Thank you for continuing to make this such an interesting discussion and sharing your personal history. I have no doubt many reading can relate, as do I. The fact that you were able to rise above it as you did is a testament to your character and resilience. Black and white thinking is 1 of about 10 unhealthy thinking styles that create problems that can escalate provide  catalyst to encourage someone to seek relief in alcohol. The direct trauma's on the instances you've mentioned combined with the or more thinking styles creates so much stress and anxiety inside in can become unbearable. The problem is that they often happen outside of our awareness and, over-time, become thinking habits. Fear of abandonment has always been one for me and it started with a mother who decided it would be a useful tactic to get a 5 year old in line when they acting up by grabbing an armful of clothes and screaming "That's it! I'm leaving and never coming back!" Quite a profound experience for a 5 year old left alone. Tactics like that amounts to control and manipulation through terrorizing the child. And the fun didn't stop there. The characteristics of those who come from an alcoholic home or dysfunctional family are common among all. Go to an ACoA meeting and you'd swear you've just people who lived in your home but never met until then. 

I agree...this site, and those like it, are incredibly valuable to resolving and moving past the problems. Thanks again for evolving the topic TS. Very much appreciated.

Best regards,

Dave

Hi  Dave,

You're so right that an impressionable young mind soaks up every nuance of its environment and the developmental year's sets the groundwork for the type of person you will become. The levels of child abuse can be complicated as every child's resiliency differs in that we are all wired a little differently and will respond accordingly. I personally know a number of families where at least one parent was an alcoholic and in two cases the offspring also became substance abusers, while the remaining family's child turned into a very strict non-drinker, the complete opposite of his drinking parent. (black and white) All too often maladaptive behaviors beget maladaptive behaviors.

 

My experience included being raised in a very strict non-drinking environment where ironically my father perceived himself as a hard working good provider, fair, respectable and honest husband and father. In reality we lived in poverty as he couldn't bear working for others, was punitive, resentful, would grope any female that got within arms reach, treated my mother horribly and was sexually abusive to his daughters.Unfortunately my two eldest brothers emulated him in some ways as they had the most exposure to him. The fallout is evident in some of their offspring. I resolved to stop the cycle through continuous learning and self appraisal.

 

I also agree that we never stop modeling for our children as clearly, a mother's (and father's) work is never done. Even when the kids are well educated, moved out and independent as mine are, they are still acutely aware of how the parent adapts to stressors and the inevitable evolution of time.

 

I understand that schools are beginning to recognize the importance of the need to teach conflict resolution and other practical life skills. It seems that very little effort is put towards the skills necessary for coping with the day to day. Perhaps squashed could further enlighten us on this topic.

 

Sites like this one are so important in that  people, good people who've hit a rough patch, have a place where they can get that bit of help they need to develop the necessary coping skills so that they too can stop the cycle and live a rewarding life.

Thank you for sharing your insights and history on the topic. You brought up so many valuable points to evolve the subject and it's a big help. I can relate to your history, being someone who grew up in alcoholic home and learned some of the many maladaptive strategies and distortions in thinking that go along with it. We expect our parents have our best interests in mind and refuse to believe otherwise. It just doesn't occur to us in a mature, thoughtful way that they wouldn't. We learn from their dysfunctional tactics of control that are used to keep the younger ones in line or disciplined, never truly knowing the internal damage they inflict on their kids. These little trauma's (or huge trauma's) on little minds can often define how one reacts and copes with situations and relationships in the future. A person doesn't need to be subjected to a home of alcohol abuse to find relief in alcohol, which can transcend into a very broad spectrum and levels of the problem. It could be a home of staunch, non-drinkers with a devout religious background, as an example. They only need the small trauma's to their self-esteem, self-concept, and sense of security to seed the fields for later problems. It's like the first 15 years of our lives are spent planting and growing the field which represents our lives and we gravitate towards people who feel most comfortable walking through the nice parts of that field while often tripping through the over-grown mess of weeds that are left unchecked. Misery loves company. The example you gave of the lamp is a perfect example. I could write a book on those tactics myself and it circles back to the extreme, black and white thinking and how we can learn to judge ourselves without mercy, disregarding the many positives of ourselves. A person can learn to think "I did this so I am a bad person" and we tend to re-cycle negative thoughts much more than positive thoughts. Do it often enough, with parents, authority figures (i.e. teachers) and peers re-enforcing it, and it becomes a habit and a self-concept. The first thing they should teach kids in school is "Mix black and white together to get grey. We're good people who occasionally BEHAVE poorly, so learn to see the good in everything". Since I've quit I pay much more attention to tactics that can drive and sustain that feeling of fear and control, whether it may come from me or those I'm dealing with (friends\ family\ work associates, etc). There are so many learned behaviours that we can modify to become healthier ways of dealing with life and relieve the pressure. It's inspiring to reform ourselves and conquer those demons of the past. And it becomes a gift to our kids, regardless of the age, because we overcome the problems of our past so they can thrive in a better future and pass it along. 

Thank you for your insightful feedback TS. It adds a great dimension to the topic.

