a school friend) about the incident because she believes no one would really understand or, worse yet, that they would make unkind judgments about her father.

Only a few tears fell that night as she headed home. None of her schoolmates mentioned the incident and she most certainly didn’t tell her mother about it. She knew that to discuss the incident would only bring more pain to the family. Demi has found it’s a lot safer to ignore her feelings. For her, the feelings are too confusing, too complicated, and very scary. She hasn’t found anyone she can trust to share those scared feelings.

Any young person would feel disappointed if his parent didn’t show up for at least one school event in the entire school year. A child from a healthy family would not only be disappointed but angry as well. But for the child of an addictive family, this is just another one of those events to try not to feel bad about. It is easier not to feel anything than to dwell on the pain or the unfairness of it. And if the child does feel, it is easier to be angry with the nonaddicted parent when he or she misses an activity or to take the anger out on a classmate.

It would be normal for Jerry to be disappointed, afraid, and angry when, as a child, he has been sent to stay with a relative because Mom’s drinking became worse. When he returns in a couple of weeks, he’s told his mother won’t be drinking. But Jerry finds his mother exactly the way she was when he left home—drunk. The six-year-old in this situation might tell Dad he is angry (he hasn’t yet learned to deny), but Jerry at age nine would just ignore it. He simply no longer allows himself to respond emotionally.

In these incidents of denial, children are building up walls of self-protection. They are learning unhealthy coping mechanisms to protect themselves from the fear of their reality. The reality is that their parents are failing them. As the addiction progresses, the substance or the behavior becomes the parents’ obsession. When family members experience the results of this obsession, they ask the questions, “Why?” “Why does my mom disappoint me at important times?” “Why does my dad embarrass me like that?” “Doesn’t he love me?” “Why is my dad drinking so much?” “Are my parents ever going to get better?” “Is she crazy?” “Is it my fault?” “Am I crazy?” It is frightening for family members to ask such questions of themselves. It can be even more frightening to allow themselves to honestly answer.

There is so much to feel about, to be emotional about.

Afraid

•  When Mom and Dad fight.

•  To ask Mom when Dad will be coming home only to find out he may not be coming home.

•  To tell Mom, “No” about anything, for fear she’ll get loaded and leave.

•  Of being in the car with Mom when she is driving while impaired.

•  Of getting hit when Dad is drunk and violent.

Sad

•  Because we don’t have any money; Dad can never keep a job.

•  When I see my mother crying.

•  When I have to sit in the car for hours and hours when Dad is in the bar.

•  Because my dad would rather be away than at home. Angry

•  At Dad, for making excuses for my mom when she is just drunk.

•  At others, for calling my mom a junkie.

•  At Dad, for making promises and always breaking them.

•  At Dad, for always being so critical.

•  At Mom for using again after she stopped.

Embarrassed

•  When Mom attended the school open house intoxicated.

•  Because Dad has passed out in the front yard.

•  Because Mom looks so sloppy and half-dressed.

•  When my dad tries to act sober, but he isn’t.

Guilty

•  Thinking if I hadn’t talked back to my mother this morning, she might not have left and got in that car accident.

•  For never being able to do enough to please my dad.

•  For hating someone I am supposed to love—my mom.

•  For being ashamed of my parents.

•  For being alive.

These are only a few of the multitude of feelings family members may experience on a daily basis—yet learn not to express. As a result, they learn to discount and inevitably deny those feelings entirely. The reason for denying is to convince themselves, as well as others, that their unhappy family life can be made happy by pretending or denying reality. People tend to deny and minimize both situations and feelings in order to hide their own pain. They don’t want to be uncomfortable. The greatest problem here is that when someone minimizes and discounts feelings for not just weeks, but months and years of their life, it becomes a skill they take with them into adulthood that will permeate every significant area of their life.

John, why do you think other people feel angry, scared, and disappointed, but you don’t?

Maybe because I have to be tough!

Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, and Don’t Feel are the three major rules in the troubled family system. Yet other rules are also often experienced.

Don’t Think

Many children learn that it is not okay to think about what is happening. When it is not safe to talk or feel, it simply becomes easier not to think about what they are witnessing or experiencing.

Jessica told me, “We were taught not to think, not to speak, and not to feel. There were all of these kids in the same house, and it was as if there was this conspiracy among us. We were each other’s witnesses, but it was as if our eyes and ears were closed. That was our form of self-protection. We silently accepted our doom. My mother, who was our role model, was a quiet, religious woman. She was physically present when the abuse was going on, but she never spoke of it and somehow shut her ears to it.”

Don’t Question

The rules Don’t Think and Don’t Question go hand in hand. When Mom doesn’t come home, don’t question; when Dad contradicts himself mid sentence, don’t question; when plans are canceled, don’t question. It’s just easier that way. “Don’t ask for anything if you can get away with it without asking. If they said the family was going somewhere and then didn’t, you had to accept it. If they said pick a bag of weeds for no good reason, you went and picked the bag of weeds. If they hit you, you did nothing, and you felt nothing.” Life is easier, safer to not question. Children learn to tolerate the inappropriate, the hurtful. In time, they become numb.

Don’t Ask

Don’t Ask means more than don’t ask questions. Don’t ask for more information—you may be ridiculed or shamed. Don’t ask for something you want or need—you know you will be denied. Children either learn not to ask or, as in Jason’s case, nearly have an anxiety attack when doing so.

Jason, who is eleven, needs twenty dollars to play in the band at school for a special event. He waits for his parents to come home. He knows they will be loaded; there is never a good time to ask for anything. He has rehearsed his request for hours. He has several times talked himself out of the need for the money to play in the band. He literally finds himself shaking as his parents enter the house. As they come through the door, his father sees him and quickly yells, “What are you still doing up at midnight, Punk? You ought to be in bed.” Jason responds, “I’ve got to talk to you. I need some money for a pair of black pants so I can march with the band.” Dad responds, “A marching band? Does that school think we’re a money tree? Tell your teacher to come over here and tell me to my face that I’ve got to foot the bill for some pansy band uniform. I’ll tell him a thing or two.” Jason’s mom yells at her husband to shut up, and the focus shifts, both parents now arguing with each other, forgetting about Jason and his request. After a few experiences such as that, you not only learn not to ask, you learn not to expect. Jason is not angry or even disappointed with his parents. He is angry with himself for being hopeful.

Don’t Play

Many children learn it is not safe to play. “Who will take care of my little sister if I am outside playing?” “I can’t take time to play. I need to stay with the adults to know what is going to happen next.” For some, it is too painful to go play with others when their thoughts and feelings are focused on what is happening at home. It is easier to just stay at home—watch and be vigilant. Others find that their only validation comes when they are being mature, with the implication that to play was immature and irresponsible.

They are not supported and cherished for being who they are, only acknowledged and validated for being a premature adult.

Don’t Make a Mistake

Many children learn mistakes will not be tolerated. Derrick, age thirty-four, can remember his first mistake. “I was six. It was my first and my last mistake. I was eating a bowl of cereal with my dad and I spilled the milk. He backhanded me. I flew off the stool, hit my head up against the refrigerator door, and had a headache for the next three days. I have never made another mistake.” This is a setup for learning to not initiate.

The dysfunctional family rules are a way of life in addictive families. You learn how to live without the truth being told. You learn to keep your mouth shut and pretend problems do not exist. Denial of what is going on in the home creates a severe distortion of perception. You learn to not see the world clearly. As you move into adulthood, you find yourself wearing a distorted pair of glasses with which to view the world. You continue to discount, minimize, and tolerate inappropriate behavior by not questioning. As part of this process, you develop a painful, high tolerance for inappropriate behavior. When the three basic rules, Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel, are combined with the other dysfunctional rules, it is easy to see how a child easily becomes dispirited and moves into a coping role.