Here are two talks that I gave for first responders in Mississippi...they explain the free download I have posted Maintaining Emotional Sobriety during COVID WORKBOOK It you go to tiandayton.com, you can also find short videos introducing each chapter in the workbook.....the workbook is good for personal growth, peer healing groups, or for therapists to use with clients......it focuses the issues that we need to work through in order to heal some of the COVID pain we may be carrying so that...

CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD https://tiandayton.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1b7d79e1940e988e6a88f82e2&id=03b4e29b1f&e=0a70e22283

One of the most moving films I have seen in, well….years Cracked Up currently on Netflix, is a stunning and running commentary on what goes on in homes that we never find out about. Cracked Up tells the story of Darrell Hammond, one of Saturday Night Live’s favorite stars and the world within him that remained hidden under brilliance, talent and hurt. This courageous film illustrates, in a way that few films have so well achieved, the dynamics of post-traumatic stress disorder or how pain...

first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...

We are not strangers to unusual challenges in the addiction’s world. We have lived with chaos and unmanageability before and we have learned to use program principals to create calm in a storm. We have also learned to accept and even embrace challenges as part of our spiritual growth. And we have found that embracing those challenges has ultimately led to our being happier, stronger and more resilient people. This current moment in time however, is giving “practicing these principles in all...

By Tian Dayton , Senior Fellow @ The Meadows, Clinical psychologist, psychodramatist, author Emotional Sobriety,ACoA Trauma Syndrome, The Soulful Journey of Recovery (2019),Trauma and Addiction, Forgiving and Moving On at tiandayton.com Uncertainty is one of our most difficult feelings to manage. We humans like to wrap our minds around things, we like to know what’s going to happen. But do we? HHHmmm that’s the age old question. It is times like these that pull us into the present, that...

Love Yourself!

Understand that as ACAs, ever the good little, loyal soldiers, we spent our childhoods trying to manage the unmanageable disease of addiction. That means we were trying to manage a drug addict, but they still more or less look like Dad or Mom. So we don’t know that this isn’t normal; we don’t see the illness. Our parent simply keeps acting in strange and frightening or “fun” or smarmy ways. But we keep thinking it’s our parent, and our parent keeps using our name and wearing the same clothes...

To ring in the New Year, I could quote statistics of how certain feelings benefit your cholesterol levels and pump up your immune system and extend your life by 2.3 years. We could discuss that science has proven that appreciation begets happiness and happiness is healthy. But you’ve already heard all that. So on the everyday shortcut wisdom front, what I really have found of value, if you want to have a life worth extending, is to love what you have, to appreciate the life you are living...

The holidays offer us a moment when we can show our children through action that life goes on, that difficulties can be overcome, that there can be joy and blessings amidst pain. This models giving life the best we have to give it at that moment. For families who struggle with addiction or other forms of adverse childhood experiences, rituals that remain in tact can be a way of telling kids that life will go on, of reassuring them that bonds s till have meaning and that their place in the...

“…Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self….” – From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran There are many kinds of loss that we can encounter in life. However, losses surrounding addiction can be particularly confusing; they tend...

A groundbreaking new book from the publisher of the New York Times bestseller Adult Children of Alcoholics …The book that started it all! "Tian Dayton picks up where Janet Woititz author of Adult Children of Alcoholics left off…..for those who have grown up in a family with addiction, mental illness, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the heartache and pain doesn’t end when they grow up and leave home. The legacy can last a lifetime and spread to generations unseen. In The...

(partially excerpted from The Soulful Journey of Recovery Nov. 2019) O ne of the problematic issues for adult children is that some if not much of their mourning dates from a time and place in their childhood. Many of them feel too old to let themselves exhibit the kind of grief they actually feel. Some have parents who are now sober with whom they have vastly improved relationships. They don’t want to jeopardize their relationship today by releasing their pain, but it still needs to be felt...

