The Healing Sequence: Denial, Awareness, Acceptance & Action (ACA Steps 1-3)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Adult Child – "The Healing Sequence: Denial, Awareness, Acceptance & Action (ACA Steps 1-3)"

Released on March 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this poignant episode of Adult Child, host Andrea delves deep into the foundational steps of the Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families (ACA) 12-step program. Focusing on Steps 1, 2, and 3, Andrea and Teresa explore the journey from denial to taking actionable steps towards healing. This episode is a beacon for listeners grappling with the lingering shadows of dysfunctional family dynamics, offering raw insights and practical guidance.

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Step 1: Admitting Powerlessness and Unmanageability

Timestamp: [09:04]

Andrea begins by unpacking Step 1, which involves acknowledging that one is powerless over the effects of a dysfunctional family and that life has become unmanageable. This step is pivotal in lifting the veil of denial that many adult children wear to mask their internal struggles.

Key Points:

• Functional Freeze: Teresa explains that hyper-responsibility and over-functioning are forms of freeze responses, where individuals do everything outwardly while internally disconnecting from themselves ([00:26]).
• Acknowledging the Problem: Andrea shares her personal journey, highlighting how her unresolved issues with dysfunctional family dynamics manifested in her romantic relationships. It wasn't until significant personal experiences that she recognized the depth of her powerlessness over these ingrained patterns.
• Unmanageability in Daily Life: Teresa recounts how unmanageability manifested in various aspects of her life, such as lying, neglecting self-care, poor performance at work, and losing connection with her higher power ([12:35]). She emphasizes that unmanageability is a subjective experience rooted in the inability to control everything and everyone.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrea: “You are not responsible for going back and fixing our dysfunctional family through our present-day relationships. Whether we consciously know it or not.” ([12:35])
• Teresa: “Unmanageability is what happens when we abandon our true selves.” ([09:04])

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Step 2: Believing in a Higher Power for Restoration

Timestamp: [34:01]

Transitioning to Step 2, the conversation centers on believing that a power greater than oneself can restore sanity. This step challenges the deeply ingrained belief systems that many adult children hold about their own unworthiness and the impossibility of change.

Key Points:

• Overcoming Faulty Beliefs: Teresa discusses how adult children often harbor limiting beliefs such as feeling inherently flawed or unlovable. Recognizing that healing is possible is essential in this step.
• Brainwashing and Roles: Drawing parallels between dysfunctional families and cults, Teresa highlights how roles (e.g., hero, scapegoat) and brainwashing contribute to maintaining dysfunctional dynamics ([37:03]).
• Cultural Misconceptions of Control: Andrea and Teresa explore how societal narratives about empowerment and self-reliance can hinder acceptance of powerlessness, emphasizing that accepting this is a strength, not a weakness.

Notable Quotes:

• Teresa: “By accepting one's powerlessness over the disease of family dysfunction, we cultivate self-compassion and self-empowerment.” ([12:35])
• Andrea: “We can stop eating ourselves by coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.” ([38:48])

Personal Insights: Andrea shares practical strategies she employs to align her thoughts with healing, such as EFT tapping, the Three Step Choose Again Method, and gratitude journaling. These tools help in managing fear and reinforcing positive beliefs ([32:06], [56:38]).

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Step 3: Turning Will and Life Over to a Higher Power

Timestamp: [49:00]

Step 3 focuses on making a decision to turn one’s will and life over to the care of a higher power. This step signifies a conscious shift from attempting to control every aspect of life to seeking guidance and support from an external source.

Key Points:

• Decision-Making as Cutting Off: Andrea explains that the term "decision" etymologically means to cut off other choices, symbolizing the deliberate act of surrendering control ([49:00]).
• Struggles with Higher Power Concept: Many adult children wrestle with the notion of a higher power, especially if their upbringing associated religious teachings with trauma. Andrea addresses these struggles, encouraging listeners to redefine their understanding of a higher power ([31:58]).
• Surrendering Control: Teresa emphasizes that surrendering isn't about weakness but about recognizing the futility of self-control and embracing faith in the healing process. She likens acting in faith to choosing to step into safety rather than perpetuating fear ([49:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• Andrea: “Surrendering our plans to run our own lives on self-will is about acting in faith rather than fear.” ([49:00])
• Teresa: “This step is not saying we came to believe that praying twice a day and going to church every Sunday could restore us to sanity.” ([38:50])

Practical Applications: Both Andrea and Teresa share actionable techniques for managing anxiety and fear, such as EFT tapping and forgiveness exercises, which reinforce the principles of Step 3 by fostering present-moment relief and gratitude ([56:38], [60:56]).

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Dysfunctional Families as Cannibalistic Cults

Timestamp: [36:07]

A profound segment of the episode draws an analogy between dysfunctional families and cannibalistic cults, highlighting the destructive patterns that perpetuate dysfunction across generations.

