Twelve Steps of Adult Children: Steps Workbook

We insanely knock ourselves out in relationships or in the work place, hoping for affirmation and praise, which we don’t believe we deserve.

The Higher Power is patient as it seeks to help the adult child find wholeness and integration of a divided self.

We often do not believe we deserve happiness.

We mask our efforts to control another person by appearing helpful.

Of all the issues facing adult children, control is an issue that seems to take more time and patience to lessen. As children growing up in dysfunctional and sometimes dangerous homes, we had to stay in control of our emotions and thoughts to survive. To show emotion or make the “wrong” move could mean harm or humiliation. Letting go of control can

1. By attending ACA meetings and working with my sponsor I am being restored to clarity and sanity. 2) I am understanding the effects of addiction and family dysfunction in my adult life today. 3) I am coming to believe that it was insane to think that I caused my parents’ addiction or dysfunction. I was the child. They were the parents. 4) I am not u

There are other forms of adult child insanity, isolation, and manipulation that we engage in, which usually leaves us feeling abandoned, angry, or confused. Yet, we try again, repeating the same mistakes. Fueled by fear, our false self discounts real avenues of help. The false self chooses to reapply old thinking and behaving that guarantees the sa

Change does not occur until the adult child does the Step work needed to curb the tendency to reach outside ourselves for love and affirmation.

We insanely knock ourselves out in relationships or in the work place, hoping for affirmation and praise, which we don’t believe we deserve.