Are You A Grandchild Of Alcoholics?

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

The mind is like a puzzle and nothing works if you're missing pieces.

And I can tell you that knowledge is food for the soul.

Knowledge to me is like a band-aid for the mind.

It's like,

Oh,

Finally,

It's like anti-venom.

It's like,

Oh,

The missing pieces,

This is what was wrong with me.

Before I understood this one giant piece of the puzzle,

That was the angry Lisa,

That was the frustrated Lisa,

The person who was so aggravated.

I thought I was doing everything right.

I was getting to the point where I couldn't stand my life anymore.

I would look around,

I would say,

Why can't I get happy?

Like what is wrong?

I have a house,

I have a business,

I have healthy children.

I have a mom,

I have a dad,

I have siblings,

I have a husband,

I have his family,

Like I have my health,

So to speak,

But that was failing.

I was developing severe crippling migraine headaches to the point where it was hard to get out of bed in the morning.

They had put me on a medication back in the day called Buspar because they thought,

Oh,

She's got this anxiety disorder.

No one asked why I had an anxiety disorder.

A disorder is what?

The puzzle's out of order.

Why?

I'm missing pieces,

Man.

It's not my fault.

Anxiety is a symptom.

It's not a disease.

It's a disease of mind and disease of mind is a disordered mind.

Why?

Because the mind is out of order.

Okay.

So I was missing data.

Hello.

That wasn't my fault,

But I didn't know that then,

But I was really becoming so inflamed with anger and resentment.

And I was stuck.

And no matter what I tried,

I was going to the therapist.

I tried the medication,

No matter what I tried at that point.

Now remember,

I was only trying and reaching for what my mind or my level of awareness at the time allowed me to have access to.

You see,

When you think you know everything,

You're not coachable.

When you aren't asking the right questions,

You can't receive the right answers.

So I was not yet even asking for help.

I was still in the pissed off stage where it's like,

I'm just recycling this data,

Thinking I'm doing everything right.

And I hate everybody now.

I remember the last Thanksgiving that I hosted at my marital home,

I threw like this huge butcher knife in the sink after,

You know,

We were carving the turkey and I just threw it in the sink.

It was like,

I didn't care if it popped out and hit anybody.

I was just so angry because they were commenting about my cooking.

I just had a baby in August and I'm hosting my family and their words were like razors to my soul.

Like,

Can't you see I'm like struggling here?

And I was not in a good place with my ex-husband because I wasn't in a good place with me.

I never had been.

I was in my early thirties and all of the defense mechanisms and strategies that were below the veil of consciousness that I had used to get to that point in my life,

Man,

They were not working anymore.

It was sort of like my emotional tank was empty.

I had nothing else left to give,

Especially after three children.

I had nothing else left to give,

Especially after living with somebody who was a covert narcissist,

Vulnerable narcissist,

In my opinion,

Who stonewalled,

Who was passive aggressive,

What all the treats,

But they seem so benign in separate instances.

But when they started to pile up,

Like you could take a covert narcissist every once in a while at a party,

Live with one,

Sleep with one,

Have a business with one,

Raise a family with one that gets old real fast,

You know,

But collectively when I started to like really hone in on what is happening,

That's when it was like,

I can't take this anymore.

My health was failing.

I was starting to like get really,

Really like vocal and nasty back at my mom.

Like I just couldn't tolerate it anymore,

But I still felt like a bound up constipated,

Like three-year-old,

Like throwing taco trucks across the room.

I didn't want that.

I wanted a stainless steel spine.

I wanted to speak from confidence and grace and be a self-assured and have self-efficacy and know that what I was saying was sound psychologically,

Spiritually,

Mentally,

And,

And justifiably so sound.

I wanted it to,

I wanted what I was saying and feeling to align with something greater than myself,

Which was truth,

Which was harmony,

Which was fairness,

Which is not the life that I was living.

I was missing this one piece of data and that was,

And found through finally an intuitive therapist.

And I guess I was finally ready to hear it thinking that everything was that was wrong was outside of me.

I have to change my ex-husband.

I have to change his family.

I don't like the way they're treating me.

I have to change my brother,

My sister,

My mother,

My father.

I don't like the way they're treating me.

So up until that point in my life,

I was still looking for something outside of me to change,

Thinking that that was going to make me happy.

Boy,

Was I wrong.

Like holy Toledo,

Boy,

Was I wrong.

Lions and tigers and bears,

Oh my.

