It Will Never Happen to Me: Growing Up with Addiction as Youngsters, Adolescents, and Adults

by Claudia Black

Claudia Black's bestselling classic on the experience and legacy of being raised in an addictive household.

In an all too familiar scenario, played out in millions of homes every day, children who grow up in addictive families abide by certain don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. The rigid survival roles and youthful coping behaviors they take on, such as the responsible child, the adjuster, the placater, and the acting-out child can eventually contribute to problems of depression, loneliness, and addiction in adulthood.

Using poignant personal stories, thoughtful explanations, and helpful exercises, Black helps readers gain personal insights and develop new skills that lead to a healthier, happier, more fulfilling life.

While continuing to recognize alcohol as the primary addiction within families, this newly revised edition of It Will Never Happen to Me, which has sold more than two million copies, broadens concepts to include addictive disorders involving other drugs, money, food, sex, and work.

Genres: Self Help, Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Addiction, Spirituality, Health

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1982

About the author

Claudia Black, M.S.W., Ph.D. is a renowned addiction and trauma expert, author, and trainer internationally recognized for her pioneering and contemporary work with family systems and addictive disorders. Dr. Black's passion to help young adults overcome obstacles and strengthen families built the foundation of the Claudia Black Young Adult Center at The Meadows treatment center in Arizona. Not only is Dr. Black the clinical architect of this innovative treatment program, she is also a Senior Fellow at The Meadows. She is the author of sixteen books, most recently Unspoken Legacy and Intimate Treason.

Reviews

[Claudia Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My godmother wrote this and it took me until I was 33 and married to an alcoholic to read it. She's one of the most knowledgeable and intuitive people I know on the subject, and I'm glad I finally gave it a chance. It was exactly what I needed and I wish more people with addiction or from family's with substance abuse would pick this up. The book may not be new but the subject is ongoing and shouldn't be swept under the rug. Neither preachy or cheesy, this was a great accomplishment.

[Rachel Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really unsure about reading this book because I didn't think I fit the mold. I didn't think that I suffered from the effects of being the adult child of an alcoholic because I didn't know my parents had addictions until I was an adult. I was so incredibly wrong. This book helped so many things I have felt and experienced as a child and as an adult make sense. I am so thankful I found this book and highly recommend it for ACOA's and children of other dysfunctional families.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Black's analysis of ACOA's is pretty dead on. Coming from a home with an alcoholic parent I found myself relating a lot to what she says in her book. While I do think a lot of it is very - how do you say? - surface stuff, I understand the need for it considering it's meant to be sold to a wide amount of people. Dr. Black also offers a lot of names and suggestions for ways to help kids currently growing up in addictive households, but not nearly as many suggestions for Adult Children.

If you come from an addictive home it is worth the read. It really made me feel like I wasn't alone, or crazy for feeling or coping the way that I had.

There is help and you don't have to be who you were when you had to deal with the world on your shoulders.

[Anneg · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a revelation that kept me alive. It explained and gave answers to all my questions mostly:Why?
Still at 56 I feel the pain but now I know why and it keeps me going.
I have given so many of this wonderful book to other bruised children.
It is time to live and stop surviving.

[Patsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in 1988. I had been sober from drug and alcohol use for over a year and was in counseling.

This book catapulted me further into dealing with how I had grown up. My dad was an alcoholic my whole life; I began drinking and using drugs when I was 19 and did so for 10 years until I just hated myself.

Claudia Black explains the dynamics of an alcoholic family and hits the nail on the head. I felt like I was reading about my family of origin through the whole thing. This book helped me confront my family members one by one, ask forgiveness for how I had hurt them, and let them know how they had hurt me. It took at least 10 years for all of us to be able to talk with each other and be somewhat of a family, but all of the pain I went through in the healing process was well worth it.

However, after the deaths of our parents, I'm sad to say my brothers kept using drugs and alcohol. Neither of them ever wanted to go into recovery which still saddens me. One brother committed suicide just a little over three months ago. My other brother left our area and I haven't seen or heard from him since 2009.

I still would recommend this book to anyone who desires help in healing from any addictions.

