Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families

Growing up in a home shaped by addiction, emotional unpredictability, or physical or emotional neglect leaves lasting patterns — even when you’ve been “functioning” for years.

Many adult children learned to focus on others, stay hyper-aware of the emotional environment, or disconnect from their own needs and feelings in order to cope. As an adult, this can show up as difficulty identifying what you feel, chronic self-doubt, relationship anxiety or avoidance, and feeling unexpectedly young or overwhelmed when interacting with your family.

This is not a personal failure — it’s a nervous system that adapted to survive.

You might relate if:

  • You have a hard time knowing what you feel or what you need

  • You were the caretaker, mediator, or “responsible one” growing up

  • You feel anxious in close relationships or pull away when things get too intimate

  • You struggle to trust your own perceptions or decisions

  • You feel triggered around your family and find yourself reacting like your younger self

  • You minimize your own experiences because “others had it worse”

  • You feel guilt when prioritizing yourself

  • You’re more comfortable focusing on others than being with your own emotions

How this shows up in adult life

Even when you’ve created distance or insight, these early roles can continue to shape:

  • your attachment patterns

  • your sense of self-worth

  • your ability to rest and receive support

  • your relationship with your own emotions

You may notice that around certain people — especially family — your body shifts into old survival responses automatically.

How we work with this

In our work together, we gently and respectfully turn toward the parts of you that had to:

  • grow up too fast

  • stay small

  • stay hyper-aware

  • take care of everyone else

  • disconnect from your own inner experience

Using a trauma-informed and Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, we:

build your capacity to recognize and name your emotions

  • help you separate your present-day self from younger survival states

  • release the roles you were forced to carry

  • develop a more grounded, compassionate relationship with yourself

This allows you to stay connected to who you are now — even in situations that used to pull you back into the past.

The goal of this work

Not to blame your family
Not to relive everything

But to help you:

  • feel like an adult in your own life

  • trust your inner experience

  • relate without losing yourself

  • experience closeness without fear or over-responsibility

  • have access to your full emotional range