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Welcome to each of you. We meet to share the experience we had as children growing up in an alcoholic or
otherwise dysfunctional home. We meet to better understand the truth of that experience, the way it affected us
then, and the way it affects us now. Most importantly, through practicing the 12 Steps of ACA, the Solution and
by accepting a Higher Power, we find freedom from the denial of the disease and the effects of alcoholism or
other family dysfunction. We wish at last to find and be our real selves.
Keep coming back. This program is not easy. We have found, however, that if you can handle six meetings in a
row, you will start to come out of denial. That discovery will give you freedom from the past. Both you and your
life will change.
If you have any questions about the program, please stay after the meeting and ask one of us for information.
We realize that much of the terminology we use sounds strange in the beginning, so please let us help you to
understand.
Step One:
We accepted our powerlessness over the dynamics of our family of origin and the unhealthy tools, roles, and
adaptive behaviors which helped us to survive as children, but which have made our adult lives
unmanageable.
Step Two:
Came to believe in our own innate goodness and worth, by virtue of the Indwelling Spirit or Higher Power
within each of us, as expressed in our individual consciousness, and that this Power could restore us to
functionality.
Step Three:
Made a decision to claim our own Inner Spirit or Higher Power and, with it, our freedom to love and accept
ourselves unconditionally from this moment forward.
Step Four:
Made a searching and fearless objective inventory of our lives (either on our own, through therapy, or both),
observing all those areas where we had been victiimized, owning our feeling about them, but also giving up our
guilt over situations in which we were clearly innocent victims such as was the case when we were children.
Step Five:
Admitted to ourselves, to our Higher Power, and to someone whom we could trust to be supportive (such as a
therapist or a special friend) the exact nature of our dysfunctions, including the harm we have cased others, as
well as the feelings and opinions we have had about ourselves or other issues which may have inhibited our
spiritual growth.
Step Six:
We embraced our anger, hurt, shame, and our fears, and allowed ourselves to finally feel the pain and
suffering which both we and others have denied us until now, so that we could finally be free of it.
Step Seven:
We allowed ourselves to experience and express the feelings we had been suppressing, and we grieved our
losses, so that we could heal them and move forward, rather than continuing to deny or to rationalize the
abuse we had suffered.
Step Eight:
Made a list of all persons, institutions, and/or belief systems that have harmed us (either physically, mentally,
emotionally, sexually and/or spiritually), as well as those whom we have harmed in tum, and we became willing
to either forgive, or to make amends, as each incident warranted.
Step Nine:
Made direct amends to those we had harmed, and forgave either directly, or in our hearts, those who had
harmed us (except when to do so would injure them or others). We began with ourselves!
Step Ten:
Continued to monitor our own attitudes, behavior patterns and feelings, watching for anything
we may have overlooked, or any old patterns we may be slipping back into, and, if necessary, we repeated the
aforementioned Steps.
Step Eleven:
Sought through meditation and/or inner-reflection to improve our conscious awareness of our spiritual nature,
and to live in harmony with the universe and/or our Higher Power, and to
express outwardly the truth beauty and wonder of our unique and incomparable self, the one we were intended
to be.
Step Twelve:
Having substantially healed our own lives through the acceptance and nurturing of our Inner Spirit or Inner
Child, and through our dedication to practicing these principles in all our affairs, we then tried to carry our
message of hope and recovery to other Adult Children.
Remember that no one among us has maintained perfect adherence to these principles. We are not cured, nor
are we saints. We are human beings in the process of recovery, which is a life-long journey of self-discovery.
We never stop growing or changing. Furthermore, we must remain hyper-vigilant, that we do not give up
responsibility for our life to some other person, place or thing, not even ACA. Our happiness, health and
success in life are contingent upon our on-going spiritual growth. May the love, beauty, peace and wonder of
the program grow in you one day at a time.
Fear of Abandonment: We will do anything to hold onto a relationship in order to avoid the pain of
abandonment.
A Tendency Toward Physical Complaints: We frequently suffer higher rates of stress-related illnesses.
Suffering from a Backlog of Delayed Grief: Losses experienced during childhood were often never grieved
for since our families frequently would not tolerate such intensely uncomfortable feelings. Today, without calling
up these past feelings, our losses cannot be felt. As a result, we may frequently be depressed.
A Tendency to Choose Reaction over Action: Many of us remain hyper-vigilant, constantly scanning our
physical or emotional environments for potential catastrophes we can feed into.
The Tendency to Assume a Black and White Perspective: Linder pressure, the gray areas of life seem to
disappear and we may see ourselves facing an endless series of either-or alternatives.
Harsh, even Fierce Self-Criticism: We may have a very low sense of self-esteem, no matter how competent
or mature we are in many areas of our lives.
