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 reparent 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/dysfunctional
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 healthy 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 the dysfunctional family experience for
what it is: an experience 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 that as the love grows inside
you, you will see beautiful changes in all your
relationships, especially with God, yourself and
your parents.
Source: Adult
Children of Alcoholics Central Service
Board/Interim World Service Office (c) 1986
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