And it finally attracted this therapist into my life and he asked me,

Is there any alcoholism in your family?

And my initial answer was,

No,

There is no alcoholism in my family.

And I responded with,

Well,

My parents don't drink.

And he said,

That's not what I asked you.

And I was like,

Oh,

This guy knows what he's talking about.

Like he's anchoring me.

I felt like my skin was crawling.

Like this therapist was like,

Ah,

I could see you.

You're all over the place.

You're ADHD brain,

Which I now understand is a CPTSD brain.

Didn't know it then.

I see what your mind is doing.

You're rationalizing,

Denying,

Trying to figure out the answer that,

That,

That isn't appropriate.

Just listen to what the hell I asked you.

And I'm going to call you out on the answer that you gave me.

I didn't ask you if your parents drank.

I asked you if there's any alcoholism in your family.

It was a profound moment in me.

Like someone was calling me out on this craziness in my head because he was smarter than me.

And he was me at one point.

And that's why he could identify what was happening in my mind and why I'm able to identify it now.

And I said,

Uh,

Well,

Yeah,

Actually there is alcoholism in my family.

And he said,

Okay,

Basically where?

And I was like,

Well,

Three out of four grandparents were alcoholics.

And he's like,

Oh,

So you're the grandchild of an alcoholic.

I was like,

Yeah,

Three of them.

And the grandparent that wasn't an alcoholic was addicted to amphetamines.

And she actually took her own life and left four kids behind,

You know,

When she was in her thirties.

And he just shook his head like,

Uh-huh.

He knew me.

He was like,

I got you.

I see you.

I see you codependent lady.

I see you.

You are below the veil and you've got a lot to learn.

That was a very long time ago.

That was probably over 25 years ago where I was sitting in that therapist's office and he didn't say much,

But what he said and was profound.

And also he gained my absolute respect that day when he called me out on my own crap,

Which if you're here to learn,

If you're not a passive bystander kicking tires,

You're really here to learn like,

What the hell do I need to fix myself?

Then that's information is going to be like,

Like I said,

Soothing bomb to your soul.

It's like,

Okay,

This was a missing piece and you're going to go look for it.

And that really is the journey of every soul on the planet is to grow and evolve.

But some of us know it and some of us don't.

Those of us who embrace that journey and we're ferocious spiritual readers and we're ferocious,

Ferocious understanders of information that we can connect with on a profound,

Deep level in a way that nobody else could understand.

We know that,

Oh,

That message was specifically for me.

We grow,

I believe exponentially.

And we have such an appreciation because we know that we're supposed to be moving ourselves out of these comfort zones as uncomfortable as they are.

And they freaking are.

We appreciate,

Oh,

I'm supposed to be,

I'm supposed to be moving out of this comfort zone into this place.

It's absolutely beautiful.

And so this one piece of the puzzle,

You are the adult child of two unrecovered adult children of alcoholics.

It was profound for me.

It was like,

Okay,

Here's that piece of the puzzle that you've been missing.

Want to know why you're pissed off?

Want to know why you hate people?

Want to know why you're turning into someone that you don't like very much?

Want to know why you're fantasizing about leaving your ex-husband?

Now he's my ex-husband.

Want to know why you're fantasizing about what it would be like to be with a different partner?

Because you're a little girl and you think the answer is to switch seats.

You don't know it's you,

That your butt is going to be in the next seat.

And you're taking your subconscious programming with you.

You're taking all of your trauma with you.

You're taking all of your data for what a relationship is with you.

So keep playing musical chairs.

You're going to end up in the same,

On the same planet with a similar energy being because the magnet that you are hasn't changed.

Like this is profound stuff.

Are you freaking kidding me?

This is everything.

This is everything.

Consciousness is everything.

And so this one profound piece of information totally transformed my life.

So being the innate truth seeker that I am,

I decided I'm not giving up.

I'm going to learn everything I can about being the adult child of an alcoholic,

Even though one would argue,

Was my mom an alcoholic?

I think my mom was a dry alcoholic,

But just because she didn't drink doesn't mean that she wasn't an alcoholic.

And the fact is she did drink,

But she drank in secret and she stopped drinking cold turkey.

Kudos to you,

Mom.

You know,

I am proud of you.

She's since passed on and I am proud of that.

Kicking alcoholism,

Just stop drinking cold turkey is no easy feat,

But that doesn't mean that what was broken inside of you that led you to that addiction is actually healed.

