Ghosts of Christmases Past
<p>I am an adult child of an alcoholic. When I was younger, I had no idea what that really meant. I spent much of my young adulthood marveling at how I was able to escape a traumatic childhood unscathed. It wasn’t until I was well into my 40s that I really started to understand how it all affected me.</p>
<p>I read the landmark book <em>Adult Children of Alcoholics</em> by Janet Geringer Woititz. As a whole, the book changed my life. But one single sentence is seared into my brain: <strong>Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal is.</strong> I grew up in such chaos that not only did I have to guess at what normal was but, when confronted with a normal family, I was nearly paralyzed by my discomfort and inability to act normally.</p>
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