Best regards,

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your kind words. Must admit I do enjoy these discussions. When I read your first post, I came away with the impression that a person who abused  alcohol (or alcohol that abused the person may be a better descriptor), "always" lacked emotional resiliency. The individual's maladaptive coping skills were expressed through escapism by way of excessive consumption. Ultimately, the ensuing drunkenness and blackouts created their own set of problems which further exacerbated the initial lack of resiliency.

I felt that I possessed an ample supply of resiliency since I survived my childhood, albeit admittedly, with some nasty scars. That is what I based my argument on. However, upon reading your second post and your further explanation of black and white thinking, I spent a lot of time in introspection.

There it was, over and over again. As a child I received repeated messages as how unwanted, worthless and stupid I was. (smart/stupid). When a lamp broke in my childhood home and I was seven years of age, my father stated "now all the happiness has gone out of the house." (joy/misery). He refused to give an explanation when I questioned him because what he said "was the end of it!" At the age of fourteen I took an overdose life/death).

Fast forward to when my husband became ill with a terminal disease.  I excused my drinking by convincing myself that I was too stupid to survive on my own, that I couldn't afford to live long. (money/no money). Totally ridiculous in retrospect and untrue since I helped my husband run a business and even now, I could easily afford to retire. Yet, the self deprecation, self loathing and negativity were there in full force again.

I have come to the revelation that I've clearly practiced black and white thinking my entire life. Thankfully, I am changing the way I look at things and credit my new perspective on enabling me to live happily sober. (I suppose that is still black and white...booze/no booze) but the positive kind.

Thanks Dave for introducing this concept as I'm sure that others will also evaluate their own thought processes. Perhaps, turn their self hate into self love (as I have) and a person who loves themselves would be loathe to hurting themselves.

Fabulous Post!

Hi Dave,

Another really interesting perspective. However, after reading this post a number of times, I still can't quite get my head around it. You're saying that drinking (I'm assuming excessive, you mentioned blackouts) is "always a means to cope with something that is wrong inside of us." Well given the fact that I've blacked out more times than I care to remember (no pun intended), I really can't say it was due to unresolved issues. Again, I drank because I enjoyed it, loved the extreme relaxation, and drank by myself because I didn't want anyone bugging me over the quantity. Unfortunately, I also never could stop at a respectable number of drinks because perhaps I believed more is better. Yeah, I absolutely had some knocks in life but I like to think that I learned to accept the things I couldn't change and changed the things I could. Everyone I believe, has some regrets along the way, perhaps some anger and even incredulous about some of the things that have transpired but I honestly can say that I don't believe I hung on to any of it or felt the need to drown myself because of it.

Isn't it possible to just lack control when you drink? When I smoked, I smoked a lot, up to two packs a day. Maybe I just have a tendency to over do. I love to garden. I'm not happy to have just one garden, I have to landscape the entire property and I do it until it's done and I don't mean over a course of years. Ok, maybe I'm a little compulsive but I still don't think I have unresolved issues.

Extreme thinking is a mental habit that creates huge problems and motivates us to drink, especially if you blackout. Drinking like that is very much like extreme black-and-white thinking. We go from extreme detachment from reality (relief through drinking and getting wasted), to extreme attachment to reality and how we feel (sick, depressed, tired, sometimes shocked, irritable). It's extreme escapism followed extreme realism. The problems are still there. It's really an expression of what's going on in our lives and how we feel about ourselves and our situation. It also becomes a case of becoming extremely withdrawn, even though everyone around us can't see it. So we drink and go to the other end of the spectrum of being extremely outgoing and engaged when we're wasted. The problem is we're extremely engaged in a mindset that isn't based in reality. It's self-sustaining cycle of abuse that is re-enforced and made worse by the experience of moments of bad behaviour and the physical effects of withdrawal. And it makes you more depressed. That depression and anxiety (extreme negative feelings) leeches into all aspects of our lives so we try to find balance by moving to the extreme other end of the spectrum; extreme happiness through medicating with alcohol. And so begins the vicious cycle.  Unfortunately it's really hard to break the habit because we lose sight of what the problem(s) really were (like growing up in a totally dysfunctional household that left huge gaps in our development). That early experience can generate a loss of childhood (like having to take care of parents or siblings when we're not prepared to). Drinking is ALWAYS a means to cope with something that is wrong inside of us. Our abuse stems from continuously suppressing those issues with alcohol. We have to come to terms with this habit of extreme, black and white thinking. We may not be drinking like before but deep down inside there's a wick doing a slow burn to the powder keg because the maladaptive thinking habit remains. It's like the embers of a fire that's gone out. All it takes is a bit of wind and some paper and wood and it's a roaring blaze again. WE NEED TO PUT OUT THE FIRE! :) Every time you engage in black and white thinking you lean down and blow on those embers gently and make them glow and keep the them burning. So now, every time you have those thoughts, think of how you are keeping your problem of alcohol abuse alive.  I've heard it said that people with severe alcohol abuse issues have an obsession for alcohol but I tend to think they're obsessed with finding relief from their own habitual thinking patterns and trauma rather than the alcohol itself. The alcohol is tool that assists in the coping mechanism of obsessive extreme thinking, often made exponentially worse by the trauma of things that have happened or things that we have done. If we factor in an pre-existing physical or biological problem such as depression, ADHD, or OCD (all examples of extreme personality or behavioural disorders) the problem magnifies.