Nobody Said the Word: Adult Children of Alcoholics, the Daughter Who Read Every Mood in the House, and the Woman Still Keeping the Secret

You could tell what kind of night it would be from the sound of ice in his glass. You knew which voice meant stay in your room and which one meant come down and be charming. You never had a sleepover, and you never told anyone why, because nobody in your house ever said the word.

Nobody Said the Word is for adult daughters of alcoholic parents who grew up fine on the outside. You got the grades, and later the reputation for being the one who handles things. More than one woman in four grew up in a home where someone drank or used, according to CDC research on adverse childhood experiences, and women report it more often than men. Most of them never called it anything.

Agatha Tonka writes to the woman you became in that house. You read every room before you walk into it. You stay too long with people who treat you badly, and you call it loyalty. Lately you pour a glass of wine at five and you have started to count. And your father is sixty nine and still drinking, or your mother got sober last year and wants to talk about it now.

This book gives you no trait checklist and requires no program. If a meeting helps you, go. If it does not, this book will not tell you that you are in denial. The twenty chapters start in the house you grew up in and stay with the secret your family kept. Then they follow you into the adult life you built on top of it, and they end with the parent who is still here and the question of what you owe.

If you read She Means Well or He Was in the House the Whole Time, this is the book about the house where the thing everyone knew had no name.

This book is general information about family relationships. It is not medical, addiction treatment or mental health advice. If you are worried about your own drinking, the SAMHSA National Helpline is free and confidential at 1 800 662 4357 (1 800 662 HELP).