• Has drug or alcohol abuse in your family caused your child to become withdrawn or to act out? • Is addiction in a family member contributing to upset and stress in your child? • Do you want to help your child understand the problem and communicate about his/her feelings? • Do you want to help your child develop healthier coping strategies? I Can Be Me is a helping book for professionals and parents who want to help children of alcoholic parents. Written for children ages 4 to 12, it can be read by a child alone or worked through with a caring adult. Simple line drawings and text speak to children in a language they understand and are based on the real experiences of children with addicted parents. Written from the perspective of children whose parents are addicted to alcohol and various other drugs, this book helps children take off the masks that hide their true feelings and educates them about alcohol or drug abuse in the family. Entertaining drawings and simple text make this book easy to understand and invite children to add their own thoughts and feelings. Children often feel alone in homes where alcoholism or drug abuse is present. I Can Be Me helps children understand more about addiction and realize that they are not to blame for their parents’ problems. Through a series of creative exercises and activities children learn about healthy coping strategies and that they are not alone. Eight separate units make this book an ideal companion to counseling or support group sessions. Parents or counselors can also use a single section to address the unique concerns of an individual child.

Offers an effective if unorthodox approach designed to help parents take aim at the problem of addiction by explaining how to impart the fundamental skills and values that will protect youngsters and keep experimentation from turning into a more dangerous dependency.

"Children of Substance-Abusing Parents: Dynamics and Treatment" is a necessary reference for all mental health professionals and students who need to understand and treat this population. It offers an invaluable look attreatment options and programmatic interventions across the life span and fills an important gap in the current literature. The contributors include a wide range of experts who provide up-to-date evidence-based clinical and programmatic strategies for working with children of alcohol and other substance-abusing parents of any age and in almost any practice setting. This highly recommended book is a valuable resource for all practitioners and students concerned about this very large, but often hidden group of individuals and families." From the Foreword by Sis Wenger President/CEO National Association for Children of Alcoholics Parental drug abuse and alcoholism have an enormously detrimental impact on children and adolescents. Children whose parents suffer from drug abuse or alcoholism often face multiple physical, mental, and behavioral issues. They are at a greater risk for depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and addiction, and also are known to have poor school attendance, difficulty concentrating, and lower IQ scores. This book offers health care practitioners proactive programs and innovative strategies to use with this vulnerable population. Taking a comprehensive, life course approach, the authors discuss the implications and interventions at the prenatal stage, through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. With this book, social workers and health care practitioners can help assess and intervene with children of substance abusing parents. Key topics: Dynamics in families with substance abusing parents and treatment implications Issues across the life span of children of substance abusing parents Prevention and early intervention programs for pregnant women who abuse substances Programs for young children, adolescents, college students, and children with incarcerated parents

This "little green book," as it has come to be known to hundreds of thousands of C.O.A.'s and A.C.O.A.'s, is meant to help the reader understand the roles children in alcoholic families adopt, the problems they face in adulthood as a result, and what they can do to break the pattern of destruction.

In the 1980's, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. In this updated edition of her bestseller she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of Adult Children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After decades of working with ACoAs she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Read Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.

All of us need positive affirmation throughout our lives. As children, these powerful messages helped us to know that we were worthwhile, that it was all right to want food and to be touched, and that our very existence was a precious gift. The messages that we received from our parents helped us to form decisions that determined the course of our lives. If we were raised with consistent, nurturing parents, we conclude that life is meaningful and that people are to be trusted. If we were raised with parents who were addictively or compulsively ill, we determine that life is threatening and chaotic--that we are not deserving of joy. These are the crucial decisions that impact our lives long after we have forgotten them. Unfortunately, childhood judgments don't disappear. They remain as dynamic forces that contaminate our adulthood. When childhood needs are not taken care of because of abuse or abandonment, we spend our lives viewing the world through the distorted perception of a needy infant or an angry adolescent. The more we push these child parts away, the more control they have over us. This collection of daily meditations is dedicated to those adults who are ready to heal their childhood wounds. It is through this courageous effort that we will move from a life of pain into recovery.

"You are not Codependent simply because your adult child is an addict or alcoholic." All parents of addicted children of any age are terrified, confused, feel out of control, lose sleep, dread the phone calls at 3:00 in the morning. This book is for parents who are "Afraid to Let Go" because they do not know how to set boundaries with their adult children without feeling crippling anxiety, or walling themselves off to make separation possible. You can't "let go." You can't "detach with love." You can't let them "hit bottom." You can't seem to implement the strategies you have learned when you are faced with your adult child's chaos and anxiety. When you try to do this, it makes you physically and emotionally ill, and the anxiety and fear becomes unbearable. "Why can't you just "let go"? " If you are struggling with Codependency, your relationship with your child is not be the only relationship where you experience a loss of self, over-reactivity, adrenalin rushes when you feel "out of control," or behave intrusively or impulsively to "help" in situations even when your assistance has not been requested. If you are Codependent, this is not the first relationship in which you have "over-given" and then felt resentful, or sacrificed yourself to give someone what you decided they "needed" because if you don't, "who will"? "Afraid to Let Go" explores the developmental origins of Codependency that lead to painful behavioral reactivity in response to our addicted adult children. Afraid to Let Go then connects the chronic stress of the chaos of addiction with adrenal system damage, and points you toward concrete behavioral changes you can make to heal regardless of the sobriety of your adult child. "About the author: " Mary Crocker Cook, D.Min., LMFT, CADCII is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with extensive experience working with addicted families over the last 20 years. She is the author of ""Awakening Hope. A Developmental, Behavioral and Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment,"" and coordinates the Alcohol and Drug Studies Program at San Jose City College in San Jose, California.