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book about growing up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional home. Explains the roles children tend to take on in an alcoholic home and how these roles, critical for survival during childhood, don't carry over well into adult life. Extremely helpful book, provided a ton of insight.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book established Claudia Black as one of the leading figures in the self-help/spiritual recovery movement for adult children of alcoholics. The title refers to the grim vow that so many made as children, watching their alcoholic/otherwise addicted parents' behaviors and consequences; unfortunately, as Black points out, once those children become adults, it's all too likely that they will indeed repeat those patterns unless they take vigorous and focused action to change them and break the cycle that has probably gone on in their families for many generations. Along with her workbook Repeat After Me, this belongs on the bookshelf of any recovering adult child of an alcoholic or addict and any counselor, therapist, or social worker.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about adult children of alcoholics. It talks about common characteristics of adult children. It is very interesting and useful to gain awareness to see how your life has been shaped by being a child of an alcoholic or another addicted person. Awareness and coming out of denial is one of the first steps of recovery, so it was very good. Easy to understand.

[Levi Renninger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little outdated, but a great resource for children of alcoholics or adults with poor relationships to alcohol. This book gives insight and guidance into the eyes of 30-45 million children whose parents struggle with alcohol and the effects it has on them growing into adults. Some things that resonated with me are the common issues of difficulty with trust, control issues, and expression of feelings and emotion such as anger. The title infers that most children grow up thinking alcoholism is a control issue, and that they can handle it unlike their parents and it’ll “never happen to them” but rather very commonly end up alcoholics themselves or marry one and repeat this pattern, this author does a great job uncovering possible reasons why this cycle continues and resources to get out of it.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coming from a household of at least one alcoholic I found this book interesting.

The author's conclusions seem like they would be just as applicable to any type of dysfunctional household. Beyond emphasis on the cycle of disease/heredity and a list of things a non-alcoholic parent (if you have one) can help with children who aren't already fucked over (an implication she pushes quite hard), there isn't a lot of ACoA specific messaging. And while I agree some stress was needed about the problem of generational drinking, she painted quite a hopeless picture for the children that fell short of inspiring the empathy she wanted.

I think the biggest problem I had with the book was the extremism/stereotyping (a problem I have found often in the self-help genre). While I find it likely that those are the individuals with which she is more aquainted, not every alcoholic mother is passed out drunk under the Christmas tree and not every alcoholic father is an angry drunk. While she admits this in her opening chapters, I feel like all her subsequent examples are all fairly extreme. I suspect, like most things, more people fall in the light gray range.

I also feel like this book reinforces a survivor/victim identity while railing against it. While adult children of alcoholics are often survivors/victims of neglect and abuse, adopting that as an identity (::cough:: ACoA ::cough::) leads to many more issues, including alcoholism themselves. It's a fine line to discuss and not one I felt like she successfully navigated.

[DaLyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Changed my life...was the beginning of ten years of self awareness and change. Thank you Claudia Black for putting into words what I could not.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a much-better-than-average read in this subject, not just describing the problem but looking at how the emotional i s sues show up in everyone in the family, including those who have grown up and struck out on their own. It also talks about handling practical realities that tend to come along with having alcoholism in the family, like safety planning for the kids, making a point of asking about violence at home, and finding resources to help everyone in the family. Highly recommended.

[Taylor G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful for anyone dealing with any addiction issues, not just alcoholism.

[Whitney Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very helpful book for those of us who survived (are still managing) a dysfunctional family +/- alcoholic parents.

[Helina Sommer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Väga kõnetav raamat. Rasked teemad on lihtsasti lahti seletatud. Tunnen, et see on vajalik-kasulik lugemine kõigile.

[Cynthia Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am 57 years old and before reading this book I did not know why that the moment I lost 20 lbs. I began to gain it back at the rate of 3-5 lbs. a week.

A friend recommended this author to me after we talked about addiction issues in our pasts. I could not believe she had ever been 100 lbs overweight! I've known her several years and she's always been slim and trim. Claudia Black writes that 60% of Americans have some trouble with addictions. And one addiction can lead to another. I know this is true. I knew it before I read the book. I have read hundreds of self-help books, including those geared to substance abuse and those that focus on overeating. I've done every diet in the world--twice.

Still, I don't think I'll ever be too old to learn something new about myself. People say "forget the past" and yes, it's true, it's not a good place to live. But before you can truly put your past behind you, you have to deal with how it affects the person you are today. I never really read a book about the "acting out" kid in the family. Black says different children of alcoholics play different family roles. Mine was acting out. Of course, I zeroed in on that. I'd never fully admitted that all the mistakes from my past were connected to how I grew up.

