Let Go and Be Free: 100 New Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics: Let Go and Be Free, #2

By Ron Vitale

Take time for some easy-to-read daily reflections to help you on your life-long journey of self-discovery.

 

Written during the coronavirus quarantine, this second Let Go and Be Free book helps you learn to overcome your dysfunctional upbringing and embrace healthy habits. Daily reflections include topics on self-care, codependency, uncertainty, and the power of positivity and gratitude.

 

Let Go and Be Free Volume II: 100 New Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics also continues to guide you through the common traits of adult children of alcoholics and how to enhance your self-esteem so that you can free yourself from the chains of your past dysfunctional upbringing.

 

This book is filled with personal stories of self-reflection and is also a helpful resource for adult children of alcoholics or those who grew up in a dysfunctional family. Turn to it whenever you need support, empowering techniques or hope on your journey of self-discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Vitale
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393684169

Ron Vitale

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ron Vitale was influenced by the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephenie Meyer and French culture, but has never forgotten his roots, and is a lover of classic literature. During his early 20s, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and French and then went on to obtain his Master of Arts in English, at Villanova University writing his thesis on a Jungian interpretation of the works of Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker. After graduation, Ron entered the world of medical publishing, utilizing his editing and technological skills. In October 2007, Ron published his science fiction short story collection The Jovian Gate Chronicles that answers the question: What happens when humans cross paths with intelligent aliens who claim to be prophets from God? In the fall of 2008, he released his fantasy novel Dorothea's Song, a tale of a young high school student who copes with his parents' divorcing by dreaming up the story of Dorothea, an elf who lives in the magical forest. Through 2008 to 2014 he wrote the Cinderella's Secret Witch Diaries series that definitely answers the question: What really happened to Cinderella after she married the prince? And in 2015, Ron wrote Awakenings and Betrayals, the first two books in the Witch's Coven series that tells the story of the witch Sabrina who lives in the magical world of the realms where illusions, magic and an ancient evil reign. Currently, he is keeping himself busy, penning articles on social media and writing, and on learning how to be a good father to his kids all while working on his next novel.

Book preview

Introduction

I am an adult child of an alcoholic and grew up in a dysfunctional family. I struggled for years with guilt, shame, and anger for what I went through as a kid. But it wasn’t until my 20s that I went to counseling, discovered Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous, and found help. In this book, I’ll share with you what I’ve learned to be helpful over the years.

Written during the coronavirus quarantine, this second Let Go and Be Free book helps you learn to overcome your dysfunctional upbringing and embrace healthy habits. Daily reflections include topics on self-care, codependency, uncertainty, and the power of positivity and gratitude.

Let Go and Be Free: 100 New Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics (Volume 2) also continues to guide you through the common traits of adult children of alcoholics and how to enhance your self-esteem so that you can free yourself from the chains of your past dysfunctional upbringing.

This book is filled with personal stories of self-reflection and is also a helpful resource for adult children of alcoholics or those who grew up in a dysfunctional family. Turn to it whenever you need support, empowering techniques or hope on your journey of self-discovery.

Be sure to read to the end as I’ve listed many resources to help you. Ready to start on your journey? Let’s go!

Day 101: Where Do You Want to Go?

It’s a tricky question because I’m not asking about an actual destination, but I’m thinking about a focus in life.

I’ve known people who dwelled on the negative in life. Everything was going to be bad.

Having grown up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family, our natural tendency might be to worry, be anxious, and catastrophize a situation. We see the worst and prepare for it because that’s what we experienced in childhood.

But we’re adults now, and we have a choice.

Where do you want to go?

Do you want to live a life of happiness and joy, or do you always want to be looking for the problem that will bring you down?

Our mindset and how we view life help to create the opportunities we have in life.

If we do not push ourselves to grow and step outside of our comfort zone, then we are limiting our options.

Let’s think about that for a moment.

