ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) Helps Us To Understand the Abuse We Suffered as Children
My recovery began in Nov. 24, 1976. But I didn’t discover my primary addiction until Sept., 2011. I went to AA in Nov. 1976 and had little problem accepting the fact that I am an alcoholic. I had also gone to ACOA meetings in the 1990s and had enjoyed them. But the ACOA I knew and the ACA Red Book are radically different.
The ACA Red Book immediately helped me to understand that although I am an alcoholic, my primary addiction began years ago in my family of origin. Trying to “fix” my core family problems absorbed my life and became the foundation for all my future relationships and the 8 careers I used as efforts to fix my external world.
None of all those efforts fixed me. Then I found The Laundry List and the ACA Red Book, and I was finally home.
“Adult Children of Alcoholics was founded in 1978 in New York. Tony A. is considered the primary founder along with members of a Alateen group. The Alateens and Tony formed a specially focused meeting that broke away from Al-Anon and became the first ACA group. The new group, Generations, focused on recovering from the effects of being raised in a dysfunctional family rather than the Al-Anon focus of being powerless over alcohol.”
“Tony is the author of The Laundry List, the first piece of ACA literature. The Laundry List is a list of 14 characteristics or common behaviors that detail the adult child personality. Tony also developed the ACA Solution of attending meetings, focusing on ourselves, working the Steps, and feeling our feelings. Tony died in April 2004 at the age of 77.”
“Jack E. is given credit for establishing ACA in California and placing The Laundry List in a narrative form know as The Problem. The Problem is read at the opening of most ACA meetings. Jack’s recollections of ACA history are included here (in the Red Book).”
….”In 1979, Newsweek magazine published an ACA article about Dr. Claudia Black, Dr, Stephanie Brown, and Sharon Wegscheider (now Wegscheider-Cruse). The article was the first nationwide announcement that family alcoholism could and did cause life-long patterns of dysfunctional behavior even for those who never took a drink. the family systems concept of addiction and family dysfunction became more visible as well. Before that time, most addiction or mental health models focused on the individual addict. Black and others were saying that the disease of family dysfunction had long-range effects on the children who became adults. The children were affected by the alcoholism even though they were not putting alcohol into their bodies.”
….”In ACA today, the adult child looks at the patterns of family dysfunction and is encouraged to talk about all aspects of the childhood in ACA meetings and with a sponsor or informed counselor. At the same time, the AA-adapted Steps require the individual to inventory one’s self and to change destructive behavior. We take responsibility for our behavior knowing that some of that behavior was handed off to us by our parents.”