So you can actually still be considered a dry alcoholic,

Even though you don't drink a drink,

A drop of alcohol.

What will drive you to addiction is the emptiness inside of your soul.

The disconnect that you have between you and you,

Your true self,

The rationalizations of ego that make you feel so worthless and the games the ego plays,

I.

E.

Ego defense mechanisms that actually work to keep you stuck in neurological loops at the subconscious level,

Doing what you did as a child.

And unfortunately,

Adult children of alcoholics,

Lots of times they attract people who abuse them and take advantage of them,

Who are more narcissistic that can see the weakness in them.

And the weakness being a lack of selfhood,

This,

This need to feel seen and this need to escape our own unworthiness is so palpable and predatory type people will exploit it.

That's why in my work,

I link childhood trauma to codependency,

To narcissistic abuse,

To back to,

Are you the adult child of an alcoholic?

Were you raised with emotional neglect?

Were your parents emotionally immature?

Do you suffer from abandonment trauma?

Did you grow up feeling invisible,

Unseen and unworthy?

Was anyone there for you when you came home from school?

Did anybody give a crap that you were bullied at school?

Did,

Were you,

Were you taken advantage of as a child?

Did you speak about it?

Was that ignored?

Was that brushed under the rug?

What happened in your experience?

Do you feel connected to your inner child and to your higher self?

Is your mind organized?

Because if your mind is out of order,

You're going to have a disorder.

Do you?

And is that your fault?

What is a personality disorder?

In my opinion?

Okay.

Some people are born with some brain anomalies or,

Or hormonal issues or chemical issues.

Their brain isn't balanced,

But what's a disorder.

A disorder means it's out of order.

Okay.

Personality disorder.

I don't know.

Could it be that when my personality,

Hello,

It ego and super ego were being formed and shaped by external experiences,

The external experience was out of order.

So therefore my personality could not unfold in a healthy way.

And,

And had I had the benefit of ordered parents and received enough consistent maternal warmth over time as my id ego and super ego personality self were being shaped by this external world,

Maybe I would have had a more ordered personality.

I'd have less emotional issues.

I have less mental issues,

Psychological issues.

I'd be less hyper vigilant,

Less hypercritical,

Less angry,

Less depressed,

Less sad,

Less repressed,

Less depressed.

I don't know.

Just shot in the dark,

But that makes sense to me.

And it probably makes sense to you.

So I just want to add another piece of the puzzle for anyone out there that is,

That this work is resonating with and the work of an ACOA,

Which is so interesting.

It can be considered an umbrella,

I would say umbrella study or umbrella research,

Meaning it doesn't matter if your parents were alcoholics or your grandparents were,

Or were not alcoholics.

The body of research that has been done since I'd say the 50s,

60s,

And 70s is immense.

And we don't tap into it enough.

And what they're finding is that now,

What they're finding is that if,

If even if you,

If you didn't come from alcoholism,

If you grew up feeling emotionally neglected,

If you grew up feeling,

If you were abused and abuse by omission is emotional neglect.

So sometimes people come into my group and like,

I don't belong here.

I'm like,

If you found me,

Chances are you belong here.

Yeah.

But I didn't experience that.

And I said,

And I would say,

And I say to them evidence on abuse,

Abuse by omission,

Meaning the maternal warmth you didn't get the sense of feeling seen that you didn't get the validation that you didn't get the,

Hey,

Look at you.

You look so beautiful.

You're S you're so smart.

You're such a kind person.

I love you.

Good for you for trying.

It's not about the outcome.

I don't care if you got a 60,

70 or 80 or 90 on your test.

The most important thing is dude,

You tried,

I saw you study.

It's okay.

You did your best.

You didn't get that.

So that's abuse by omission.

So you can't develop a personality that is self has is rooted in self-efficacy or self-confidence because nobody was mirroring this idea to you that you actually had a self that was worthy of that type of love.

Hello.

This is what we deal with in the 12 week breakthrough method in the masterclass and in soul school,

We heal you at the subconscious level so you can develop selfhood and string together your new self identity that is rooted in self worth.

It's amazing.

Anyway,

Getting back to why I wanted to create the session for you.

Missing pieces of the puzzle are crucial.

Once you understand what went wrong,

Then you then,

And only then can you find a solution.

You can't find a hole in the wall that you don't know exists.

You can't fix a hole in the wall that you can't see.

So I want to drop a piece of the puzzle for you.

