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changeofair

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I share this with you because I want you to know you are not alone. There are so many of us navigating life with or after alcoholic parents.
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It is not easy.
But it is SO much easier together.
Remember that.
You are not alone.
There are so many resources.
So many people who love you and care.
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A few more statistics from the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information:
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* Alcoholics are more likely than nonalcoholics to have an alcoholic father, mother, sibling, or other relative. In addition, children of alcoholics (COAs) are more likely than non-COAs to marry into families in which alcoholism is prevalent.
* Roughly 1 in 8 American adults is alcoholic or experiences problems due to the use of alcohol.
* It is estimated that there are 28.6 million COAs in the U.S.; 6.6 million are under the age of 18.
* COAs are 2 to 4 times more likely than non-COAs to develop alcoholism.
* Physiological and environmental factors appear to place COAs at greater risk of becoming alcoholic.
* COAs are at increased risk for other drug use, especially as they approach late adolescence.
* COAs often believe that they will be failures even if they do well academically. They do not see themselves as successful.
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I'm so honored to have this community of ACoAs sharing and supporting each other. Amazing resources for getting started if you've just learned you're an ACoA are linked in my bio, including a free Understanding ACoA Guide.
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You are seen.
You are loved.
You are not alone.

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I've been thinking for quite some time now about how best for all of us to have a space to connect in a deeper way, to share resources with one another, to support each other, to share our stories. To have a place where we can learn all the things that help contribute to our healing.
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For so long, that has looked like in-person events for me. Weekends of hiking together, breaking bread together, meditating or practicing yoga together. Time spent doing all of the things that have helped me heal, in relationship with others who are trying to heal from the same things.
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That looks different now. And I think it's clear that it will look different for more than a few months in 2020. And so...in addition to the podcast which launches next month, I will be launching a private community for us. An online space that allows us to connect in a deeper way, but in a way that is not also filled with Facebook ads and political rantings. A safe container that will be just for us, after so many many years that were never about us.
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I have been deep in creation mode on this and it feels so good to finally share just the edges of what's to come. It has been such an honor to create Change of Air and to connect with each of you. And I can see the need so clearly for a place to come together in a more profound way, even if that means not meeting you in person and hiking with you and meditating alongside you for however long it takes.
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I can't wait for what's to come and I can't wait to connect with you all in a deeper way. Please stay tuned. A space just for us is forming...
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📷: @blacksheepgoods

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Covid has made me hyper-vigilant anew. In the same way I would count my mother’s beers to make sure it was safe for her to drive us home. In the same way I’d monitor the levels of vodka in the big plastic jugs in the garage, making secret markers that only I knew to check. A lower level often meant it was not safe for friends to come over. It was not safe for me to ask for anything at all.
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I innately knew that my parents could not be trusted. Even if I didn’t fully understand all the nuances of that feeling at the time. I knew that if I didn’t check number of beers in number of hours, if I didn’t check vodka levels throughout a night, I would at least be embarrassed, for sure be scared, at worst might be injured.
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And so I counted.
Because I didn’t trust them, once drunk, to count for themselves in a way that would keep my brother and I safe.
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I feel like that now. I don’t trust the White House to get this done. I believe we will have to protect ourselves, take care of others around us, count the beers and covid cases and not wait for them to make decisions drunk when we can make decisions now that will keep us safe no matter how much they drink.
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It’s not a great thing, for an ACoA to newly find herself being hyper-vigilant again. I’ve unlearned that behavior. Proudly. It did not come easy.
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But here we are, in deeply uncertain and worrisome times and I’m checking test counts and hospitalization charts and has it been 14 days since my last rare public outing?
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All the counting - cases of covid and cans of beer - is about one thing: feeling safe. And what I’ve realized these last wild weeks is that the only thing that calms me is to stop, and breathe and return to myself.
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The only for sure safe space is me.
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And so I’ve been using meditation and tapping and deep, slow breathing to return to myself each day and remind myself: you are safe here right now, you need not count cases and cans to be home.
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📷: @blackgirlinom / @deunivory

