CHAPTER FOUR

Progression of the Roles

Children raised in addictive homes enter adulthood coping with life’s problems in ways that have proved to be of great value to them. These include being responsible, adjusting, or placating, being a mascot, as well as not talking, not feeling, and not trusting. Reaching young adulthood, adult children go on about their lives continuing to applaud themselves for being survivors. As adults they find no reason to change these patterns that have always ensured survival.

Responsible Child

The oldest or only child, the one who became the little adult, continues into the grown-up world carrying a lot of responsibility. The ability to be responsible has been a great strength in that this young adult has already demonstrated maturity in handling many different kinds of situations. He or she continues to take charge and often assumes leadership roles. As a child, this person learned to set realistic goals during very early years. As a young adult, he or she has realized a number of accomplishments far sooner than most people. But, there also has been an evolution. This adult person now becomes tense, experiences increased anxiety, and often feels separated from others by an invisible wall.

During their growing-up years, children who adopted the responsible role were so busy being adults that there was no time to be children. They didn’t have time to relax as children and, as a consequence, they don’t know how to relax as adults. These children have been taking life so seriously for so many years that now, in adulthood, they are awkward and uncomfortable and have a very difficult time joining in fun.

I still try to take a lot of responsibility for people and things. I am only beginning to learn how to play. I find it difficult to enjoy hobbies or fun activities with any great consistency.

Chris, who had so organized and structured her own childhood, became very rigid, lacking in flexibility. As a child, she needed to be in charge or at least feel she was in control. If not, she had a sense that her entire world was collapsing. As an adult, this phenomenon continues. Chris finds herself needing to take charge, to feel in absolute control. If not, there is a pervasive sense of losing control and being totally overwhelmed. For this adult child everything is all or nothing, one way or the other, there is no in-between.

The idea of loss of control is intolerable to me. I get panicky when I even think of it.

Max finds his need to be in control puts him in a one-up position, which leaves others in the one-down. Being one-up is thinking of one’s self as better than another; the person in the one-down role thinks of self as having less value than another. There is no room in Max’s life to be in a relationship where the partners are equally valued. That would ultimately mean giving up control, which, for Max, would be giving up survival. One-up, one-down, and win-lose relationships are common in many professional, social, and intimate relationships. Remember, those responsible youngsters have become rigid, serious, goal-attaining young adults who have confidence in their ability to accomplish a great deal by being in charge. No sense of equal partnership exists for this person.

Another masterful and admired skill is that this adult child is often verbally articulate. Yet, the ability to speak well often means talking around the truth rather than owning the truth.

Jenna is an only child of an alcoholic father. At the age of thirty-one, she had become a lawyer in private practice, an apparent success. Unfortunately, she was alone in that private practice because two attempts at working with other colleagues had failed. She lacked close female friends, and her third marriage was failing. Jenna had developed those traits similar to so many other children raised with addiction. She had not learned to trust others so she simply tried to control them in an attempt to get her needs met.

As with many children of addiction, she also found it easier to rely on herself, not involving others. Jenna is outwardly successful, yet inwardly, someone who cannot bring herself to trust that others will be there for her. She can’t depend on others and therefore has no recourse but to relate on an unequal basis. She doesn’t know how to have fun, nor can she talk about the real issues for herself, and she certainly can’t talk about her feelings. In her personal and professional relationships, she is almost forced to associate with others who are equally emotionally inaccessible. Should she find an, articulate, emotionally open, caring, fun-loving person in her life she would feel awkward and not know how to respond.

A sharing, intimate relationship would be too uncomfortable so the responsible child removes him- or herself from that relationship. Responsible children often align themselves with people who are accepting of their rigidity, seriousness, and emotional detachment. If not, they then find themselves alone. It is easy to see why so many responsible adult children find themselves depressed, lonely, anxious, tense, and fearful. It is also easy to see how and why they often enter into unhealthy personal relationships.

The following table notes the strengths and vulnerabilities common to the Responsible role. Vulnerabilities pertain to emotional and psychological skills not learned due to the rigidity of the role.

Strengths	Vulnerabilities
• Organized	• Inability to listen
• Leadership skills	• Inability to follow
• Decision maker	• Inability to play
• Initiator	• Inability to relax
• Perfectionist	• Inflexibility
• Goal-oriented	• Need to be right
• Self-discipline	• Severe need to be in control
	• Extreme fear of mistakes
	• Lack of spontaneity

Beliefs That Drive Behavior

If I don’t do this, no one will.

