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&rsquo;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&nbsp;<em>Adult Children of Alcoholics</em>&nbsp;by Janet Geringer Woititz. As a whole, the book changed my life. But one single sentence is seared into my brain:&nbsp;<strong>Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal is.</strong>&nbsp;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> <p><a href="https://medium.com/the-memoirist/ghosts-of-christmases-past-d7f6dafc597e"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>