And also if you come from neglect and you're,

You're,

You feel stymied by what you're researching,

Research absolutely codependency research,

What it means to be the adult child of an alcoholic,

But research through the lens.

Could this be made?

Could this fit?

Now I want to share with you,

This is a great book.

Like I don't even know if you could get it anymore.

I'm sure it's out there somewhere,

But I'm so grateful I have this book.

So Ann Smith is incredible.

And she did a body of research for a very neglected group of people,

The grandchildren of alcoholics,

Which I am,

Although I do believe that my mother was a dry alcoholic and my father probably was a functional alcoholic and my two uncles who were admitted alcoholics probably would have agreed about my dad.

But I wanted to share a summary of hers because it's so profound,

Because again,

What helps your brain and mind and personality and emotions and spiritual self become more ordered is missing information.

Your mind is,

Doesn't have the data.

Trust me when you start getting the data,

The pieces of the puzzle start to click up,

But that's not enough.

Awareness isn't enough.

You have to apply this knowledge.

That's when it becomes wisdom.

That's when you shift at the subconscious level.

That's when you learn about how truly powerful you really are.

You understand the veil of consciousness.

It's like,

Okay.

Then you have this intrinsic motivation to stay motivated every day,

To meditate,

To journal,

To break through,

Right?

And invest in yourself.

So she talks about the characteristics,

The patterns of the family of grandchildren of alcoholics.

So if you want to know why you feel stuck,

If you're looking for a sign,

Consider this your sign.

This information is going to help you shift your life.

So most grandchildren of alcoholics were never told about their grandparents of alcoholism.

Hello,

You can't fix all the wall you can't see.

So if your parents not talking about their parents,

How are you supposed to know that your grandparents were alcoholics?

That's missing data.

So you're going to,

You will have been raised by adult children of alcoholics that are unrecovered and that's the missing link.

You didn't even know that was happening and that it affected you.

Let me go on.

Second,

Their ACO parents did not acknowledge the negative effects of living with alcoholism.

My mother would tell me how wonderful her alcoholic father was,

Who was domestically abusive.

She would actually idealize him.

Oh,

He always smelled so good because he was womanizing.

He was always in suits because he was womanizing.

And by the way,

Did you not grow up in shreds?

Did your mother not rely on the hand-me-downs of the neighborhood children?

Yes,

They did.

You know why?

Because your father was spending his money on his narcissistic self and neglecting his family.

That's what he was doing mom,

But she had this grandiose idea that her dad was wonderful.

So that's why grandchildren of alcoholics,

We can't find the hole in the wall because our parents are idealizing their alcoholic parents,

Or they are so caught in the moment trying to control the inner chaos by controlling the outer chaos.

They're not thinking about how their childhood has affected them.

My father never talked about the effects of his mother's taking her own life.

He never talked about it.

He just said she did it.

He didn't really know her.

Like this complete detachment.

I was a little kid looking at him like,

That ain't right.

Like there's something wrong with you.

Like if you cannot acknowledge that being three or four years old and your mom sending you out in the backyard to play and she turns the gas on and sticks a head in it,

Like if you cannot acknowledge that that affected you psychologically,

There's something wrong.

Now I know it's narcissism.

He just shoveled that away,

Shoveled that,

Not wrongly.

If he admitted that his mother's,

That situation with his mom,

If he admitted that that had a consequence on him,

He might have to admit that he was messed up and that he was not willing to do.

The third pattern that she recognizes is that addictions,

Others other than chemicals were present,

Especially work and food.

Hello.

My father was a workaholic.

My mother was a cleanaholic.

I would say that my mother was a rageaholic and probably a dry alcoholic.

And she absolutely had a food eating disorder,

But never admitted it.

My mother,

If there were two pounds of grapes,

Three pounds of grapes,

She finished every last one.

If there were three bananas in a bunch,

She had every last banana.

My mother put on,

My mother was very heavy at one point and just said it was hormones.

And I would watch my mom not be able to control once she started eating and she swore she didn't have an issue.

So when you're the grandchild of an alcoholic,

Your parents are not talking about their parents' alcoholism.

They're not acknowledging the negative effects of their parents' alcoholism on them.

And your parents are exhibiting workaholism,

Rageaholism,

Cleanaholism,

Food addictions,

Pain addiction,

Pain medication addiction,

Social media addiction,

Or codependency,

The addiction to another person or being emotionally addicted or reliant on another person for a sense of selfhood or balance.

That's present,

Not the alcohol.

