Author Archives: Michael

Dealing with an Alcoholic Parent

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Michael

Dealing with an Alcoholic Parent

     This week’s blog has been reposted from http://www.Addictionblog.com

 Alcoholic parents suck. They don’t wake up on time. They sometimes don’t dress or wash or cook for themselves or their families. But, the worst thing about an alcoholic parent is  they are sad or angry almost all of the time.

What is alcoholism?

Alcoholism is a disease. It starts out when your mom or dad drinks alcohol. Soon, she or he starts drinking more and more and cannot stop. This is because something is happening in their brains that makes them want to drink and to their bodies which makes it really hard to stop.

How do you know if your mom or dad is an alcoholic?

Some people might drink a lot but can control their drinking. Or some people will drink a lot on holidays or at weddings, or only on the weekends. So how do you know if your parent is an alcoholic or is beginning to have a problem with alcohol? Here are the 4 signs of alcoholism.

  • Alcoholics need to drink more and more alcohol after time to feel the same as when they started.
  • Alcoholics start to sweat, have an upset stomach, get shaky, anxious or sick if they  do not have a drink or try to stop drinking.
  • Alcoholics constantly think about (which is called having an obsession) with alcohol and have strong cravings to drink.
  • Once an alcoholic drinks one drink, they cannot stop, and continue to drink more.

What can you do if you have an alcoholic parent?

First, you have to know that you are not alone. According to a recent Nick News program on alcoholism, 11 million kids under the age of 18 live with one or more parent that is an alcoholic. That means that one of every 4 kids has an alcoholic in the family. It’s so common that there is nothing to be ashamed of…and IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!

So what can you do?

1. Know that it’s not your fault
2. Know you can’t fix it
3. Find the strength inside yourself to go on, in a different way

The hardest part of living with an alcoholic is you have to grow up fast. It’s like you’re the adult and your parent is the kid. But that’s what you have to do. You have to learn to know what you can and cannot control and then only change the things that you can control. It sucks. It really does. Often people in the AlaTeen * rooms call it ‘walking on eggshells’. But you cannot change your parents and you need to take care of yourself. Here are some other ideas for things to try out:

  • Don’t be afraid or to proud to talk to someone at school, church, in your family, or a friend about how you feel, you will realize you are not alone
  • Tell someone you trust what is happening and ask for advice
  • Plan an intervention and ask your mom or dad to go to a treatment center to help them break the obsession with alcohol (a rehab)
  • Go to Al Anon *, NOCA (National Association of Children of Alcoholics)  or ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) if you are under 18 go to AlaTeen ( a section of Al Anon) meetings
  • Read about alcoholism and how other people deal with people in their family that are alcoholics
  • Join online groups that are featured on the web site: www.intherooms.com and chat about life and share your thoughts on:

o    Is your mom or dad an alcoholic?

o    What do you do to take care of them?

o    What questions do you have?

o    What do you do to feel good about yourself?

o    How are you dealing with your life?

Additional Information: 

*Free informational materials can be obtained by calling AlaNon/AlaTeen at (757) 563–1600, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.–6 p.m.

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/familyhistory/famhist.htm

 

 Reposted from http://www.Addictionblog.com

 

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Passive Aggression Anyone?

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Michael

This week’s guest post is written by Heidi Grant Halvorson,PhD. Heidi Grant Halvorson is a rising star in the field of motivational science.   She is a an Expert Blogger for Fast Company, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, the BBC, the Harvard Business Review, and SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership.    For more on motivation, purchase her new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals or follow her personal blogs Peeling the Onion or The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com  

 

One of my dearest and closest friends – my children call him Uncle Shawn – is hands down our favorite guest. He is a great storyteller with a bit of the devil in him. Quite a bit, actually. He makes us laugh until we cry.

