Get all the inside secrets and tools you need to help you develop your intuitive and leadership skills so you are on the path to the highest level of success with ease. Tammy Vincent will share her insights to helping adult children of alcoholics heal from childhood trauma

In this episode you will learn:

• How to have a better life
• Reparent your inner child
• Understand what you stand for!

Tammy Vincent is a holistic empowerment coach, NLP practitioner, and podcaster dedicated to helping Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) heal from childhood trauma. With over 16 years of experience in coaching, communications, and personal growth, she combines a trauma-informed approach with mind-body healing. Tammy supports her clients in reclaiming their authenticity, breaking free from dysfunction, and living empowered lives. She’s passionate about creating safe spaces for individuals to heal, grow, and thrive after adversity.

Find Tammy in all the places!

Tammy@tammyvincent.com

https://www.instagram.com/adultchildcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/childrenofdysfunctionalfamiliesthrivingnow

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammycvincent/

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Listen in as Jennifer Takagi, founder of Takagi Consulting, International Inspirational Speaker, and 5X time Amazon.Com Best Selling-Author, shares the invaluable lessons she’s learned along the way. Each episode is crafted to provide tools, insights, and inspiration to lead with integrity.

As a masterful energy healer, Jennifer combines an extraordinary range of transformative certifications and modalities, including Emotion Code, Body Code, Belief Code, Energetic Magic, DISC Behavioral Analysis, Change Style Facilitation, Law of Attraction, and advanced coaching techniques. Her unique expertise enables her to guide clients through profound shifts, unlocking energy, mindset, and belief patterns to achieve deep alignment and lasting success. Known for her humor, Jennifer brings a dose of fun to each session, so expect some puns and perhaps a bit of sarcasm!

Tune in for motivational guests, impactful stories, and actionable tips that bring you closer to the success you’ve been striving coveting.

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I look forward to connecting with you soon,  Jennifer

Jennifer Takagi

Speaker, Trainer, Author, Catalyst for Healing

PS: We would love to hear from you! For questions, coaching, or to book interviews, please email my team at Jennifer@takagiconsulting.com

Welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

host, Jennifer Takagi, and today we're talking about a very

important topic, and that is adults who are living with

recovering from the trauma of growing up as children in

households with alcoholics. And to speak to this today we have

Tammy Vincent. Tammy, welcome to the show. Thank you for being

here.

Thank you so much for having me. Jennifer,

appreciate it. How

did you get into this? Like, what was your

journey? What's your back story? How did you get into this very

important

field? So I'll make it quick, even though it

was a long journey, both of my parents were alcoholics, so I

know firsthand I have a lot of lived experience as far as what

it can do to a child and how when that child grows up, all of

these things that they did to protect themselves and learn how

to survive in that environment follow them into adulthood. So I

spent 30 years trying to really figure it out before I finally

said, Okay, I can finally go out and help people. Now it's not my

healing. It's not my there's no emotional charge behind talking

about my mom who did some pretty horrific things. So I'm ready,

like, literally, I threw in my healing journey. I threw

everything at the wall that I could possibly think of to try

to get over all of these things. I learned NLP, I got hypnotized.

I did EMDR therapy. I learned how to EFT, tap. I I journaled

1000s and 1000s of hours. I did seven years of inner child work

like I really did everything because I wanted to not have

this follow to the next generation. And in that I

remember finally I was like, wow, I have all of these tools

after my dad passed, and my father was an alcoholic, but

there was really no hard feelings with him, because I

feel like he was kind of a victim in the whole thing too,

which sounds horrible, because I know we don't like to have that

victim Victor mentality kind of thing. We don't want to be the

victim. But my father was a very troubled soul, and with the

things that he went the unresolved trauma that he never

dealt with, I could only imagine why he drank. So we anyway, I

waited till after he passed to where I was like, Okay, it's

time to tell my story, it's time to help other people heal,

because it took me 30 years or 20 years to really undo some of

the things that happen that a lot of people out there, lot of

my clients, don't even know they're wrestling with these

effects, right?

