G (16:16)
With my mom, I wrote, well, okay, here's what I said for my dad, it says my dad. So I'm resentful at my dad, the cause, for leaving me with an alcoholic mother, for being emotionally unavailable, for yelling at me over small things. And then for my mom, it says, I'm resentful at her for being an alcoholic mother, for embarrassing me, for driving me around drunk, for not being there for me at time, for punishing me for my drinking and using when there was no reprimand for her. So the fourth column of a fourth step in AANA is to look at what are partisan things. Like it says, what is the exact nature of our wrongs? And generally speaking, we do have a part in everything, but we don't necessarily have a, a part that we play in this childhood stuff, right? So there are not any character defects that I identified related to these resentments with my mom and my dad. So essentially what we did here, right, was, okay, I'm resentful of my mom and my dad for these reasons, but that, that doesn't really do for me, right, because we're not looking at what, what was the impact, what was the true impact, what were the faulty beliefs about myself that resulted from these, this cause, the, the resentments that I had towards my parents, the way that my parents treated me, what was the true impact of that, the faulty beliefs and fears and faulty programming that resulted from this experience from my childhood. But like I said, at this point in time, when I wrote this, I did not have the data points to know truly how much it had impacted me. But I guess that's actually not completely true though, because if I Look at the other that's on here, the other kind of resentments and the fears. I mean, honestly, in the character defects of these other things, you know, these actually were all a result of. Of the faulty beliefs and like, about myself and fears that were ingrained in me during my childhood. These were all in reaction to that, of these kind of faulty survival mechanisms. Like, truly, I guess it's not faulty. It was the way that I had to survive, you know, but all this other shit that was on here was truly just a result of. Of my childhood and what was ingrained in me in these laundry list traits and just ways that I literally figured out, like, a way to survive everything that I was experiencing at home. So it's interesting, I've been thinking about that. Is that just the case for everybody when we're doing this four step, when we're doing that fourth column and we're looking at these character defects? I guess they all are just survival mechanisms and are they all rooted in childhood for everyone? And how come some people can, you know, do this, the fourth and fifth step? And in course, correct from that without having to do any of, like, the deeper childhood stuff? You know, I think about, you know, my friends, the girls that I got sober with, who also, I'm sure, had trauma in their childhood, but they did not. They didn't hit an ACA bottom in the way that I did, or they haven't at least yet. But I'm just one of those people where. And perhaps we all just do have it and it just comes up in varying degrees. And I just happen to be one of those people where confronting this other shit like literally my life depended upon facing had, you know, impacted me in such a severe degree that my life depended upon. Upon facing that. But actually, Dr. Drew talked about that when I had him on the podcast. He made a comment about that how, you know, there's certain people that can just do, you know, the 12 steps and that, that, that, that suffices for them. Yeah, I'm sure that there's. There's deeper levels that they can go, but then there's people like me, and I'm sure many of you guys listening where that wasn't enough, right? It was not enough. But what I want to say is that I truly view that as a gift and as a blessing. Despite all pain that I experienced. It's been so worth it just to be able to do this deep inner work. And we all know it's worth it, right? Because you wouldn't be listening to my damn voice right now. But truly, it's all this shit, the pain, the crap, the way that it manifested that has allowed me to be forced to do the work and subsequently really get to know myself and know who I am and see myself for who I am and just to see that all that pain resulted in good and shaped me into who I am today and gave me a lot of really wonderful qualities. So if you're one of those people too, where the 12 steps by themselves were not enough, don't worry. You are in the cool kids club. Okay, so let's move on and let's get into this. Let's get into this Step four. So I'm going to be going through the adult children. It's called the 12 Steps of Adult Children Steps workbook. So it says getting started on step four. In approaching step four, many adult children have said, why dredge up the past? What is done is done. I'm forgetting the past and moving forward. For these statements, ACA has an answer and a guarantee. Most people don't arrive at aca's door by mistake. You are here for a reason, so keep an open mind. Our experience