What is an Adult Child?
"The concept of Adult Child came from the Alateens who began the Hope for Adult Children
of Alcoholics meeting. The original members of our fellowship, who were over eighteen years
old, were adults; but as children they grew up in alcoholic homes. Adult Child also means that
when confronted, we regress to a stage in our childhood." ACA History—an interview with
Tony A., 1992.
The solution is to become your own loving parent. As ACA becomes a safe place for you,
you will find freedom to express all the hurts and fears that you have kept inside and to free
yourself from the shame and blame that are carry-overs from the past. You will become an
adult who is imprisoned no longer by childhood reactions. You will recover the child within
you, learning to love and accept yourself.
The healing begins when we risk moving out of isolation. Feelings and buried memories
will return. By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the
past. We learn to reparent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect. This process
allows us to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence. Our actual parent
is a Higher Power whom some of us choose to call God. Although we had alcoholic or dysfunctional
parents, our Higher Power gave us the Twelve Steps of Recovery.
This is the action and work that heals us: we use the Steps; we use the meetings; we use the
telephone. We share our experience, strength, and hope with each other. We learn to restructure
our sick thinking one day at a time. When we release our parents from responsibility for our
actions today, we become free to make healthful decisions as actors, not reactors. We progress
from hurting, to healing, to helping. We awaken to a sense of wholeness we never knew was
possible.
The ACA Twelve Step workbook was developed during a two-year period, beginning in
2005. As part of the development and input process, ACA groups across the United States read
and used the workbook in small groups and in one-on-one recovery between a sponsor and
sponsee. These working groups submitted input and comments that shaped the tone, focus,
and detail of this workbook.
This workbook is a reformatted version of Chapter Seven from the ACA Fellowship Text
(ACA "big book"). Chapter Seven and this workbook are very similar; however, the workbook
has questions at the end of Steps One, Two, and Three and additional writing assignments.
Twelve Steps of Adult Children is designed as a Step-study book and stand alone piece of
literature. It can serve as the main piece of literature for Twelve Step discussions at an ACA
meeting. The workbook also is designed to be used by ACA members wanting to work the
ACA Twelve Steps with a sponsor. Along with the writing assignments, there are worksheets
for the Twelve Steps in addition to questions that help unlock clarity about our childhood
experiences and our new path of recovery. For example, Step Four contains 35 pages with
detailed writing and 12 workbook items on shame, abandonment, PTSD, feelings, and sexual
abuse history. The ACA workbook also addresses the topics of grief and integration in addition
to the Twelve Steps.
With some modification the workbook can be used by a group of ACAs wishing to work
the Steps together during a 12-week to 16-week period.
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