Codependents working their recovery Community Group
Working on recovery
Here are some dailies from ACA.
Anyone can have these sent out
to their emails.
https://adultchildren.org/newsletter/
Working on recovery
Here are some dailies from ACA.
Anyone can have these sent out
to their emails.
https://adultchildren.org/newsletter/
"Our experience shows that you cannot recover in isolation." BRB p. 127
Many of our childhood memories center around the isolation we felt in our homes while growing up. We may have had few or no childhood friends. To have friends could have placed us in a position where they would want to come to our house - and we couldn't risk that.
The lack of close friendships deepened the sadness and loneliness we already faced on a regular basis. That loneliness also affected us as adults where many of us felt a social awkwardness that fueled both addiction and isolation.
We experienced the feeling of being alone, even in a crowd; and we felt lonely, even when we were in a relationship. Fear of failure, lack of trust, and fear of abandonment compounded things by leading many of us to choose others who also lacked the skills to have a healthy relationship.
Attending ACA meetings is the first step in breaking the pattern of loneliness and isolation. As we keep coming back, we are amazed to hear our own stories coming out of the mouths of others in the room. We realize we don't have to be alone in our despair; we have found people who will love and accept us, even before we can love and accept ourselves. In ACA we are home, maybe for the first time in our lives.
On this day I will allow my fellow travelers to touch my life and know they will support me through my journey.
"As ACA becomes a safe place for you, you will find 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." BRB p. 590
The cycle of shame and blame was well established in our families of origin. We heard abusive words and/or were physically punished. We emerged from all of this with an established sense of shame that included thinking of ourselves as
Defective: something is wrong with me
Helpless: nothing can be done about this
Alone: nobody else has this problem
As adults, some of us found that if we shifted blame to others, we could hide our own sense of shame. Some of us may have lashed out with extreme anger, not knowing where it came from, or used perfectionism, pride, people-pleasing, and approval-seeking to cover up our sense of shame. Some of us fell victim to addictions.
In ACA, we come to appreciate that there is nothing wrong with us that meetings, a sponsor and consistently working the Steps cannot overcome. Shame and blame give way to an understanding that we make mistakes, but we are not mistakes! We claim the identity that we are inherently good, even with all our perceived misgivings, warts and dents.
On this day I will use my courage and honesty to break the generational bonds of shame and blame.
"Our experience tells us that our past can be our greatest asset if we are willing to ask for help and do the work to find out what happened." BRB p. 153
We sometimes wonder how differently we could have turned out had we been raised without the problems of alcoholism or family dysfunction. While it is normal for us to consider "what ifs," we know that when we work through the abuse and hardship of our childhoods, we can come out so much better on the other side.
But what can possibly make our past an asset? In recovery, we see that all we've been through provides us a unique opportunity to look deeper at our lives than we might have otherwise. We take on the task of untangling the web of our history, knowing that greater peace will result. We revisit old wounds so that we may finally heal the hurt and better understand our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors today. We are able to reclaim our inner strength and learn from our struggles.
In ACA we don't do all of this work alone. We may have been alone as children, but now we have our fellow travelers. We hear them share the same pain, and see the wisdom and knowledge they have gained in their own recovery. This same wisdom and knowledge is becoming part of who we are, also.
On this day I recognize that my past provides a unique opportunity to grow in self-actualization. I look forward to the continual wisdom recovery offers.
"The need to reparent ourselves comes from our efforts to feel safe as children." BRB, p. 83
Because of our dysfunctional childhoods, we usually see things differently than others. We don't feel all warm and fuzzy when we see a TV commercial where the salesperson loudly exclaims, "Come on in. We'll treat you like family!" In our minds, that doesn't sound like such a good thing, because our families weren't safe. And when we feel compelled to buy a greeting card for a parent, we are grateful we can find something in the humor section rather than choose one that gushes with gratitude. But underneath the humor, there is a deep sadness.