As the first person in my family to go to college, I didn’t know how to apply, where I’d get the money, and I nearly decided not to go at the last minute. I was short $1500 for the school that had accepted me and I switched to another school. I couldn’t get advice from my family because they had never been there and at 17-years-old I didn’t have a lot of worldly knowledge.

But I took a risk in a direction that I trusted would be beneficial for me.

I’m happy to say that my risk turned into an opportunity.

Each day we can make a choice to stay in our comfort zone or take small risks to course correct and point us in the direction we want to go.

The big challenge is not knowing what direction to go.

Do your best, listen to yourself, write out the pros and cons, and head in a direction.

If it’s wrong, you’ll find that out and can change direction soon enough.

Day 102: Ground Yourself for What You Want and Need

Before we start on a journey that will help us grow, I recommend figuring out what you want and need.

If you grew up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family, you probably put other people’s needs above your own, or you may have repressed what you want. Or worse, you may have taken on destructive behavior and mirrored dysfunctional behavior that you saw in your family.

But we are adults now and can make different choices.

You may have suppressed what you wanted for so long that you no longer remember or know.

Yet there is always hope.

I invite you to write down five things about what you want for yourself.

Then I ask that you write down what you need to be healthy.

I want and need money might be a common answer that many people write down, but I would ask you to look beyond material wealth.

I want and need to be healthier is what I wrote. That thought then got me thinking about what I could do to have a healthier life (eating right, getting a full night of sleep, exercising), and I started to see patterns form.

The good news is that at the beginning of a journey, we can decide where we want to go, whether to turn around or go off in another direction.

What works for me may not work for you. But if I share an example of an activity, book, or experience with you, that could help you think and question what you need to be healthy and happy.

So, here’s a sample of my wants:

I want enough money to raise my family and have a good life.

I want to be healthier.

I want to write books.

I want to be surrounded by my family and friends.

I want to learn new things every day.

And here are my needs:

I need money to pay the bills.

I need to be healthier.

I need to connect and share my experiences with people.

I need to give and receive love.

I need to question what I learn each day.

See what I did there? I wrote five ideas out and then flipped the wants into needs.

Now take one of the needs and ask this question:

Is it healthy for me and true?

I’ll take my #3 need that I wrote and then ask myself:

Is it true that I need to connect and share my experiences with people?

And in a moment of peace and stillness, I think on the answer, and I can say yes to that.

The purpose behind this exercise is to get the creative juices flowing and to have you pick out a few ideas that you can work into your daily routines.

How can you achieve want you want and need?

The answers that come from your answering that question will start you on your journey.

Day 103: Embrace Your Quirks

Perfectionism is your enemy. I will never be perfect; you will never be perfect; no one will.

And what’s so fun about perfection?

For a long time, I tried to suppress parts of who I was. But you know what? That doesn’t work.

Embrace your quirks.

It’s funny, though. As I write that, the perfectionist in me wants to add some qualifiers: As long as your quirk doesn’t harm anyone else or you.

I knew someone who was a cutter and thankfully they chose to get professional help. If you are striving to overcome a problem, embrace yourself, and by all means, reach out to get help.

But so often in life, we’re picked on for being different or for liking certain things.

The kids in school picked on me because I wore glasses and liked books. But I love those parts about me.

The hardest thing is embracing the difficult aspects of your personality.

I’m a worrier.

It’s taken me a lot of work to overcome worrying, and part of that meant that I needed to embrace that part of me. Instead of trying to suppress my feelings, I accept them and then let them go.

I tried for so many years to forget and overcome different parts of my personality, but in the long run, I found it more helpful to embrace who I am, and accept myself as I am.

Self-love takes work sometimes because we all know our faults.

What can you be easier on yourself about?

Think about it and then try something different: Accept and embrace.

You are beautiful and amazing, just as you are.

Day 104: Break the Cycle of Dysfunction

The sinister aspect of alcoholism is the generational effect that the disease can have on families. I didn’t fully understand that until I grew older.

As a kid, I survived the difficult times of my early childhood and thought that I had made it out in the clear.

I prided myself on how I didn’t drink much and that I never took any drugs.

