Problem-Solution-Promises-Steps
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Join Date: Mar 2002
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Posts: 10,681
Problem-Solution-Promises-Steps
The Problem:
Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional households.
We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
We lived live from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.
Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.
This is a description, not an indictment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The solution:
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 keep 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 re-parent 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.
By attending these meetings on a regular basis, you will come to see parental alcoholism or family dysfunction for what it is: a disease that infected you as a child and continues to affect you as an adult. You will learn to keep the focus on yourself in the here and now. You will take responsibility for your own life and supply your own parenting.
You will not do this alone. Look around you and you will see others who know how you feel. We love and encourage you no matter what. We ask you accept us just as we accept you.
This is a spiritual program based on action coming from love. We are sure that as the love grows inside you, you will see beautiful changes in all your relationships, especially with your Higher Power, yourself, and your parents.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Promises:
1.We will discover our real identities by loving and accepting ourselves.
2.Our self-esteem will increase as we give ourselves approval on a daily basis.
3.Fear of authority figures and the need to "people-please" will leave us.
4.Our ability to share intimacy will grow inside us.
5.As we face our abandonment issues, we will be attracted by strengths and become more tolerant of weaknesses.
6.We will enjoy feeling stable, peaceful, and financially secure.
7.We will learn how to play and have fun in our lives.
8.We will chose to love people who can love and be responsible
for themselves.
9.Healthy boundaries and limits will become easier for us to set.
10.Fears of failures and success will leave us, as we intuitively make healthier choices.
11.With help from our ACA support group, we will slowly release our dysfunctional behaviors.
12.Gradually, with our Higher Power's help, we learn to expect the best and get it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not forget the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and out-look upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves".
from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pp 83-84
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Steps:
1.We admitted we were powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory
of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to our selves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others who still suffer, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional households.
We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
We lived live from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.
Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.
This is a description, not an indictment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The solution:
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 keep 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 re-parent 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.
By attending these meetings on a regular basis, you will come to see parental alcoholism or family dysfunction for what it is: a disease that infected you as a child and continues to affect you as an adult. You will learn to keep the focus on yourself in the here and now. You will take responsibility for your own life and supply your own parenting.
You will not do this alone. Look around you and you will see others who know how you feel. We love and encourage you no matter what. We ask you accept us just as we accept you.
This is a spiritual program based on action coming from love. We are sure that as the love grows inside you, you will see beautiful changes in all your relationships, especially with your Higher Power, yourself, and your parents.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Promises:
1.We will discover our real identities by loving and accepting ourselves.
2.Our self-esteem will increase as we give ourselves approval on a daily basis.
3.Fear of authority figures and the need to "people-please" will leave us.
4.Our ability to share intimacy will grow inside us.
5.As we face our abandonment issues, we will be attracted by strengths and become more tolerant of weaknesses.
6.We will enjoy feeling stable, peaceful, and financially secure.
7.We will learn how to play and have fun in our lives.
8.We will chose to love people who can love and be responsible
for themselves.
9.Healthy boundaries and limits will become easier for us to set.
10.Fears of failures and success will leave us, as we intuitively make healthier choices.
11.With help from our ACA support group, we will slowly release our dysfunctional behaviors.
12.Gradually, with our Higher Power's help, we learn to expect the best and get it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not forget the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and out-look upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves".
from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pp 83-84
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Steps:
1.We admitted we were powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory
of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to our selves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others who still suffer, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Supply Manager
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Cleaverville
Posts: 2,898
MG,
Thanks for that. Much of the above are codependent defects that I have worked through in Alanon.
Two things jump out at me. The Victim role, which I have begun to explore. A problem with authority figures being a part of that. Being able to say what I mean, thoughtfully, and not feeling guilty after.
The other is being addicted to excitement. Not being able to be content. A constant feeling of unrest.
Those are the reason's I am being led down this path.
Hugs,
JT
Thanks for that. Much of the above are codependent defects that I have worked through in Alanon.
Two things jump out at me. The Victim role, which I have begun to explore. A problem with authority figures being a part of that. Being able to say what I mean, thoughtfully, and not feeling guilty after.
The other is being addicted to excitement. Not being able to be content. A constant feeling of unrest.
Those are the reason's I am being led down this path.
Hugs,
JT
Guest
Posts: n/a
Too many things jumped out at me JT. After all these years of working on myself you would think?
