ACA - Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families
Good morning, Forum,
By recommendation of my therapist, I attended my first ACA meeting last night and it was too incredible not too share. Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families offers free online group support environments that hold space for hard conversation. As such, I wanted to be sure to share this resource with you all in case anyone else is interested.
Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA)/Dysfunctional Families is a Twelve Step, Twelve Tradition program of people who grew up in dysfunctional homes.
We meet to share our experience of growing up in an environment where abuse, neglect and trauma infected us. This affects us today and influences how we deal with all aspects of our lives.
ACA provides a safe, nonjudgmental environment that allows us to grieve our childhoods and conduct an honest inventory of ourselves and our family—so we may (i) identify and heal core trauma, (ii) experience freedom from shame and abandonment, and (iii) become our own loving parents.
ACA is a 12 Step program that focuses on emotional sobriety.
We were all profoundly affected by the dysfunction in our families of origin, whether alcohol was present in the home or not. Consequently, we developed a set of “laundry list” traits that helped us survive that experience. These traits may have been adaptive at the time, but have now come to substantially disrupt our lives.
We recover by “working our program.” This means attending ACA meetings and working the Twelve Steps. The Steps are not meant to be worked in isolation, which is why we work with more experienced members, a twelve step group, and/or our fellow travelers (others in ACA).
ACA is a spiritual program, not a religious program. The only requirement for membership is a desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA has no membership fees.
Since each meeting is autonomous, and each meeting can be a different experience, we recommend that if your first meeting is not a fit for you, try other meetings before deciding if the ACA program can be helpful in your journey from discovery to recovery.
Meetings are intended to be a safe place. We share our experience, strength, and hope; we offer compassion and understanding. We also have the right not to share, unless we are ready. We welcome you to join us.
Please note that ACA is not a replacement for addicts working an abstinence program in other Twelve Step fellowships. Adult Children of Alcoholics works best for people that have obtained a level of sobriety in their other program(s).
ACA literature for recovery and follow along workbooks.
There are many types of ACA Meetings: in-person (face to face), online, telephone, and audio/online. ACA also offers hybrid meetings both online and in-person.