An Ability to Survive: If I am reading this list. I am a survivor. (Editors Note: "and a person who perseveres)
Everyone has his or her own signals indicating current on-the-spot anger. Look for yours...friends and family
may be able to help, since they may be aware of your irritation before you are. Some common signals are:
clamming up; blushing; shortening of breath; drumming the fingers; foot tapping shaking or twisting; laughing
when nothing amusing is happening; patting or stroking the back of the head; clenched jaws or fists; yawning
or sudden drowsiness; avoiding eye contact; a pain in the neck; fidgeting; apologizing when none is asked for;
headaches; a rise in voice pitch. This is goes on...try to find out what your signals are.
When you discover one of your signals, think back over the past twenty-four hours of what incident might have
angered you. Forget about being nice, and imagine you are the touchiest, most childish person on earth.
When you find the incident, ask yourself why you didn't get angry...chances are you didn't recognize your own
anger. Remember what you actually did to try to relieve the anger.
The anger is yours. Someone else may have done something that pushed your buttons, but the anger is yours,
and so are the feelings that lay under the anger. Blaming someone else does nothelp, and someone elses
actions will not elp unless it is in response to your anger. You feelings are as much a part of you as your skin,
orgains and bones are.
Dont hide the anger. You probably will not be successful in hiding it, anyway. If you have recognized it and
owned it, you have choices as to when and how you may express it. Violence is not acceptable, and getting
into a verbal exchange to get even can be just as self-defeating. Saying that makes me angry or I dont like
it when... may not be as satisfying as bashing someone, but it is better than doing nothing and holding it in.
There are a few situations where it may be in your best interest to delay expressing the anger, but there are
none in which you can afford to delay recognizing and owning your own feelings.
The Problem
Many of us find that we have several characteristics in common having been children in an alcoholic or
otherwise dysfunctional household where no one's needs are met.
Denial blunted our awareness of the destructive reality of family alcoholism. We felt isolated and uneasy with
other people, especially authority figures. Fear caused us to create a veneer of control in an attempt to feel
whole and safe. To protect ourselves we became people-pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in
the process. Sexual roles were often confusing for us. We mistook any personal criticism as a threat because
we had no self-esteem. Desperation for love and acceptance drove us into fantasies or obsessions in an effort
to mask our pain. Many of us thought we were crazy.
As a result of our conditioning, we confused love with pity or with other feelings we could not name, tending to
love those we could rescue. Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to negative excitement in all our
affairs. We were used to constant upset rather than workable relationships. Many of us became alcoholics
ourselves, married them, or both. Some of us attracted other compulsive personalities who mirrored members
of our families. Habitually we chose emotionally arrested people: workaholics, overeaters and debtors who
were often adult
children, fulfilled our sick need for abandonment.
We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Our lives were lived in extremes of black and white because we did
not know we had choices. Having had a distorted sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with
others rather than ourselves. We mistakenly became guilty when we stood up for ourselves, so we gave in to
others. Thus, we became reactors rather than
actors, letting others take the initiative.
We were dependent personalities who were terrified of abandonment. Willing to do almost anything not to be
abandoned emotionally, we locked ourselves into insecure relationships because they duplicated our pattern
with alcoholic parents. When fear of abandonment
overwhelmed us, we avoided relationships altogether.
Denial, isolation, control and misplaced guilt are symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism. We became
co-victims, those who took on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever having taken a drink.
We learned to stuff our feelings in childhood, and keep them buried in adulthood. Stricken with this spiritual
illness, we felt helpless and hopeless. In our struggle to change our troubled family into a loving, supportive
one, we fulfilled the alcoholic family expectations and became our own critical parent.
This is a description, not an indictment.
The Solution
The solution is to become your own loving parent.
As ACA becomes a safe place for you, you will find the freedom to express all the hurts and fears you have
kept inside, and to free yourself from the shame and blame that are carryovers from the past. You will become
an adult who is imprisoned no longer by childhood reactions. You will recover the child within you, learning to
accept and love yourself.
The healing begins when we risk moving out of isolation. Feelings and buried memories will return. By
gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past. We learn to re-parent
ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect.
This process allows us to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence. Our actual parent is a
Higher Power whom some of us choose to call God. Although we had alcoholic parents, our Higher Power
gave us the 12 Steps of Recovery.
This is the action and work that heals us: we use the Steps; we use the meetings; we use the telephone. We
share our experience, strength and hope with each other. We learn to restructure our sick thinking one day at a
time. When we release our parents from responsibility for our actions today, we become free to make healthful
decisions as actors, not reactors. We progress from hurting to healing to helping. We awaken to a sense of
wholeness we never knew was
possible.
By attending these meetings on a regular basis, you will come to see parental
alcoholism for what it is: a disease that infected you as a child and continues to affect you as an adult. You will
learn to keep the focus on yourself in the here and now. You will take responsibility for your own life and supply
your own parenting.
You will not do this alone. Look around you, and you will see others who know how you feel. We will love and
encourage you no matter what. We ask you to accept us just as we accept you.
This is a spiritual program based on action coming from LOVE. We are sure as the love grows inside you, you
will see beautiful changes in all your relationships, especially with God, yourself and your parents.