My worst was hanging onto relationships and I've licked that one. So there is hope.
Truthfully these list of problems have always described me. That's why I felt so at home at the meetings.
Hugs,
MG
My worst was hanging onto relationships and I've licked that one. So there is hope.
Truthfully these list of problems have always described me. That's why I felt so at home at the meetings.
Hugs,
MG
Paused
Join Date: May 2003
Location: New York
Posts: 84
"We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment"
I am a recovering opiate addict. Getting off the meth in a couple of weeks. Married a drug addict who turned alcoholic. It is only a couple of beers a night, but I notice in the summer, he becomes "Chatty Kathy" and sits outside conversing until he is pretty drunk. During the winter he only has like 3 or 4 during the course of the night. At least from what I can see, he doesn't usually start until the afternoon sometime. He finally admitted that he has a problem with the beer. I guess that is the first step.
I am a recovering opiate addict. Getting off the meth in a couple of weeks. Married a drug addict who turned alcoholic. It is only a couple of beers a night, but I notice in the summer, he becomes "Chatty Kathy" and sits outside conversing until he is pretty drunk. During the winter he only has like 3 or 4 during the course of the night. At least from what I can see, he doesn't usually start until the afternoon sometime. He finally admitted that he has a problem with the beer. I guess that is the first step.
Paused
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: lost, WI
Posts: 24
We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment"
GOD HOW SCAREY IS THAT!! AM I IN ONE??
GOD HOW SCAREY IS THAT!! AM I IN ONE??
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 261
REflecting on the ACA readings
Hello out there,
I struggle alot with being a victim. I think there are different kinds of victims. I don't want to play a victim role. Neither do I want my pain to be denied. Sometimes we are just hurt. We don't want to be, we just are. But I don't want to get stuck there. I just want to move beyond it and learn to love again. To move into love and out of the paralysis the pain causes and the rage the pain causes to be able to move and grow and change from the pain to healing and to loving and helping. Thanks for the words of insight. Have a good night in recovery folks.
Love,
Nancy
"Today I pay attention to my thoughts, weeding out those that hurt me and nurturing those that help me."
From the I Can Do It! Calendar: 365 Daily Affirmations
www.pageaday.com
Workman Publishing
Image from MSN homepage featured article
I struggle alot with being a victim. I think there are different kinds of victims. I don't want to play a victim role. Neither do I want my pain to be denied. Sometimes we are just hurt. We don't want to be, we just are. But I don't want to get stuck there. I just want to move beyond it and learn to love again. To move into love and out of the paralysis the pain causes and the rage the pain causes to be able to move and grow and change from the pain to healing and to loving and helping. Thanks for the words of insight. Have a good night in recovery folks.
Love,
Nancy
"Today I pay attention to my thoughts, weeding out those that hurt me and nurturing those that help me."
From the I Can Do It! Calendar: 365 Daily Affirmations
www.pageaday.com
Workman Publishing
Image from MSN homepage featured article
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Thanks, JT
Thanks, Just Tired,
I hope so. Right now I am just too tired to know anything. I will re-charge over the weekend and think about it, meanwhile, and hope something comes to me as I emerge from tiredness to awakening again.
Thanks,
Love,
NAncy
image credit to MSN homepage article on King ARthur Legends
I hope so. Right now I am just too tired to know anything. I will re-charge over the weekend and think about it, meanwhile, and hope something comes to me as I emerge from tiredness to awakening again.
Thanks,
Love,
NAncy
image credit to MSN homepage article on King ARthur Legends
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 261
We had a newcomer in ACA
Hi all!
WE had a newcomer in ACA. WE hadn't had one in awhile. We thought we had scared them off! I can use that info that was posted muchly for her. Thanks. And for myself. I still feel like I just started...
Admitted I am powerless over the effects of alcohol.
Came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.
I am trying to commit these to memory. Please 'scuse the slight variations.
THanks for sharing the steps and promises and all.
Hugs,
Nancy
WE had a newcomer in ACA. WE hadn't had one in awhile. We thought we had scared them off! I can use that info that was posted muchly for her. Thanks. And for myself. I still feel like I just started...
Admitted I am powerless over the effects of alcohol.
Came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.
I am trying to commit these to memory. Please 'scuse the slight variations.
THanks for sharing the steps and promises and all.
Hugs,
Nancy
Member
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Northen Europe and France
Posts: 1,657
This is a beautiful thread, thank you Nancy.