In ACA, we learn to recognize the reality of our feelings. We make a choice that instead of remaining under the layers of dysfunction, we will take positive steps to reparent ourselves using the tools of ACA. These steps and the path we're on may not always be crystal clear, but we keep coming back until we find where we need to go. Along the way, we grieve the loss of what might have been. And we work towards someday getting to a place of forgiveness, which will help us far more than anything else.
On this day I honor my feelings and the reality of what was in order to choose a new way of living and reparenting myself.
"While the Inner Child or True Self can be the spark of our creativity, we must also remember the child is a deeply hurt part of ourselves." BRB p. 303
Many of us have pursued an understanding of our True Self, awakening our Inner Child and expressing our creativity in hopes of relieving ourselves from suffering. Yet we face an obstacle - a persistent and harsh selfjudgment that we can't seem to stop. This underlying thinking compels us to continue dysfunctional and addictive behaviors. We wonder why we can't get out from under this "curse-like" self-sabotage and realize the promise of our True Self.
We learn in ACA to get in touch with and feel the pain and grief of the deeply hurt parts of ourselves in order for the True Self to blossom. We've avoided this for years, usually unconsciously, and we've suffered from the consequences of this avoidance. We come to see that we won't enjoy the fulfillment of living as our True Selves until we face and get free from the roots of the wounded parts from childhood.
With our Higher Power's help, and support from our fellow travelers, we practice a gentle and gradual process of peeling the layers of the onion to find the core of our pain and, paradoxically, to find the joy of our True Self. It's an organic process unique to each of us, yet we're supported in a unified approach that integrates the Steps, our Higher Power, and our Inner Child.
On this day I have the courage to face what's necessary so I can realize the promise of my True Self.
"We recognize a spectrum that transcends language and trauma. We recognize the light in ourselves and others." BRB p. 438
In our dysfunctional families, many of us held our heads down because we consistently heard language that was meant to shame us. We were told things like, "I'll give you something to cry about," "Who do you think you are - something special?" "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all!" "What are you - stupid?" and "Can't you do any better than that?" These negatives became so ingrained in us that we still hear them inside our heads from our critical inner parent.
In ACA, we learn to hold our heads high as we hear different, affirming messages, like "One Day at a Time," "First Things First," "Easy Does It," and "Keep It Simple." They remind us to be gentle with ourselves.
As we recover from the hurtful language of our childhoods, we start by acknowledging the harm it has done. We affirm that we are not defined by these shaming words as we tell ourselves that crying is okay, that we are special human beings, that we don't have to be perfect, and that we all make mistakes - it's what makes us human. These positive assurances help us finally explore who we were meant to be. And as we heal, we are able to provide similar assurances to others.
On this day I will make a conscious effort to think only positive things about myself and my abilities as I learn to undo the damage of the past.
"If your parents did not drink, your grandparents may have drank and passed on the disease of family dysfunction to your parents. If alcohol or drugs were not a problem, your home may have been chaotic, unsafe, and lacking nurture like many alcoholic homes." BRB p. 18
Great! Granny did it to Mom and Mom did it to us! What chance do we have of being able to get well?
Even though this was passed down through the generations until it finally got to us, and perhaps to our children and grandchildren, who do we blame? Can we really blame Mom or Granny or even Great Granny? Indeed, none of them intended to pass this baggage down to us. But here it is: ours to unpack.
Fortunately, we have the best chance of them all to do something about it. Today we have a much better understanding of the multigenerational nature of trauma transmission. And this understanding is constantly evolving. We are fortunate to be part of a wonderful human experiment to reverse the effects of generational family dysfunction and achieve emotional sobriety.
Like most experiments, we start with a premise: that we can build a life of stability, safety and nurturing. As we toil in the laboratory of our lives in recovery, we find just the right mixture of experience, analysis and spiritual principles, and issue daily progress reports to our fellow travelers and our Higher Power.
On this day I will note the progress I have made in finding my emotional balance, and give myself the privilege of believing I can and will recover.
"We will choose to love people who can love and be responsible for themselves." BRB p. 591
Prior to coming to ACA, we had been unconscious about a great many things. Perhaps the most painful was our unconscious choice of the people we thought we loved.