If I don’t do this, something bad will happen or things will get worse.

Response to Feelings

I must stay in control of my feelings.

I was the all-American kid. In high school, I maintained a 3.6 grade point average and was a star on the championship baseball team. I was always trying to please my parents. Dad was a cocaine addict and a compulsive gambler. Mom worked seven days a week to support the family. After high school, I went into business for myself, but something was wrong. I was empty inside and didn’t know why. Whatever I did just wasn’t good enough. The more I achieved, the worse I felt. The accomplishments didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t fill the emptiness—it was always there. Finally, I couldn’t face life anymore and turned to using pills to numb out.

Adjuster

Children who found it much easier to shrug their shoulders and withdraw upstairs to the bedroom or slip out to a friend’s house usually continue these survival patterns into their grown-up years. Adult adjusters find it easier to avoid situations where they need to take control. They function better if they take whatever occurs in stride. They have become adept at adjusting, being flexible, and spontaneous. They find pride in these traits. As Jason said, “I went to nine different schools as a kid. I never knew how long I would stay or where I was going next. It wasn’t bad. I learned how to make friends quickly. I met a lot of interesting people.” Now, as an adult, Jason still finds it necessary to keep moving. “I get bored in one spot. I get bored if I am at a job more than nine months; I get bored with the same woman after nine months. I am even getting bored with this city. I have been here two years now.”

Children who adopt the adjusting pattern find they have neither the opportunity to develop trust on an ongoing basis nor the ability to develop healthy relationships.

Jeff, who was raised in an abusing, alcoholic family, said, “More than anything, I was scared. I didn’t have lots of friends, but I didn’t want lots of friends. I did have two friends growing up. I think they came from homes like mine. I don’t know really—we never talked. We hung around the playgrounds a lot. When I had to be home, I watched television if I could. If someone wanted to change the station, I let them. I just tried to be quiet. I liked to draw a lot so I did that. I never showed my drawings to anyone. They would have made fun of me.”

Adjusters, who as children, never knew how long they would be living in one place, or how long their mother would be sober, or how long their father would be staying away, learned how to handle (or adjust to) whatever situation they were currently in.

I usually had a movie playing in my head. I was always the star, the heroine—strong and powerful and beautiful. I also had an imaginary friend who provided constant companionship and comfort. Fantasizing was my only protection from living continually in pain.

Adjusters often have neither a sense of direction, nor a sense of taking responsibility for the direction they would like to take their lives. They feel no sense of choice or power over their own lives. While the more-responsible children have developed a sense of being able to affect the events in their lives, adjusters usually do not have a sense of any control.

Life is a perpetual roller coaster for the adjuster. Not because they like living that way, but because they feel they have no other options. They perceive themselves as having no alternatives. They never learned that choices were available to them. So now, as adults, they don’t talk about real issues in their lives, and they certainly do not seriously examine their own feelings. Adjusters find themselves associating with others who are as emotionally closed as they are. This limited association is the only type of relationship they find safe.

Due to being such followers, they also need someone else to lead. That can be a responsible adult child, or it could be the acting-out adult child who despite their acting out still takes charge. With an acting-out partner, the state of living in constant agitation becomes their comfort zone because they are perpetuating childhood roles of adapting to inconsistent people. They know how to handle chaotic situations—adjust. This kind of self-negating adjusting leads to depression, isolation, and loneliness.

The following table notes the strengths and vulnerabilities common to the Adjuster role. Vulnerabilities pertain to emotional and psychological skills not learned due to the rigidity of the role.

Strengths	Vulnerabilities
• Flexibility	• Inability to initiate
• Ability to follow	• Fear of making decisions
• Easy-going attitude	• Lack of direction
• Not upset by negative situations	• Inability to perceive options
	• Follows without questioning

Beliefs That Drive Behavior

If I don’t get emotionally involved, I won’t get hurt.

I can’t make a difference anyway, why try?

It is best not to draw attention to myself.

Response to Feelings

Why should I feel? It’s better if I don’t.