We didn't always connect the dots. I've

through a lot of spiritual healing journeys I've been on. I

had the first spiritual healer was like, you do this? And I was

like, No, I don't. It's just like, Oh, you do, and this is

why. And I was like, No, I don't. Then it was like, Oh,

wow, you're, you're, you're right. And now, now that I'm

aware, I have a choice,

exactly, exactly.

Oh, yeah. So powerful. So you you have taken

all your lessons learned for your own healing. And so what

does that look like?

So right now I look, I mean, it's funny,

because I have clients that are literally, like 75 years old,

and one, one of them said to me the other day, Tammy, for the

first time in my life, I feel like I took back control of my

life, and I was like, kudos to you. Like, now go live your life

out. Because when you grow up like this and you care, let all

these characteristics follow you into adulthood, there's a couple

couple common ones, and it's the people pleasing, it's the lack

of security, the lack of self esteem, the just the inability

to say yes to yourself over someone else. And once you can

combat that, and you can literally realize that your life

is yours to live, it's like a whole different world. So that's

what I do. I work with a lot of people just reprogramming. I

mean, our why our brains are so they're like, Play Doh, like a

big ball of Play Doh. And they get wired to believe certain

things, and until you're aware of those certain things, you're

going to keep acting as if they're true. And then once we

rewire them, we're like, woo hoo. So that's what I do. I help

people just realize that. You know, if you're listening to a

podcast like this, and something gives you a gut punch, and

you're like, wow, that's me. I don't say no, you know, I don't

say yes to myself that life can be better. Life can be happier

and more joyous and just more authentic. Like, you know,

there's millions and millions of people out there in the world

right now walking around being what, what I like to call the

chameleon, and just, literally just blending in to be whatever

everybody wants them to be, because they don't even know how

to be themselves or have the confidence to do that. So that's

what I do. I help people just get there. I help people that

are kind of in that, ooh, is something wrong? Or. Or, you

know, why do I feel like I'm a five year old having a temper

tantrum? I'm like, because you are,

no, I don't want to be. I don't want to be.

So I love when you said, if you have that, like, that feeling in

your gut, oh, that's me. I, I know a lot of of people live

their life and they're like, Oh, it wasn't that bad. Like, there

might have been drinking in the household, but it wasn't that

bad. Like, nobody beat me, um, I wasn't assaulted, so it wasn't

that bad, can you?

Oh, yes, I love to address that, because you

know what your trauma is. Your trauma when you were a child,

everything is that bad. So even though you look back at it as a

40 year old and you go, well, it wasn't that bad. You were an

innocent child, and it was huge at that time. So it changed the

way you looked at the world. It changed the way you saw

yourself. It changed the way you see other people. It changed

your perception of the safety of the world. So it doesn't matter

if you were assaulted or beaten. A good example, I have a client

that for years she just thought, she just felt unlovable by her

mother, and she's like but my mother told me she loved me all

the time, and it took us doing some timeline stuff and going

kind of back and I and we got to talking about our best friend,

and I said to her, did your friend ever talk about your

mother? And all of a sudden it was like she lit up, and she

said to me, oh my gosh, my mother got a new job one time,

and she was late three days in a row to pick me up for school.

And my best friend said to me, your mother must not love you

because she doesn't come up, come to pick you up on time. She

carried that with her for 45 years. That was the same effect

as my mother telling me she hated me every day of my life.

So there is no not that bad. There's no big T Troy. I mean,

there are big T traumas and little T traumas, but if it

changes the way you view the world, it was trauma, and it

needs to be unpacked.

