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

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.

On this day I now choose my own role and how I respond to the world around me.

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

We had no role models for healthy give and take.

We learned to keep our thoughts and yearnings to ourselves out of fear.

Our black-and-white thinking may even be causing us to see things as much worse than they really are.

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.

the goal is self-love and knowing that we are good enough just the way we are.

As children, many of us wanted or needed to idealize our caregivers. In ACA, we take off the rose-colored glasses and see them as flawed human beings who were unable to be there for us emotionally, physically, psychologically, or spiritually.