Placater

The child who was busy taking care of everyone else’s emotional needs—the warm, sensitive, caring, listening child, the one everyone liked—grows up continuing to take care of others, either personally or occupationally. As a very special friend of mine once said, “Those of us in the helping professions did not gravitate here accidentally. There must have been something wrong with us to be so preoccupied day in and day out with the pain of others.” Though this statement was said in half jest, it carries an enormous amount of truth. For the child who was particularly adept at making others feel comfortable, it’s only natural to gravitate toward situations that would enable him or her to continue in that manner.

There is something about me that seems to attract sick individuals or simply people with some type of problem.

Forty-four-year-old Eve was raised in a home by two parents who were addicted. When one takes care of others over the years, it is not unusual to arrive at the point Eve eventually reached. She proceeded to enter into three marriages with three different practicing alcoholics. When her third husband was hospitalized for his addiction, I asked her during a private session, “While your husband is in this program, what can you do for you so you’ll feel better?” Eve looked away. She began to grimace. She didn’t answer my question, nor did she look at me. So I repeated the question. “Eve, while your husband is in the hospital for the next three weeks, what can you do for you so you’ll feel better?” Again she looked away, but this time in addition to making grimacing gestures with her face, her shoulders began to twitch and jerk. The jerking was almost spasmodic.

Reaching out to steady her, I said, “Eve, you don’t have to take care of your husband anymore! You don’t have to take care of him. We are going to take care of him. And you don’t have to take care of your two boys tonight. You’ve already told me they are with friends. It is seven o’clock now. Between seven o’clock and ten o’clock tonight, what are you going to do for you so you will feel better?” There was a pause but no grimacing, no jerking. Eve simply said the only thing she could have said. With tears running down her cheeks, she whispered, “I don’t know, I don’t know. When in my forty-four years can I ask myself what it is that I want? When I do, I feel so guilty. “

Of course she didn’t know. All her life, the question of what she could do for herself was not a question she could safely explore. Adults who grew up in the role of placaters typically go through years of adulthood never seriously considering what they want. Instead, they discount their needs and focus on the needs of others. They have trained themselves only to be concerned with providing for others, consequently never getting what they want from life. For the placater, survival was taking away the fears, sadness, and guilts of others. Survival was giving of one’s time, energy, and empathy to others. Surviving had nothing to do with their personal needs. And as Diane, a forty-eight-year-old woman married to a recovering addict said, “I am that compulsive giver. I need to become more selfish. I must quit serving everyone else at my own expense, but I don’t know how.” Giving to others is not bad but giving at the expense of our own well-being is destructive. It is relatively easy to understand why these children develop depression as adults. Although they appear to be living their lives the way they want, they still feel apart from others; they feel lonely. They don’t have equal relationships with others. They always give too much and refrain from putting themselves in a position to receive. In personal relationships, placaters seek out people who are takers and who often refuse to take emotional responsibility for themselves. They are most comfortable being with others who are accepting of this one-way relationship.

The following table notes the strengths and vulnerabilities common to the Placater role. Vulnerabilities pertain to emotional and psychological skills not learned due to the rigidity of the role.

Strengths	Vulnerabilities
• Caring	• Inability to receive
• Empathetic	• Inability to focus on self
• Good listener	• Guilty
• Sensitive to others	• Strong fear of anger
• Gives well	• High tolerance for inappropriate behavior
• Warm
• Nice smile

Beliefs That Drive Behavior

If I am nice, people will like me.

If I focus on someone else, the focus won’t be on me and that is good.

If I take care of you, you won’t leave me or reject me.

Response to Feelings

I must take care of others’ feelings.

She Was My Mother Bless Her Soul

I sometimes sit in the corner in the dark

and recall my mother

with a brown bottle in her hand

or the sounds of clanking ice at 2 a.m.

She’d call me baby if she wanted another beer or a slut if she

hadn’t had enough.

She’d make me cookies on Christmas before she’d get too drunk.

Many nights

she would fall asleep on the floor.

I’d cover her with a blanket

and put a pillow under her head.

I’d awaken in the morning to the sounds of her screaming.

She wasn’t an easy woman to please.

Most of the time we didn’t get along.

Sometimes I miss her and the loneliness.

Jane

Mascot

By adulthood, the child who everyone in the family usually thinks of with a smile on their face, the one they are grateful for the humor he brought to the dark times, finds himself lost. The responsibilities of adulthood become a challenge as this role doesn’t afford the adult child specific skills. He seeks out environments where his distractibility via wit and humor is valued; however, that becomes lacking unless his peer group remains young.

