First, Not to Die — Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) Healing Story
This book is not about success.
It’s about looking perfect on the outside — and wanting to die on the inside.
About smiling at work — and crying in the car.
About being the one everyone relies on — because no one ever asked how you were doing.
About the child who learned to survive by never needing anything — and the adult who still can’t stop.
About staying — when everything inside you wants to disappear.
And about finding — slowly, clumsily, without a single miracle — a way to live that is not just survival.
A quiet flame trauma could not extinguish.
A map for those who thought they were the only ones burning.
My name is Vera.
I was born in the Soviet Union. Raised by a grandmother who loved with fists and curses. No mother. No father. No safety net.
Gold medal. Four countries I lived in. A résumé that looks like a success story.
And a kitchen with a knife that tells a different one.
The ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) program — a peer-support program, not psychotherapy — is a central part of this book.
I am not a therapist, not a psychologist, not a doctor. I am a person who went through this — and chose to put it into words. Honestly.
Why This Book
This book is my Twelfth Step: pass it on.
I wrote the book I needed when I started this path — the one that didn’t exist. About how the process works. ACA inside out.
I wrote it for those who have lost hope. For those who know the weight of emptiness — and the quiet pull toward disappearing.
I know that place. I know how hard it is to climb out. And I know how much it matters not to be alone. Through this book, I am trying to be the person I didn’t have.
Who This Book Is For
For those who don’t believe in God — because healing can still happen.
For those living in isolation — because isolation is what we learned instead of asking for help.
For those in AA who have been making amends for years — but never asked why they drank in the first place.
For perfectionists. Overthinkers. Controllers.
For those whose survival strategies once saved their lives — and are now destroying them.
Where I Am
I am not healed. I am not at the end. I wrote this from the middle.
Because that is where most of us are — and almost no one writes from there