tells us that our past can be our greatest asset if we are willing to ask for help and do the work to find out what happened. Simply recounting the past is not always enough to bring about healing and self forgiveness. Without knowing the meaning of the abandonment encoded within the past, the adult child is doomed to repeat it. I'm going to say that again because this is huge. Simply recounting the past is not always enough to bring about healing and self forgiveness. Without knowing the meaning of the abandonment encoded within the past, the adult child is doomed to repeat it. The unexamined past becomes the future of the next generation. If the steps do not bring relief or clarity to your life, we will refund your old way of life in full. This is the ACA guaranteed. If anyone out there, anyone listening that has taken advantage of this, of this refund, let me know if that's true. Let me know if they actually will refund your shitty ass life. So what is different about this step, this four step compared to a four step in AA and na, is that we're not just solely looking at our behaviors or our resentments. We're also looking at the behavior of our caregivers, of our parents, and how this has impacted us. But the the real emphasis is that we are doing this blamelessly. And this is something that we've talked about a lot about, how in order for us to heal, we have to talk about that stuff. We have to understand the causes and conditions that made us the way that we are. But we're not doing this rooted in. In blame. We're doing this rooted in I'm trying to save my life. So I'm going to read what it a little bit. It talks about this in the, in the step book. It says the key word to remember in a in working. Aca's four step is blameless. ACA founder Tony A believed that adult children should take a searching and blameless inventory of our parents because, in essence, we had become them. Tony believed that we internalized our parents. We had become them in thinking and action, even if we took steps to be different. While we focus primarily on ourself, in step four, we have added an inventory of the family to the process. ACA believes that we cannot take a searching and fearless inventory if we leave out our family. Blame is not the purpose of step four or any of ACA's 12 steps. However, we can hold our parents and family accountable for their action and inaction. Blameless and accountability are the guideposts that steer us toward a balanced but searching inventory. And I think this next part is, is really interesting. So what does it mean to, like, hold our family accountable? It says we hold our family accountable by naming what happened to us without fear of being ridiculed or disbelieved. In step four, we name the threats, the hitting, the inappropriate touching, or whatever else might have happened to us. We avoid blame because we are aware of the generational nature of family dysfunction. Our parents passed on the seeds of shame and fear given to them. They were once children without a choice. They survived as we survived. While some parents were obviously sadistic or unrepentant, others did the best they could. These parents made a conscious decision to raise their children differently than they were raised. Many of these parents abstained from alcohol, yet passed on problematic fear and shame just the same. And it also says avoiding blame does not mean that we avoid being angry or disgusted. Many of us feel rage when we talk about the abuse and neglect in our homes. These are normal feelings for the abusive and unhealthy parenting we lived through. We also avoid sinking into a victim mindset. This mindset can disqualify us from the emotional and spiritual gifts of aca. We move out of the victim role and claim our personal power by taking this step. All right, so now let's talk about these various exercises within this workbook. So there are 12 separate exercises. I'm not going to go through every one in immense detail. But I do want to touch upon the key areas and the way I want to split this up is I want to first talk about what we're looking at as far as our past, so the inventories of our childhood experiences. And then we will talk about the. The inventories that relate to our behavior as adults. So the first area that we're looking at from our childhood is the. The laundry list worksheet. So this is where we are looking for events, incidences that contributed to us developing these laundry list traits. So we. We look at the. The 14 traits and see what is applicable for us. And then we do a little bit of investigating to see what are some incidences that contributed to us feeling. Feeling this way. So for me, for example, one of the laundry list traits that I relate to is we become addicted to excitement and the incidences and events that contributed that to that. For me, were sitting on the steps, listening to my parents fight, you know, getting an adrenaline rush from that, helping my dad search the house for my mom's booze. You know, going into the liquor cabinet with my dad at the age of eight and using