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Father’s Day. The day that reminds me of the two distant, unavailable men in my life who taught me many lessons about my worth I’ve spent my lifetime unlearning.
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My Dad. My “real” Dad as I called him when I was younger. To distinguish between him and my step-father, who drank and threw things and had a nasty temper and hit my mom and was scary. But also a good man. Also there for me in a way my real Dad never was as real Dad had a habit of swooping in to take me to fancy places once a month and then discarding me back home. As if he lived far away even though his house was just across town.
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So I had a real Dad (still do) who didn’t really want to see me much but was there for me in some big moments. And I had a step-father who was a raging, mean-tempered alcoholic but who was there for me daily, when he wasn’t blitzed.
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As you know, my mother died of cirrhosis of the liver when I was 18. And ever since then, Mother’s Day has been heavy with all the things I’ve missed. Getting through it without tears is not a thing.
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But as I’m healing, I see how I’ve allowed my fathers to escape my wrath and pain and heaviness. I skip right over this day. I try not to think about it at all.
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What does that tell me? The pain of their absence, the lack of their acceptance, the never knowing where I stood with them at any moment cuts deeper than I’ve been able to look at.
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And painful irony: I HAVE looked at it up close in every man I’ve ever been with. I know this distance and unavailability and “am I worthy” all too well.
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Proud of myself for seeing this now.
Proud of myself for not being ashamed at what I learned from them and modeled in my own life.
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If your alcoholic father or your distant father or your father that was one in the same made you ever question your worth, let today be an annual holiday for you to declare boldly to yourself how utterly worthy you are. How powerful. How special. How absolutely magnificent.
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I see you. I’m proud of you.
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📷: @themargomarket

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It can be easy to think we'll be good when we "get there" without ever knowing what "there" looks like.
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It can be easy to feel like we'll be more deserving of the job, the relationship, feeling at home in our bodies, when we've done enough inner work to be ready.
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It can be easy to feel like our worth is directly tied to not just how far we've come but how far we still have to go.
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It can be easy to tell ourselves we're allowed to feel good, be happy, just be -- once we get THROUGH the hard stuff.
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You are worthy right in the middle of the hard stuff.
You are worthy when you are on your knees crying.
You are worthy when you have a breakthrough.
You are worthy when you are triggered again.
You are worthy when you see the trigger & adjust.
You are worthy when it all feels broken.
You are worthy when you're confused.
You are worthy when you're angry.
You are worthy when you change your behavior.
You are worthy when you forget to change your behavior.
You are worthy when it hurts.
You are worthy when they don't see your worth.
You are worthy when YOU don't see you worth.
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You are worthy just as you are.
Allow room for your healing.
Allow room for mistakes.
Allow room for healing again.
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You will be made and unmade a thousand times.
And you will still be magic.
Keep going.

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I've started taking really good care of myself. And it feels really strange.
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In the early days of Covid-19, I bought a thermometer and an oximeter. We were hearing so much about pre-existing conditions and were told not to worry if we didn't have any. Um, that's a powder keg of a conundrum for an ACoA. We immediately presume we have underlying conditions we don't know about. We immediately presume we will be to blame if we get it or if it's worse than other people's. It's taken me a lifetime to deprogram myself from the knee-jerk response that everything is my fault.
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And so I realized that one way I could have some calm, measured control over this situation in which we truly have so little control was to at least get a baseline of my temperature, oxygen levels and heart rate each day.
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And: WHOA. In 90+ days of stay at home orders here in Joshua Tree, I've learned so much about body. My temperature rises when I'm stressed or angry. So does my heart rate. Also? My heart rate is not ideal. At all. My resting heart rate is not Olympic athlete heart rate vibes, but it's still ok. Healthy-Ish. But my daily go-about-your day, live your life heart rate? Really, really high.
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And it got me thinking about the ACES test and the very clear data that shows if we grew up with several adverse child experiences, we are at greater risk for nearly every disease. These statistics double for the Black community.
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I've read all these books. But they were somewhat abstract ideas to me. Until I tracked my heart rate and now I get it.
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I've been under stress my entire life. Even after healing from so much, my body is always ready to rise up and fight or flee in fear. It is only through these Covid-19 measures that I've realized how truly vital it is to take utter care of myself with all my ACES history in mind. And how truly vital meditation and hiking and so many other healing modalities are to our wellbeing.
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Link to the ACES test in my bio. Please take it.
Let’s take REALLY good care of ourselves.

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The goal of Change of Air is to be a safe, inclusive space for ACoAs to find information and tools to help them heal.
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Good information, different ways of thinking and alternative healing modalities have been a focus. As has my own story and experiences with alcoholic parents. What matters most: a safe space because I know we didn't feel safe in our homes growing up and I know the damage that has caused.
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I share many of my own images here, but I also share the images of other creators. To do this, I save images I love and plan to share in the future. Over the nearly three years of Change of Air, I've saved so many beautiful images of black women doing yoga, meditating, smiling, hiking, being. Yet I've only shared a few in this feed.
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Why? I was afraid that in sharing these images I would offend black women. That it would seem I was trying to include them in this community without their permission. That because I share my story here, including images of them without their stories attached was not good. But I do that with white women all the time. So what the...!?!?
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During a recent branding exercise, I even wistfully noted that my target readers had to be white women because I felt that as a white woman, I could not possibly create a safe space for black women and women of color, even though I very much wanted that.
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Even after years of anti-racism work, I didn’t see that I was presuming a black fragility and treating images of black women differently. I was so worried about getting inclusion wrong that I unintentionally excluded. I have been “othering” black women. I’m ashamed.
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The very pause before posting, so worried about getting it wrong, must be examined. That I never worry about getting it wrong when I post images of white women must be examined.
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I am holding myself accountable to create the community I’ve always envisioned - a safe and anti-racist space for every woman to share their stories and find tools that help them heal.
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🎨 by @_lauraberger_

