I have written the following posts about the inner child and/or reparenting:

Our Inner Child is our Eternal Child

Your Childhood Pain was a Gift

Reparenting Your Inner Child

Learn to Listen and Guide Your Inner Voices

Helping Others to Learn Reparenting

Books About Reparenting

According to Dr. Tian Dayton, children who grow up with alcohol or other drug abuse may experience:

• Loss of Trust and Faith Due to deep ruptures in primary, dependency relationships and breakdown of an orderly world.
• Distorted Reasoning Due to convoluted attempts to make sense and meaning out of chaotic, confusing, frightening or painful experience that feels senseless.
• Easily Triggered
• Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses When this person develops long term ‘character armor’ to defend against letting pain in.
• Desire to Self-Medicate When this person attempts to quiet and control their turbulent, troubled inner world through the use of drugs and alcohol or behavioral addictions.This can be part of how addiction gets passed down through the generations.

When Words Matter

Avoiding the Shut Down Mode

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By La Xtina

I am beginning a study that I hope to be developing as a series of talks for prisoners. America spends so much money of incarceration and so little on rehabilitation, that I want to take a program to prisoners about reparenting.

Having been an addictions counselor for years and in my personal recovery since 1976,  I know that healing comes from within. It usually begins with someone realizing that another person is loving them unconditionally. What is unconditional love? It is love from one person to another without ulterior motives. Unfortunately, we usually experience unconditional love from new people in our lives.

As children, we are taught hundreds of ways that we are unlovable. Transactional analysis states that we have over 20,000 hours of negative feedback about ourselves that we are continually rebroadcasting to ourselves. (To read more about TA:  Learn to Listen to Your Inner Self with Transactional Analysis.)

After we learn how to shut off this committee of negative voices in our head, we begin to see how our real self is vulnerable to such attacks from our mind. The mind is best used a the switching station for our thoughts. If it is allowed to dominate and control, it will choose to keep us submissive by negatively. I always say that our mind is out to get us. But, in reality, we simply have to learn how to use the mind and begin relying more on the soul as our guide for our lives.

To help prisoners to learn about themselves, I have chosen reparenting as an avenue to help them to not only learn how to parent but also to learn how to be better parents to themselves. Personal growth is like the grass, as Walt Whitman wrote in his poem about war, “I am the grass, I cover all”. When I was at Guantanamo Bay, from my office I looked down on the air field below me that was unused and covered in wild grasses. And I understood that as a living creature, I was either living or I was dying. Grass doesn’t get to a certain height and then stop growing. It is either, as on of favorite bloggers says, in a quote from Dylan, “he not busy being born is busy dying”.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another is an avenue to help them to help others. If you have a negative self-image, you don’t believe that you have anything to give. Teaching prisoners how to parent– which is what reparenting is–teaches them skills to help anyone. As we help others, we learn how to love ourselves.

Addiction is not difficult to understand. Accepting we or a loved one is an addict is difficult. The only reason that people use a substance or a position (power) or food is to change their feelings.

Often the addict has a large reserve of hurt moments or experiences which s/he uses to prove why her/his life is so tragic.

I know this because during my addiction to alcohol I had saved up every hurt feeling or experience and I remember consciously choosing which feelings to use where. This all gets tremendously labor-intensive if the same people are seen very often as new abuses have to be “used”. So the ever resourceful addict creates sad, bad, horrible experiences that never happened. I think this behavior could safely be called “crazy”.

This behavior is what mental health professionals use to “prove” the mental illness. The problem is no one has been able to prove the medical model of the disease theory. So, as far as I am concerned, the disease theory is a theory.

Instead, I believe, that when we are under the control of an addiction, we make increasingly bad and hurtful choices. Remember, the addict is living in his/her head in a world of their own creation. Pile those crazy choices on top of the fantasy in one’s head and the addict is miserable. The misery is self-inflicted and he/she is the only one who can choose to leave that miserable state.

I believe mental health to be fluid and we are each in and out of it several times a day. I know I am healthy when I know I am crazy because I didn’t used to know the difference. Today, I have the choice to abandon my crazy behavior.

Addiction is very prevalent in our world. Changemaker defines addiction as any behavior that is chosen to enable a person to live a fantasy. Addicts don’t live in reality. They live in a mental world of their own creation. What an addict uses to control his/her feelings and thoughts is not important. Rather it be alcohol, food, religion, other drugs, power, money, etc., the addict is using the addiction for only one reason–to change how they feel. It is said that there are a million excuses for using the addiction but only one reason. And that reason is to change how he/she feels. When someone is living in his/her head, reality rears its ugly head in feelings. So those feelings have to go away—this is what the addiction provides. It takes the feelings away.