Freedom Institute of New York City honored Emmy and Oscar wining actress Allison Janney, in recognition of her contributions in raising awareness about the issues surrounding addiction and recovery. In her very moving acceptance speech, Ms. Janney opened up about the experience with addiction from her own life, that made her want to be part of CBS’s Mom. “Addiction rips through so many families and mine is no exception. In 2011, I lost my brother Hal to this disease. He was an addict and an...

Recovery is actually about starting. Starting to live a life that’s bigger than you thought possible ...

What if we could connect with the parts of ourselves that are hidden inside of us. The kid in us who wants attention, who is creative and spontaneous. The artist in us, the story teller, the writer, the visionary, the helper. Or for people who have grown up with addiction in their childhoods, that part might be the forgotten kid who lives inside, with their head still hanging down. Who is still waiting to be noticed. The child in them who is still in pain, still mistrusting of deep...

For every addict, there are five to seven people deeply impacted by living with addiction. People whose lives will be forever changed. The most vulnerable of these are children. There are several factors that impact how traumatizing the experience of growing up with addiction might become. Among them are, a child’s access to outside support, their age/developmental level and of course, the natural power imbalance between parent and child. Afterall, where can a child go with their lunchbox,...

Haze Mabry has much to teach us when it comes to leading a happy life. An 80-year-old janitor comes to work expecting to clean. Instead, nearly 800 students sing him… April 1 Haze Mabry, who works as a janitor at an elementary school in Georgia, walks into the building every day and… www.washingtonpost.com A few days ago this story by Allison Klein, editor of Washington Post’s Inspired Life, appeared there and has since gone viral. “Haze Mabry”, writes Klein, “who works as a janitor at an...

Children who grow up with addiction and the relational trauma that surrounds it can carry the imprint of that pain for the rest of their lives. And as adult children of addicts (ACoAs), we can be very confused about just what we’re healing from and just how we should go about healing it. Many of us think that we can read a couple of books, “understand” what went wrong and be able to think ourselves into inner peace. Some or us feel like victims and resent any implication that we need to do...

As a psychologist who works with trauma, I am very much aware of how difficult it can be to recall details of a traumatic experience. Even the question, “can you tell me about your trauma?” can be befuddling, if not somewhat disturbing, to one who has experienced it. In fact, it is the very nature of our human response to trauma that we defend against taking in the frightening experience in its entirety. We are designed by nature to not let the full weight of the experience become conscious,...

As a psychologist, my specialties for the last thirty three years have been working with adult children of addicts, addiction and relational trauma/PTSD. I have worked with countless cases of sexual abuse.I have discussed these subjects in several of the twelve books that I have published and in numerous articles. I have given support to hundreds and hundreds of clients, both women and men, in working through sexual abuse in various forms. I have never, until today, written a word about...

@Tian Dayton PhD Got one or more of these? Keep reading…… Everyone knows about stress. We work too hard, play too hard and sleep too little. We’ve got too many balls in the air and ignore self care. No me time, no down time. The result we’re stressed out! And everything suffers, our mood, our health, our work….to say nothing of everyone around us. Small problems feel bigger and our reactions to anything from waiting in a grocery line to how we are with our partners and kids are out of whack.

If I had diagrammed my family when my children were young, well most any age really, had I been really honest I’d have made myself smaller than anyone else. What I learned through my own ACA/codependency recovery, was that if I kept doing that, I was not in fact serving my children nor myself nor my husband. Trauma has the effect of shrinking us, we get hurt and we withdraw, we get scared and we shut down, we become emotionally constricted, we’re less present and less spontaneous. Recovery...

[Note from Jill Karson: Tian Dayton specializes in addiction, trauma, and PTSD. She is a nationally renowned speaker and a prolific writer; her books include Emotional Sobriety, Trauma and Addiction, Relationship Trauma Repair Therapist Guide , and many others. I'm happy to report that Dayton plans to share her library of videos and other resources here at ACEs Connection. Look for them coming soon to the Books! Educational DVDs! Documentaries! and the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care...