a paint stick to measure and monitor each bottle in the liquor cabinet. And you know, for me, in all of those instances, the way that my fear came through, I mean, obviously I was in fear, but for me, it was. It was an adrenaline rush. Like, I got high and I mean, I remember there were even times when I would get a sense that something was going to happen, that there was going to be like an incident later in the day and if something didn't happen. But I would say, like 95% of the time, my sixth sense was accurate, but the 5% of the time where maybe some big scene didn't occur, I actually would feel bummed out about it. It's like going to meet my dealer and then finding out that. That he's all out. So then another trait for me too would be, you know, we have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods. And so for that, for me, and I think this is the experience of so many people, it would just be these huge fights, getting divorced, the world is over, and then waking up the next morning, and it's as if nothing ever happened. And that is so confusing for a child. And we learn to not trust ourselves and trust our reality, and it also contributes to not learning how to. To process emotions. We learn growing up that you go from 0 to 10 and 10 to 0, as tion Dayton says, with no speed bumps in between. So next we are looking at denial. So there are two separate exercises related to denial. The first is a family secrets inventory. It says almost every dysfunctional family has a story or image that family members present to friends in outside world. But beneath the storyline is the reality of the dysfunctional home. There are secrets, inconsistencies and wrongs that are contrary to the family image. Family denial supports the family image and denies the hidden story. So for my family, we were, you know, this nice looking family from the outside. We went to church every Sunday. We belonged to the country club. We went on a lot of fun vacations, but behind closed doors. My mom was an alcoholic. My dad was a workaholic who traveled out of town all the time and knowingly left me at home with my mom when he knew that she was driving me around drunk. Unfortunately, the family secrets rule did not apply to me and my problems as a child and teenager. Then there's also a denial inventory. So then next there is a denial inventory. So it says, denial lives in the way we recall the abuse, neglect, or rejection we suffered as children. Denial is the mechanism which protects and helps plant the seed of family dysfunction in the next generation. So in this exercise, we're looking for specific instances or events in which we were abused or neglected or traumatized that we were in denial about as far as how it impacted us. For me, I was in denial about my whole childhood. You know, I had no idea that I had endured trauma. I had no idea that I had endured abuse. I was under the assumption that because I was never hit, I was never sexually abused, I was never told I was a piece of shit, I never missed a meal. That truly, how bad could I have been impacted? Well, guess what? Pretty damn bad. Well, guess what? A whole hell of a lot. And part of the reason I started this podcast is just for that very reason, to reach y'all who are oblivious to truly how their childhood impacted them. So next we have an inventory on shame and an inventory on abandonment. And these are the real high dollar items for us adult children. This is what we all so fortunately get to share. Even though the specifics of our childhoods may vary. We all know shame and abandonment. And so it says, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous states that resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. In aca, we believe shame claims the number one spot. We believe that shame is so potent that a few drops can create a lifetime of lost self. Shame was often on the scene before abandonment, which is perhaps the second most troublesome abuse we have faced as children of unhealthy parenting. To shame a child is to abandon the child. A parent can shame and abandon a child without ever leaving the room because a shamed child feels unlovable and alone at a deep level. Adult children not only feel shame at the molecular level, but we also carry inherent shame. We not only feel shame, we believe we are shame. Wow. Lucky us, man. We sure. We sure won the damn lottery. So, yeah, so there's the shame inventory. It says, you know, in addition to sexual abuse and harsh cursings, shame can come from calm statements by parents about appearance, speech, dress and mannerism. Some shame can be uttered in tones of sarcasm, overly critical judgments and hurtful comments veiled as teasing or jokes. Okay, so then the only remaining inventory in here related to childhood is a. A sexual abuse inventory. So now let's move along to the areas of our own behavior that we are going to dissect. And so there are two separate inventories that look at how we have harmed others. The first of which being a generational transfer inventory, basically looking for how we have Harry.