We believe that many of us use something from time to time to change how we feel. The addict is the person who uses the addiction on a regular basis to avoid the reality of life around them. For example, alcoholics may be daily drinkers (3-4 days weekly) or weekend alcoholics (mainly drink on the weekends), or periodic alcoholics (drink for 2-3 days in a row but do the drinking at different periods of time–also may go long periods of time (even years)–without alcohol.

Substance addicts are easy to spot. But many more people are addicted to power (codependency), money, material possessions (living in homes/having automobiles they can barely afford), work (they will say that they have to work because they need the money–often married to poor money managers), sex, etc.

Many people are addicted to feeling bad (the victim role). Remember how we feel is our choice. It is very hard for the martyr to give up that “poor me” behavior but until both people in a relationship are free to give and receive without guilt trips, the relationship is not a positive experience for either.

The disease model of addiction has helped add to the confusion about addiction. Addicts live in a self-induced delusion. The delusion is that the world revolves around them. In reality, the world doesn’t revolve around any individual.

As John Powell has written, we each need a Copernican moment when we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us. Remember Copernius went against all other thinkers to say that the Sun didn’t revolve around Earth, but that Earth revolved around the Sun.

In other words, some of the main issues in addiction treatment are maturity issues. The age at which a person started drinking, using, eating, buying, being overpowering to others, using sex, etc. is the emotional age he/she still is. If he/she started at age 15, which is pretty normal, then he/she is age 14 emotionally.

So recovery is generally about growing up. Another main issue of why people are addictive is to continue to live life in their head or in their imagination. No one knows reality–we only have a perception of reality. But living in our head is not being free and open to life.

As the hero in 10 Million Ways to Die says, “I never knew that I lived in a world that I hadn’t created.”  That is why the addict experiences such anger at having to give up the addiction. It seems to the addict that his/her use can only be pertaining to him/her. In reality, the addiction is affecting everyone in the addict’s life.

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Inside the Nest by cmacubbin

Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935 and has spawned over 200 different types of twelve step meetings. One of the first to deal with feelings was ACOA–Adult Children of Alcoholics. It was a formula designed to touch on a lot of emotion–adult, children and alcoholic. Our reality is in our feelings. Our emotional patterns are established in our childhood. I believe that addiction starts from these patterns begun in childhood.

Codependency means being part or dependent on someone else for our emotional completion. Being reared in a home with frequent emotional strife means being reared with emotional healing issues.

At some level we have each experienced feelings of abandonment, difficulty trusting others, having boundaries, trouble standing up for ourselves or feeling shameful because of others’ actions. We may have learned these emotional choices in our family of origin.

Feelings are our choice. We can choose positive emotional choices.

Onion House has written the following about ACOA characteristics:
“The problem is that we come to feel isolated, uneasy with other people, and especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same, we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.”

“We either become alcoholics ourselves or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment”.

“We lived life from the standpoint of victim. Having an over-developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We somehow got guilt feelings when we stood up for ourselves rather than giving in to others. Thus, we became reactors, rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.”

This is also the classic definition for codependency–the common thread in addiction. Children in troubled homes learn that they aren’t as important as continuing the pretend picture of the family. Actually the family is in an ever-increasing cover-up which continues to eat up most of the family energy.

I recently met a classmate from high school–we graduated in 1958–and I was sharing some of my growing up experiences. She said that it was hard for her to believe what I remembered about my core family as she viewed us as the perfect All-American family. I guess we were better at the cover-up than I thought. I remember feeling so guilty as I cried on the way to school that I couldn’t save my mother from the arguments my parents had. It never entered my mind to wonder why she couldn’t save herself.

9-11 Lights by tony-the-misfit

Alcoholics Anonymous has revolutionized the way alcoholics are perceived by their peers. The shame of having a problem has been made much easier by the respect given to those who change their lives by giving up an addiction.

After I came to recovery in 1976, my daughter (who was five years old at the time) told me that she had been telling the neighbors that I was an alcoholic. I was somewhat surprised because I didn’t know my neighbors very well. So I sat down and asked her to tell me what an alcoholic is. She said, ” Oh, Mommy, you know. It is someone who doesn’t drink and smiles a lot.” The only alcoholics she knew were in AA.

In the early 1980′s, the adult child/codependency recovery solutions began to appear in many reading sources. The media figures who helped launch the recovery movement were Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Betty Ford brought a high level of acceptance to the recovery field as well as a treatment center that worked.