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When I began anti-racism work a few years ago, something kept coming up: while I understood that black people have lived through trauma and daily oppression, I knew that I had also lived through trauma. Trauma that upended my entire life. That made me feel unsafe. My life was in danger when I was young and it has taken me decades to heal from that and realize I need no longer engage in the survival behaviors that once kept me alive.
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Anytime a black educator would say to me - white women doing this work are too late, or that black trauma could not be understood so I should not begin to presume, something within me resisted. I kept wanting to say: but I am hurting too! I am only just learning how to trust myself and listen to my needs and take up space! See me, too!
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White privilege is a sneaky thing. It makes you think that in a discussion about hundreds of years of black trauma, your story matters as well. You will read this and think aloud: your story DOES matter, too!
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And it does.
But not when the discussion is about understanding systemic oppression. Not when their lives are in danger daily just because of the color of their skin.
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Here’s what’s beautiful about us #ACoA: we have a unique capacity to understand growing up afraid, hyper-vigilant, constantly aware the dynamics might change and could get volatile. That was the first 25+ years of my life. But that’s exactly it: it is in the past for me. It is not my every day. It is for so many black men, women and children.
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Imagine feeling the fear you felt around your alcoholic parent and then imagine that fear every day for your entire life as you go about daily activities. And then add in mass incarceration and daily oppression in systems designed to keep you down. Simply for being not-white.
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Let us heal ourselves enough to engage fully with ongoing anti-racism work. Let us listen, learn & act from a full understanding of our privilege and do all we can to be allies and protect black lives.
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📷: @deunivory

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I am going through something.
It’s really big.
It’s old.
I’ve been given the chance to overcome this one particular behavior, this one particular way I betray myself and people-please and be the hero and save the day and forget myself entirely.
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I’ve been given this opportunity over and over again in my life and I circle it, and face it, and I learn more each time. I understand myself and my underlying wounds more each time.
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Ah, but here it is again.
Not quite healed.
Still betraying myself.
Still people-pleasing on a grand scale.
Still swooping in for the big save.
The walk-off home run.
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Another chance.
Another opportunity to dance with this.
Another opportunity to understand it for good.
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And it feels massive this time.
Because I have with me all the lessons from before, all the insights from all the other times I got so close to finally understanding why I do this so I can stop doing this.
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It feels so big it’s scary.
But it feels this big because I’m close. I feel it. I feel my entire childhood experience with two alcoholic parents driving me to this moment. A moment of finally breaking free from a deep and persistent need to get self-esteem and worth from running myself ragged for others.
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It sounds simple. It is anything but.
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And yet.
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Even as I know this is big and intimidating, I can feel the shift inside and it is profound. I am ready to claim me entirely. To finally scale this wall and be on the other side.
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I have found ways to do this in almost every aspect of my life... but a few remain as they do for all of us.
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This is a big one. A lifelong struggle one. And I am on the precipice.
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I am using all my tools: yoga, breathwork, meditation, talk therapy, parts therapy, hiking, journaling. And it is taking ALL of them to grok this. And it will take time.
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I often share the ah-has here. The lessons, once learned. But that isn’t what the process of healing looks like. It’s this. Feeling a big shift, leaning in scared, fighting your way to a deeper understanding of yourself. Dancing with your shadows.
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📷: @the__marbles

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For most of my life, I did this thing in the mirror. I’d catch myself while brushing my teeth or fixing my hair and I’d pause. I’d stare into my own eyes and I’d say: huh, so this is me.
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And I often felt I needed to repeat it to myself a dozen times: this is me, this is me. This is me.
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Because it didn’t look like me. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. This is me. This is me. This is me.
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It had nothing to do with how I looked or how much I weighed or how clear my skin was or how red from the sun. Most of the time, I felt stumped. It clearly WAS me, factually. Yet I was so disconnected from myself that I was mostly looking at a stranger. Not a surprise - to survive our homes, we had to disconnect from a lot.
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But I repeated the phrase every time: this is me. This is me. This is me. Hoping to drill it in. Hoping repetition would somehow force a longed for recognition.
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What a remarkable thing to catch myself in the mirror this morning, to look at a photo of me taken yesterday, to scroll through bio photos for the upcoming podcast (!!!) and have the first thought be: Oh! There I am. That’s me!
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This is me. This is me. This is me!
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What an incredible gift to be at home in myself. To be reconnected to myself. To see myself. To recognize ME when I look at an image of me. To see myself and hold space for myself as I would for others.
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I wish this homecoming for each of you.
It’s possible. I’m proof.

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