So that's going to keep you stuck.

Most grandchildren were repeatedly told they had a good family.

Oh my gosh.

So you could have had the most isolating,

The most lonely,

The most painful childhood,

But your parents are telling you how good you have it.

Okay.

You're being brainwashed right out of your own guidance system.

You're being brainwashed in those moments,

And this is trauma.

You're being brainwashed to invalidate your internal experience.

So now what are you going to choose?

Are you going to choose your experience?

You can't.

You're too little.

Your survival relies on you not being too confrontational to the external world.

Your very survival relies on you saying,

Okay,

I guess I do live in a really great place.

I guess I should be grateful,

Right?

You're disowning yourself.

So now you grow up and you become a codependent woman who disowns herself.

Your husband says,

Look how good you have it.

You've got no right to complain.

That's what I heard.

And when I started using neuroscience back journaling prompts that I created myself,

When I started really going deep into the subconscious mind,

The veil lifted and suddenly it was like,

There's the pattern.

There's the pattern.

My parents,

My mother,

My father would always say,

Look how good you kids have it.

Look how good you kids have it.

And right in front of my eyes,

Here I am like a 33 year old woman with three kids like saying to my ex-husband,

I think that's wrong.

Maybe that should not have happened.

We should try figuring this out.

And him telling me,

Look how good you have it.

Any other woman would kiss my feet.

In other words,

Shut up.

You have no right to complain.

I don't like you when you complain and I'm invalidating you.

And I'm going to stomp on your emotions.

So you start to question your emotions,

Question your reality,

And eventually become an emotional zombie that just follows me around like a puppy dog.

And I'll be very happy with that reality.

That's what he was doing.

And that's exactly what happened to me as a child and what will happen to you if you grew up in a home like this.

The last thing she talks about is a small number of grandchildren of alcoholics feel the love their parents attempted to express.

This will confuse you.

So this is where a lot of people struggle.

Yes,

She was trying to love you in a way that was healthy,

Yet there were all these other things happening around you that were not healthy,

That you were exposed to because mom could not protect you from them because mom did not have a healthy boundary or a healthy sense of self.

So what felt like love could have been enmeshment,

Could have been using you as a way to buffer the outer experience and really not separating herself from you in a healthy way where she rises to the top of the totem pole and takes her rightful seat as protector of her children from whatever was happening outside of you that you were being exposed to.

Very,

Very deep,

But it's not impossible to weed through and flush out once you take the time,

Once you take the time to settle in,

Go into the silence,

Give yourself permission to explore these ideas.

And then I think the easiest way to do that is to find a coach and find a mentor that understands these concepts because it will save you time.

It will save you money.

It will save you years of frustration.

And that is what I wish I would have happened to me so much sooner.

But then again,

Had I found some of these answers through someone else,

Then I wouldn't have developed the tenacity to learn how to reach them,

To go so deep into asking the right questions so that I could actually receive the answers.

And then once you receive the answers,

You have to work with it long enough to the point where these concepts,

They roll off your tongue.

At first,

When I first started researching and finding the solutions to these issues,

It was just all like in the mental field,

Like thought bubbles,

Like clouds.

I couldn't speak about them,

But the more I applied them to my life,

Applied them to my life,

Applied them to my life,

Now it's like,

Wow,

Now I'm rocking and rolling.

I've got the neural programming now.

I've got the subconscious programming now.

I got it.

And now all I see are patterns because I've reprogrammed the subconscious mind.

I could see my patterns.

Now I so easily see the patterns in other people.

So if you're stuck,

There's a reason it's not your fault.

If you've got some type of disorder,

It's because think about if I have an emotional disorder,

That's not my fault.

What it means is that the people that were raising me when I should have been in alignment with my emotions,

They were disordered.

Things were happening outside of me that affected my ability to manage my emotions.

I have an emotional disorder because my mother was emotionally dysregulated.

That ain't my fault.

I don't have to carry the shame of that,

But I have the accountability and I have the responsibility to reground myself and to learn what was wrong and to give myself what it is that I need so that I can live an emotionally regulated life.

So I could reach the prefrontal lobe and I can start operating from the neocortex versus Amy,

The amygdala and Harry,

The hippocampus.

And I could start really stepping into my power,

Owning myself,

Being myself without making excuses.

And that's the journey that we're all on,

Especially if you're here.

And I just want to thank you and welcome to welcome you to this community.

Namaste.

Until next time.

Bye for now.