Sober Life

August 24

Survivor
"It is my bias that no one deserves to live a life of fear and shame." BRB p. xviii

Many ACAs go from blaming, shaming, complaining, and condemning ourselves and others to finally learning to name what is really going on. By doing so, we begin to come out of our victim and/or victimizer roles. We ask our Higher Power to help us remove and release our unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. We let go of the justifications we created in our minds for our actions, thoughts, and emotions. Yes, we experienced abuse or neglect as children, and maybe as adults, but we know that does not excuse our dysfunctional behavior now.

As we gain strength and recover, we become healing survivors and then thrivers. We gradually and sometimes more quickly, develop new capacities for healthy wellbeing in our lives. We learn that we deserve a happy, full life. We learn that we have always deserved this. We don't have to do anything to be worthy, we just ARE.

As thrivers, we now know that our Higher Power is there for us. We learn to have unconditional love for ourselves and others.

On this day I acknowledge that I am worthy and deserving of a happy, full life.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

August 23

Grief as Freedom
"Experienced ACA members speak of grief with a sense of serenity rather than with sorrow or resentment." BRB p. 200

When listening to ACAs share at meetings, newcomers may at first only hear the recounting of the childhood events and their effects. If they keep coming back, they may experience an extraordinary transformation.

Over time, newcomers may realize that what they are hearing isn't just a recounting of a story: it's an opportunity to be heard. In alcoholic and dysfunctional homes, none of us was allowed to tell our story. We did not feel that we could trust our families to listen to us because our feelings were minimized or dismissed.

With experience, the newcomer may hear our shares as a courageous, insightful, and inspired reclaiming of our lives. When the experienced member shares, the sense of serenity doesn't stem from the story. The serenity is in realizing, most often for the first time, that the meeting allows us to talk, trust, and feel. No longer imprisoned, what is being witnessed is a grieving process that frees a lost soul.

On this day as I begin to free my soul from the prison of my childhood, I will be present for my fellow ACAs as they do the same.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families World

August 22

We’re only as sick as the secrets we keep.
—Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Harboring parts of our inner selves, fearing what others would think if they knew, creates the barriers that keep us separate, feeling different, certain of our inadequacies.

Secrets are burdens, and they weigh heavily on us, so heavily. Carrying secrets makes impossible the attainment of serenity – that which we strive for daily. Abstinence alone is not enough. It must come first, but it’s not enough by itself. It can’t guarantee that we’ll find the serenity we seek.

This program of recovery offers self-assurance, happiness, spiritual well-being, but there’s work to be done. Many steps to be taken. And one of these is total self-disclosure. It’s risky, it’s humbling, and it’s necessary.

When we tell others who we really are, it opens the door for them to share likewise. And when they do, we become bonded. We accept their imperfections and love them for them. And they love us for ours. Our struggles to be perfect, our self-denigration because we aren’t, only exaggerates even more the secrets that keep us sick.

Our tarnished selves are lovable; secrets are great equalizers when shared. We need to feel our oneness, our sameness with other women.

Opportunities to share my secrets will present themselves today. I will be courageous.

August 21

Inner Drugs
"Because we were raised in chaotic or controlling homes, our internal compass is oriented toward excitement, pain, and shame. This inner world can be described as an ‘inside drug store.' The shelves are stocked with bottles of excitement, toxic shame, selfhate, self-doubt, and stress." BRB p. 16

Do the following situations sound familiar? We walk into a room full of strangers and instinctively find the most toxic people in the room to befriend. We leave home with "just enough" time so our adrenaline is pumping when we arrive at our destination. We over-commit ourselves so that we can't possibly do everything we promised, and then shame ourselves because we've failed yet again.

Many of us just naturally choose situations that create drama, people who are spinning out of control, and a life that balances on the edge of insanity. It almost feels like we're hard-wired to operate that way.

As we begin to understand the damaging effects of these inner drugs we keep taking, we learn to replace the toxic people and drama with mutually respectful relationships and healthy excitement for our recovery. We no longer need to recreate the familiar conditions of our childhood that keep us trapped in the chaos. We gradually begin to appreciate the peace and quiet of serenity. It takes time, but we now realize we deserve better than the hand we were dealt as children.

On this day I choose healthy people to spend time with - people who also value serenity. I welcome the calm that is becoming my new normal.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

August 20

Survival Traits
"The safe harbor we find in ACA meetings is the starting point for transforming our survival traits." BRB p. 112

The dysfunction we grew up with grabbed hold of many of us with such powerful claws that we learned to perform to suit the needs of others. We took on behaviors that helped us survive the best way we knew how.

Some of our survival traits were so integrated into our psyche that we felt like two people inside: the person we learned to be and the one who was "emotionally dying" to break free.

But even as adults, we had no clue about what to change and how to change it. We just knew that we had to find a way out if we were ever to have a chance at experiencing a "normal" life.

