Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life

CHAPTER 2. Co-Dependent Children: Caught in an Infinite Loop

2 CO-DEPENDENT CHILDREN: CAUGHT IN AN INFINITE LOOP THE CONCEPT of the infinite loop comes from the field ofcomputer science and refers to a programming error that leads to the perpetual and unsuccessful recapitulation ofan algorithm, or problem-solving procedure. This is an apt metaphor for the lives of adult children of alcoholics, who seem to possess, as the unwanted legacy of their childhood experience, an irresistible attraction to an alcoholic lifestyle. This lifestyle may include compulsive drinking and drugging, ongoing destructive involvements with drinking, drugging, or enabling parents, and the acquisition of new life partners who reprise the important psychic themes of the childhood home, including instability, exploitation, dishonesty, and betrayal. Wegscheider (1981) and Black (1981) examined the way in which children of alcoholics often seem to be trapped in selfdestructive patterns that are either prescribed or modeled by their dysfunctional parents. They noted that children from alcoholic families defend against the instability and aggression that characterize these households by adopting certain Hroles." These roles serve to bring some semblance of predictability to the family and to one's emotions, which, if openly expressed, might shatter the child's self-esteem, as well as the fragile family 8 Children ofAlcoholism structure. Wegscheider suggested that the most common roles include the family hero, the scapegoat, the lost child and the mascot. Many authors have tried to convey the flavor of these four basic character structures. The hero is usually described as a highly conforming, high-achieving, Hgood child" who seeks to redeem the failing family, and to justify his or her own existence through great accomplishments and noble deeds. Family therapists might also call this individual the Hparental" child; the child who assumes, or is forced to assume, an inordinate amount of responsibility for the siblings and the household in general. The unconscious goal of the family hero is to be so good that the drinking parent will be filled with pride and good feelings, and be thereby empowered, or persuaded, to stop drinking and become a fully functioning member of the family once again. Since this end is actually beyond the hero's ability to effect, it is usually doomed to failure, and so is the hero. Whatever victories this child may win in the larger world outside the home, the early, crushing loss in the battle with a parent's alcoholism seems to leave an indelible mark on the hero's character. The hero is haunted by a sense that nothing that has been accomplished is truly satisfying, or really enough. He or she may be driven to heap one worldly success upon another, in a vain effort to quiet this nagging sense of inadequacy and irresolution. The hero is usually the first-born child. The second child, who finds that the family has already expended its limited capacity to nurture a child on the hero, may cope with disappointment and feelings of loss by rebelling, taking frightening physical risks, and, in many cases, by engaging in outright delinquent behavior. In some cases, it seems that only acts of destructiveness are capable of answering the emptiness of these Hscapegoats ," by helping them to reclaim a portion of the limelight that the hero has usurped. The lost child retreats from the world of interpersonal relationships into an inner world of fantasy and self-preoccupation. Co-Dependent Children 9 The mascot is the "class clown," who, like the hero, seeks positive attention and tries to reduce the feeling of active strain in the family by creating an atmosphere of warmth and wellbeing . Wegscheider referred to this child as "a Pagliacci hiding his own pain behind a permanently painted grin" (1981, 140). While it is usual for a particular role to dominate the character of a particular child, aspects of all four roles may be seen in an individual child, and certain conditions may trigger a wholesale exchange of roles. For example, many a scapegoat has taken up the standard of heroic sibling whose early accomplishments have led to a school or professional career far from home. Further , many heroes display aperiodic btil·sts of aggression and recklessness of the sort that are so prominently and chronically featured in the personality of the scapegoat. For a long time, our understanding of children of alcoholics rested upon our conception of these four childhood roles. More recently, the literature has reflected a concern with what happens when, as so often...