Codependency Anonymous was started in 1986. The field of addiction was learning that the early recovery is about giving up the main addiction. What follows is another addiction; then sometimes, another, and another. After giving up alcohol, I eventually had to give up all dating,and ,eventually I quit smoking.

In the middle of all that, I learned all I could about codependency as I was starting to believe three things.

(1) That quitting drinking alcohol meant giving up all that I was addicted to because I believed that any holding on to something that enabled me to not face reality would lead me back to drinking.

(2) I would not pursue romantic relationships among recovering people. I was so grateful for AA that I was afraid to lose it.

(3) I knew that I had a predisposition to alcoholism as I had seen my father advance in his drinking career. The only time in my life that I learned from someone else’s choices was when I saw that my father’s drinking never got better.

But I was also learning that living in a home with such a major problem and no one educated about the solution certainly contributed to my addiction. For much of my childhood, I had to parent my parents. This is often the role assigned to the eldest child in troubled families.

I went to AA after Thanksgiving 1976. Two months later, I checked into a home for alcoholic women in the town I lived in–Jacksonville, Fl. The home was not attached to anything like mental health but the founder believed in Jesus Christ. We prayed on our knees morning and evening. I had a radical conversion in that home. So there I was–2 months sober, born-again, female, high-bottom, and a “lady”.

But AA was my only choice. Needless to say, I didn’t have much support there. But I kept going back and eventually I took the 13th step–giving up support groups as the only way to live. That was years later after I had clinical depression for 2 years. When I had clinical depression, I was 10 years sober–sponsoring 13 people but no one in AA said why don’t you seek professional help. I guess I looked too well. But I did notice that persons with long-time sobriety were committing suicide. I didn’t want to do that anymore than I wanted to drink.

I deeply believe that there is no recovery without a spiritual experience. Many people have a gradual awakening which can take years. During that time, s/he becomes gentler, kinder, more thoughtful, more relaxed, etc. These qualities are the fruit of the Spirit. When I see these qualities, I know that God is working in that person. In fact, the fruits of the Spirit are the only indicators of someone’s recovery that I use. Recovery is an inside job that shows on the outside of a person.

Reflections on the Arctic Sea by Will Hybrid

“It requires a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that your own childhood—punctuated with pain, loss, and hurt-­may, in fact, be a gift. Certainly the unhappiness you felt was not, in itself, a blessing; but in response to that pain, you learned to cultivate a powerful intuition, a heightened sensitivity, and a passionate devotion to healing and love that burns deep within you—and there are gifts that may be recognized, honored, and cultivated. You are not broken; childhood suffering is not a mortal wound.” Wayne Muller

I believe most of our emotional pain comes from experiences and misconceptions that happened during our childhood. One of the current books I’m reading is The Inner Child Workbook: What to Do With Your Past When It Just Won’t Go Away by Cathryn Taylor.

Her book is about our inner children. The inner child has been a subject of study for several years. But Cathryn suggests that we have several inner personalities. She specifically has chapters about the infant self, the toddler self, the young inner child, the grade-school child within, the young teen within, the adolescent within, and the young inner adult.

In the introduction by Rokelle Lerner, she mentions that inner child work demands courage and tenacity. She writes “the goal of inner child work is not to blame; rather, it is to awaken the childlike wonder and spontaneity and integrate them with an adult sense of responsibility and protection.”

The tools she recommends for healing are : (1) guided imagery, (2) verbal and written dialogues, (3) mirror work, (4) drawing, (5) using pictures from magazines, (6) activities, and (7) rituals.

For beginning, she recommends that this book not be used if:

1. Do not use this book if you are not interested in being able to feel your feelings.

2. Do not use this book if you are on prescription mood-altering drugs unless your work is supervised by a professional.

3. Do not use this book if you are in early recovery from chemical dependency. She recommends that you have twelve to twenty-four months of abstinence.

4. Do not use this book in isolation.

(1)  Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis.

From Amazon’s product notes:

“Forty years ago, Games People Play revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Berne’s classic is as astonishing–and revealing–as it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant Life magazine review from 1965.”

“We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like “Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.”

Explosive when it first appeared, Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It’s as powerful and eye-opening as ever.

(2)  Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts by Claude Steiner.

From Amazon’s product notes:

“When Claude Steiner and the late Eric Berne developed the theory of Transactional Analysis, their basic belief that people were “born princes and princess, until their parents turned them into frogs” countered the fundamental principle of psychiatry which asserts that emotional and mental distress comes from within.”

