Good Enough

Over the years, I have expressed countless prayers of gratitude to the late Janet Woititz, whose seminal book Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs) was first published in 1983.

The publication of Woitiz’s book, led, in large part, to the creation of a similar but separate entity affiliated with the successful self-help group Alcoholics Anonymous (“AA”) called Adult Children of Alcoholics (“ACA”). ACA followed the traditional Alcoholics Anonymous model and attendant groups like Al-Anon and Ala-Teen.

If you know anything about AA, you will know its members follow “The Big Book” for guidance. The 400-plus page Big Book not only details the difficult personal histories of AA’s founders, Bill W. and Dr. Bob, but the personal experiences of some alcoholics, as well. The book presents a series of solutions that evolved to become the twelve-step program.

In 2006, ACA published its own 646-page text for its members called “The Big Red Book” mirroring AA’s “The Big Book.”

ACA is more of a therapeutic program that emphasizes self-care and re-parenting one’s own wounded inner child with love and compassion. It aims to build individuals up, encourages them to assume personal responsibility by standing up for their right to a healthy life, and then actively work on the necessary changes inside themselves in order to heal.

ACA’s overall approach is to move its members away from the temptation to “become a victim” and help them see the family dysfunction of addiction that they were raised in as an affliction that can be overcome and healed.

I learned the hard way that adult children of alcoholics are prone to develop unhealthy personality traits and coping mechanisms as a result of their growing-up experiences. While an individual personality is influenced by genetics, environment, and personal experiences, so-called ACOAs commonly exhibit certain similar and dysfunctional personality traits.

One common trait is a tendency towards over-preparation and perfectionism. Growing up in an unpredictable or chaotic environment, constant vigilance and preparation for the unexpected can be a child’s fairly normal response. Into adulthood, overpreparation can be an instinct that developed to control their surroundings and avoid any potential disruptions in their present surroundings. Or as we often put it in the business world, to avoid being blindsided.

And so the tendency is working through me at this minute. I am in the midst of preparing for an important personal meeting tomorrow. I have rarely felt a stronger need to be fully prepared, have my ducks in a row, to yield no quarter. In the past few weeks, I have been trying to impose an unrealistic level of order on the preparation I had already completed. Yesterday, I had a word with myself.

Take a breather. Stand down a little. Whatever the outcome, you will live another day. If you’re lucky. All to say I am someone committed to thorough and professional preparation. But I am no longer prepared – as adult children of alcoholics like me tend to do – to stress myself and anybody nearby dithering over details that cannot be controlled and that likely won’t matter.

It is tough as hell for me to say something is “good enough.” Excellence. Perfectionism. Overpreparation. These were my watchwords. They also keep lawyers in business by warning you about all of the possible “What ifs.” Don’t get me wrong. Their counsel is wise and for the most part, I heed it.

But the most perverse lesson I have learned in life is that what ultimately blindsides you is something you never dreamed would happen in a hundred years. You could not have prepared for it. There was nothing that would have altered the outcome. Whatever that blindside was, it emerged only in an alchemy of circumstances that didn’t exist before the blindsiding happened. It is what it is.

So as I check and recheck the lists I’ve made and the order of the documents I have collected and if they have all of the required elements they need, I am giving myself permission to ease up on myself.

A famous quote (apparently falsely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt but still a very good one) goes: “Women are like teabags. The only way to find out how strong one is is to put her in hot water.” I’ll stare down this challenge as I have stared down dozens of others. What I have done to date is good enough. And if it isn’t, they will let me know.

Cuppa tea, anyone?