The following table notes the strengths and vulnerabilities common to the Mascot role. Vulnerabilities pertain to emotional and psychological skills not learned due to the rigidity of the role.

Strengths	Vulnerabilities
• Perceptive	• Distracting
• Sense of humor	• Immature
• Adaptable	• Takes little seriously
• Energetic	• Attention-seeking
	• Can’t focus

Beliefs That Drive Behavior

If I make people laugh they will like me.

If I make people laugh I won’t feel my own pain.

If I make people laugh they won’t feel their pain

Response to Feelings

Mask the pain.

Acting-Out Child

Acting-out children, the ones who were constantly in trouble, will continue to find conflicts in adulthood. They do not know how to feel good about themselves. They have been unable to interact with others in acceptable ways and have been unable to express their own needs or have them met. They were always aware of their anger but seldom aware of other feelings.

I spent most of my years dominated with anger and resentment. I transferred my pain by fighting someone, anyone. I didn’t care if I won or lost. I would fight with words. I would fight with my fists. I was blind to the consequences. Fighting was a way of releasing negative feelings dammed up inside. It gave me a way, at least for a moment, to feel I had some power over my life force. It was energy. It compensated for the nothingness.

Children usually gravitate toward others with similar personality traits to form a peer group. Some identify more as loners. If they had spent time in the justice system or psychiatric institutions, they often continue this pattern.

Upon reaching adulthood, acting-out children find their behavior (or lack of it) has caused significant problems. This behavior now complicates their adult lives because they may lack a high school education, frequently challenge authority, do not contain their anger, possibly have an unplanned pregnancy, or have had youthful marriage and all of the problems that frequently come with that. It’s often common that the acting-out child is the recovering addict who is reading this book. The sooner he or she gets into trouble, the sooner this child has the potential to get help. Yet these children have strengths often not tapped.

The following table notes the strengths and vulnerabilities common to the Acting-Out Child. Vulnerabilities pertain to emotional and psychological skills not learned due to the rigidity of the role.

Strengths	Vulnerabilities
• Close to own feelings	• Inappropriate expressions of anger
• Less denial, greater honesty
• Creative	• Inability to follow direction
• Sense of humor	• Intrusive
• Ability to lead	• Social problems at young ages (truancy, addiction, high school dropout, teen pregnancy, etc.)

Beliefs That Drive Behavior

If I scream enough, someone may notice me.

Take what you want. No one is going to give you anything.

Response to Feelings

I am angry about it, whatever it is.

Mixing and Matching Roles

Some children clearly fit into one or more of these roles. For most though, there are both primary and secondary roles.

Jon described himself predominantly as the responsible child, but during times of violence in his home he moved into the adjusting role. Since he was young, he believed he needed to take the pressure off his mother. His father seldom worked and would spend his days away from home. Neither his mother nor the kids knew how their father occupied his time. Jon took it upon himself to take charge of keeping the house clean and seeing that his brother and sister were kept entertained while his mother worked ten to twelve hours a day. On a daily basis, it was Jon who created order in the home. After school he would walk to where his mother worked, get money to go to the grocery store, get dinner ready, clean up the house, and see that his brother and sister did their homework. He didn’t allow himself to feel any stress that would naturally be associated to this.

His father talked a lot about working, but Jon doesn’t really remember his dad having any steady jobs. Jon was a good student, bringing pride to his father. He can remember listening to his father brag about him to his using buddies. Over the years his father’s behavior at home became frightening as he was increasingly intoxicated and loaded. He frequently accused the children of liking their mother more than him. His paranoia was often sexual in nature—being suspicious of his wife, accusing her of sexual affairs, accusing his daughter of being sexual with boys. His inappropriate behavior would escalate and he would become verbally abusive, frequently lying and, ultimately, become physically violent, often threatening to kill the whole family.

Jon described the incredible fear he felt as his father began to take siege in their home. Jon said there was no illusion of his power. All he knew at these times was it was best to lie low, become invisible. Do not draw any attention to himself, disappear into the woodwork if possible. At such times, it was everyone for themselves. Not because he wasn’t concerned about his siblings and mother but to do anything was provocation to his father.

While those frightening times lasted only from minutes to hours, it was the intensity, not the duration, that created the impact. Jon would move from being the responsible child to the adjuster in a literal fight for survival. Decades later, at times when he would feel frightened, he would again depart from being a capable, responsible adult and feel as if he were twelve years old and responding to the terror of his father’s threats all over again. Jon is in an adult body. But on the inside he feels like a helpless frightened child. His body remembers the terror.