“This theory was further developed in Steiner’s book Games Alcoholics Play. Dr. Berne, in What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, acknowledged Steiner’s important role in the analysis of “life scripts” which we choose at an early age and which rule every detail of our lives until our death.”

“In Scripts People Live, Steiner expands upon this belief to show that people are innately healthy but develop a pattern early in life based upon negative or positive influences of those around them.”

(3)  Games Alcoholics Play by Claude Steiner

From Amazon’s product  notes:

“The most lucid account of the patterns of problem drinkers ever set down in a book!”

“Drawing on soundly tested theories of transactional behavior, Dr. Steiner describes the three distinct types of alcoholics — Drunk and Proud, Lush and Wino — and their games, scripts and rackets: Debtor… Kick… Cops and robbers… Plastic Woman… Captain Marvel…Ain’t it awful… Schlemiel… Look how hard I’ve tried… and others.”

“His approach is the single most useful tool for dealing with alcoholism since A.A. and the Twelve Steps, and offers the first real help — and hope — for problem drinkers and their families.”

(4) I’m OK–You’re OK by Thomas Harris

From Amazon’s product notes:

“Transactional Analysis delineates three observable ego-states (Parent, Adult, and Child) as the basis for the content and quality of interpersonal communication.”

“Happy childhood” notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the Not ok feelings of a defenseless child, dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. “

At some stage early in our lives we adopt a “position” about ourselves and others that determines how we feel about everything we do. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is “I’m Not OK — You’re OK.”

“This negative “life position,” shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational Adult capabilities, leaving us vulnerable to inappropriate emotional reactions of our Child and uncritically learned behavior programmed into our Parent. By exploring the structure of our personalities and understanding old decisions, Harris believes we can find the freedom to change our lives.”

(5) Born to Win by Muriel James And Dorothy Jongeward

From Amazon’s product notes:

“A national bestseller in 1971, Born to Win still sells thousands of copies each year. The insights in the book are now fundamental to how we see ourselves. It was one of the first self-help books to analyze communication styles and its 50 gestalt exercises are as revealing as ever about the roles people reenact in their Parent and Child ego states.”

One of the techniques I used early in my recovery to get in touch with my wounded feelings was accepting my inner child. Transactional Analysis helped me to discover my parent, child and adult states. Eric Berne was the founder of TA and introduced the idea of the games we play to get what we want.

Games People Play was the title of his first book and was a best-seller in the 1960’s. After 40 years and 5,000,000 copies, Games is still relevant today. Eric Berne influenced other authors; Thomas Harris, who also wrote about TA with his book, I’m OK-You’re OK, and Muriel James’s book, Born to Win. Berne founded The International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) which is still active and has several of the main ideas at their site.

The main ideas from TA are ego states (parent, child and adult), strokes, transactions, life script, contracts and games people play. One of the newer ideas from the TA group is about the blame game (i.e. why do blame—simply choose steps needed to move forward).

Two of the main concepts for the TA philosophy are we are each worthy of being accepted and people can change. Of the three ego states—parent, child and adult—when I studied TA, I found that I could only identify 2 ego states. I had a very judgmental parent (these are thoughts and ideas I had adapted from my parents) and child (mine was the willful me-only child state. When I first use this information to check myself, I found that I had no adult (the ego state used to live in the here-and-now with responses dependent on new responses). No wonder that I lived in yesterday or tomorrow. I had no inner guide to deal with today.

One of my favorite bloggers,David Seah, writes about many topics but the one I like best are his posts about self-discovery. I liked“Self-Parenting is Hard”.

In this post, David splits himself into two parts: “parent” and “inner child”. And he settles on nurturing the inner child. Ah! One of my favorite topics. In other posts, I’ve written about the inner child. I guide my life by two ideas I have of my inner child: (1) I don’t let her play in the “traffic”–by that I mean I don’t become my joyful, playful child God created around judgmental or critical people, and (2) I have to actively nurture her. A big sign that I am not paying attention to her is when I feel burdened. Many authors believe that we have all ages of ourselves inside. I know that my inner child can be a tyrant at times and seems to love to hold on to “getting even” with others.

www.itaa-net.org has members from 65 countires. The websites for members is included and lists the nationality of each member as well as a direct link to each member’s website. What a great way to build community among members. Books, DVDs and tapes are for sale also. The concepts about transactional analysis including ego states and tranactions, “voices in the head”, strokes, games, payoffs, roles. and scripts. Of particular interest may be the roles in the Addiction Game–addict (victim), rescuer, and persecutor. Explanations about these is included at this site.