Key Points:

• Emotional Cannibalization: Teresa references Jerry Rice's explanation of how dysfunctional families consume their members' true selves through manipulation and emotional abuse, thereby maintaining their unhealthy dynamics ([37:05]).
• Five Similarities to Cults:
  1. Brainwashing: Ingraining faulty beliefs and fears.
  2. Roles Imposition: Assigning roles like hero, scapegoat, etc.
  3. Paranoia about External Perception: Maintaining a facade of normalcy.
  4. Shame and Fear-Based Control: Utilizing negative emotions to sustain control.
  5. Punishing Whistleblowers: Delegitimizing and penalizing those who attempt to break free.

Notable Quotes:

• Teresa: “These family members may be cut off, humiliated, or even hated if they get too close to the truth.” ([38:48])
• Andrea: “We can stop eating ourselves by coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.” ([38:48])

Participant Stories: Teresa shares several poignant anecdotes from listeners, illustrating the various forms of emotional and psychological abuse experienced within dysfunctional families:

• A child finding a stranger in a parent's bed ([28:17]).
• Exposure to inappropriate behavior and language by parents ([28:20], [38:03]).
• Manipulative and neglectful parental actions causing long-term trauma ([28:20], [43:57]).

These stories underscore the pervasive impact of dysfunctional family environments on individuals' mental and emotional well-being.

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Conclusion and Moving Forward

The episode culminates with a reaffirmation of hope and the transformative potential of the ACA steps. Andrea emphasizes that admitting powerlessness and embracing a higher power are not signs of weakness but courageous steps toward healing. By sharing personal experiences and listener stories, the episode fosters a sense of community and solidarity among adult children striving to break free from their pasts.

Final Thoughts:

• Encouragement to Seek Help: Andrea urges listeners to actively engage in their healing journey, whether through ACA steps, professional therapy, or supportive communities.
• Empowerment Through Acceptance: Accepting one's powerlessness over past dysfunction is depicted as the gateway to reclaiming agency over one's present and future.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrea: “We are not powerless over our future. Change and healing will occur if you seek it.” ([49:00])
• Teresa: “It's about respecting our truth without trying to carry the dysfunction with us.” ([41:05])

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Key Takeaways

1. Acknowledgment is Crucial: Recognizing and admitting the influence of a dysfunctional family is the first step toward healing.
2. Belief in Possibility: Embracing the belief that change is attainable empowers individuals to seek and accept help.
3. Surrender to Healing: Letting go of the need to control every aspect of life opens the door to support from higher powers or supportive communities.
4. Understanding Dysfunctional Dynamics: Drawing parallels between dysfunctional families and cults helps in identifying and dismantling destructive patterns.
5. Community and Shared Experiences: Hearing others’ stories provides validation and encourages collective healing.

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For those navigating the tumultuous waters of adult child syndrome and seeking a path to healing, this episode offers invaluable insights and practical steps rooted in the ACA framework. Andrea and Teresa's candid discussions serve as both a guide and a comforting reminder that recovery is possible with the right support and mindset.

Transcript

[Andrea]

So tell me if this sounds like you.

[Teresa]

You're the one holding it all together.

[Andrea]

You're the reliable one, the helper, the fixer. You're getting it done at work in your relationships, for your family. But inside you're exhausted. Rest feels impossible or even guilt inducing. Asking for help feels unsafe, maybe even a little shameful. Your body is always clenched. You're running on empty, but you can't stop. So here's what no one tells you. That hyper responsibility, that constant over functioning.

[E]

That is one of the most overlooked.

[Andrea]

Forms of functional freeze.

[Teresa]

We're. We tend to think freeze looks like shutdown, like doing nothing. But sometimes freeze looks like doing everything.

[Andrea]

Fixing, helping, performing. All while disconnecting from yourself underneath it all. And here's the thing. You can't think your way out of this mindset. Hacks won't melt this freeze because it's not about mindset. It's your nervous system stuck in survival mode. It's about your body believing it's only safe if you keep doing. And I know plenty of you right now are hardcore relating to everything that I'm saying. Which is why I'm so excited about Breathe to Heal. A six week Somatic breath work core course designed exactly for this. Led by Teresa, a certified Somatic breathwork.

[Teresa]

Practitioner and a fellow member of our show community, this course will help you.

[Andrea]

Reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system and begin to feel safe enough to rest, slow down and just be and y'all. This is a steal compared to most systematic healing programs out there. We start on Wednesday, May 14th at 8:30pm Eastern. It's all online.

[Teresa]

It's live on Zoom, so get your.

[Andrea]

Damn [e-mail] breathe to heal.

[Teresa]

That's breathe with an e at the.

[Andrea]

End or you can see the link in the show notes. Your nervous system has been waiting for this, so please don't leave it hanging.

[Teresa]

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. My name is Andrea and this is Idle Child.

[F]

What's making you small now?

[Teresa]

Welcome back to Adult Child where we.

[E]

Take a deep dive into the impact.

[Teresa]

Of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Ahoy my dear Shit shows. For any new listeners, my name is Andrea. I am a total and complete shit show. I am the captain of this hot mess of a ship. And if you're wondering what the hell an adult child is, an adult child is somebody whose childhood experiences, the programming of their childhood is manifesting in adulthood in some not so great ways. And let's be honest, this is pretty much everyone, right? I think that the the way that this manifests in adulthood is more painful for some than others. But pretty much everyone out there on this planet is struggling with something that is most likely rooted in their childhood experiences. So consider yourself lucky if you've made this realization, because so many damn people will never figure that out. So for anyone who may not know, I'm currently on a little hiatus working on the relaunch of this podcast to share everything that I've learned and experienced. And boy has it been a doozy since launching this podcast almost four years ago. So in the meantime, we are taking a deep dive into the adult child vault. So for the next two weeks we are going to be revisiting some of the episodes that I did on the ACA 12 steps. So ACA stands for adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families. This is a 12 step program. I just want to provide a little information for anybody who may not be familiar share the origin story of this 12 step program. So there was a a group of folks who were members of Alotine. So if you don't know what aline is, we have aa. This is for the alcoholics and the addicts. Then we have Al Anon, which is for the family members of alcoholics and addicts. And then we have Alotine, which is for teenagers who are being impacted by the disease of alcoholism and addiction. So we have this group of folks that were members of Alotine who then graduated into Al Anon. So they came of age and what they realized when they started to attend these Al Anon meetings was that they couldn't necessarily really relate to what was being shared in these meetings. People who were talking about, you know, issues with their spouse or issues with their child. And these people were trying to recover from having just grown up in an alcoholic home. And so they decided to create their own meeting, which eventually became its own 12 step program, Adult Children of Alcoholics. And so one of the realizations that they had after forming ACA was that despite the specific details of their childhood experiences, there were these common characteristics amongst them. This then turned into the laundry list, the 14 common characteristics of an Adult Child of an alcoholic. And then it wasn't long after that that they realized that people who grew up in al other types of dysfunction also exhibited these traits, that other breeds of family dysfunction could also produce an adult child. Thus the term adult child and the the 12 step program, it became Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families. So here's the deal, folks. Okay, number one, this is not an official ACA podcast. I do not speak on behalf of aca. I am just a shit show with a podcast. So this is just my experience. So take what you want and leave the rest. Next, the 12 steps are just one of the tools that are available to us. A very valuable tool in my opinion. And frankly, I think that this world would probably be a much better place if everyone was required to work the steps once in their life. I do just want to say, for anybody who is not familiar with the 12 steps, has no interest in working the steps. Maybe you're even opposed to the 12 steps or the God stuff freaks you out. Please still give this episode a listen because I promise you that there is tons of valuable information in here for you and for anyone who is familiar with the 12 steps and may have worked them in a different program. Approaching the 12 steps from an adult child perspective is an opportunity for new layers of healing and deeper awareness. So today we're going to be revisiting steps one, two, and three. And then next week we will be revisiting the episodes that I did on steps 4, 5, 6, and 7. So let's just get on with the damn show. All right, but first let's talk about why you, yes, you need to damn the join shit show. My online support community where I host four weekly zoom support groups. So to be clear, this is not affiliated with ACA at all. While we do use, you know, some of their materials for readings for our support groups, this is a community where we incorporate a ton of different healing resources and healing modalities, which I think is so important considering this is really a trauma thing, folks. This is about relational trauma. And as I say, we heal relational trauma through safe relationships. And this is a community where you can do so, where you can connect with other fellow recovering shit shows who are truly committed to doing the damn work to heal. This is a support system at your fingertips in your back pocket with through our Apple. You can access this community through the website or the app through our website where you can reach out if you are in need at any damn time of the day. We also have a ton of different sub communities, discussion boards that are targeted to particular struggles or interests. This is the damn place to be to heal, folks. Okay? This is a support group where we actually have a lot of fun too, and we do a lot of laughing. So how about you? Yes, you, the person that's been wanting to join for forever and I know there are so many of you out There that fall into this camp. Let's just do the damn thing already, okay? Let's just do the damn thing. You can quit after a month. Just give it a go, give it a shot. See the link in the show notes to join. Do it now. Next, give me a little follow on Insta, on TikTok, AdultShopod. And last but not least, please, please, please, whatever you do, give me a damn five star rating on Apple, on Spotify.

[E]

Thank you.

[Teresa]

Love you all.

[E]