And sorry, I have to write notes. I'm avid

about it. You're fine. You're fine. We have a recording, but I

have to take the notes. Okay, like I I now recognize that I

might have some of this trauma, not me personally, but I'm

talking for the collective you, the person listening, I might

have some of this trauma. So what? What's the first thing I

can do now that I think I might like because I think sometimes

stepping over that line of I might to acceptance of, yeah, I

do can be kind of hard, but like, what's that first step

is give yourself some grace and know that

whatever it was, it wasn't your fault. And if you want a better

life, it's worth pursuing. That's the biggest thing,

because so much of especially when you're dealing with

addictive parents, so much there's so much manipulation,

there's so much just twisting of the way it really was, and you

have to decide, like, okay, nothing that I did, nothing that

happened to me was my fault, but I'm ready for something more. I

tell people, listen to these, these kind of podcasts, you

know, type in childhood trauma, type in adult child, type in

anything that's kind of in that area. And just start to listen,

and you'll see what resonates with you. And then find a tribe,

whether it's a group, a coach, you know, you can go to Allen,

there's Al Anon groups that are there's a COA groups, which is

adult children of alcoholic groups, and now they've actually

changed it to adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional

families, because they're finding that it doesn't

necessarily have to be addiction in the household that causes

these mindset changes. And I mean, it could be homelessness,

it could be job loss, divorce, a suicide. I mean, there's a

million different things it could be, um, but at the end of

the day, it leaves the child feeling unworthy and unloved and

unheard. So

unworthy, unloved and unheard. Uh huh, you

said those so quickly because you've said them so many times.

But why? Yes.

And so when you start the healing, you go back

to that. And what, like the six or seven years of consistent

inner child work I did was going back and kind of re parenting

that inner child, which is really your subconscious mind.

It's the it's what's running the show. It's that little child

that never was, heard, loved, seen, whatever, validated

whatever it was, you know, told to be quiet and pushed into a

corner, whatever the what that scenario was. As an adult, we

act out as that young child, because that's what's stored in

our in our subconscious mind. I i.

I'm not going to get this story right, but it

there's somebody who speaks to the idea that you've got that

five year old child driving the bus, and the bus is your life,

and you're now 45 Are you ready to let that five year old quit

driving? Are you ready to step into the driver's seat? But you

don't just step into the driver's seat, right? You have

to there. There's healing, and there's process that has to

happen to be able to move that little five year old back into a

seat, a passenger seat, and be the driver Exactly,

exactly. And sometimes, you know, it's just

like I said, These things are so ingrained in us. And there's

people that talk about generational trauma and

historical trauma and things that are built into our brains

that we have no control over, that take some reprogramming.

That's how I got into NLP, because a lot of that was kind

of taking a situation and reframing it and looking at it

in a different way. Or, you know, a lot of children I don't.

I have very little, very few memories. I have years of my

life that were really blacked out with amnesia because I

didn't. I blocked them out. I just didn't want to deal with

them. So what does your brain do when someone says goes, picture

your six year old self. You fill in what you think happened,

because you don't know. So I'm like, well, if I'm going to fill

in a story, let's make it a good one. If I'm going to make stuff

up anyway, let's make up some good stories. So I just, I

really like that idea of, you know, for a long time, I felt

like I was writing my story, but I wasn't holding the pen.

Somebody else was writing my story for me. They were telling

me who I was going to be, what I was going to do. I mean, I don't

know how many, even adults and people that I should have

respected said, Oh my gosh, because of your family, you will

never do anything with your life. You will never be anybody.

You're never going to change. You know, I went through tough

times. I went through times where I was rebellious. I went

through times where I was experimental. I'm like, Hey, she

seems to be doing good, and she's drinks herself to death,

drank herself to death, but she seemed to be happy in her own

world. Let me try that. I mean, I went through all of the

different things, and I didn't really get that support of, you

know, life can be different, and I think that's what I'm here to

do, is, you know, your past doesn't define you. It was just

something that happened you define you.

