I had been on the job for only a few months as a first year counselor fresh out of graduate school with a master’s degree in education in counseling and a minor in psychology when I realized that I was hearing a similar story from many of my clients. Most of them had come from families where there had been alcoholism and consequently some form of abuse or neglect: emotional, physical, sexual, &/or spiritual – I later began to know this as trauma. I decided I needed to know more about alcoholism and the family dynamic. It was late 1988 when awareness of Adult Children of Alcoholics was taking the forefront in the 12 step program recovery movement. So, I began reading as many of the plethora of self-help books that were being published by those involved in the ACOA movement. This was my indoctrination into the dynamics of addiction and recovery.

I could identify with the information related to ACOA’s and codependency because I had been groomed by my mother to be her emotional care-taker &, though my father was not an alcoholic, he had emphysema. I realized that similar family dynamics were not only created with alcohol in the family but by any issue, problem, or circumstance that could not be openly addressed within the family (ie, a family secret). In my family the issue that could not be spoken of was the reality that my father would one day die due to the emphysema caused by his smoking for probably 30+ years and the damage from the dirt & wheat dust of “the dirty ‘30’s.” He did die when I was 15.

I began to attend some ACOA meetings, learning about the 12 steps, making application to my personal life, & moving into recovery of some long-standing issues that I had worked on in my own therapy before going to graduate school. I found my own niche in the 12 Step programs in Overeaters’ Anonymous and Alanon. I have since come to the firm belief that the 12 step concepts can be applied with positive outcome to any problem or situation in life. I particularly appreciate the spirituality of the 12 step program.

My theoretical basis of mental health therapy is in Objections Relations Theory and in Bowenian family systems. I was a proponent of family systems theory before becoming acquainted with alcoholic family dynamics. Alcoholic family system dynamics show Bowenian concepts clearly. I have also relied on Jungian concepts, believing the unconscious is key in recovery. Since the mid 1990’s, I have also incorporated many concepts and ideas from James F. Masterson’s work on treating personality disorders.

Somewhere along the way in the early years of my career, I started saying to clients: “We learn to do life in the families we grow up in.” I don’t remember if I heard that at a conference or in a workshop or if I concluded it based on something I heard, read, or experienced. This is the overall statement out of which my therapy work with clients proceeds. I take clients through a process that uncovers how they learned to do life – the traumas, the rules, the conclusions they made about themselves & others, the coping strategies they saw & developed themselves; support them in discharging the negative feelings/thoughts related to all those things, going into the grief work that is necessary to address the losses, begin to become comfortable living life with fewer burdens and negativity, finding new grounding of the reality of their authentic selves.

I have had an interest in tobacco addiction over the years as I have seen people who have done solid work in becoming stable in recovery from alcoholism and transforming their lives only to continue to be reliant in varying degrees on tobacco. I have experienced the irony of attending open AA or Alanon meetings and have the room filled with cigarette smoke while celebrating the freedom from addiction. It was forward thinking & a wise decision for many in the AA program in Amarillo, TX, when a group broke off from the Hobbs AA group and formed the first non-smoking AA & Alanon group in Amarillo, the Clean Air group.

I have noticed a difference in the quality of AA recovery between those who continued to smoke and those who either had not smoked or who were able to stop smoking at some point in their AA recovery. The non-smokers, as a general observation, seem to progress at a somewhat faster pace in getting to and through their anger, sadness, grief, trauma. I have noticed in my therapy sessions that those who quite smoking when they enter therapy move to those issues faster and are able to work them out in less time than others who continue to smoke. As a general observation, non-smokers make authentic progress in therapy faster than smokers. I often confront a smoker sharing my concern that he/she is working hard in therapy to uncover & discharge feelings/thoughts that need to be released for his/her growth and that continuing to smoke negates his/her progress. When a client can commit to not smoking 30 minutes before a session and for at least 30 minutes after a session, progress begins to pick up. The person sometimes begins to extend the non-smoking time on his/her own as positive feelings develop. Some have quit altogether.

Smoking is certainly a way of life in some families just as alcohol use, raging, compulsive eating, gambling, various forms of sexual acting out, any addiction is. Children notice how mom, dad, & other adults talk about, express, act on feelings and thoughts with the use of cigarettes. Parents are the most powerful models for children with the learnings from their modeling are wired in the brain from the moment of birth – some say from the moment of conception. Children see how their parent(s) and other adults use the cigarette itself, take a draw on it, put it out, to express emotionality directly or indirectly or to suppress emotionality. They imitate this way of dealing with emotionality, good news, bad news, thoughts that are happy & joyous, thoughts that are too painful, events that are joyous, events that are painful, anger provoking, confusing. They learn to do life with a cigarette. The tobacco addiction torch has a high probability of being passed from parent to child just as any addiction.

I did not know my dad to smoke for he quite at the end of 1954 just after I turned 1 year old. I never knew him to smoke although I did know him to be quite ready, often in a clear, no nonsense tone, & willing to tell those he saw smoking his opinion of what they were doing to their health. I don’t remember a smoky house, or clothes smelling like stale smoke, or ash trays with butts and ashes in them unless a guest had smoked. I don’t remember cigarette butts floating in water glasses. I don’t remember my eyes watering or my nose being stuffy because a parent was smoking in the house. I don’t remember curtains or the furniture smelling like stale smoke. I never was embarrassed to have friends over because of the smoky smell or the ashtrays that needed to be emptied. These are experiences children & teens of smokers contend with on a daily basis whether or not they succumb to the adult modeling.

I did experience knowing from at least age 10, although it seems I knew this long before age 10, that my daddy was not like all the other daddy’s: he couldn’t do as much as they could and that one day he would die because of his emphysema, his lungs. Even now, as I write this, after nearly 41 years, I’m in touch with that tenderhearted young girl who knew she would loose her daddy one day & she didn’t know what that would be like or what life would be like after that. It never really crossed her mind to talk with anyone about it. The family did not talk about “this elephant in the living room.” She kept this serious thought in her heart, tried to be the perfect child and student, not cause trouble. She became serious & mature for her age, focused on being helpful to others, bringing comfort to others. She became acquainted with grief. There was no place for the playful, dancing, smiling, curly headed child.

My mother remarried a smoker my freshman year in college. I experienced all the things mentioned in the preceeding paragraph after my step-dad came into the family. His addiction was complicated by an anxiety disorder that I believe was PTSD having been in the Normandy Invasion during World War II. There were times that I believe he was addicted to pain shots as well. He would not talk about his experiences in the war only to say he was scared only once: when he boarded the ship to go over and when he boarded the ship to come home. He died of emphysema, too, in 2006. Prior to my training and in my 12 step work, I was advised that a therapist needs a therapist. I have practiced that advise for the 20+ years I’ve been in this field. I know that I cannot take anyone any farther than I’ve gone. Through my own hours in the client chair, in private thought & reading, in working the 12 steps formally and informally, through allowing myself to learn from clients & to be impacted by clients, I am glad to say that the essence of my tenderhearted inner child is alive & well with me today & is a guiding force for what I consider to be my gift of being a therapist.

So, coming to the place of treating smoking addiction is a natural outcome of my past experiences. I know the ultimate toll on the addict & the family members. I know the joys & freedom of recovery.