So step one for aca, we admitted we are powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction, that our lives had become unmanageable. Now, in a nutshell, this step is all about lifting the veil of denial. So in the Big Red book it says step one requires that we admit our family is dysfunctional and the dysfunction affects our thinking and behaviors as adults. We must admit that we are powerless over the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Our lives are unmanageable regardless of appearances of self sufficiency, social standing or compulsive self reliance does not, I repeat, does not equal recovery. We must realize that willpower or self determination is no match for the effects of growing up in a sick family. So we all know that my adult child syndrome manifested itself in romantic relationships, but that it took me a very long time to realize that this was what was going on with me. Now, initially, I think I attributed my dating issues to being in early sobriety or to the normal process of dating and finding myself. Right, like that's normal. I believe we find out what we want and what we don't want in a relationship through experience. But the whole premise of that is that hopefully in each relationship we get a little bit closer to that ideal. And also we, you know, have make better decisions as well. But as you know, that was not the case for me. And I think another thing that was going on that was preventing me from seeing how big of a problem this actually was was that I didn't hop from one relationship to the next. There were significant periods of time between each relationship. A year, a year and a half. And in that period of time after I got over the initial heartbreak, the heartbreak that I had been completely convinced I would never get over, but always did. But once I got over that heartbreak, I felt good. I felt good about myself, I felt good about life, I had a lot of fun, my life was full and fulfilling. And so I would enter the next relationship in this state confident that things would be different this time, right? Because I was feeling so good about myself and they never were. Nothing was ever better. And I just didn't understand how in the matter of a date or two dates, all that I thought I knew and believed about myself would just fly out the window. And it wasn't until that aha moment with Brian number one that I realized what was going on. And then I read the ACA book and I'm like, okay, this shit makes sense. But still, after reading that book, I did not internalize that I was suffering from a disease that was just as powerful as my alcoholism, or that I was powerless over the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Y'all remember my comment to the lady when she told me, you know, this is going to take years for you to get over? I remember thinking, years? Years? I don't have years, lady.

[Teresa]

I'm almost 30, a.k.a.

[E]