I attended ACA meetings for a while, then other meetings took over. This is definately were I should visit as well.
Right now I´m looking for the child inside of me again. I was sexually abused when I was 6 years old and became a juvenile delinguant in my teens. I need to heal the teenager as well. I´ve been lately helping teenagers in shelters and ex-cons to get on their feet because I received such love and help myself I feel obliged to give something back. I feel that it helps me to get in touch with the child/teenager and I can certainly understand the rage that fuels drug abuse and crimes.
It´s true I was a people pleaser for a long time and got abused as a result. I´m working on that now. And the choices I´ve made in love and friendship are badly stained by coming from a dysfunctional family, but no more. I want to change this.
This thread has so much food for thought I have to come back later.
I attended ACA meetings for a while, then other meetings took over. This is definately were I should visit as well.
Right now I´m looking for the child inside of me again. I was sexually abused when I was 6 years old and became a juvenile delinguant in my teens. I need to heal the teenager as well. I´ve been lately helping teenagers in shelters and ex-cons to get on their feet because I received such love and help myself I feel obliged to give something back. I feel that it helps me to get in touch with the child/teenager and I can certainly understand the rage that fuels drug abuse and crimes.
It´s true I was a people pleaser for a long time and got abused as a result. I´m working on that now. And the choices I´ve made in love and friendship are badly stained by coming from a dysfunctional family, but no more. I want to change this.
This thread has so much food for thought I have to come back later.
Use adversity
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Listening to you, Lilya
Dear Lilya,
Thanks for responding. I think it is good to help people who you relate to when you were younger. I do some of that, too, and I think they teach us as much as we teach them. They teach us to be young again, to play and have fun. I have been working on that, too. I think if we let them, that they can show us how to be a little lighter, and we can show them a little serious thinking and working, and we can balance each other out. Have you read the classic Healing the Child Within by Charles Whitfield? I recommend it, and also there are some more books that are good, but I need to go to an ACA meeting and get the titles and author from our little library -- I can't remember off the top of my head. ACA is one of the best things that I have ever done for myself. A good web site to recommend is http://www.joy2meu.com, also.
Keep on keeping on,
Love,
Nancy
Thanks for responding. I think it is good to help people who you relate to when you were younger. I do some of that, too, and I think they teach us as much as we teach them. They teach us to be young again, to play and have fun. I have been working on that, too. I think if we let them, that they can show us how to be a little lighter, and we can show them a little serious thinking and working, and we can balance each other out. Have you read the classic Healing the Child Within by Charles Whitfield? I recommend it, and also there are some more books that are good, but I need to go to an ACA meeting and get the titles and author from our little library -- I can't remember off the top of my head. ACA is one of the best things that I have ever done for myself. A good web site to recommend is http://www.joy2meu.com, also.
Keep on keeping on,
Love,
Nancy
sst215
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Springfield Mass
Posts: 2
Originally Posted by dad's angel
We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally.
yes, yes yes yes ys
yes, yes yes yes ys
Time to break the emotional rollercoaster, and it's so hard.....
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Thanks, Dad's angel. I went to a meeting tonight. Work has been interfering with going to more than one a week, so I really appreciate your feedback. I can use as much of the recovery thoughts as I can get...them flowing, if you please.
Love,
Nancy
Love,
Nancy
Sad Spouse
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: jacksonville florida
Posts: 5
We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
4.Our ability to share intimacy will grow inside us.
5.As we face our abandonment issues, we will be attracted by strengths and become more tolerant of weaknesses.
6.We will enjoy feeling stable, peaceful, and financially secure.
8.We will chose to love people who can love and be responsible
for themselves.
5.As we face our abandonment issues, we will be attracted by strengths and become more tolerant of weaknesses.
6.We will enjoy feeling stable, peaceful, and financially secure.
8.We will chose to love people who can love and be responsible
for themselves.
NJB
Member
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Second star to the right....
Posts: 845
amen
ever since recovery began ive gone through major and many changes but ive noticed there is now a clarity of recollection and some sense of order and a growing inner peace that before was only a leaf clinging to loose twigs in a whirlwind of chaotic despair. bless recovery
ever since recovery began ive gone through major and many changes but ive noticed there is now a clarity of recollection and some sense of order and a growing inner peace that before was only a leaf clinging to loose twigs in a whirlwind of chaotic despair. bless recovery
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