Originally Posted by
LadyOwl 
I’m new to the ACoA thing in the sense that I just started reading the Geringer Woititz book. When I look at the list (not sure if this one is the official Laundry List or was the building blocks of it), I find traits I don’t identify with. I know I don’t have to check off all the boxes to be part of this club, but it feels weird to me in a way.
I like the tradition (3) in ACA which is "the only requirement for membership is the desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional household". On that basis, I qualify as does anyone else from my perspective...
The 13 characteristics and the Laundry list are different animals but there is some cross over.
I identify almost entirely with the Laundry List and like you I have some the 13 that are less relevant to me. The Laundry list traits I now use, to an extent, as a barometer for my wellbeing i.e. if I'm acting out in one of the traits, or one of the traits is causing me problems then it means to me that I need to look inside.
There are occassions in my life when the 13 characteristics and the 14 traits of the laundry list are distant memories. There are other times when I have a vague sense that they are within me and still others (thankfully not so much today) where the whole thing is 'JUST ME'. Aaaarrrgh, this signifies danger for me. It means I am 'surviving' or reacting, not living or acting.
... Just to add to the mix in the big red book of ACoA, there is a section on "the other laundry list" which is the opposite of the original laundry list e.g. "if we feared angry people as the first trait suggests, we could also become them"
To me the traits are but symptoms of an underlying problem. They are not me as in my true self, but are my false (or codependent) self.
I love the bit at the end of ACoA literature known as 'The Problem' (Laundry list in prose) which says "This is a description, not an indictment". I've stolen that phrase many, many times.