I'M essentially a senior citizen and I need to have this shit fixed yesterday or at most a few months. And I really just hoped that her childhood had been a lot more fucked up than mine. But to be safe, I decided to take a year off from dating. And I felt pretty confident that a year hiatus and reading that book would surely suffice. But sadly, self knowledge would avail me nothing. Just like learning you have cancer doesn't make the cancer go away. Having the realization that my dating struggles were somehow rooted in childhood wasn't sufficient enough to produce any sort of internal shift. So enter Brian number two. So last week we talked about this period of time where we sit in the pain of our awareness before we truly find acceptance. And instead of beating ourselves up over this and viewing this period of time as self inflicted pain, I think the more accurate and compassionate way of viewing it is as gathering more data, doing more research. In the A BIC book it says we do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Step over to the nearest bar room and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once. It will not take you long for you to decide if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of the jitters if you get full knowledge of your condition. So in my case it was we do not like to pronounce any Andrea as an adult child, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Get yourself back on that Bumble app and find yourself another Brian with a drinking problem. See if you can stop seeing him after he drunk dials you and sends you One Direction music videos. Try staying in a hotel room with him for 72 hours where he drinks nonstop. It will not take long for you to decide if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth feeling like a miserable junkie for six months when you're actually nine years sober if you get full knowledge of your condition. And guess what? It was fucking worth it. Because by the end of that relationship, I had full knowledge of my condition and of just how powerless I was. And I do not mean that I was powerless over alcohol or alcoholism. I knew this already. It didn't matter how many bottles of my mom's booze I poured down the drain as a kid. There was always another bottle. It didn't matter how many times I told myself that I wouldn't get shit faced and turn into a monster. Every time I drank, I blacked out. And nine times out of 10 I was a sloppy shit show. I had no qualms about being powerless over alcohol or alcoholism. But it was in this moment that I finally saw how powerless I was over the effects of alcoholism. Over the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. This deep soul wound that I had no clue was there. Now, powerlessness for an adult child means we were not responsible for our parents dysfunctional behaviors when we were kids and we are not responsible for our parents dysfunctional behaviors as adults. It means that we are not responsible for going back and fixing our dysfunctional family through our present day relationships. Whether we consciously know it or not. We feel that we failed in fixing our families. So we find ourselves in similar situations and relationships in an attempt to fix what we failed to do as children. And guess what? We fail at that shit as well. And this is what we call the repetition compulsion, which is a psychological phenomenon deemed by Freud in which we repeat the emotional, psychological or behavioral aspects of a traumatic event over and over without awareness. We recreate the pain from yesterday in our relationships and circumstances of today. We repeatedly find ourselves in relationships with alcoholics or addicts or narcissists, or people who are emotionally unavailable, thinking that we can somehow fix them and change them. We repeatedly find ourselves in relationships and situations that make us feel exactly how we felt as children growing up in a dysfunctional family. Now a lot of people balk at the idea of accepting their powerlessness in any capacity because our culture tells us that we should feel empowered that we can conquer anything we set our mind to. That failure is a result of weakness. But accepting one's powerlessness of over the disease of family dysfunction does not mean giving up. And it has absolutely nothing to do with weakness. It is about accepting a harsh truth. To face a problem head on and accept that we are powerless over the impact of our dysfunctional upbringings takes a tremendous amount of strength. And it is also the vehicle through which self compassion and self empowerment can be cultivated. Now, I saw the underlying cause of my powerlessness as two pronged. The first being the faulty programming, the limiting beliefs that I held about myself, that I was inherently flawed, that I was unworthy, that I was unlovable, and the irrational fears that I held, like, this is the last guy on earth that will ever like me, and this was my last chance at love. And this resulted in me finding myself in relationships with partners that affirmed and further ingrained these faulty beliefs and fears within me. And the other underlying root of my powerlessness was this stored trauma. As soon as I got into a relationship, this stored trauma would come out of hiding and I lost my personal agency. I went into survival mode and I lived in a trauma response. I lost control of my emotions, my thoughts, my behaviors, my body. And this made my life real unmanageable. Unmanageability, I think, for a lot of adult children is difficult to recognize, to acknowledge, because it's all we know. We grew up in homes that were unmanageable, that we thought were manageable. I said in the very first episode that what makes a family dysfunctional is not the dysfunction itself, but how the dysfunction is handled. And when the dysfunction is ever present is either flat out denied or even if it's acknowledged, it's never resolved. That is what we call unmanageable, even if things look nice and pretty from the outside. So unmanageability for me. About a month ago, I was going through an old notebook of mine and I found a list of ways that my life was unmanageable. So this was dated January 20, 2018. This was about a week after Brian, number two, broke up with me. And I've just been waiting for an opportunity to be able to share this with you all. And lookie here, now is my chance. Number one, lying. I will lie to friends, families, my sponsor about various things, about how much Brian is drinking or not drinking, details of an evening, if I'm seeing him or talking to him or lies to cover up other lies. Number two, I'm neglecting myself physically. I am chain smoking. I am not eating or when I do eat, it's very unhealthy and I am not working out. Number three, I'm performing very poorly at work. I am not able to focus at work because I am so anxious and in fear related to this relationship, I'm making up excuses for why I can't come into work or leaving midday so that I can go pull him out of a bar or babysit him at his apartment to make sure he doesn't go out and drink. Number four, I've lost my connection with my higher power. I stop praying and meditating on a daily basis partially out of shame because I know that the relationship is not God's will for me. And I don't wanna pray for God's will or the strength and guidance because that will is ending the relationship. God, it's raw. Number five. I've lost my control over my serenity, my mood and my mental state is completely dictated by his actions or inactions. I'm happy and fine and serene when I think that everything is going well or I'm a complete basket case if he isn't responding to me or doesn't respond in the way that I want him to. Number six, I am a shitty friend. I will cancel on my friends or bail on them in a heartbeat if I have the opportunity to spend time with him. When I do spend time with them, I am often not present or in a fragile negative space, desperately needing them to take care of me or say the right things to make me feel better. Number seven, I become unable to do adult type responsibilities. My apartment is a nightmare, I am paying bills late, I am unaware of how much money I am spending and I never check my mail. Number eight, I put this relationship over working my program. I skip meetings. I don't make much of an effort to connect with my sponsor or to do step work. I bail on my service positions when I should be at a meeting, when I. I am out at a bar with Brian, with I've said this before, but this bottom. When I hit this bottom compared to when I hit my alcoholism bottom, you know, my life was so much more unmanageable because I got sober at 19 when essentially my life had been managed for me. There was truly not much damage, but there was so much more during this bottom, when I hit this bottom when I was 28 years old. Now, unmanageability is a subjective experience and it is rooted in our failed attempt to control everything and everyone. And unmanageability is what happens when we abandon our true selves. Unmanageability is when we allow the actions or inactions of another to dictate our peace of mind. Unmanageability is when we look outward to feel okay about ourselves. Unmanageability is when we sacrifice self care for others when we tend to the wants or needs of others at the expense of our own unmanageability is when we try to solve problems that are either not ours to fix or unfixable. This results in external ramifications, but we won't truly be able to address those external examples of unmanageability until we resolve what's going on with us internally. And what's going on for us internally is that we are suffering from the disease of family dysfunction. And what does that mean? I want to close our discussion here by reading something from the ACA Redbook that discusses this disease concept. So it says any discussion about ACA powerlessness and unmanageability is incomplete without the disease concept of alcoholism and family dysfunction. When alcoholic or other dysfunction is present in the family, every member of the family is affected. We were affected in mind, body and spirit through the first 18 years of our lives. Our families had 6,570 days to shame, belittle, ignore, criticize, or manipulate us during the most formative years of our being. That is 160,000 hours of living in dysfunction with unhealthy parenting. That is 72 seasons of sorrow stored deeply in the tissues of her body. The dysfunction is encoded into our souls as the false self. To survive this long exposure to family dysfunction, our minds develop deeply entrenched roles and traits that change the meaning of words and experiences. As children, we did not have the option to leave our homes if our parents slapped us, molested us, or neglected us. We had to live with them. We had to figure out a way to survive because we were vulnerable. We changed the way we perceived the emotional and physical abuse. We feared for our safety or feared we had caused these things to happen. We developed stories that minimized our parents behaviors or which convinced us that we were wrong and deserved their harmful behavior. Such confused thinking fueled our denial as adults. The confusion allowed many of us to say that we had normal childhoods when we had lived through hell. We thought we had forgotten the abuse, but the body and mind remembered. The survival traits we lived by showed a clear path of our terror of abandonment and being shamed. During these years of family dysfunction, our inner child or true self went into hiding and remained heavily fortified under addictions or dependent behavior. This is what we mean when we say the disease of family dysfunction affects us in body, mind and spirit. The disease survives in the language of denial and is passed on to the next generation through secrets, blame, and confusion. The disease of family dysfunction is progressive, incurable, and sometimes fatal. The Disease becomes worse over time unless treated. Many adult children have taken their own lives or died from complications of drug addiction or physical ailments that can be traced to childhood abuse. This is the dire nature of the family disease of dysfunction and its great reach. The but there is much hope in ACA and in sharing our pain with other recovering adult children. So there is great hope. Right? We have just admitted our powerlessness and our unmanageability, which means we are now in a position to seek help, seek healing. And there are many ways to go about that, as we've discussed throughout the podcast. And I think that the 12 steps is. Is one of those ways that can help us along our journey. I do think it's so important that we also seek professional help. I'm not trying to push the 12 steps down your throat, but I do believe that everyone would benefit from doing them at least once in their life. I think the world would be a much better place if that were the case. Or it should at least be the case for social media. So today we are diving deep into step two of the ACA program. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Before we dive into step two, let's just have a quick little recap on step one. We admitted we were powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction and that our lives had become unmanageable. So this is about lifting the veil of denial, admitting that our families was is dysfunctional, and how this dysfunction has had a devastating impact on our thinking and behavior as adults. So a few weeks ago, I made a little video for social media about the three types of adult children. The first type being the adult child who doesn't know they're an adult child.

