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My name is Nicky Young and I’ve written a book series from my journals of what it was like growing up in a family battling alcoholism. My experience is told through a love story that helped to save me from a life is mistrust, fear, and embracing the gloriousness of intimacy.
It is estimated 1 of every 3 children in the United States ...
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This poem is could be the anthem of many children who have been raised in a family battling alcoholism:
ABANDONED THINGS
Stability-I crave it
Control-I need it
Intimacy-I desperately want it
I look okay but I’m not
I may be successful in public
In private, I am struggling
You see me as an adult
Inside I am a little girl still afraid
I have lost my childhood
Please look ...
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It seems like the appropriate time to talk about stability.
For this survivor of family addiction and trauma, having it meant everything.
How did I reach it? How do I have it all these years later when the walls seem to shake around me?
Here is one tip I’ve found invaluable, even when all I wanted was to shut down:
Keep reaching out!
All too often I let relationships come and go in my life, from family to friends. Reaching back to them, taking the ...
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MOTHERS, FATHERS, SIBLINGS, FRIENDS, LOVERS, PARTNERS –
Weight and body issues aren’t what they seem. For children of dysfunctional families, they mean comfort and escape. They are the friends who never disappointed me.
During the nights of my father’s rage, even in the terror, a sense of calm filled me up because I knew Mom, a co-dependent within her husband’s alcoholic addiction, would reward me with presents the next day. It was often a movie with popcorn and candy, or ...
Continue Reading →“The evening begins when I am eight and my sister, eleven. We were trying to finish dinner before he’d unraveled. Within minutes, I’m hiding under the dining room table, cowering’ praying that he won’t see my hiding place.”
Hiding places – we all have them when growing up in a family that battles addiction. The rage – physical and mental – comes unexpectedly. We never know when our daily life will change. We are children that hope for the loving parent ...
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