Strengthening My Recovery: Meditations for Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

our self-image is not actually based on objective reality.

Today, we nurture ourselves by deciding what we want the universe to send us, because we’re open to the possibility that we can have those things. We allow ourselves to swim around in the scent of promise. We deserve it. We realize that wanting something is not bad; it’s a healthy part of being human. We allow our minds and hearts to wander because

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.

ACA literature told us things about ourselves we didn’t know.

Because we feared abandonment, we may have sacrificed ourselves in an attempt to keep our spouses from becoming bored with us.

“An adult child is someone who responds to adult situations with self-doubt, self-blame, or a sense of being wrong or inferior – all learned from stages of childhood.” BRB p. vii, footnote

When we hear we are whole at our core, we wonder, “If this is true, why do I feel so unworthy or defective? Why can’t I seem to live from the truth of my wholeness?” The ACA recovery program brilliantly, gently and progressively unravels this dilemma and gradually returns us to our birthright of being whole, of being our True Self.

I understand that when I make a mistake, I don’t have to perpetuate my childhood abuse by beating myself up.

On this day I will remember that being alive comes with feelings, and my feelings are all okay! I am entitled to a rich life of emotional sobriety.