Trauma
Finding Your ACE Score
Many people who drink too much have experienced trauma, like physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect before as children and teens. Traumas are called Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE for short. Go to the website below to find your ACE score:
https://goo.gl/JMA0Q8
If your ACE score is over 4-5, talk to your counselor or doctor to talk about ways to minimize the effects of childhood trauma in your life. You do not have to discuss the actual events, if you do not want to, just bringing the score to your provider will help them give you better advice.
Emotional Survival and Rules
Childhood trauma can also make having relationships harder as an adult. When children see adults being two faced- being nice in public and mean at home, for example- or when children are treated like the black sheep of their family, and labeled as "bad," children can stop trying to play by the rules. As they grow, they tend to adopt attitudes like these to survive emotionally:
If RULES don't help you get ahead,
I will break the rules to get ahead.
If being NICE means getting walked on,
then I have to be mean to be STRONG.
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Showing LOVE is a weakness.
But those attitudes push people away, destroy relationships, and make trouble with the law. They don't help people get what they need. To heal from childhood trauma, adults need to form healthy relationships based on kindness, respect, and love. Learning to follow the rules to get ahead also stabilizes relationships by keeping people out of jail and employed. Stable, healthy relationships help heal past trauma.
A Better Attitude:
The Kindergarten Rules
Author Robert Fulgum wrote about a healthier way to look at rules. These simple rules cover what it takes to be KIND and STRONG and how to create PEACE. wrote:
"All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. These are the things I learned. These are the things you already know."
"Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away." -Robert Fulghum
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