[Teresa]

They either don't realize that they grew.

[E]

Up in a dysfunctional family, or if they are privy to this information, they don't think it impacted them in a significant way. And these are the people who are clueless that the challenges and the pain that they repeatedly experience in adulthood is the direct result of their childhood, as was the case for me for many years. So then we have type two, the adult child, who knows they're an adult child, but they aren't willing to do the work needed to heal. And this could be for a variety of reasons, right? So one could be that they know that healing will be painful and they don't think they're strong enough to handle it, or they think that they can just fix this shit on their own, or they know that healing will require talking about their Childhood, which they view as a form of betrayal to their families. And then we have the third type. This is the type you want to be all the adult child who knows that they're an adult child who's willing to do the hard yet deeply rewarding work to heal the pain of the past. They are determined to break the cycle of family dysfunction. They know that yes, healing will be painful, but that eventually we will get to the other side of that pain, which is a whole hell of a lot better than living in the perpetual pain that we will endure if we choose not to. Look at this shit. Now, I don't know if it's possible to go directly from type one to type three. I think that this Type two is just a normal part of the process. In the Step one episode, we talked about this, about this process of going from awareness to acceptance. That we become aware that we're adult children, that the unresolved past the cause of our present day pain. But how this awareness does not immediately result into acceptance. We typically sit in this uncomfortableness and this pain of this newfound awareness. And if we're lucky, this pain will become great enough and this will become the fuel to coming to a place of acceptance that we cannot fix this on our own and that we need help. So we've arrived now at step two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Now, let's just take the whole God, higher power piece out of this. What this step is saying is that we come to believe that change is possible, that we come to believe that healing is a possibility for us. And you know what? This can seem like a rather tall feat considering that the core belief for so many adult children is this belief that we are inherently flawed and unfixable. But the fact of the matter is, no, you are not. You are not inherently flawed and unfixable. You're an adult child. And there are so many adult children out there who have been in the exact same shoes as you, who have felt just as hurt and broken as you, who have been equally convinced they are inherently flawed and unfixable, who have managed to heal and recover. So the proof is in the pudding. And I don't know why I just said that. Sorry, guys, I'm not gonna say that phrase again. So if you're still not on board.

[Teresa]

This is what I need from you.

[E]

I just need you to be willing to believe that I believe that healing is a possibility for you. Can you at least give me that?

[Teresa]

If you can't, I Don't.

[E]

I don't know what to tell you. I'm just a fucking podcast host. Okay.

[Andrea]

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[E]

So I'm going to read to you a little passage from the ACA Red Book for the section on Step two. I think this does a good job of kind of explaining what the hell is going on here. When I first read Step two, the notion of being restored to sanity confused me. Yet I remained quiet and continued to work the step and got some benefits. Anyway, I agreed that the insanity I Practice as an adult child in drug addiction and compulsive behaviors had actually been accepted by me as sane behavior. Being a people pleasing male, my denial allowed me to act irresponsibly. Sometimes I acted dangerously without comprehending another way to live. As I remained in the program and studied the steps, it slowly dawned on me that I had never really known sanity to begin with. My family of origin, with its cursings, belittlement and threats of abuse, was not an atmosphere that would produce a healthy person with a sane view of life. My distorted view of sanity was not totally insane, but it was not sane either. By working step two, I first found clarity and then sanity. I gained clarity about the level of abuse I had grown accustomed to. With such clarity, I glimpsed real sanity for the first time. I realized today that I have a choice of handling situations in an insane manner, such as cursing, shaming and blaming, or a sane manner with feelings, prayer and asking for help. I am being restored to clarity and I am finding sanity for the first time as well. So the, the spiritual principles of, of step two are clarity and open mindedness. So, and before we can get clarity on sanity, we gotta get clarity on insanity. So let's talk about insanity or more specifically, why a dysfunctional family is essentially a cannibalistic cult.