I love that, and I love that when you know

that's the the title of your talk, of your story, of what you

share is your past does not have to define you. And I think we,

my age group, anyway, kind of grew up in the idea of your kind

of born into this class or this category and and that's all it's

ever going to be. And I knew that was wrong, like I knew you

could elevate yourself and do better, but one of my sisters is

a elementary school principal, and all these kids had this book

I was in to help with standardized testing, and they

have to have proctors, and I was a proctor because I could make

the time for that. And they had this book, and I was like, what

is that book everybody has? And she goes, Oh, pick one up and

just take it. They're everywhere. And I took it home

and I got it read like just very quickly. It's probably written

at the fourth or fifth grade level, probably, and it was

called, I believe The Boy Who Carried Bricks. And it's a true

story of a young man who was born into an alcoholic, abusive

household, family, and when he was, like, seven years old, he

decided, I don't want to do this anymore. And Kyle called Child

Protective Services to come get him. He was like, I don't want

to live in this anymore. And I've really, at various points,

gotten really caught up in man. What makes a little kid decide

this is not for me? He's now married with children. He's a

preacher. He helps, you know, guide people, and he had come to

the school and talk to the kids, and that's why there were so

many books around and available to get his story out. Um, I

just, I wonder, like, what is it? What Spark is it that we

know there's more. There's something different. And I was

in a training program in the last week or two, and the

gentleman said, if you have a message to share, you have to

share it, because if someone had sparked me earlier, I would have

made some different life choices. Like, what are all

those things? So how can we spark people not to go into like

a pity party, and this is my life. It's terrible, but address

the fact that there was trauma there, and I want to move past

it. And I guess before that is I can move past it, there is a

path. Like, how do we get that message out? Uh,

the only thing you can do is be like me and

have a podcast. Be like you have a podcast. Get up on this roof

and literally scream, there's a better life out there, and you

deserve it. Um, it takes one, literally, one comment from one

podcast. I've had so many people say to me, oh my gosh, I heard

that lady on your podcast say this, and it changed my whole

life. So if, if they heard it on my podcast, I mean, there's

millions of podcasts out there, so that's really what it takes,

because it's just educating people don't know they think

this was my life. This is what I born into. And kudos to that

gentleman for knowing that at seven years old, because

typically your brain is not even developed enough to make those

choices. What happens to most people is that those are their

caregivers. They they internalize and they flip the

blame on themselves versus blaming the person that is that

they're dependent on for their safety, their their everything.

So most kids internalize and flip it around. It wasn't until

I was 26 years old and had a couple suicide attempts and

depression and everything else that I was getting ready to have

a child, and that's what flipped me around, because I refused to

have a child and bring it into this world if I didn't know how

to do better than my parents did to me. So it really honestly,

when I started the journey to heal, it wasn't even for me, it

was for my child. You had a bigger purpose. I Yes, and we

all, and that's the thing. Like people need to understand,

everybody has a purpose. Like you said, if you have a story,

share it. We all have a purpose. It's not necessarily to take our

pain and turn it into someone else's learning. That's not

everybody's purpose. I feel like that's my purpose. I was given a

testimony or a test so that I could have a testimony, and I

use that to show you know, 1000 people throughout my life, told

me I would be nothing, but I still became a best selling

author. I have a podcast. I'm coaching. I love what I'm doing.

I get I I enjoy my life. When people, I don't know how many

people, said to me, I can't believe you're still around. I

talked to people in high school. They're like, wow, you survived.

I'm like, Wow,

thank goodness I had a little more faith in

myself than you had in me. Mm,

hmm, yep. And we have to find it in ourself.

That's the big thing. Is you have to really want it. And you

have to to know that there might not be a shining arm, you know,

a knight in shining armor to come save you, you have to save

yourself.