Bill Of Rights
1. I do not have to feel guilty just because someone else does not like what I do, say, think or feel.
2. It is okay for me to feel angry and to express it in responsible ways.
3. I do not have to assume full responsibility for making decisions, particularly where others share
responsibility for making the decision.
4. I have the right to say "I don't understand" without feeling stupid or guilty.
5. I have the right to say "I don't know".
6. I have the right to say "no" without feeling guilty.
7. I do not have to apologize or give reasons when I say no.
8. I have the right to ask others to do things for me.
9. I have the right to refuse requests which others make of me.
10. I have the right to tell others when I think they are manipulating, conning, or treating me unfairly.
11. I have the right to refuse additional responsibilities without feeling guilty.
12. I have the right to tell others when their behavior annoys me.
13. I do not have to compromise my personal integrity.
14. I have the right to make mistakes and to be responsible for them. I have the right to be wrong.
15. I do not have to be liked, admired or respected by everyone for everything I do.
16. I have the right to evaluate my own behavior, thoughts and emotions, and to take responsibility
for their initiation and consequences upon myself.
17. I have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying my behavior.
18. I have the right to decide if I am responsible for finding solutions to other people's problems.
19. I have the right to change my mind.
20. I have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.
21. I have the right to be illogical in making decisions
22. I have the right to think about myself, my life and my goals and leave others to God.
23. I have the right to leave the company of people who deliberately or inadvertently put me down,
lay a guilt trip on me, manipulate or humiliate me. That includes my alcoholic parent, my non-alcoholic
parent, or any other member of my family.
24. I have a right to a mentally healthy, sane way of existence, though it will deviate in part, or all,
from my parents prescribed philosophy of life.
25. I have the right to laugh and play and have fun. I have the right to enjoy this life, right here, right
now I have the right to carve out my own place in this world.
Remember, I am learning how to give to myself, and that is not bad. I need to change old feelings of being
victimized to new feelings of being able to meet challenges successfully.
I don't have to take care of everyone else. I have choices about how I respond to people. Sone situations can
be resolved without my being involved. Others can lend support to those who need it when I am not willing to
be available. It is okay to put my own well-being first. I am important, too.
I will read my Bill of Rights out loud, every day, to myself. I will feel some of the old guilt for awhile, but it will be
mixed with a new sensation...that of excitement along with a sense of aliveness. I will discover that I am
intuitively handling situations which used to baffle me.
Affirmations III
1. Take conscious charge of your own life of everything you think, say, and do. It is not the event
that is so important as your reaction to that event. You can choose your reactions.
2. Recognize and accept your own authority to make the ultimate decision on everything you do,
for it is you who profit or suffer according to the consequences of your every choice.
3. Be kind and gentle with yourself, and give your own basic needs TOP priority, with the
understanding that your own well-being is your primary responsibility. Remember that the better you
take care of your own needs, the more able and willing you are to contribute to the needs of others.
4. Remember that you are not your actions. Your actions are but the means that your awareness
selects to satisfy your needs.
5. Have a meaningful life objective, and conscientiously work toward its fulfillment.
6. Do not depend on others opinions or actions for a sense of personal worth and importance.
7. Do not procrastinate. Either generate the necessary motivation through a careful evaluation of
the pros and cons, or dismiss the proposed activity from your mind.
8. Keep in mind that you invariably do the best your current awareness and skills permit, and that
you always have. Purge yourself of any self-condemnation, shame, blame. guilt or remorse.
9. Allow yourself the freedom to make mistakes...to fail...without self-accusation, feeling defeated
or less than. See mistakes as areas for further growth.
10. Let go of criticism, condemnation and resentment by realizing that everyone is doing the best
his prevailing awareness permits.
11. Accept every problem and difficulty as a challenge to your awareness, but do not demand
perfection.
12. Do not be dependent on others for their permission, confirmation, or agreement. Refer to your
own inner basic value.
13. Do not try to prove your worth through your achievements. Remember, you have nothing to
prove.
14. Do not vacillate. Any decision is better than no decision at all.
15. Do not drift, and do not establish arbitrary deadlines. Do first things first, one at a time and live
but a day at a time. Be deliberate and moderate in all of your actions.
16. If your life is not going as you like, look to your inner self for clues. Become aware that choosing
is a choice and that not choosing is also a choice. We can choose to make ain or happiness for
ourselves.
Also, remember that it is not the suffering that leads to emotional illness but rather the fact that the child is
forbidden by the parents to experience and articulate this suffering, the pain felt at being wounded. It is not the
trauma itself that is the source of illness but the unconscious, repressed, hopeless despair over not being
allowed to give expression to what one has suffered, and the fact that one is not allowed to show, and is
unable to experience, feelings of rare, anger, humiliation, despair, helplessness, and sadness. Pair over the
frustration one has suffered is nothing to be ashamed of, nor is it harmful. It is a natural, human reaction.