So What’s Good about being ACoA?

Sometimes I get sick and tired of the negative characteristics of being an offspring of an alcoholic.  We have to be more than just a sad face hiding behind a mask.  Some of the negative characteristics are children of alcoholic tend to lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth; they don’t cope well with change; they have a hard time expressing their needs; they tend to be indecisive, the list goes on.  Do ACOAs have any good characteristics?

Amy Eden, author of Adult-Child Issues, Raise Yourself Up offers that we can take those negative characters and use them for good.  We can even change the world by realizing that we are tough, imaginative, sensitive, and creative.

An online article entitled What’s Your Great Asset provides 5 strengths of an ACOA:

We can empathize:  We are exceptional listeners.  We’ve spent so many years thinking about the feelings of other, before ourselves, that we’re deeply talented at putting ourselves in other people’s shoes.

We are independent:  Because we didn’t think highly of the authority figures in charge of us for so many years, we’ve got lots of opinions about how to run things.

We are creative:  So many children of alcoholics go into the arts.  They are actors, writers, and painters.  Our sensitivity – to animals, to people in pain – gives us a third eye and ear that allows us to see and hear the realities of the human condition.

We are resilient:  We are survivors.  We are growing, healing, and redefining our futures.  Resilience is the ability to recover from insult or injury.

We are calm:  Children of alcoholics would make great emergency room doctors, nurses, paramedics, or fire fighters.  We are hard to shock, and we can stay calm in the midst of chaos.

This list makes me feel like less of a freak and more like a regular person.  Hi, I’m Liz Hawkins and I’m a recovering Adult Child of an Alcoholic.

#ACoA_Awareness