As children, we wanted to love our parents. So we overlooked their dysfunction as a way to make them lovable. After all, the alternative was to see them as they really were and leave - a choice that is rarely possible for a child.
As adults, we continued to make unconscious choices to love other dysfunctional people until one day we got it. Something was terribly familiar about the people we had chosen to love. It was déjà vu, all over again.
As we come to consciousness about our childhood experiences and do the work in ACA, we begin to love and accept our True Self. Only then are we capable of having healthy relationships with others. We begin to choose people who are capable of truly loving us, and who take responsibility for themselves. We are now willing to share our True Self, the person we were meant to be, the one who is able to love responsibly in return.
On this day I will examine my relationships, both past and present, to help me understand the choices I have made. I will begin to share my True Self with others in my life so that I may find the love I deserve.
"The healing we receive by giving service in ACA removes our deep feelings of inferiority in giving and receiving love. Our sense of inadequacy begins to disappear when we see the value of the service we give." BRB p. 363
In a myriad of ways most of us were taught that we were inferior. Our perceptions were challenged. Our feelings were denied. Our thoughts were overpowered by the dysfunction in our families.
As we "come to" in ACA, we realize that our perceptions, feelings and thoughts are being respected because they are true for us. Through regular attendance at meetings, we slowly develop the knowledge that we are not inferior, and begin sharing and working the steps with a fellow traveler.
At some point we notice that others chip in to make this miracle possible by doing service to keep the meeting strong. This is where part of the magic of recovery happens: in one instant we are lost, and in the next we become able to help by doing service work ourselves for the group.
Seeing new members attend their first meetings and then seeing them as they begin to "come to" brings us joy and makes any level of service we can give an act of love that reflects our love of our True Selves.
On this day I will recall my first days in ACA and the comfort I found. As I am ready and able to do so, I will continue the tradition of freely giving service to help ensure that what I have received is available to others.
"We learn that real choice is God's gift to us for letting go." BRB p. 155
As children, we may have felt trapped in an unhappy home life because we had no control over a parent's drinking or other family dysfunction. We carry this feeling into adulthood, often feeling like victims of circumstances or of people who trigger in us painful childhood memories.
In Step Three, we may be confused about what it means to turn our will over to our Higher Power - that without our will we will be trapped with no options. We worry that we will be giving away our power. In reality we are giving over our controlling nature to our Higher Power.
As we learn to focus on what is within our control, namely ourselves, and let go of control over other people, places, and things, we open ourselves up to more choice. We learn that we can choose our actions in situations, rather than reacting and feeling like a victim. We can let our Higher Power take over what is not ours to control. This frees us to begin making life-affirming choices.
On this day I give what I am not meant to control over to the care of my Higher Power. In its place I feel a greater freedom of choice than I have ever felt before.
"With emotional sobriety, reparenting ourselves becomes a reality in our lives." BRB p. 265
Our program calls us to recognize the truth within us. A beginning truth is that our families, in their unfinished spiritual states, corrupted our thinking. As young children, we could relate to no one other than our families to ‘see how the world was' around us.
This often involved a series of dysfunctional beliefs, such as "I can make it on my own," "I am too proud to accept help from anyone," and/or "We are s-o-o-o-o much better than they are." This led us to a false sense of independence or even superiority that effectively cut us off from many forms of useful information that could have helped us.
As adults, we lived with this corrupted thinking, in a state of confusion and denial, unable to admit that we needed help and unable to trust anyone.
When we find recovery in ACA, we discover that we can reparent ourselves. We learn to see the truth about our parents in a non-judgmental way, which helps us first accept whatever good things they passed to us. Then, without anger or resentment, we firmly reject their dysfunctional ways of thinking. We are now free to chart our own course of behavioral, spiritual and emotional sobriety.
On this day I will focus on using all I've learned in ACA to help me reparent myself. I choose spiritual and emotional sobriety.
"With willingness, we are well on our way to recovery." BRB p. 50
In the rooms of recovery, we learn to use the acronym HOW: Honest, Open-minded, and Willing. In ACA, we need to be all three. However, willingness may well be the key to doing the work it takes to achieve the results we seek.