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“When you hear the words “psychological and emotional damage of childhood”, you may immediately think about serious childhood traumas such as sexual or physical abuse or the suffering that comes from having parents who divorced or died or were alcoholics. And for many people this is the tragic reality of childhood. However, even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in a safe, nurturing environment, you still bear invisible scars from childhood,because from the very moment you were born you were a complex, dependent creature with a never-ending cycle of needs. Freud correctly labeled us “insatiable beings”. And no parents, no matter how devoted, are able to respond perfectly to all these changing needs.”

Being famous is a poor substitute for an abusive childhood–Reprinted from Rolling Stone’s archives about Michael Jackson (courtesy of Feminist Philosophers):

“From a young age Jackson was physically and mentally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling. Jackson’s abuse as a child affected him throughout his grown life. In one altercation — later recalled by Marlon Jackson — Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and “pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks”. Joseph would often trip up, or push the male children into walls. One night while Jackson was asleep, Joseph climbed into his room through the bedroom window. Wearing a fright mask, he entered the room screaming and shouting. Joseph said he wanted to teach his children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. For years afterward, Jackson suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom.”

“Jackson first spoke openly about his childhood abuse in a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey. He said that during his childhood he often cried from loneliness and would sometimes get sick or start to regurgitate upon seeing his father. In Jackson’s other high profile interview, Living with Michael Jackson (2003), the singer covered his face with his hand and began crying when talking about his childhood abuse. Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed and that “if you didn’t do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you.”

Childhood by Mella DP, a 29 year old female engineer from Chicago, includes these sections:

1.  What were afraid of as a child?

2.  What were your favorite books as a child? Do you ever reread any of them? If so, how do they hold up? Were there ever any that gave you nightmares, but you had to finish them anyway?

3.  As a child, how did you feel about other children? Were your friends mostly your age, mostly older, or mostly non-existent?

4.  What was your favorite toy? Do you wish that you still had it? Do you still have it or have you bought another off Ebay?

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Product description:

“Many of us reach Adulthood not ever aware that we have an Inner Child whose thoughts, feelings and early decisions {Core Beliefs) unconsciously govern our every action and reaction. We make child-like decisions which are no longer functional in our adult lives.”

“This book offers a series of experiences which are based on profound knowledge of developmental psychology. These suggested processes focus on the healing of past trauma. The book helps us to raise a new and deeper awareness of the Inner Child in each one of us.”

“As we grow up, we humans pass through specific stages which are clearly delineated in the literature. We know that when our growing up is disturbed by trauma, neglect, overindulgence or other kinds of discounting of our very nature we are left with scars on our soul and psyche.”

“These psychic scars can be gently revived, re-experienced and filled with the loving infusion of ReChilding and Corrective Parenting experiences which are described in this book. Given healthy relationships with healthy therapists who deeply understand the Stages of Development for normal Human beings one can understand that it truly is “Never too late to have a happy Childhood”.”

(2)  Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child by Margaret Paul

From The Library Journal:

“This work teaches us to connect our inner adult (logical conscious mind) with our inner child (instinctual or gut feelings) so that we may live conflict-free lives. Paul has worked extensively with this form of psychotherapy, which she calls inner bonding, and is the author of several books on the subject.”

“Through loving behavior and acknowledgment of that “voice” within ourselves, the author claims that we can satisfy our own needs and not be totally dependent on others for happiness. She gives examples through her counseling work with those who want better family, marital, social, and work relationships and encourages outside help for special problems such as alcoholism, sex addiction, and codependency.”

“This is a very helpful book for both individuals and couples who want to learn how to acknowledge their inner needs and address fears and false beliefs that often stem from childhood. Recommended for large self-help and therapy collections.”
- Demetria A. Harvin, “Hospital Medicine,” New York

(3)  The Turn Around Mom: How an Abuse and Addiction Survivor Stopped the Toxic Cycle for Her Family–and How You Can, Too! by Carrie Sipp

Product description:

“If you grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive, or addictive home, you are intimately familiar with violence, uncertainty, and suppressing your feelings. What you may not know, though, is how to create a sane, structured, and serene home for your own family when you never experienced these things yourself. Now you can.”

“Part courageous memoir, part influential how-to guide, The Turn Around Mom offers the tools you need to end the legacy of toxicity. With chilling vignettes from author Carey Sipp’s own abusive past, plus the tips and techniques she used to turn her life–and thus the lives of her children–around, this stirring story will be the daily touchstone that you and your family deserve.”