[G]

So the other day I was on the old YouTube and there's this guy, his name is Jerry Rice, he has a channel on there. I'll include his link, the link to it in the bio. He has a ton of amazing content that is very adult child applicable. And so I came across one of his videos the other day and it was titled Dysfunctional families, each their own. Are you being cannibalized by your family of origin? So in the video he is explaining about how there's this emotional cannibalization that is going on within a dysfunctional family that they eat their own by creating pain and unhealthy patterns and dynamics, you know, these emotional and mental imprints and then subsequently passing that along to the next generation. And what gets eaten is the true self. The dysfunction stays alive and thriving by devouring the truest and highest selves of the family members.

[E]

And I just want to say this.

[G]

One line in it. This was not meant to be funny, but I thought that this was hilarious. He says it's time to stop being eaten and time to stop eating your family and your kids and become your authentic self. Okay, so stop eating your family and your kids. So he also talks about the similarities between a dysfunctional family and a Cult. And then it all made sense why I've always been so obsessed with, you know, cults and Scientology and documentaries about them, because I'm actually a. A survivor of one. So I want to touch upon five similarities. So number one would be brainwashing. You know, the core problem of the adult child is this brainwashing, these faulty beliefs and fears that are ingrained in us as kids. Number two, roles. You know, we are placed into these roles. The hero, the scapegoat, the mascot, the lost child. And we are expected to play these roles. We are expected to act in accordance with.

[E]

With these.

[G]

And oftentimes we continue to play these roles, you know, in adulthood. Number three, the family is paranoid about the outside world's perception of them. This is the don't talk rule. Do not let anybody know what's actually going on within the family. Everyone must think that we're perfectly happy and healthy. Number four, the family relies on shame and fear to keep the family members safe, sucked in and keep the dysfunction alive and thriving. And then the last thing is, family members are often delegitimized and. Or penalized when we break away from the dysfunction and seek help and healing. And to me, that is just really one of the most insidious aspects of.

[E]

Of this disease.

[G]

And I think I may have read this before, I can't remember, but it is so powerful and really beautifully illustrates the insanity within a dysfunctional family. And so this is from Tion Dayton's book Emotional Sobriety. Those in the system who have the clarity or courage to act as whistleblowers who attempt to reveal the truth of the family. Pathology may be perceived by the family, which is steeped in denial, as in some way problematic. Naming the dysfunctional behavior becomes the sin, not the dysfunctional behavior itself. These family members may be cut off, humiliated, or even hated if they get.

[E]

Too close to the truth.

[G]

Though most of this may be unconscious, simply bringing up the family's problems causes other family members who cannot or will not see their own pathology to want to kill the messenger. Again, the message, the truth threatens their survival as a system. And, you know, I have experienced this firsthand, and I'm sure a lot of y'all have, too. You know, part of adult child recovery is no longer participating in the dysfunction. But that doesn't mean that, you know, we have to cut our families off completely. I mean, some of us may, but not all of us. And, you know, one thing I talk about and have been working through with my therapist is, you know, detaching and not participating in the dysfunction, but also not participating in the family denial. And I think the best way I can describe what I mean is that I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room. I will make note of the elephant. That is part of my reality. But I am not going to go over to the elephant and try to pick it up and try to carry this 2,000pound animal on my back outside to a nice little piece of grass. But unfortunately, what can happen when we acknowledge the elephant is that our families will lash out. They will say hurtful things, they will try to hurt us, they will try to punish us. But in my opinion, you know, that beats living in the denial and not acknowledging my own reality.

[E]

So I posed the question to you all, I posted it in my Patreon and on Instagram. What does insanity related to the disease of family dysfunction look like or mean to you? And I got some great responses. So I'm going to read some of these in lieu of not having a guest or interview today. So first off we have M. She gave us two Number one going into my mom's bedroom one morning at six years old and finding a naked mystery man in her bed asleep with her. And number two my dad showing my 14 year old self a cock ring during a party at our home and making jokes with his friends about whether I knew what it was. And next we have from Dana. After my dad refused to acknowledge, apologize or simply take ownership of his abuse, I proposed and he gladly agreed. We never speak of the past again because we'll never agree. Last month and 22 years later, my therapist helped me see that. This is so messed up. Recently I uncovered some memories that made the thought of interacting with him at all simply unbearable. After only one text unanswered, he went on a campaign with all other family members trying to figure out why I am mad and non responsive. Did he ever text, call or email me directly? Nope, not once. I mean, why go to the stores? Next we have Adela, my dad telling my 16 or 17 year old me how hot his new wife was and he compared her body to the teenage fast food worker in the drive through and showing me a poor quality picture of her. I told him that 1 the pic was too dark to see and 2 I'm not a lesbian so I don't know if she was hot. Next for Marina. My mother always gets upset if something she says upsets me. For example, when I told her that I was getting a divorce and tried to explain to her the abuse I went through she asked me how was my husband feeling about the situation being broken and in emotional pain. I replied that she shouldn't care how a person that hurt me feels, which made her cry because, quote, she was just trying to help. Next we have David bumming a smoke off my dad's hooker, Rick. One night my dad got super drunk and out of control. Our mother was scared for our lives, so she snuck us out the back door and had my aunt pick us up one block away. My dad got so mad, he nailed the windows and doors shut so we couldn't come back. Next, we have jets. With my wedding plans taking shape, my mother said she'd like to throw a gathering dinner at her apartment the night before, the evening commonly reserved for the rehearsal dinner.

