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8 The Canadian Statesman 70cctoUe*, Bowmanville, Saturday, March 20,1993 Handling It.. By Lloyd Scott Final Concert in St. Paul's Arts Series ALCOHOL DOMINATED FAMILY LIFE Life in the alcohol-dominated family family is inconsistent, unpredictable, arbitrary, arbitrary, chaotic, unstable, neglectful and potentially abusive. Thinking about this kind of family, one naturally wonders wonders what life might be like in a "normal" "normal" family. This question is often asked by adult children of alcoholics, as they struggle to free themselves from the tyrannies of their childhoods. They're the ones who tend to believe that somewhere there exists the normal family, the one they wish they'd grown up in. I've often heard ACA's (Adult Children of Alcoholics) speak fondly of friends' families that they'd visited during their childhood and teenage years. Many were unaware that they were searching for a "family transplant" transplant" until they saw and felt the differences. differences. In some friends' families, they'd found that the parents were steady and reliable in their care and concern for their children, in dramatic contrast to the uncertainty and instability instability of their own families. ACA's often experience unreasonable unreasonable expectations against which they compare themselves, at times unmercifully. unmercifully. So for them, the myth of the . "normal" family is particularly poignant, poignant, the family in which everyone is always happy and well-adjusted. One kind of normal family is one without alcohol, though it might be A3V2 hour course for people on the go. The Lifesaver course is designed to teach essential lifesaving first aid skills to people of all ages. Three and a half hours of your time could save a life. Call St. John Ambulance for details. 668-9006 ' St. John Ambulance more useful to use terms such as functional functional and dysfunctional, instead of normal and abnormal. "Functional" and "dysfunctional" imply degrees of difference on a long continuum. "Normal" "Normal" and "abnormal" imply judgment - good or bad, right or wrong - rather than shades of difference. The "alcoholic "alcoholic family" is intended to refer to the family of the alcoholic, the alcohol-dominated alcohol-dominated family, not the family in which there's social drinking only. ****** Unacknowledged secrets don't dominate life in functional families, as the unacknowledged, but well-known, secret of alcohol abuse does in alcoholic alcoholic families, in which members routinely routinely deny and minimize the disease and the consequences that flow from alcohol-induced behavior. In functional functional families, there aren't the big secrets that no one is allowed to discuss with great risk. Functional homes promote children's children's well-being. They're relatively consistent and predictable, minimally arbitrary and only occasionally chaotic. chaotic. In functional families, there's appropriate appropriate delegation of authority. Children Children aren't expected to run the house or be parents to siblings. The parents aren't children and the children aren't parents. Guidelines don't change from day to day, or hour to hour, so that children children usually know what to expect ançi what's expected of them. Parental guidelines tend to be more flexible than rigid, more suited to particular situations than arbitrary. Parents allow some, perhaps a lot of, input from the children as to how they view guidelines, guidelines, which then are likely to be realistic realistic for all, humane and not impossible impossible to follow. Children are heard and respected in functional families, as is each member's member's right to be separate, to have his or her own things, identity and privacy. privacy. Open communications conducive to trust and to a sense of belonging, particularly important to children. In a functional family, children depend depend on adults and trust that they'll be cared for. They're allowed to be children children and they know that it will be that way tomorrow. They're taught how to cope and are encouraged to assume responsibility. responsibility. New roles aren't thrust on them in one drunken weekend, but are conveyed over years of nurturing. They won't suddenly be expected to take on parental tasks for which they're unprepared, when a parent vanishes into a bottle or disappears to a bar. ****** Many children of dysfunctional, alcoholic alcoholic parents live in fear that they may be hurt or abandoned - again, that they're unloveable, or that family life may suddenly go out of control. In a functional family, children know and learn to trust that parents are more resourceful than they are and understand understand that parents are available to them and won't abandon them. An often-quoted often-quoted comment from an ACA sums it up: "When I was a little child, my parents abandoned me many times without ever leaving the house." ACA's grow up feeling confused and scared, inadequate and tense, angry angry and ashamed. These are normal responses to abnormal situations. ACA's have acquired biological and psychological vulnerabilities that follow follow them into adulthood, perhaps becoming becoming permanent disabilities. As children, they've been deeply wounded wounded and never properly treated. Functional families, of course, are human, not perfect. In them there may be yelling, but not typically. There may be anxiety and tension, but not daily. There may be unhappiness, but not usually. And there may be anger and hurt, but they're not chronic. * * * * * * Much of the material for this column column has been taken and adapted from Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics, by Herbert Gravitz and Jûlie Bowden. Lloyd Scott is a marriage and family family counsellor in private practice in Oshawa and in the Orono Medical Centre. He welcomes . letters from readers. Write him in confidence at this newspaper, The Canadian Statesman, Statesman, P.O. Box 190, Bowmanville, Ont. L1C 3K9. The St. Paul's Arts Council's final conceit of the Tenth Annual Performing Arts Series 1992/93 was by Michael Danso, White Tie and Tails. Mr. Danso's exciting voice would have blasted the roof off from the theatre at Bowmanville High School on Wednesday evening, evening, March 10 if the speakers had been turned up any louder. He performed a variety of show-tune numbers, including: Fascinating Rhythm, Sweet and Low Down and I Got Rhythm. Mr. Danso's quality act was the 'pièce de résistance' for the final concert in the latest St. Paul's Arts Council Series series. Martinair Holland ^ The other Dutch airline B747 and B767 Aircraft Let's go Dutch with Bowmanville Travel and Martinair Holland. 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