My grandfather was a raging alcoholic, one of those who drank until he passed out. He went to "dry out" periodically but most of the time, he was drunk. My dad got married to my mom when he was 18. He was the oldest child in his family (as I am). Where I acted out, he was the "responsible" one. But he also developed drinking problems, relationship problems with my mom, and other addictions, like cigarettes and food. I have watched my dad deal with each of these issues, every single one of them addictions I also suffered from. My dad is now doing great. He does not have a beer belly, but is a fit 70-something. My mom has always been trim. My dad's mom was maybe 300 lbs. So his dad was a raging alchoholic and his mother was an emotional eater, big time. She had 7 children and a husband who, well, I don't know. Which of them was addicted first? Did they make that silent bargain I made with all three of my husbands? I'll let you have your addiction if you let me have mine.

With husband #1 it was drugs. I liked cigarettes more than pot and he liked LSD more than pot. It was not a healthy relationship. Then hubby #2 smoked so we fed off each other's addiction to cigarettes. He drank, too, but then one day he didn't want to. And I didn't want to smoke. And we figured out we didn't love each other anymore. Not in a healthy way. And we had two kids, but I was so consumed by my anxiety, I got drunk all the time to take away the anxiety. I waited until my children were in bed and I never got to the point of my Grandfather. But when I divorced husband #2 I also went to AA. I found that I was not an alcoholic. My stories didn't match the people there. I gave up booze without a problem, but cigarettes were harder to quit.

Husband #3 helped me kick smokes but then I discovered how delicious food was. I suddenly loved chocolate. And I let wine back into my life using moderation most of the time. Meanwhile I packed on the pounds. I remember #1 saying some day I'd be as fat as my grandmother. He laughed. I am not as big as my grandmother. Not even close. But I am 30 pounds overweight, probably 40 if you asked a doctor. I think a little weight can be a good thing for an aging face.

Anyway, this book made me connect the dots in a way I never had before between eating and drinking. They are all versions of Xanax, the pill I take for anxiety now. And my patterns were set before I was even born. The awful things I did in my teens and 20s "acting out" were not really surprising if you see the way addiction follows families. I sort of, kind of, knew my overeating was connected, but I'm not that overweight. I don't drink that much wine. I'm a vegetarian! I eat healthy food. Well except when I grab chips and chocolate and open a bottle of Chardonnay that puts me over my calorie limit for the day.

Long, long way of saying this is a great book and if you let it, it will help you. It helped me.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book filled with other people's experiences with their addicted parents. It gives insight on what many other people live at home with their drug dependent parents, and hopefully makes the reader feel he or she is not alone in the same situation - that is in case the reader is going through something similar.
If it's for research purposes, then it depicts very accurately how an adult children of alcoholics has to deal with past trauma and insecurities, including a possible substance abuse as well. Sometimes bad decisions become a cycle, and children end up following their parent's footsteps on alcohol addiction- among other substances. This clearly speaks up for the title of the book "It will never happen to me!", which is something adult children of alcoholics say when they suffer the negative consecuences of a life encumbered by their parent's addictions.
Children live with fear, uncertainty, anger and deep sadness, and every one deals with it differently. The author creates four common personality types, or profiles, of children who learn to cope with an addicted parent in their own way. Sometimes one person may have a mixture of two or more personalities. Not everyone is the same, and creating only four tight boxes where a person's mind has to fit in is very unrealistic. That's why people tend to show a mixed behavior.
This is a great book and never seems to get old, as the typical behavior of addicted parents presents itself again and again through generations, including the hurt and damage it does to the family. The only difference is now we may talk freely about it, which helps speed up the recovery process.
Fully recommend. I read the kindle version, which doesn't let do the final written exercises, and kind of kills the immersive experience, but all in all it proved useful to me.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 'little green book' will be invaluable to any ACoA. The thing is, Claudia Black doesn't only focus on alcoholic parents and their impact on their children but, looks at the family as a whole (e.g. how even a non-alcoholic parent's behaviour, in such a context, can be as damaging to a child) and, beyond, how such families also interact with the 'outside world'. Talking thus about co-alcoholism (a key concept) her view allows for a deeper understanding of how dysfunctional families affected by alcoholism are compared to normal ones and, in the face of these dysfunctions (and she dares facing the violence and abuses/domestic abuses involved) how children adapt in locking themselves up into different roles so as to cope and survive. Crucially, as these roles are what ACoA will carry with them into adulthood, understanding them is better understanding why ACoA are the way they are -both in their good and bad sides. Brilliantly, it's thus a whole pattern that is described here, one in which every ACoA will relate all too easily: even if you managed to walk away from a childhood affected by alcoholism, the survival mechanisms adopted as a child will still define you as an adult. 'It will never happen to me!' is a very emotional book but, so valuable and relevant that I recommend it warmly to any ACoA.

[Dayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this was written in 1981, it still holds true for today. The "Alcoholism" is always the same: dysfunctional families; no one to meet children's needs; miserable spouse of alcoholic. In many, this disease could easily be combined under "Emotionally Immature Parents."

[Lauren Morse · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be fair, I haven't finished this book yet (about three quarters of the way through) but I feel like I must be crazy after reading so many glowing reviews! First of all, the book is so riddled with typos and grammatical errors (can someone please explain to this woman how a comma works) that I find it hard to concentrate on the message. It's poorly written and clearly was not edited.

Secondly, it's full of idealistic garbage. The idea that children - who are currently living in a home where one or both parents are alcoholics - should be taught not to manipulate the alcoholic parent and that they should be expected to stay in dangerous situations puts all of the responsibility on the child and none on the parent. ('A child may be afraid to ride in the car with the alcoholic father after six drinks, but ultimately the child might make the decision to go with the father anyway to spend time with him. The child will not get 'hurt' witnessing isolated incidences of drunkenness.') Um....what? What about the kid's safety? What about removing the child or the alcoholic from the home? As a mental health counselor, I would never recommend this book to one of my ACOA clients.

[Bonnie Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an addictions counselor, I provide service to a disproportionate number of clients who are Adult Children of Alcoholics / Addicts; wounded men and women who are shell-shocked by their broken childhoods.

Dr. Black’s collection of powerful vignettes, woven between both therapeutic analysis and strategies, provides me options in the counseling room. For my highest functioning clients, this book can be a resource they can read on their own and apply to themselves. For my others who are more fragile and / or less literate, this is a guide we can work through together in order to promote self-discovery, acceptance, and, ultimately, healing.

Caveat to readers who are Adult Children of Alcoholics / Addicts: you *will* see yourself in these pages and as such may be triggered by the emotional content therein. I implore you to establish a support network / contact prior to reading: a sponsor, trusted friend or partner, counselor or therapist who can assist your navigation through the deeply emotional places this book will take you.

5 Stars for practicality, compassion, and deep insight into the Adult Child of Alcoholic experience.

[Cagne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmmh, the author proceedes by describing three roles/types of behaviours, and only later adds that the traits can be intechangeable and mixed, that can be confusing if one finds a bit of themselves in each type, because you don't completely see yourself in one type as they are described, and it makes you question whether something you do is caused by this, or it's another thing... Complicated.

I thought it would be more focused on adults (maybe like Adult Children of Alcoholics: Expanded Edition), but the book is also put together as a brief resource for people dealing with children of alcoholics, or alcoholics. Still, it has some practical ideas and advice. So, not THE book, but another helpful book.

[Jean Marie Angelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It all seems obvious now, but 30 years ago Black was the first to put together the relationship between growing up in an alcoholic home and becoming an alcoholic, loving an alcoholic, feeling worthlesss, and feeling anxious and depressed. One of those books that changed my life. I know I write that a lot in these reviews, but in this case I really, really mean it.

[Margot Note]

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Yes, but addictive families are all similar and abide by the same rules: don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. It is possible, however, to grow up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional household and be an emotionally healthy adult.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave me some solid insights to how parents' alcoholism affects the child, and into our own adulthood. It contains numerous examples from patients in her therapy practice which were very helpful in understanding how the effects of parental addiction plays out so many years later. Pretty amazing...The writing is a bit dry but helpful.

[Emily Spicknall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend for adult children of alcoholic/addicted parents. This book provides immense validation to the adolescent and adult experiences of adult children. If you are looking to take a deeper examination into yourself & how growing up with addiction effects adulthood, I would start with this book!

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned that I was not alone. I learned that there was a long road ahead of me. I learned that there is hope.

[Connie M Boree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep sigh....not crazy!

This book allowed me to see myself for who I really am. I've been surviving for so long, I don't know how to live. I'm ready to begin my life!

[Ufasaha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking

This book gave me so much to think about and wasn’t intimidating to jump in. It’ll be a valued resource on my journey toward recovery.

[Jenny Hickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all adult children of alcoholics.