Yeah, yeah. And that's so important. So I love

the idea of listening to podcasts. Find a tribe. The ACOA

group is a great one to get into. So if someone is

listening, what is something on self care? Because, you know,

that's such a big deal that we don't do. What is one thing that

somebody listening could do for themselves today? Like, I'm I'm

not ready to step out and join anything. But like, what could

somebody do for themselves today? Start

treating themselves like their own best

friend. So you have that inner talk, you have that, you know,

if you have that guilt shame lifestyle where you're not good

enough or you're not deserving, EV be, start being aware of that

self talk. And every time something comes up and it hits

you when you you know, if you do something wrong and you got I'm

so stupid, because that's what will happen. Write it down and

say, No, I'm not and start challenging that. And instead of

comparing yourself to I mean, our expectations for ourselves

are way higher than they are for anybody else. So start comparing

it to how you would treat your own best friend. You know, if

your friend made a mistake, would you tell them they were

stupid? No, you they would say, hey, sucking up buttercup,

you're okay. I love you anyway. So start doing that to yourself.

I love that analogy. I've heard that before,

and it is, I had somebody stop me one time and they said, I

just, I just love you too much to have you talk to yourself

that way, because you're my friend, and I wouldn't talk to

you that way, so you shouldn't. And I had a really big lesson a

number of years ago, I was seeing a counselor, which I

think are amazing people get the right one, and it's a phenomenal

experience. And I said, Well, my friend at work said, blah, blah,

blah. And I kept going with the story, and she stopped me, and

she said, What did she say? And I repeated it, and she goes and

who said that? And I said, my friend at work. And she said,

No, that is not a first. Friend, a friend would never treat you

that way. We need to redefine friend. That person's a

coworker, she's a colleague, she's an acquaintance, she's not

a friend. And so I think we often also get caught up in

people are in our circle, and we just think that's the way it is,

but they don't have to be in your circle. And that was a

pivotal I can talk like I'm a professional here, but can get

this out, that idea of I can choose who my friends are, and I

don't have to spend time with everyone, exactly.

And I think that's part of you know, once

you start treating yourself like your own best friend, I think

that's the next thing, is to really understand your what you

stand for, and start setting some boundaries around that. And

one of the biggest things you're going to have, I mean, if you

start on a true healing journey, you are going to lose people in

your life, but you're going to lose the people that don't need

to be in your life anyway. I know I've had people that, even

clients that have dealt with family members, and I ask them,

I say, if they weren't in your family, would they be in your

life? And they're like, No, I'm like, than the people that just

consider them, the people that love you, your family, and those

are the and I know it sounds all hard and cold and everything

else, but you get to choose what stays in it. You know it. You

have a door to your heart or your door to your life, and you

get to choose who walks in and out of it. But until you

understand what you stand for. You'll never do that. And so

that's a big part of, you know, and that that takes some, all of

these steps kind of take an accountability, person, a group,

or some it's very hard to do the whole process on your own,

because you can, you know, it's like, I say, you can do

affirmations all day long. You can look at a picture of

yourself in the mirror and say, you know, I love you. You're a

wonderful you are amazing. But when the rubber hits the road

and you have to do something for yourself and make a split

decision, you are making it from whatever your internal beliefs

are. So

getting out like you have to get out and

interact with people. I had breakfast with a friend the

other day, and she's got some hard things going on with her

adult child. And I said, What are you going to do for you? And

she mentioned several things, but they were all in the house,

within the house. And I said, Don't forget, you have to get

out. You. You have to get out and see that there's a bigger

world out there, life is happening in different ways for

different people. And if you just stay locked in your house

with your own story, you you can't step out of that story,

because you're just in it and cutting people out of your life.

We don't want to take that lightly, right? No, it's a it's

a huge decision. I I do have one friend who did need to cut her

mother out of her life, and it was the right choice. But for

other people, it's just reducing the amount of time you spend

with them. Yeah, I like. I was given guidance once. Well, if

Christmas is too long at that relative's house, go later and

leave earlier. Mm, hmm. I didn't have to cut them out. I didn't

have to have a big scene. I just right my own car and showed up a

little bit later, and then I a little bit earlier. So it

doesn't have to be a big dramatic thing.

