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Growing up with a workaholic parent can leave lasting emotional wounds.

Adult children of workaholics may struggle with intimacy and partner selection in adulthood.

Healing begins when adults recognize workaholism as a compulsive pattern, not just hard work.

Adult children of workaholics may experience internalized distress because their struggles are less visible.

Sometimes people come into therapy saying things like, “I had a picture-perfect childhood. There weren’t any drugs or alcohol present other than an occasional glass of wine, my parents stayed together, and my dad worked hard to provide for us. So why am I struggling so much? I feel like there’s something wrong with me.”

What the person is describing is a very real effect of being an adult child of a workaholic (ACOW). There are many jokes and offhand remarks about being a workaholic, but it is a very real condition defined as a compulsion or uncontrollable need to work incessantly. Workaholism is a socially sanctioned pattern of compulsive overworking. We praise hard workers, people who succeed in their careers, but very rarely do we ask, “What is the cost?”

The cost in families is children who are depressed, anxious, and emotionally neglected, and who struggle in their relationships. And the hard part is that they have nothing to point to, unlike adult children of alcoholics (ACAs). In homes with drug and alcohol abuse, there’s an external substance that can explain........

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