Shannon described herself as mostly acting-out, but within her group of peers she became a placater. At home she was blatantly angry and often sullen. She talked back to her mother and was verbally abusive to her sister. In junior high she was sneaking out of the house to be with friends. She performed poorly in school, not paying much attention and frequently skipping classes by high school. But when she was with her friends she wanted only to please them. She created and was a part of the conflict at home, but in her peer group she frequently did what she could to keep peace among her friends. It was with her friends that she had a greater sense of being a part of, of belonging. Shannon didn’t understand what was happening at home and did not feel valued. With her friends, however, there was a way for her to be accepted.

Noah is like many mascots, in that this role often is combined with being an acting-out child. Being the youngest in the family, he quickly became the family pet. His arrival seemed a welcome distraction from what was happening in the family. As he got older, he thrived in the attention his humor brought to his siblings and to his mother. His addict father didn’t find Noah’s wit and energy to be endearing as much as annoying. But as he moved into his teenage years, Noah’s high energy, his inability to focus on what was being asked of him at school, and his family starting to scatter, all created a situation where his humor was no longer a source of connection and validation. He started to hang out with kids who did appreciate his humor and soon he used his brightness and wit to do things that in the beginning were small pranks. He was desperate for attention, desperate to be acknowledged. Pressured to take risks that initially broke rules at school, then laws, gave him a stronger identity. Being a mascot and acting-out child are a natural combination, both roles distract others from the real issues at home, both draw attention to self, and in both roles they often find a peer group that appreciates their antics.

A percentage of children will change and adopt different roles as they grow older. They tend to do this as their environment changes, and they find the old role no longer serves its purpose or a new role creates greater security. Erica would move from being the responsible/placater to acting-out as her initial roles simply no longer worked for her. She was helping to raise her three younger brothers. Her mother was loaded most of the time. After a while the responsibilities became too great and her efforts seemed futile. Her brothers were no longer obeying her. She started to stay away from home. When home, she was frustrated with the different men who kept coming in acting as if they were her dad and then taking charge of the family. Ultimately, she began to hang out on the streets. The placater disappeared, and the ability to take charge, to initiate, and organize would redirect itself in her acting out and becoming a leader on the streets.

Both of Ronnie’s parents were addicts. His mother was addicted to pills and alcohol and his father was hooked on a combination of drugs and alcohol. He was the third child, and his two brothers were four and six years older than he. He always relied on his older brothers, and they took good care of him. He doesn’t remember a lot about his early childhood but describes it mostly as seeing his brothers as his parents. They dressed him. They saw to it that he went to school. When he was in grade school he can remember one of them meeting him at school and walking him home every day for a couple of years. His father wasn’t around much of the time. When his dad was home he was mostly quiet and aloof. The older brothers also took care of their mother. He described the situation as one where it was as if his mother needed her own parent to tell her what she had to do, such as getting dressed, eating, maybe signing papers for school, or seeing that certain bills were paid. If anything, Ronnie described himself as a placater, wanting to please his older brothers. When the two older brothers left the home, he was just thirteen. “There was no one there to take care of Mom and she was in no shape to take care of herself most of the time, so I took over that role. It was not so much that I was trying to please her, I just moved into the responsible parenting role to keep her alive and I guess a place for me to stay.”

By the time I was eleven I had begun to confront my parents and tried to act as a mediator in their fights. I became the caretaker, the people pleaser, and the scapegoat. I had to take on all of these roles because there was only one of me. I’d switch into whatever role I thought would solve the situation.

I became everything to everyone. I could be the perfect child, I made good grades, I was popular, I ordered the groceries, did the dishes. I made both my parents laugh. I was needed! Still, I was never sure when I came home if I was the selfish brat or the adored child.”

There are strengths and deficits with each role children adopt. Unfortunately, because the skills developed within the roles are often acquired from a basis of fear and shame, they become extreme ways of coping and reacting. These coping behaviors also fuel problems due to undeveloped skills. It is vital to know how to initiate, but if you do not learn how to follow, it creates problems when you need to relate to others. It is good to be flexible, but if you never learn to make an autonomous decision, you risk victimization or never having your needs met. It is important to stand up for your rights and own your anger, but if you cannot identify other feelings, you lose the opportunity for intimacy. Self-reliance is a wonderful virtue but, at the price of never trusting others, it creates painful isolation. The key to healing is in finding balance.