 

Shawn lives in New York City. After teaching for a few years he is currently working on his Ph.D. For as long as I have known him, Shawn has suffered from two great shortages in his life, one being spendable cash and the other is patience with his mother. This very proper lady flew into JFK one day for an impromptu visit with her son, and very naturally expected him to come and fetch her from the airport. Shawn, like most New Yorkers, does not own a car. Resenting her visit in the first place, and minding very much the cost of a round trip cab fare in the second, he settled his inner conflict by picking her up in a U-Haul – the cheapest option available to him.

 

This is the only funny instance of passive aggression I know of. However, his mother didn’t think it very funny at all, which of course was his point.

 

A familiar passive-aggressive scene (perhaps all too predictable to some) is the husband who does not want to visit his in-laws this weekend, according to the long-standing plan. We will find him sitting in front of the TV until his wife and children are fully dressed and ready to go. His wife, having learned from experience that he will make them late again, had shouted reminders to him in regular intervals, while working on the kids and her own outfit. Not hearing any movement from the TV room, her shouts become more angry. At the door a furious argument ensues, or she may be crying about his indifference to her feelings. Either way, he is content. Making her miserable was the price she had to pay for “making him go.”

 

Passive aggression can often be seen in young children who are told to share their toys with siblings or other children. They will throw the wanted toy in the opposite direction, or hand over some less attractive substitute.  Or, among adults, it can be the recently cooked meal – now sitting in the trash can- waiting for the hungry person who forgot to warn he would be late. Or the colleague at work who drags his feet, because he doesn’t like to work on a team.

 

All these different behaviors occur when the perpetrator knows he or she really ought to do a specific thing or go to a previously agreed-upon place, because it is the right thing to do. Now they just resent having to do it. They will hold someone responsible and make them pay.  Payment can be extracted by making you late for something important to you, through digs and low-blows to your self-esteem, or even by deliberately embarrassing you in front of others. P**sing on your parade in some way will make things even!

 

The closeness of your relationship to someone who behaves this way toward you, the frequency with which it occurs, and the extent, to which they will go, will be the deciding factors in your response to it.

 

For the valued long-term relationship where this behavior is infrequent and only annoying, I recommend simply ignoring it.  Don’t take the bait! If you don’t give them the satisfaction they seek, they will eventually see it as a fruitless endeavor.

 

In other, more serious situations, ask yourself, “What is at stake here?”  Ignore it, confront it, or take a permanent walk?

 

Posted by Heidi Grant Halvorson. Heidi Grant Halvorson is a rising star in the field of motivational science.   She is a an Expert Blogger for Fast Company, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, as well as a regular contributor to the BBC, the Harvard Business Review, and SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership.  Her writing has also been featured on CNN Living. Heidi is also Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School. For more on motivation, purchase her new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). Follow her personal blogs, Peeling the Onion or The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson

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5 steps to healing your financial regrets

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Michael

This week’s guest blog is by Seattle Money Coach, Mikelann Valterra. Mikelann Valterra has been a Money Coach/ Financial Recovery Counselor for over a decade. She is the author of Why Women Earn Less: How to make what you’re really worth. Mikelann has appeared on dozens of radio shows, television spots and in newspapers across the United States.

Recently I was deeply struck by a post called The Statute of Limitations on Regret– posted on the Get Rich Slowly blog. It was on the author’s reaction to a couple who was beating themselves up for the money mistakes they made. And now they are focused on just getting through the day, marking time and feeling depressed. Yikes.

Well, we all make money mistakes. And on top of our mistakes, we feel horrible about them. Do you struggle with being critical of yourself over a money mistake? Are you plagued with regret over what you did- or didn’t do? Do you keep thinking and thinking and thinking- swirling in a circle—wishing you’d done things differently?

To compound our woes, we rarely talk about them. When we make relationship mistakes, we often hash over the “I can’t believe I did that” with girlfriends over a glass of wine. But when it comes to money, we can be extremely self-critical—suffering pangs of regret and remorse- replaying our money mistakes over and over in our head– mostly in isolation.

