Rosalie’s interpretation/translation of the ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families) Step One (of Twelve Steps) Affirmations.

I’ve been attending ACA meetings (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families) for a few months. I’ve had peers and clients recommend Twelve Step meetings over the years. I always had a sort of dismissive arrogance about them, I thought they were irrelevant for me because I was doing the healing and growth work in various arenas already. I figured that a Twelve Step group was just a lesser version of the kinds of groups I was already in and the kinds of work I was already doing.

And it’s true that the content of what is offered through the ACA program is not new to me. Self-compassion, parts work, curiosity, the idea that how I am is – most primarily – not my fault, it’s the natural result of my experience and environment. So while I absolutely want to change and become stronger, kinder, more effective, and more connected both for myself and with others, the effective starting point for that work is not self-criticism that I’m not there already. Of course I’m not there already. Just look at this whole journey and how it was.

Anyway, I’ve started working through the 12 steps. I’m on step 1. ACA offers a list of affirmations for step 1. I modified the affirmations to language that lands more easily in my body. I’m offering these in case they are helpful to anyone else.

Here are the original ACA Step One affirmations:

1. I am powerless over the effects of alcoholism and family dysfunction.
2. I am powerless over the Laundry List traits.
3. My life is unmanageable when I focus on others rather than myself.
4. I did not cause my parents’ addiction or dysfunction.
5. My feelings and thoughts are separate from the thoughts of my parents and my family.
6. I can stop trying to heal or change my family through my current relationships. I can stop trying to change others.
7. I can stop condemning myself without mercy.
8. I am a valuable person.

(If you do a search on “ACA Laundry List Traits” you should be able to easily find this list, it’s 14 characteristics that “Adult Children” tend to share due to our childhood experience in dysfunctional families.)

Here is my version of the affirmations that I’m working with:

Rosalie’s interpretation/translation of the ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families) Step One (of Twelve Steps) Affirmations.

I am powerless over the effects of developmental trauma. That doesn’t mean I can’t change but it means that the patterns are deeply embedded to where I can’t even see them accurately.

I see what I think is the pattern but it’s just the symptom, so even if I change what I can see, I’m still fundamentally perpetuating the same thoughts, behaviors, and relationships.

My life is unmanageable when I think, feel and act based on these deep and unconscious patterns.

I am not the cause of the addictions and dysfunctions of others, including my parents, my current partner, and my previous partners.

There is space for me to have my own thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants, and there is space for me to have my own life.

I can’t change anybody else. Even myself in many ways I cannot change. But I can change some things about myself incrementally and that’s where my attention will go.

I deserve compassion and forgiveness from myself.

I offer compassion and forgiveness to myself.

I am magical and important.