Growing Up with Parental Alcohol Use: Reflection Prompts

Start With Where You Are Now

• Who are two or three people you could call if something went wrong tonight? What makes each of them feel safe?
• What have you built as an adult that you are proud of? Think of a job, a friendship, a home, a skill, or a habit you kept going.
• Where do you feel most at ease these days: a place, an activity, a group of people?
• How much room has your childhood taken up in your thoughts this month? What brought it to mind?

Feelings and What Happened to Them at Home

1. When you were sad as a kid, what did you do with the sadness? Did anyone notice?
2. Which feelings were allowed in your house, and which ones got ignored, mocked, or punished?
3. What did the adults do with their own anger? What did you learn from watching them?
4. Is there a feeling you learned to hide so well that you sometimes miss it in yourself now?
5. How did your body feel on a calm evening at home? How did it feel on a night when the drinking started early?
6. Who comforted you, if anyone? A grandparent, a teacher, a neighbor, a coach, a pet?

The Rules Nobody Wrote Down

Jobs You Took On

1. List the grown-up jobs you did before you were grown. Think about meals, laundry, rides, bills, younger siblings, calling in sick for a parent, or cleaning up after a bad night.
2. Some kids keep the peace in less visible ways: making everyone laugh, staying out of the way, or bringing home grades so good that nobody worries. Did you have a job like that? What was it?
3. Which of those jobs do you still do, in your family, at work, or with friends?
4. Picture setting one of them down for a week. Who would pick it up, and how would you feel watching?

Relationships Today

• Think of someone close to you now. What do you watch for in their mood, and what do you do when you spot a change?
• How do you react when a partner, friend, or coworker has been drinking? Does your body tense up before you have a single thought about it?
• Picture the last time you needed help and didn't ask. What stopped you?
• Which of your relationships feel calm and steady? What do those people do differently?
• What is your own relationship with alcohol like? You might drink the way a parent did, avoid it completely, or land somewhere in between. How do you feel about where you are?

What to Keep and What to Change

1. Name two things you learned at home that serve you well today, such as reading a room quickly, staying calm in a crisis, or looking out for people.
2. Name one habit from those years you would like to loosen your grip on.
3. What is one small step toward that change you could take in the next month? Make it concrete enough to put on a calendar.
4. If you could tell the child you were one true thing, what would it be? To write it out in full, try Compassionate Letter to a Younger You.

Pacing and Support