Here is how to heal.

1. Talk about it! And name the regret. We all know that speaking our truth heals, so get clear about the regret… and tell someone. Whom do you trust with your regret? Who would not judge you but would simply listen and love you anyways? Be specific about what you regret.

“I regret incurring that $23,000 in credit card debt over the last few years.”
“I regret borrowing money from my friend 8 years ago and never paying it back.”
“I regret buying a house that I couldn’t really afford.”
“I regret not saving more money.”
“I regret taking out student loans and then not finishing school.”

Speak your truth out loud. This is healing. Many clients have “confessed” things to me over the years, and it is always healing for them.

2. Name the belief you were laboring under. What basic belief do you think fueled that behavior?

“I think I believed that I didn’t have to really care about my spending. My mom never did.”
“I guess I had this fantasy that I would make enough money to pay the loan back.”
“Well, I thought that my income would just keep going up forever.”
“I believed that I didn’t really have to think about the future, I was too wrapped up in the present. I believed that things would magically always work out.”
“I think I was at a loss as to what to do with my life, so I decided to hide in school for a while.”

Naming the belief is part of healing. Without naming the belief, it’s easy to repeat the mistake. And sometimes the other person can help you out. You can ask this trusted friend, “What do you think I must have believed in order to have done that? I can’t figure it out. I’m too close.”

3. Forgive yourself. Yes, you knew this was coming. But truly—you did the best you could with where you were at the time. And besides, you are human. To err is human, remember. And you ARE human. And there is a lot at stake here- so take heed—every study done on the subject of forgiveness tells us that not forgiving harms our health- emotional and physical. You are more prone to illness when you don’t forgive yourself. So can you imagine saying, “I need to move on for the sake of my health and my future self?” Some people have a hard time forgiving because they confuse it with forgetting. But they are not the same. You do not have to forget. You can use what happened as amazing fuel to move you forward. And you deserve to forgive yourself. What happened is one piece of your life, but it is not YOU. And remember that it’s a process. You can start by saying, “I am in the process of forgiving myself.” Repeat ten times a day, for a week.

4. Find the silver lining- so what is the silver lining? What did you learn? The school of hard knocks is hard, but it isn’t called a “school” for nothing. What would you do differently? If this hadn’t happened, might it have happened in the future in a bigger or different way? There is a learning here. Find it.

5. What are your new actions? There is good that can come out of this. You’ve learned some things. What are some new actions you can take that would make you feel better? Can you cut up your credit cards? Can you set up an automatic savings account? Can you put in place some new healthier ways to be with money? Do you need to talk to a mortgage broker or your CPA? Is it time to work with a money coach? Pick one action and move forward. It feels good.

Remember, to make mistakes is human. And making money mistakes does NOT define who we are. What we do about them, though, does say a lot. It is our capacity to see and learn and grow that makes us amazing human beings. Transforming and healing your relationship to money is a sacred journey, full of twists and turns at times. But it is a journey none-the-less. Is it time to forgive yourself so you can continue the journey?

This is a quest post by: Mikelann Valterra

 Mikelann Valterra has been a Money Coach/ Financial Recovery Counselor for over a decade. Her passion is to help professional women escape the money fog, feel more in control of their finances and love their financial life. From eradicating debt to helping her clients build savings, conquer under-earning and cope with erratic incomes, she believes everyone can truly heal their relationship to money. She is the author of Why Women Earn Less: How to make what you’re really worth. Mikelann has appeared on dozens of radio shows, television spots and in newspapers across the United States. To read more about her private practice, go to http://www.seattlemoneycoach.com/

She can be contacted at:

Her web site is: http://www.seattlemoneycoach.com/about-mikelann-valterra

Phone: 206-634-0861

Email: mikelann@womenearning.com

Office Address: 1718 NW 56th St., Suite 306, Seattle, WA 98107

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