Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization > Quotes

“Bottoming out can vary from person to person; however, the general consensus reveals that the person usually has exhausted all resources, lacks self-love, and is practicing self-harm. The person may be allowing others to neglect and abuse him. While a bottom is in progress, denial is rampant and relatives or friends may have turned away. At this juncture, the adult child usually isolates or becomes involved in busy work to avoid asking for help. He scrambles to manipulate anyone who might still be having contact with him. Some adult children are at the other extreme. They have resources and speak of a bright future or new challenge; however, their bottom involves an inability to connect with others on a meaningful level. Their lives are unmanageable due to perfectionism and denial that seals them off from others. These are the high-functioning adults who seem to operate in the stratosphere of success. In their self-sufficiency they avoid asking for help, but they feel a desperate disconnect from life. Their bottom can be panic attacks without warning or bouts of depression that are pushed away with work or a new relationship.”
― ACA WSO INC., Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The ACA wisdom is this: “There is nothing like hitting bottom to motivate someone into action that produces lasting change.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Many clinicians aware of the adult child dynamic believe that most mental health diagnoses are actually adult child related.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“1. Do you recall anyone drinking or taking drugs or being involved in some other behavior that you now believe could be dysfunctional? 2. Did you avoid bringing friends to your home because of drinking or some other dysfunctional behavior in the home? 3. Did one of your parents make excuses for the other parent’s drinking or other behaviors? 4. Did your parents focus on each other so much that they seemed to ignore you? 5. Did your parents or relatives argue constantly? 6. Were you drawn into arguments or disagreements and asked to choose sides with one parent or relative against another? 7. Did you try to protect your brothers or sisters against drinking or other behavior in the family? 8. As an adult, do you feel immature? Do you feel like you are a child inside? 9. As an adult, do you believe you are treated like a child when you interact with your parents? Are you continuing to live out a childhood role with the parents? 10. Do you believe that it is your responsibility to take care of your parents’ feelings or worries? Do other relatives look to you to solve their problems? 11. Do you fear authority figures and angry people? 12. Do you constantly seek approval or praise but have difficulty accepting a compliment when one comes your way? 13. Do you see most forms of criticism as a personal attack? 14. Do you over commit yourself and then feel angry when others do not appreciate what you do? 15. Do you think you are responsible for the way another person feels or behaves? 16. Do you have difficulty identifying feelings? 17. Do you focus outside yourself for love or security? 18. Do you involve yourself in the problems of others? Do you feel more alive when there is a crisis? 19. Do you equate sex with intimacy? 20. Do you confuse love and pity? 21. Have you found yourself in a relationship with a compulsive or dangerous person and wonder how you got there? 22. Do you judge yourself without mercy and guess at what is normal? 23. Do you behave one way in public and another way at home? 24. Do you think your parents had a problem with drinking or taking drugs? 25. Do you think you were affected by the drinking or other dysfunctional behavior of your parents or family? If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you may be suffering from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional family. As The Laundry List states, you can be affected even if you did not take a drink. Please read Chapter Two to learn more about these effects.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Abuse can be a single traumatic event or it can be cumulative events over time. Some of the signs of abuse and neglect are addiction, codependence, workaholism, and phobias. Because our parents could be chronic worriers or doubters, we can worry obsessively about events that never occur. Regular worrying or anxiety is a sure sign of an internalized parent.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The Laundry List Characteristics of an Adult Child 1) We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures. 2) We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process. 3) We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism. 4) We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs. 5) We live life from the viewpoint of victims, and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships. 6) We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc. 7) We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others. 8) We became addicted to excitement. 9) We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.” 10) We “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial). 11) We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem. 12) We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us. 13) Alcoholism is a family disease; we became para-alcoholics (codependents)† and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink. 14) Para-alcoholics (codependents) are reactors rather than actors.”
― ACA WSO INC., Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Many dysfunctional parents use perfectionistic remarks disguised as support to urge a child to do better. For example, comments of perfectionism sound like support, but the child never seems to meet the parent’s expectations. This parental behavior is neglectful. The neglect involves the withholding of true praise when the child does meet expectations. Without true praise, the child or teen does not feel valued and safe. The child feels he must perform or do well to earn a parent’s love.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The ACA program allows us to acknowledge our parents’ support and positive contributions in our lives. With the help of ACA, we are offering our parents fairness as we look at the family system with rigorous honesty. We are looking for the truth so that we can live our own lives with choice and self-confidence. We want to break the cycle of family dysfunction.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“We ask new members to avoid some hindrances to recovery that include: isolating and not asking for help, intellectualizing the program, focusing only on counseling, “falling in love” with another member and avoiding program work, erratic meeting attendance, and taking drugs or drinking alcohol. We suggest that newcomers to ACA stay out of romantic relationships since we need time to focus on ourselves. We are highly susceptible to unhealthy attachments which can divert us from focusing on ourselves. The ACA solution is in the meetings and the Twelve Steps, instead of in someone else.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The Laundry List (Problem), which describes a personality who fears people, has difficulty expressing feelings, and who can tolerate a high level of abuse or neglect without realizing the effects of such behavior. The adult child personality, the false self, lives in fear of being shamed and abandoned. Yet, the person chooses relationships which do both. These common behaviors are the identifying traits which create ACA identification.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Many adult children have said they feel like a child in a grown-up body. This is a clue to the Inner”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“We need to interact with recovering adult children to practice the principles that bring real results.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Why not ask a Loving Parent to help us reclaim our childhood innocence and to live more gently today?”
― ACA WSO INC., Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The term “adult child” means that we respond to adult interactions with the fear and self-doubt learned as children. This undercurrent of hidden fear can sabotage our choices and relationships. We can appear outwardly confident while living with a constant question of our worth.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“It is safe to take time to play today. Play fuels your creativity, tickles your Inner Child, and nurtures your soul.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“We understand the “don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel” rules. We understand the destructive obsession and compulsion of codependence and how it relates in our lives. We work the ACA Steps. We connect with our Inner Child and find hope and lasting peace in ACA.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“For some of us, it is the work itself that is the problem and not the people. We may have chosen a job that doesn’t make the most of our talents and abilities because we have been programmed from childhood to have a low opinion of ourselves. We may be in an organization that has a culture of not respecting the employees.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Whether it is due to cultural issues affecting family structure or emotional problems, to be in a family where we learn the primary dysfunctional family rules, “don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel,” crushes the very spirit that allows us to thrive.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Affirmations are a key element”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“taught to doubt ourselves so it became natural to believe that we are wrong, defective, or uninformed.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“Inner Child or True Self can be the spark of our creativity, we must also remember the child is a deeply”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“and”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“The hero child usually grows up to be the perfectionist workaholic who is independent and overly-responsible but who still has feelings of low self-worth. The lost child is often a good observer and listener and does not demand much of others.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“In ACA, we find a comprehensive message of recovery that involves the Twelve Steps, reparenting one’s self, and embracing our Inner Child. The Inner Child is also known as the True Self by some of us.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“the fear of abandonment and shame. Through recovery, we have learned that our Inner Child”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“There is no Healing Without Feeling”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“of ourselves. Some of us believe the child within can sabotage our current relationships”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“These are the high-functioning adults who seem to operate in the stratosphere of success. In their self-sufficiency they avoid asking for help, but they feel a desperate disconnect from life. Their bottom can be panic attacks without warning or bouts of depression that are pushed away with work or a new relationship.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

“inner voice of blaming others.”
― Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families