Adult Children of Alcoholics: The Cost of Never Feeling Safe
Lisa A Romano Breakdown to Breakthroughs
Lisa A. Romano
4.8 • 805 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is estimated that there are at least 28 million adult children of alcoholics in the United States alone. The statistics are staggering. Combine those numbers with a deep understanding of the impact of growing up in an alcoholic home, and it becomes easy to understand why so many adult children struggle with emotional regulation, telling the truth, setting boundaries and with emotional dependencies that result in seeking approval and validation in order to feel somewhat 'normal'.
Many adult children of alcoholics do not even know their parents or grandparents were alcoholics. Toxic family systems are enmeshed and shrouded in denial. When the adults in the family are not addressing their trauma, they inadvertently pass that trauma down to their children. Listen in as Lisa A. Romano offers adult children across the globe an opportunity to better understand themselves, how they process their emotions and perceive themselves and the world through a trauma lens, offering all those who are willing and ready an opportunity to live above the veil of consciousness, the only place where true transformation can occur.
This episode is a must-listen if you:
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Grew up with a parent who struggle with addiction.
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You are the grandchild of an alcoholic.
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Recognize that you struggle to know what you want or need.
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Identify as a cyclebreaker, who is ready to speak the truth and end generational trauma with you!
✨ Pro tip: Understanding your parent's trauma is often a key in recovering from subconscious faulty, negative childhood survival patterns.
Begin Your Healing Journey:
Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program designed for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature parents.
Inside the program, you'll discover:
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Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience.
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Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization.
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Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness.
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Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and live authentically.
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How to integrate shadow work and break toxic generational patterns.
Thousands have transformed their lives with this method—learning to step out of survival mode and into authentic, empowered living.
👉 Learn more: https://www.lisaaromano.com/12-wbcp
#CodependencyRecovery #ParentingPatterns #GenerationalHealing #TraumaInformedHealing #InnerChildHealing #EmotionalNeglect #ComplexTrauma #ConsciousParenting #SelfAbandonment #adultchildrenofalcoholics #codependency #lisaaromanopodcast
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough, the podcast that empowers you to transform your life |
| 0:04.8 | by awakening to your true authentic self. I'm Lisa A. Romano, your host, as an award-winning author |
| 0:10.6 | and certified life coach, I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible |
| 0:16.0 | power of an organized mind. I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self. |
| 0:23.2 | I created the Conscious Healing Academy, a three-part coaching and brain retraining program designed |
| 0:28.6 | to help individuals triumph over trauma and turn the breakdowns into powerful breakthroughs. |
| 0:34.5 | My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional |
| 0:38.6 | regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening. In this podcast, I'll share insights, |
| 0:44.5 | tools, and transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery. |
| 0:49.9 | A topic that is very near and dear to my heart has to do with being raised by adult children |
| 0:56.9 | of alcoholics or being raised by an alcoholic parent or being raised by two alcoholic parents. |
| 1:05.6 | And like anybody else, it's important to me because it hits home. |
| 1:14.1 | I was raised by two unrecovered adult children of alcoholics. Three out of my four grandparents were active alcoholics. It was just a mess. My brother's |
| 1:21.5 | twin brother was an active alcoholic, although he did finally, ultimately fine recovery, was a compulsive gambler. |
| 1:29.1 | Her other brother was also an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler. |
| 1:33.0 | In my opinion, my mother was a dry alcoholic. |
| 1:36.5 | And it's anyone's guess whether or not my father was a real alcoholic or a functional alcoholic, |
| 1:42.4 | but I can tell you that narcissism ran rampant in my family. |
| 1:48.3 | Denial ran rampant. My sister, my brother, and I, we did not grow up feeling secure or like |
| 1:55.5 | we had a sense of self. And it was hard for us to identify what was wrong. And I want to address that because so many |
| 2:03.3 | of us grow up in homes where something was wrong, but nobody's talking about it. And we might |
| 2:11.1 | look like we're extremely functional people. We may have relationships. We may have businesses. We may have children. We may be |
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