In college, my peers experimented with alcohol and marijuana, but I never had a desire to do any of that. I would drink socially and felt comfortable with my relationship with alcohol.

But I noticed a pattern that in my failed relationships that inspired me to go to therapy and to Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

The realization that what I had fought so hard not to be was what I had become.

How was this possible if I wasn’t drinking?

Growing up as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic had affected me in ways I had to come to terms with, and initially, I felt deep shame.

I noticed behavioral patterns in myself that matched what I had experienced as a kid.

The Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous’ laundry list frightened me as I recognized much of my behavior there.

Learning new behavior takes time, work, and isn’t easy.

But it’s also not impossible.

Decades have passed since I lived in an alcoholic home, and my truth is that there’s no magic solution on my learning healthier behavior. I compare the work I do in life like exercise: You don’t just exercise once and then you’re good for life. Instead, a health regimen throughout each week helps keep your body strong.

The same is true with the work I need to do to keep me healthy in relationships.

I shine a light on this point because I choose not to have my past define me.

I know that many have lived in alcoholic homes and don’t know how to break out of the cycle of dysfunctional behavior.

The good news is that you’re not alone.

The choices you make each day will put you on a path toward fulfillment, love, and health.

If you have healthcare, why not go to a therapist who specializes in children of alcoholics?

And if you can’t do that, try an Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. There might be several meetings within your town, and you never knew it.

Try reading the Twelve Steps of Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And if you don’t think the Twelve Steps with work for you, there are alternatives to them.

Let today be the day that you take your first step or get back up and continue on the journey.

Each of us has a choice on how to live and whether we want to break the cycle of dysfunction.

What will you choose?

Day 105: We Are All Connected

We can see the world as us vs. them and create different classifications and silos among all the people in the world. But that’s not the truth. As humans, we discriminate and exclude those who differ from us.

Focus for a moment on your own life. Who are you connected to? Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors?

We tend to see the world in a way that’s convenient for us.

Yes, people, you are on an elevator with might all be strangers, but what if the elevator got stuck and you were there with them for 8 hours? The experience and how you interacted with the people in the elevator would quickly change.

Our perceptions of what we know and don’t know are often prejudiced with incomplete information.

For me, I blamed my father for all that he did in abandoning us after my mom and he divorced. He withdrew financially, physically, and emotionally.

When I reconnected with him nearly twenty years later, I learned a bit more about what he had experienced during those years. His choice to not contact us or try to help us financially could not be explained away, but I had a better understanding of him.

Even his lack of a presence in my life had a negative influence on me. Though I didn’t see it at the time, we were still connected, and many of my relationship decisions (how I interacted with people) were directly influenced by being abandoned by my father as a kid.

We are all connected.

We might not want to face that and understand it, but the threads that hold us to someone who’s passed on or left us has an impact on how we live in the present.

If we can stop and take stock on our relationships and how we work with others, it can help us better understand how to live a happy and healthy life.

Our being connected to others is a strength if we embrace it.

Day 106: Beware of Vampires

There are certain people in our lives that we need to either avoid or have strong boundaries with. As an adult child of alcoholics or having grown up in a dysfunctional family, we tend to take on more responsibility than necessary as that’s what we did as kids.

Maybe we helped our moms deal with their emotional problems or worked harder around the house, or maybe we took care of our younger siblings.

In my lifetime, I’ve come across people who try to drain energy from me. They try to put their emotional baggage on me so that they feel better without their having made any changes in their life.

Over time such a relationship can be unhealthy.

And if we tend to be the person who unloads their problems on us, but we don’t take care of ourselves, that leads to codependency.

I am responsible for me.

You are responsible for you.

Together we can build a relationship on mutual respect and trust.

But that’s not how dysfunctional relationships work, and I’ve had my share of problems over the years with people trying to control me or use me as an emotional dumping ground. Or worse, some people I have known act as a psychic vampire and drain me of my energy. These individuals are constantly needy and pile on their problems with you and like you around because they can have you be at their beck and call.

As adults, we do