COAs are Superheroes

In the short film, ‘COAs are Superheroes’, Martin delves into his journey as a young man navigating life and young parenthood as an ACOA (adult child of an alcoholic). 

Martin offers a raw exploration of the ripple effects of addiction within dysfunctional families, shedding light on the mental health toll it takes on family members long after the bottle banks are emptied.

Join Martin as he seeks to find healing and understanding amidst the shadows of his past and breaks free from the cycle of pain after one day finding himself Googling ‘help for children of alcoholics’. 

We will learn that – ‘Yes’ – COAs are Superheroes, so is Martin and so are you.

COAs are Superheroes video transcript:

My name’s Martin. I created an Instagram account called ‘COAs Are Super Superheroes’. If you look at any superhero story, it always starts with something bad. Superman’s planet getting blown up. Batman’s parents were murdered. But then they use that terrible situation to do something good with it. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Family life

My dad worked. Mum was a stay-at-home mum. We had a good family life to begin with. Loads and loads of happy memories. They went through a period where they kind of broke up, got back together, and unfortunately, one night, it just kind of blew up. And then I think they knew that they couldn’t be together anymore.

I saw Mum regularly, I saw Dad, and then strange behaviours started. I kind of knew there was something going on, but I was quite young, so I wasn’t sure what was going on.

When I used to meet one of them, they would be slurring their words and stuff. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time. I thought they were just upset.

There was one situation where I realised I felt like this was going to continue. I used to walk eight miles to work; I didn’t have a bike at the time and lived in a village. I finished the late shift at work and walked home. We used to leave the back door open because we only had one key at the time, and it was locked. I sat at the front door, ringing and ringing. I didn’t get an answer. Then, when I finally got an answer, I explained, “I need you to come home and give me the key”. They laughed and hung up the phone. I didn’t get the key until about four in the morning.

And I think then I knew I was in a bad situation. I didn’t really have time to cry about it or be angry. I tended to bury everything down because it wasn’t going to help me in the situation.

Feelings as an adult

When I moved out at 28, I was finally in a safe place here in my home. I started feeling really upset and had no idea why. I stored all these emotions, and because I no longer needed my armour to keep it down, it was starting to come out, and I just couldn’t control it.

My wife used to always say, “Martin, you alright, you alright?” And, I would say, “Yes. I’m fine, I’m fine”. And she caught me at just this moment that I just said “No” and “I think it would be better if I wasn’t around”.

We talked about that moment. She was really supportive. I felt like the worst person in the world. Because I think I’d asked her to marry me only six months before. So, you know, I’m saying “I want to spend the rest of my life with you”, and then I say that.

We worked through it. I went to the doctors, and I kind of got a shrug of a shoulder. I walked out of there pretty upset, and I wasn’t going to go back.

It wasn’t until my wife was like, “Come on” that I spoke to a lovely lady who just sat there and listened. She suggested doing group therapy, which I did. I found it to be really helpful. And then, yeah, it all sort of came together after.

Finding my community

What inspired me to find a charity for someone like me? I was watching Man of Steel, and there’s a scene where Superman’s being cuffed, and he’s sitting in a room with Lois Lane, and she looks at his chest and says, “oh, what does the S stand for?” And he says, “It’s not an S on my world, that means hope”.

For a lot of people, Superman’s just a silly guy who dresses up and flies around. But for me, he was my role model growing up because I didn’t really have role models at the time. For a lot of people, it’s an S, it’s a silly thing, but to me actually it did mean hope.

That scene just inspired me. Straight after that, I literally typed in Children of Alcoholics and the first page that came up was Nacoa’s, and that was actually really helpful for me as well — growing my community and meeting loads of new people.

I was reading all their stories and I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to create an account for people who want to read it, where I can talk about my life experiences and what I do, and I just built it on from there. So it was about my feelings and about how I felt, how I dealt with it, and the issues that caused me later on in life.

1 in 5 children are affected by alcoholic parents or, parents with addiction. I hope that maybe one day someone will read my story and realise that they’re not alone, that there are other COAs out there, and there is a charity out there that can help.

Martin

Creator of ‘COAs are Superheroes’ on Instagram and Facebook

Read more experience stories.