The Wounds We Carry As Children Of Addicts

Growing up in a family shaped by addiction is an experience that never fully leaves your body. My mother and most of her siblings struggled with substance use throughout my childhood. Thankfully, they are clean now, deep into their sixties, talking about faith, gratitude, and recovery. And while I’m grateful they’ve found clarity, there is an entire chapter of the story they rarely acknowledge, and when they do, it is limited. They rarely talk about the damage that was done, the instability we lived through, and the children we had to become in order to survive them.

My earliest memories are of fear and confusion. I knew something was wrong even as a little girl, but I didn’t have the language for it. Later, when I was older and spending too much time unsupervised, the hypervigilance came. I saw things no child should see, violence, drug use, chaos, and my nervous system learned to scan for danger long before I learned how to trust the world. I became the strong one, the responsible one, the one who could read a room instantly. That is what addiction does to children. It forces them into roles they were never meant to carry, and it teaches them emotional survival before they have had the chance to experience safety.

Children of parents with substance use disorders are significantly more likely to develop anxiety, depression, PTSD symptoms, and long-term relational struggles. When you grow up in instability, your nervous system learns to protect you, even long after the danger is gone.

When my mother got sober, she eventually got more clarity, but she did not automatically gain insight. She loves me deeply, and she tells me she does. She always did, even on her worst days, which actually caused some confusion around love and what it should feel and look like. There was affection, but love does not erase absence and neglect. Love does not repair the years when she could not show up. Love does not automatically rebuild trust. And even now, there is a distance that cannot really ever be bridged. It has always been there and I have always understood why. Healing your addiction is one thing. Healing the relationship is something else entirely.

There is a second wound that often shows up in families like mine. It is the denial. It sounds like, “I was still good to you,” or “I always loved you,” or “Look how well you turned out.” What they do not understand is that you cannot be fully present for a child when you are lost in addiction. You cannot nurture someone when you are fighting yourself. Addiction may numb the parent, but the child feels every moment. And when those parents get clean, many of them want immediate closeness without acknowledging the years of pain, confusion, and abandonment their children lived through.

I see this pattern across my mother’s siblings too. They reassure each other that they were better parents than they actually were. They convince each other that their children should “let the past go” because they themselves have moved on. And I have found myself saying what they avoid: you were not there. You did not show up. Your child is hurting. This distance is not disrespect. It is trauma. And trauma does not disappear just because time has passed. Time does NOT heal all wounds. 

People love to say, “That is still your mother,” or “You only get one,” as if biology alone should erase years of harm. Choosing distance from a parent is never simple. It is not done lightly, and it is almost always a protective decision. For many adult children of addicts, space is the only way they have ever felt safe. Whether someone decides to reconnect or hold their boundaries is deeply personal. Therapy and real introspection can help you understand what is underneath that choice, but even with that insight, the weight of it does not vanish. Parents in recovery often focus on how the distance feels for them, but they forget that the child has lived with that ache far longer. Pulling back is not about punishing the parent. It is about surviving what happened and honoring the truth of what it created inside you.

Here is the truth I wish every recovering parent understood: Those of us who are distant are this way because we had to survive you, not because we want to punish you.

The way a parent responds to their child’s trauma matters just as much as the trauma itself. Even if you are sorry, that does not guarantee forgiveness. And even if forgiveness comes, it does not mean the relationship will return to what you hope for. Some children love from afar forever. Some children need time. Some children choose self-protection instead of closeness. None of that is cruelty. It is the reality of what unhealed years created.

And then there is the anger. People forget that anger is often a secondary emotion, a mask for the feelings that were never safe to show. It lives on top of the grief, the confusion, the loneliness, and the depression that a child of an addict learns to carry in silence. By the time that child becomes an adult, the anger is what you see, but it is not the whole story. It is the armor. For boys and men especially, anger is the only emotion the world ever allowed them to express, so everything else gets funneled through it. But underneath that sharp tone, that distance, that cursing, that “I do not need you,” is usually the very opposite. It is the little boy who did not feel protected. The teenager who had to figure out life without guidance. The adult who never felt emotionally held.

Anger becomes the only language they have left, but it is not the one their heart is speaking. Their heart is saying, “You hurt me.” Their heart is saying, “I needed you.” Their heart is saying, “I am still hurting.” I pray for healing for those children, and I pray for clarity for the parents who want to reconnect. Your child’s anger is not disrespect for the sake of being disrespectful. It is not cruelty. It is pain that never had a place to land. Until that pain is acknowledged and tended to, the anger will continue to be the only thing standing between you.

For parents in recovery: your children do not owe you closeness. They do not owe you comfort. They do not owe you the relationship you imagine. If you want to rebuild, it begins with deep honesty, not defensiveness. It begins with acknowledging the truth of who you were, not the version you prefer to remember. And it requires understanding that your child’s willingness to reconnect depends on their readiness, not your desire.

For the adult children who grew up in this: you are not wrong for keeping your distance. You are not wrong for your discomfort, your grief, or the layers of anger and sadness that still sit inside your body. You get to heal in your own time and on your own terms. You do not owe anyone access to the version of you they never nurtured or protected. You do owe it to yourself to heal though. None of it was your fault, but it is still your, our, responsibility to heal.