No, it doesn't. And it can even be something,

you know, with like, the boundaries of having the courage

to say, you know, I really don't appreciate you talking to me

that way. If you do, I'm leaving, you know, and those

things, those are, those are the tough things. Family holidays

are really hard, because a lot of times we're with the people

that cause us the the trauma to begin with. And you want it to

be a nice environment, and you do the best you can, but you

have to be able to do that and also still be yourself and not

bend over backwards to please everybody else and not hurt

their feelings. And that's that's a balancing act. And I

always say, if a relationship is able to be mended, by all means,

work on mending it. I'm not saying cut everybody toxic out

of your life, but like you said, limit the time. Have some

boundaries. A good example is I have a lot of clients whose

parents are still drinking, and they have young children now,

and they're like, the holidays are so hard, because I know my

mom's going to be drunk on Thanksgiving. So you tell them,

hey, if you're drinking when we get there, I'm out. And then

it's their choice, because those boundaries are not to hurt the

other person. They're to protect you and your family.

I read a magazine article years ago. I

hadn't been married very long, and we were. Uh, struggle might

be too big of a word, but we were trying to navigate the

whole holiday season situation with my family and his family,

and, you know, my sisters being able to come his brother, like

we were trying to navigate all that. And I read this magazine

article, and it was along the lines of, you're an adult now,

you cannot recreate your childhood memories like the good

ones. I'm talking about the good ones. You can't recreate those

good memories and make them happen again, because there are

different players. You have to create your own new traditions.

And I think that would be very true here. Like the tradition

used to be go to moms, but now mom's drunk every time we get

there. Maybe the tradition needs to be it's at my house. It's a

little earlier in the day and ends earlier. So mom hasn't had

such a good run at kicking the day

off, right, right,

right. We've gotta think through these

things. So if somebody wants to work with you, we'll, of course,

have all the links in the show notes. But, but how do you work

with clients? Do you work one on one? Do you have group programs

like, how do people work with you to get beyond this?

Uh, mostly it's one on one. I am have, I do have

a group program right now. I want to, I want healing and all

this to be completely in accessible to everybody. So I

have a group program, which I'm kind of revamping, which should

open back up, where people can just jump on and talk about

whatever, and like, three or four times a week. And it also

goes along with, I do have a, I guess you could call it like a

signature course. It's called trials to triumph. And so with

that course, why people are taking it, they have constant,

you know, message, access to me and everything, just for

support. And it goes through, really, every aspect of being an

adult child and what you've been through. But mostly, most of my

clients are one on one, and they could just reach out, book a

call. I just tailor packages to whatever. Some people just want.

Hey, I just want to work through this one thing. Most people find

that when, when they work through one thing, it's it leads

to another thing, another thing. So I just work out custom

packages forever. It could, you know, for everyone, it could be

a day, it could be three months, six months a year. So whatever

level of need and support someone needs, I don't, there's

no ABC to this journey. I could, I could have a plan. Who today

we're going to do this, and then you come in and you're at a

totally different place, and you might need some just, you know,

nervous system reset. Who knows? It could be anything. So I'm

very much into it. Needs to be flexible, but people I want to

work with, the people that want to make the transformation.

Oh, that's so beautiful. Thank you, Tammy. I

appreciate you being here today and sharing all of your wisdom

and knowledge with

the audience. Well, thank you for having me. I

appreciate it. As we wrap this

up, what is your final thought,

that you're worth it, that you were put on this

earth beautiful, divine and joyous, and that all the stuff

that happened in between, then and now was not your fault, and

you deserve to be that beautiful, divine, joyous

creature again. So every step you make in the right direction

is 100% worth it, and you're worth it, and you're perfect,

just the way you are right now.

Oh my gosh, thank you for that. I'm Jennifer

Takagi with destin for success, and I look forward to connecting

with you soon. You.