Fueling Addiction

Studies have also shown that addiction repeats itself within the family from generation to generation. Overall, the results of many biological studies indicate that children of alcoholics react differently to alcohol or other drugs because of a difference in biochemical transmission. The research suggests:

• Children of alcoholics may suffer chemical imbalances that make them prone to substance-abusing behaviors.

• Children of alcoholics have increased feelings of pleasure and relaxation from alcohol ingestion, increased elation and/or decreased muscle tension in response to alcohol ingestion, decreased feelings of intoxication at the same blood alcohol levels compared with children of nonalcoholics, and a possible serotonergic deficiency or an exaggerated level of serotonin when ingesting alcohol.

This does not mean that if they drink they will become alcoholic; it means the brain chemistry is such that there is a far greater likelihood due to the biological vulnerability. It is estimated that genetics account for 40–60 percent of the risk of the development of alcohol abuse or dependence. Environmental factors also play a serious role.

While it is common for children who recognize they are being raised with substance use disorders to say they will not drink or use when they get older, in reality, most of them choose to do so. They begin drinking and using at about the same ages and for the same reasons that children from nonaddicted families make similar choices. These youngsters usually begin to drink in their early teens. Like their peers, they drink to have fun because their friends want them to or out of curiosity or defiance. They drink to feel grown up; they drink to escape. Most teenagers typically drink just to get drunk. They are experimenting. But most significantly, they drink with an added belief—it will never happen to me. They may recognize their parent is addicted, but they believe that addiction is based on a lack of willpower, that it is a control issue. This belief says, “I have seen enough and I know enough about what alcohol and drugs can do to a person. I will be different.”

For a child who has grown up with confusion, fear, shame, and powerlessness, alcohol and other drugs offer more than what they offer young people from healthier families. While it is often perceived that the angry, acting-out child is the one more likely to choose alcohol and other drugs as an escape, these substances offer answers and become a solution to any child of addiction regardless of family role.

As I describe the emotional and psychological influences specific to the different roles, I will use alcohol as the drug of choice knowing that for most people who become addicted their use begins with alcohol. Yet, it is also common that children, in an attempt to make sure they do not repeat the patterns of their parent(s), resort to a different substance or behavior to meet their needs. If it is not alcohol or other drugs, it is often food, spending/shopping, gambling, screen time, gaming, or sex. People who have process addictions will find that specific behaviors they engage in are reinforced in a similar manner. Whatever your drug of choice, it gives you something you didn’t get to learn or experience, and you engage more and more to get the desired effect. As far as the brain is concerned a reward is a reward, regardless of whether it comes from a substance, behavior, or experience.

Responsible Child

For the responsible child, alcohol helps him loosen up and relax. When he drinks, he isn’t quite as serious. Although these same personality changes occur in most people who drink, for those who are stuck in unhealthy patterns, alcohol may be the only thing that provides relief. Taking a drink makes them feel adequate—a feeling that to be sustained leads from one drink to another and then another. When these individuals drink, they are able to become more open with their feelings, show some vulnerability, and discover that other people respond to them more positively when they exhibit this relaxed and open manner. This does not necessarily make them addicted, but it does reinforce their need to drink and sets them up for a psychological dependency.

I was this perfect kid. Academically, I did well and got a lot of satisfaction from being a part of the “in” group. I belonged. I had the right girlfriend. My family looked good to the outsiders. But by the time I went to college, I was emotionally numb, confused, but wasn’t looking back. I had seen enough alcohol to float a small country. But excessive drinking made drinking seem normal to me. So when I began to have a drink every night before going to bed, it didn’t strike me that no one else in the dorm had a drink every night or took a bottle of vodka with them to classes or put liquor in a mouthwash bottle. I drank to relax, to relieve pain, to hide from alienation and vague feelings of anxiety. But mostly to get rid of, to hide, or to mask the way I felt. It was also the time in which I felt closest to my dad.

