Strengthening My Recovery

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With our common experiences, we find that we can help one another in ways that others cannot because we carry with us empathy and an understanding of the disease of family dysfunction." BRB p. 515 Meetings are intended to be safe places where we can share our experience, strength and hope without judgement or criticism. We have the right not to share unless we are ready. An endless cycle of giving and receiving is at the very heart of the success and continuation of ACA. Adult children understand each other, because we have experienced similar effects from being raised with similar dysfunction. Being in the company of those who know of our pain brings comfort and reassurance that we are not alone. This guide includes many fellowship shares about reparenting and inner child work. To help you integrate reparenting into your daily life, the guide also includes:

ACA Daily Meditation – ACA UK

You will be surprised how different it feels and how much more you and others get out of your share. It may feel uncomfortable at first. That’s because you are casting off your protective shield and revealing the real you. Remember: ACA Fellowship Text was written by anonymous ACA members providing guidance on working the 12 Step ACA program leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. This book is now often referred to as the “Big Red Book”, or “BRB”. I have the right to determine and honor my own priorities and goals, and to leave others to do the same. Without ACA we remain in destructive or loveless relationships because we fear abandonment. The term “adult child” means that we respond to adult interactions with the fear and self-doubt learned as children. This undercurrent of hidden fear can sabotage our choices and relationships. We can appear outwardly confident while living with a constant question of our worth. Whatever our path, we found no lasting help until we found ACA.Our Self Care Sunday meeting is a nurturing space to focus on things we can do to care for ourselves while being our own Loving Parents. The meeting has a rotating schedule of readings from the ACA literature (The Big Red Book and Strengthening My Recovery) which can be found here, chosen by the group to help remind us of the nourishing and supportive practices we can engage in to support us all in our recovery and beyond. We look forward to seeing you and joining our loving re-parenting journey. As adults, most of us seemed to have relationships in which we dominated people or worshipped people. Most of us were discreet about these two extremes. But when we think about it, we can agree that we have been near one end or the other of these two positions. There seemed to be no middle ground or equality in our relationships with another person. Many of us thought we were either superior or inferior. We seemed to never feel like we were good enough for our friends or others Chapter 22, Reparenting as a Way of Life, concludes the book with an example of how to approach reparenting as a way of life. The ACA Solution is that we become our “own loving parent.” Becoming our own loving parent involves seeing our “biological parents as the instruments of our existence.” As The Solution states: “Our actual parent is our Higher Power, whom some of us choose to call God.” How do I know what God’s will is for me?’ … Most importantly, we realize that no other person can answer this question for us. It is ours to discover.

Strengthening My Recovery – Daily Meditation - Adult Children

While becoming our own Loving Parent is at the core of healing from a neglectful childhood, it is also the gateway to the child within. In addition to the ACA Twelve Steps, this is The ACA Solution. By reparenting ourselves with gentleness, humour, love and respect, we find our child within and true connection to a Higher Power. The ACA Twelve Traditions provide guidelines for group conduct just as the ACA Steps provide guidelines for individual recovery. Switches every week between the Laundry List Workbook or Big Red Book Chapter 19 Study -“ACA 12 Traditions”. Success in ACA is not measured with money or social status, but with inner peace and serenity. We share our experience, strength and hope with each other as we laugh together, cry together and know that we are home. Since each meeting is autonomous, and each meeting is a different experience, we recommend that you try as many different ones as possible before deciding if the ACA program can be helpful to you in your journey from discovery to recovery.The book is structured to help you access the love inside you and grow the awareness and skills you need to become your own loving parent: Through reparenting, we learn to use spiritual principles in our daily lives to replace old ways of thinking and reacting. The Solution states: “By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past. We learn to reparent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love, and respect.” The Traditions offer wisdom on being self-supporting as a fellowship and on avoiding promotion when attracting new members. With the Twelve Traditions, we sustain ACA groups that allow the ACA Solution of reparenting one’s self to emerge and thrive. The Twelve Traditions can be found in Chapter Nineteen of the Fellowship Text also known as the Big Red Book or BRB.

ACA UK - Adult Children of **Strengthening my Recovery – ACA UK - Adult Children of

I” statements build my self respect while offering others a true opportunity to have a real relationship with me.There are many ways to practice prayer and meditation. We could use the serenity prayer. We could take some quiet time to read and re-read the prayer slowly, allowing the meaning in each phrase to be revealed. Others pay attention to the stillness within themselves. Each of us discovers our own way of meditating. Chapter 7 Study: introduces ACA newcomers to the ACA Steps and is a renewal for the experienced member to the Steps, and their various adaptations, have brought sure hope and a better way of life to those who desire change. In ACA, the Twelve Steps also bring recovery to our members who were not raised with addiction in the home. Our experience shows that these ACA members internalized the same abandonment and shame as children brought up in alcoholism or other addictions. In this meeting cams are optional, we share popcorn style and we go into break-out rooms so everyone gets the opportunity to share. Feel free to join us anytime. At this meeting we read ACA readings: Serenity Prayer, 12 traditions, Tony A steps and principles, Other or Laundry List alternating weeks.

Loving Parent Guidebook - Adult Children of Alcoholics Loving Parent Guidebook - Adult Children of Alcoholics

The following commands can be entered via DTMF tones using your phone's dial pad while in a Zoom meeting: Struggling with “I” statements will often reveal the hidden aspects of the issues at hand. If you truly want to disclose your feelings so that you and others can learn more about you, use an “I” statement! Traveler Monthly Newsletter– Announcements, news and events from around the ACA Fellowship (sent the first of every month) — Includes the quarterly Beginners meeting: Family dysfunction is a disease that affects everyone in the family. Taking a drink is not necessary to be affected. This is an ACA axiom, and it serves as a basis for our First Step. The effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family force us to develop survival traits that are known as The Laundry List (Problem). Since the disease of family dysfunction is generational, these traits also represent the internalization of our parents’ behavior. As much as we would like to deny it, we have become our parents. If we have succeeded in acting differently than them, we still passed on unwanted traits handed off to us by our parents. We unknowingly passed them on to our children. Other Laundry List trait 4: We dominate others and abandon them before they can abandon us or we avoid relationships with dependent people altogether. To avoid being hurt, we isolate and dissociate and thereby abandon ourselves.Meeting together to read and apply the new ACA Loving Parent Guidebook. This is an open study group. In keeping with Traditions of the program, and to protect the anonymity of others, we suggest that you participate from a quiet, private location where you will not be interrupted by anyone, including children, babies or pets. Please treat this as you would a face-to-face meeting. If this is not possible, we suggest the use of earphones so others on the call cannot be heard. Reparenting ourselves can mean many things, but the central theme is that we are willing to challenge our critical, inner voice and to care for the child within. By reparenting ourselves, we lose interest in harming ourselves with addictions and compulsions. We remind ourselves that we have worth. We do this as often as it takes without thought of the repetition or how it might sound to another person.