coaisathing

Things to consider as we try to help children of alcoholics.

After Jon Ashworth recently shared his experiences of being a child of an alcoholic openly and honestly on a public level, it really feels like the real change that is needed for COA’s could come in 2017. With this in mind, I thought I’d share some things that I feel are, at least, good points…

My addiction experiment.

We all have this idea of exactly how addiction works. You do something too much and your body gets physically addicted and then it becomes difficult to stop. But addiction is way more than that. Of course there is the physical element, but I totally believe that it’s about one’s state of mind. I believe…

Taking a compliment

In times gone by, of all the things you could say to me, what do you think I would struggle with the most? Naturally people are thinking of something negative right? Well let me tell you, what I would struggle with most was probably a complement! Yep, I mean if you insulted me it might hurt,…

And I’ll see you again when it’s time for me.

I’ve been thinking about writing about my own experience for some time, but as usual life gets in the way and there’s little time to reflect. I feel now is the time to reflect, and through sore, puffy eyes I’d like to share my story. We all want an amazing Mum, don’t we? The type…

Society’s big mistake!

Most of us want to help children, I don’t doubt this, but alcoholism has a way of pulling us in and preventing us from doing that. I’m not just talking about the alcoholic being prevented from helping their children due to alcoholism, I’m talking about all of us. Yep that’s right, us, society. I genuinely…

Change did come!

Don’t talk Don’t trust Don’t feel These are the three principles I have spent most of my adult life trying to break after growing up in a household where the primary caregiver was an alcoholic. Not an alcoholic in a string vest, jobless, sipping out of a brown paper bag covered bottle. No, my mother was…

Borderlands

Whose house is this? Whose night keeps out the light In here? Say, who owns this house? It’s not mine. I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter, With a view of lakes crossed in painted boats; Of fields wide as arms open for me. This house is strange. Its shadows lie. Say, tell me, why does its…

It’s where you’re going that counts.

My earliest memories were of my father drinking. I remember one of the dreams I had when I was five. I had three daddies. ‘Nice daddy’, ‘funny daddy’ who was just slightly drunk, and then of course ‘nasty daddy’. That is what it was like. You never had any stability, any security, any normality. Dad…

5 reasons children of alcoholics DONT have to speak out!

The title may surprise some, especially as coaisathing has become a platform for sharing experience, but hear me out on this one. Talking about a parents drinking is not a betrayal in any shape or form. I absolutely believe that talking to someone you trust is important for any child of an alcoholic, and the…

DEAR __________: A LETTER TO THE CHILD OF AN ALCOHOLIC

Dear Child of an Alcoholic, I don’t mean this as an insult, but the life you are living is not a normal one. The problem is (among what I imagine are many problems for you) that there is a good chance you think the life you are living is a normal one. I know I…