ACA is that way out! It is a proven path that leads to new ways of thinking and being. But it's not easy. Transformation takes time and energy. It also takes self-acceptance and self-forgiveness because we will inevitably slip and slide. That's why we need to know that we don't have to be on this journey alone.

On this day, if I find myself slipping, I will take a deep breath and pick up the phone. I am no longer alone.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

August 19

Emotional Sobriety
"With emotional sobriety, reparenting ourselves becomes a reality in our lives." BRB p. 265

Our program calls us to recognize the truth within us. A beginning truth is that our families, in their unfinished spiritual states, corrupted our thinking. As young children, we could relate to no one other than our families to ‘see how the world was' around us.

This often involved a series of dysfunctional beliefs, such as "I can make it on my own," "I am too proud to accept help from anyone," and/or "We are s-o-o-o-o much better than they are." This led us to a false sense of independence or even superiority that effectively cut us off from many forms of useful information that could have helped us.

As adults, we lived with this corrupted thinking, in a state of confusion and denial, unable to admit that we needed help and unable to trust anyone.

When we find recovery in ACA, we discover that we can reparent ourselves. We learn to see the truth about our parents in a non-judgmental way, which helps us first accept whatever good things they passed to us. Then, without anger or resentment, we firmly reject their dysfunctional ways of thinking. We are now free to chart our own course of behavioral, spiritual and emotional sobriety.

On this day I will focus on using all I've learned in ACA to help me reparent myself. I choose spiritual and emotional sobriety.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

August 18
Handle Today’s Problem
Living Today

Many of us face seemingly insurmountable difficulties, perhaps because of our compulsion or simply through misfortune. Whatever the scale of our problems,One Day at a Time and First things First, are keys to handling them. Today, we can deal only with today’s problems. One of today’s problems, of course, may be worrying about the future. A good method of handling that problem is to turn our concern about it over to our Higher Power. But when we do have work that clearly should be done today, we must carry through with it. It’s neither reasonable nor sensible to put off things that we can and should do today.

There are certain tasks and responsibilities that must be dealt with today. I will not put them off.

August 17

Choice
"We learn that real choice is God's gift to us for letting go." BRB p. 155

As children, we may have felt trapped in an unhappy home life because we had no control over a parent's drinking or other family dysfunction. We carry this feeling into adulthood, often feeling like victims of circumstances or of people who trigger in us painful childhood memories.

In Step Three, we may be confused about what it means to turn our will over to our Higher Power - that without our will we will be trapped with no options. We worry that we will be giving away our power. In reality we are giving over our controlling nature to our Higher Power.

As we learn to focus on what is within our control, namely ourselves, and let go of control over other people, places, and things, we open ourselves up to more choice. We learn that we can choose our actions in situations, rather than reacting and feeling like a victim. We can let our Higher Power take over what is not ours to control. This frees us to begin making life-affirming choices.

On this day I give what I am not meant to control over to the care of my Higher Power. In its place I feel a greater freedom of choice than I have ever felt before.

August 16
Rescuing Ourselves

No one likes a martyr.

How do we feel around martyrs? Guilty, angry, trapped, negative, and anxious to get away.

Somehow, many of us have developed the belief that depriving ourselves, not taking care of ourselves, being a victim, and suffering needlessly will get us what we want.

It is our job to notice our abilities, our strengths, and take care of ourselves by developing and acting on them.

It is our job to notice our pain and weariness and appropriately take care of ourselves.

It is our job to notice our deprivation, too, and begin to take steps to give ourselves abundance. It begins inside of us, by changing what we believe we deserve, by giving up our deprivation and treating ourselves the way we deserve to be treated.

Life is hard, but we don’t have to make it more difficult by neglecting ourselves. There is no glory in suffering, only suffering. Our pain will not stop when a rescuer comes, but when we take responsibility for ourselves and stop our own pain.

Today, I will be my own rescuer. I will stop waiting for someone else to work through my issues and solve my problems for me.

August 15
Do We Have A Larger Purpose?
Peace

The Twelve Step program came out of a movement that was attempting to save the world by establishing universal peace. Our purpose is scaled down to helping the person who still suffers.

We don’t really know the route to world peace, but we have learned that we must be at peace with ourselves and others in order to live happily. This means releasing the old resentments, distrust, and other faults that plague so many of us.

Living the Twelve Step way might have been our first experience in getting along with others. We found it totally different from the hate and suspicion that once poisoned our lives and kept us in bo***ge.

At some point, we may also find that we’re playing a part in the larger purpose of finding peace. We have , at least, removed ourselves from the raging conflicts that cause so much trouble in the world.

I’ll be at peace with everyone I meet today. I’ve forgiven others and myself, and I’ll do nothing today that gets me embroiled in conflict with others.