There is a big difference between wanting something and being willing to do the work to get it. Most of us have spent our life up to this point wanting things: higher self-esteem, less anxiety, and a family that loves us unconditionally.
So we enter the ACA program with a mental list of what we want. But are we willing to put forth the effort to recover? We make time for others, for work, for recreational activities, but making time for ourselves may be a foreign concept.
In ACA, the only person we are trying to change is ourselves. The way to make that happen is to make the time for it to happen - to be willing to put ourselves on our schedule, maybe for the first time in our lives.
On this day I will focus on changing my "want" list to include being willing to spend time on myself and my program.
"The safe harbor we find in ACA meetings is the starting point for transforming our survival traits." BRB p. 112
The dysfunction we grew up with grabbed hold of many of us with such powerful claws that we learned to perform to suit the needs of others. We took on behaviors that helped us survive the best way we knew how.
Some of our survival traits were so integrated into our psyche that we felt like two people inside: the person we learned to be and the one who was "emotionally dying" to break free.
But even as adults, we had no clue about what to change and how to change it. We just knew that we had to find a way out if we were ever to have a chance at experiencing a "normal" life.
ACA is that way out! It is a proven path that leads to new ways of thinking and being. But it's not easy. Transformation takes time and energy. It also takes selfacceptance and self-forgiveness because we will inevitably slip and slide. That's why we need to know that we don't have to be on this journey alone.
On this day, if I find myself slipping, I will take a deep breath and pick up the phone. I am no longer alone.
"Because we were raised in chaotic or controlling homes, our internal compass is oriented toward excitement, pain, and shame. This inner world can be described as an ‘inside drug store.' The shelves are stocked with bottles of excitement, toxic shame, selfhate, self-doubt, and stress." BRB p. 16
Do the following situations sound familiar? We walk into a room full of strangers and instinctively find the most toxic people in the room to befriend. We leave home with "just enough" time so our adrenaline is pumping when we arrive at our destination. We over-commit ourselves so that we can't possibly do everything we promised, and then shame ourselves because we've failed yet again.
Many of us just naturally choose situations that create drama, people who are spinning out of control, and a life that balances on the edge of insanity. It almost feels like we're hard-wired to operate that way.
As we begin to understand the damaging effects of these inner drugs we keep taking, we learn to replace the toxic people and drama with mutually respectful relationships and healthy excitement for our recovery. We no longer need to recreate the familiar conditions of our childhood that keep us trapped in the chaos. We gradually begin to appreciate the peace and quiet of serenity. It takes time, but we now realize we deserve better than the hand we were dealt as children.
On this day I choose healthy people to spend time with - people who also value serenity. I welcome the calm that is becoming my new normal.
"PTSD is a condition of the body and mind in which a person stores the memory of a violent attack or life-threatening event." BRB p. 344
When we got to ACA, we knew our minds and emotions were affected, but our bodies? We saw that the literature talked about how our bodies carry original trauma, so we started to pay attention. We soon noticed something very disturbing: we had a lot of automatic body reactions that happened without our "permission."
Eventually, we realized that our present-day bodies were acting on auto-pilot to safeguard us from perceived threat signals that our child-bodies stored long ago. It was overwhelming to hear that, because how do you change your body?
We found that one way was to keep reading encouraging words in our Fellowship Text. It gave us hope that our bodies could recover when we read on page 621 that "What can be learned can be unlearned…" and on page 626, "We now have gathered the knowledge and experience needed to transmit a vision for healing the injury and hurt caused by childhood trauma."
As we worked the Steps, followed the Traditions, and attended meetings, we saw that our minds, emotions, spirits, and bodies started to heal. We were amazed at this program's power. It was larger than the effects that we carried in our blood, tissue, nerves, and bone.
On this day I will help my body recover by acknowledging when I have a physical reaction to a seemingly nonthreatening situation. I will then reach out to try to uncover where the reaction is coming from to help myself heal.