Has it ever seemed like there were chunks of your childhood you just couldn’t remember?

I know most people have things they have forgotten, but what I’m talking about is where there might be blank spaces in your past. My sisters and I compared notes and realized that for all of us, 1963 through 1967 was for the most part blank – we just couldn’t remember. Oh, we each had glimpses of scenes from that time, almost like recounting movies we vaguely recalled. My oldest sister talked about hounding my Dad to get my other sisters bicycles for Christmas, but I had no memory of it. As I learned to face that painful past, memories returned and were released, those buried memories lost their rule over my life, and I could live more freely.

Have you ever noticed periods of your childhood that were blanked out?

Photo Credit

“365days tests” by SuperFantastic @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

I decided in my early ‘20s the one thing I wanted most in life was not to be like my Dad.

When I was a teenager, he was angry, smoked, drank, and could be very damaging just with his words, and I wanted to be nothing like that. Then in my ‘30s when I was angry, smoking, drinking and could be very damaging just with my words, I realized with a shock I had become just like my Father. I began to see how connected he and I were through the events of my teenage years, because most of the anger that made me smoke and drink was because of that time. It was one of the most humbling moments of my life, but also one of the most freeing, because I could begin to do something about it.

Have you ever wanted not to be like a parent?

Photo Credit

“Zaza smoking” by Bentza @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Has it ever felt like you give up easily when something doesn’t seem to be working out?

I have had that tendency, and discovered that it was connected to being put down or humiliated when I successfully completed a project as a child. At age 14, I published 5 poems in my junior high literary magazine, and I was thrilled about it. I showed the magazine to my Dad, who said “poems, you little snot, you’ll never amount to anything.” Wow! If that won’t discourage you from trying, I don’t know what will. I gave up writing poetry until I was 36 years old because of that statement – what a loss! I had to work on overcoming those old messages so I could be more free to discover the joy of accomplishing the things I set out to do.

Have you ever been easily discouraged?

Photo Credit

“No such thing as a free lunch… or is there? : 53/365” by SashaW @ flickr.com Creative Commons. Some rights reserved

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Have you ever felt like you were so caught up in analyzing problems that you were immobilized?

I am a very analytical person, and I was confronted once by a friend who said if I was going to continue to swirl around in a downward spiral of destructive introspection, she wasn’t going to go with me. Boy, that was an earful, but – she got my attention! I would sit for hours and run ideas through my head about how to fix a situation or improve my life, while doing absolutely nothing. Stewing over a problem without deciding was a way not to take a risk, and I had to learn to work on problems differently in order to actually solve them. Sometimes it involved commitment to taking action, and that was very freeing!

Have you ever gotten trapped by your own analytical mind?

Photo Credit

“(237/365) Tech awe” by Sarah G @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Have you ever wondered what was normal in a certain situation?

I often have, because in my household growing up, there were very few stable patterns of behavior – everything was unpredictable. One day you might make a smart remark and Dad would think it was hilarious, and the very next day, the same remark could lead to a dangerous confrontation. So I never knew what to expect or how things might be when I walked into the house after school. I had to learn that, growing up in an alcoholic family, I just didn’t get good perspectives on life, and had a lot to learn about how people interacted. I had to watch friends with more stable family situations to learn about how to function in the real world, but it gave me a freedom I just never learned as a child.

Have you ever struggled to define normal?

Photo Credit

“It’s a Mad Mad World” by SashaW @ flickr.com Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Yes or no, black or white, with me or against me. Any of that sound familiar?

In my ‘30s I was a master at the black and white thinking, which was really about I’m right and you’re wrong. Either you agreed with me or I would have to make you a bad person to defend my position. I learned that watching my Dad be the one who was always right. We argued one time, and he just glared at me, but after he’d had a few drinks, it later led to a very painful and violent incident. As an adult, I wanted to be in that powerful position, so I thought in absolutes. As I have learned to respect the opinions of others, and live with statements like “we can agree to disagree,” I seem to get along better with other people.

Do you ever think in absolute terms and get rigid about it?

Photo Credit

“arg1” by Paul L Dineen @ flickr.com Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

 Have you ever found yourself telling a lie about something when there was really no reason to do so?

I discovered I did that a lot – because as a child, if I admitted to anything, it could lead to a negative and painful consequence. If I broke one of Dad’s tools, it could be dangerous for me, so I learned to always deny knowing what had happened. Unfortunately for me, my face read like a book, and would betray my guilty knowledge. As an adult, I sometimes lied even when, if I had just told the truth, the issue would have been quietly resolved. I didn’t know that, and reacted as I did as a child. As I have begun to be transparent and honest about my actions, it has led to a lot fewer awkward and confusing situations.

Have you ever lied when you didn’t need to?

Photo Credit

“Guilt Ridden Glasses” by Evil Erin @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Have you ever found yourself defending someone who is taking advantage of you?

I had a friend who would call me every time he needed to fix his house, or do gardening work, and I would go help him, even cancelling my plans in order to be available. He wasn’t being very good to me, but I would write it off to him being such a successful and busy person. If he was that successful, why not hire a gardening service? I finally had to see that I was being loyal when the loyalty was undeserved. He never seemed to be around when I needed help, so it wasn’t a reciprocal situation – just me allowing myself to be used. It was a measure of loving myself in a new way when I said no to him and decided my time was worth more than that.

Have you ever been loyal to someone who took advantage of you?

Photo Credit

Microsoft Office Clipart Collection

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Has it ever felt like you struggled to finish things – an assignment at work, a fixit project at home?

That plagued me for years. I would start building a shelf, and for no apparent reason, walk away and leave the materials sitting for a long time. When I was six, I got a toy racetrack for Christmas, and my Dad started putting it together for me. I watched it sit in the garage, unfinished, until I stopped asking and felt very sad that I wouldn’t get to enjoy my present. Then the toy racetrack just disappeared. I began to learn that things just never got finished where you could enjoy them. I continued that logic into adulthood, but I had to separate finishing things from childhood experiences, to be free to finish the job.

Have you ever struggled to finish things you start?

Photo Credits

“Finish Line” by jronaldlee @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Thumbnail – “138/365 Frustrated” by martinak 15 @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom

Is there something inside you that makes you sense that if you talk about what’s going on with you,
it will lead to bad things?

I learned growing up in an alcoholic family, that you don’t talk about what is going on inside the household. If I had told a teacher about my Dad hitting me, and she did something about it, he would have gotten angry and more violent the next time we were alone. I knew that to be true, so as a teenager, I just didn’t talk. I carried that over into adulthood, and it was a painful prison to live in. I had to learn all over how to talk about what happened and what was happening, and how I felt about it. But it certainly helped me feel less isolated, and what a freedom that has been.

Have you ever felt like the don’t talk rule applied to you?

Photo Credit
“shh” by xelusionx @ flickr.com Creative Commons – Some rights reserved.

Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom