The Empowered Path for Adult Children of Alcoholics

By Jody Lamb

You’re way too hard on yourself, everyone says.

But inside you think, “I could’ve done it better” and “I’ll never be satisfied with myself and anything I do.”

Sound familiar, Reader?

As adult children of alcoholics, we share many common traits. Perfectionism is one of them and it’s a real jerk that causes self-sabotage.

A Personal Moment of Truth

Early on in my career, perfectionism and lack of satisfaction trapped me. One day, a co-worker said, “Great job on your presentation today.” Instead of thanking him, I was halfway through sharing the list of things I could have done better when he interrupted me.

“You just completely devalued my opinion. You did a great job, and I gave you that feedback and your response was to tell me that I’m wrong. Next time, you could say, ‘Thank you! That really means a lot because I value your opinion.’”

In that moment, I realized I rejected all compliments.

I know, how rude! (read that like Michelle from Full House.)

That day marked the last time I ever rejected a compliment. From then on, I simply responded with, “Thank you.”

The aha shined a spotlight on my self-defeating perfectionism that worked overtime to keep me self-sabotaging left and right. Here’s what I discovered perfectionism does:

How Perfectionism Hurts You

It has some powerful negative effects such as:

1. Prevents you from trying new things. We stick with what we know we’re good at because we fear failure and prefer the safety of our comfort zones. It prevents us from growing.
2. Blocks your path to success. Being always unsatisfied, we are often frozen in place, unable to achieve goals or get to a new level. We’re chasing some elusive sense of satisfaction that never arrives.
3. Masks your progress. By focusing on our flaws, we often overlook our minor and major improvements over time. We fail to see our potential.

Where Perfectionism Comes From

Many of us kids who grew up with an alcoholic parent or another form of dysfunction in the home experienced erratic attention. One day, your parent may have given you a lot of praise. The next day, they may have completely ignored you.

Naturally, because we were smart little ones, we looked for patterns in this behavior but couldn’t find them. This lack of patterns kept us on edge. We craved encouragement and validation that we were more than good enough but never received it. Perfectionism became our way to navigate unpredictability.

How to Break Perfectionism

Reader, if you struggle with perfectionism, we can take it down! Here’s what worked for me:

1. Understand where it comes from. Acknowledge that your perfectionist ways were built as a normal reaction to your parent’s inconsistent care or validation when you were a wee one. You can begin to climb out of perfectionism when you understand why you ended up there.
2. Talk to a therapist. Over the years, my therapists have pointed out negative thought patterns and behaviors that allow my perfectionist traits to saunter back into my life. It makes a huge difference to have an objective, supportive professional’s guidance.
3. Celebrate your achievements by writing them down. Weekly, write down things, big and small, that you achieved. Consider what you would say to a friend who shared these accomplishments with you. This exercise helps you recognize your progress.
4. Ignore your inner critic. Your inner critic is something else – always so judgmental. Downright cruel, actually! When your self-critical voice inside begins, counter it with positive thoughts. This is not easy, but over time, your positive thoughts can be more powerful.
5. Set realistic goals. Lofty goals were all I knew back in the day, and as I failed to achieve them, I felt frustrated and disappointed. Once I began setting goals I could realistically achieve, this led to the sense of satisfaction I’d been searching for all along. Set smaller, achievable goals. When you meet those targets, let yourself feel genuine satisfaction. This will lead to more success.

Real Talk with Jody

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