Adjuster

For adjusters, alcohol removes feelings of inadequacy while giving them a sense of power. This is a false sense of power, but if you have felt only powerlessness in your life false power feels better than no power. Under the influence they may find themselves aware of undiscovered options and alternatives. Making decisions becomes easier, as does experiencing honest feelings and talking about the real issues. With this newfound power comes increased self-confidence. In order to maintain these feelings it is necessary to have another drink and another, and yet another. Ultimately, alcohol provides a state of being that feels good. It becomes a way of experiencing feelings that can’t seem to be felt except with the use of alcohol. Again, it sets them up for a psychological dependency.

I loved alcohol from the first swallow. I had been a time bomb waiting to explode. I had finally found a way to connect, to be a part of. It fixed me, something to make me feel adequate, okay, and able to cope.

Placater

Alcohol performs wonders for many placaters. Drinking helps them to focus more on themselves rather than others. Initially, this is very scary and they feel guilty but with a bit more to drink or use that guilt lessens. They are finding it feels good to focus on themselves. They no longer feel the weight of the world they have carried on their shoulders due to taking care of so many others. Using allows placaters to become more assertive. It empowers them to be more honest about their feelings. Instead of the perpetual smile, they are more real. Again, this too is scary and with more to drink or use they forget that fear and enjoy this newfound freedom. Ultimately, drinking becomes the solution to a problem they didn’t even recognize. Before long, the psychological trap of dependency has become a reality.

I wasn’t a happy child. I was always trying to make sure I was liked. I tried so hard to please everyone. It was tiring. I remember being thirteen and at a girlfriend’s house and a bunch of us were drinking screwdrivers. I was walking home and noticing that my lip was numb. I thought it felt wonderful and I wished that I could always feel that way. And then I started to smoke pot and thought this stuff is great for me. I saw the world in a whole different light. It wasn’t long before I was using pot almost every day. I used it to maintain. Then I drank for total oblivion.

Mascot

Being a comic is cute when you are young or in adulthood when it is an attribute versus the essence of your identity. As you grow older and need to take on personal responsibility, mascots may not get the reinforcement they once did. When that attention begins to wane they are left with their pain. Loneliness and fear are their more predominant emotional experiences. Alcohol and other drugs are often the answer. Because mascots often find the same benefits acting out, using and drinking are quick solutions to the pain they have been running from since a young age.

Oh I was a funny kid. Even I found myself funny. But other kids became tired of it I guess and they let me know I needed to grow up. I couldn’t grow up. It hurt too bad. So I laughed my way into a peer group that tolerated what I guess was childishness on my part. But it simply was the humor and antics I had always used. I can remember my first drink; it was really my first drunk. I got up on top of a car, took off part of my clothes, and did what I thought was a comic routine. I made a name for myself. But I found I needed the alcohol to get that out of control. But at least I still had an audience. At least someone still noticed me.

Acting-Out Child

Using alcohol and other drugs is the typical trademark of rebellion. Substances allows people to feel better about themselves, giving them a false sense of confidence in their abilities. It’s a way of saying to the world “you will notice me,” while it drowns their pain. It is also a way for them to feel they have power in the face of a sense of defeat and hopelessness about their lives. This child typically begins drinking at a younger age than kids in other roles and, as a result, moves quickly to abuse and develops his or her addiction at earlier ages with rapid progression. The flip side of this is theoretically they are more likely to be directed to help earlier as they are getting into trouble so young.

At age forty-six, Patty is still acting out her anger. She was an angry teenager and has been an angry adult. Despite having a college degree, her addiction has blocked her career, and she has resorted to supporting herself as a bartender. Patty has been married three times. She has relinquished the parenting of her children to the different fathers. Known for her belligerent attitude, Patty has challenged nearly everyone in authority positions, from her bosses to police. As a result, few people welcome her presence in their lives today.

I began to use and drink when I was about twelve. I was so angry and was always in trouble, and in the beginning it calmed me down. It made it easier to get along with friends. I was already out of the house as much as I could be. It didn’t take long until it seemed I just got into more trouble, but I didn’t care. I had found something to fix me, something to fill up the horrible empty hole.

Joseph summarized it all by saying, “I could play any role. I played them one right after another, never knowing who I was and never being me. I hated the insanity and the abuse in my family. Everything was out of control. The whole thing was nuts and I hated it—my mother’s hysteria, my father’s drinking. I wanted to kill myself, but never got the courage, so I let alcohol and drugs do it for me.”

A good guideline: any time you use a substance or become involved in a process or behavior that interferes with your honesty or the ability to be present with yourself, it deserves your attention.