[G]

I told her that I would rather.

[E]

Do something else instead. Her reply, you don't have to come. This isn't about you. And that's how that went. And then from Mountain Moon, when they ask why we can't just have a nice time where we don't talk about family issues, but we literally never talk about the family issues.

[G]

And now for Danielle.

[E]

Same gossip, discussion, cyclical thoughts over and over with no change. Now we have Paige. This is one of my favorites that I received once I went insane due to family dysfunction and emptied a bottle of Ranch all over the room. For anyone who doesn't know, I am a condiment whore. So, wow, what a waste of Ranch. Russ continually falling back into the trap of trying to change them. Michelle thinking I don't deserve good things. Steve, lack of choice. Kara believing the lie that shame tells you.

[G]

I thought it was interesting how some people chose to answer it as insanity within the dysfunctional family system, like insane scenes and memories from childhood. And then some people chose to answer it as far as the. The insanity that we experience, you know, within ourselves. You know, the insanity within ourselves manifests in so many ways. You know, the laundry list is a good example of all of this. So in the Big Art book, it says the insanity we speak of in step two refers to our continued efforts beyond all reasons to heal or fix our family of origin through our current relationships. And I think that this could be summed up more simply as just self harm, unconscious self harm. You know, one of the most powerful passages in the Big Red book is when it talks about how we subconsciously seek out situations in order to feel shame and pain.

[E]

And it says, as odd as it.

[G]

Sounds, many of us seemed addicted to shame or abandonment. Since we grew up with an orientation to fear, shame and abandonment. We seek out situations that recreate these feelings in ourselves. Adult children seem to seek the thing they dread the most because it is familiar. And this was a real, you know, holy shit moment for me. It wasn't just that I had a broken picker or horrible taste in men. There was this soul sickness inside of me that was seeking out these relationships to make me feel like and to reaffirm these faulty beliefs and fears festering within me. You know, it is essentially self cannibalization. But the beautiful news is that we can stop eating ourselves. We can stop eating our family and our kids and ourselves by coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. So the God thing, the whole higher power thing, tends to be the thing that turns people off from 12 step programs. You know, that's never been an issue for me, and I get the sense that most of y'all out there are on board with the whole higher power thing. But for anyone who is struggling with this piece, what I want to say is that this step is not saying we came to believe that praying twice a day and going to church every Sunday could restore us to sanity. It is saying we came to believe that A, we are worthy of a happy and healthy life, and B, we can get there by seeking help. And this help we seek, in essence, is a power greater than ourselves. You know, this includes God or a higher power or the Universe. This includes 12 step programs. Therapy, I think, could be an example of a higher power. Not our therapists, but the therapeutic process that goes on. I think this podcast is an example of a higher power. I'm not saying that I'm a higher power, but the conversations had the messages, the shared experience of being an adult child that is a form of a power greater than ourselves. And we may be powerless over our dysfunctional families and the impact that this had on us, but we are not powerless over our future. Change and healing will occur if you seek it. I promise you. I bet my life on it. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to happen if you stick with it. So don't be a number two. Be a number three and do the damn work. Today we're going to be talking about step three.

[F]

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God, AKA we made a decision to start taking action rooted in this belief that healing is possible. We made a decision to get out of the damn way and stop willfully trying to control everyone and everything and start seeking the help that is available to us. Now, the word decision, it comes from the Latin word, it comes from the same word as scissors, so meaning to cut off. So the word decision literally means cutting off choices, cutting off from one course of action and choosing another. So in the case here, we are cutting off this belief, this course of action that we can fix this shit on our own, and we are embarking on another course of action in which we seek help from a power greater than ourselves. Now, I asked the question on Instagram, you know, what are struggles or limiting beliefs that you have with accepting step three? And I think one of the more poignant responses that I received was that God is an evil asshole that traumatized me when I was younger. And I know that this is common struggle for a lot of adult children. You know, we may have grown up in a home where we were taught to believe in God or taught to pray, but we simultaneously learned to trust that, that things don't work out. You know, we felt that our higher power failed us or how could there possibly even be a higher power when we were subjected to some horrible shit growing up? And I don't really have an easy answer to that question, but, you know, I think it's, it talks a lot about, in, in the Big Red Book about how we have to separate, you know, our, our parents who many of us put in the position of a higher power and realize that our true loving parent is a higher power. I'm going to be honest, I'm not like fully on board with that, that our, you know, our, our true loving parent is a higher power. To me, I, I guess it's just kind of putting some limitations on my higher power in a sense. I just feel that parent is, is fallible. And I just think that my, in my opinion, my higher power is, is much greater than just a loving parent. But what I can say is, you know, I think that the only way if, if you're struggling kind of with this, this same belief that, you know, God is an evil asshole that traumatized me when I was younger. I think that if we can just act as if we don't believe this and just start acting, you know, in faith and try to make these decisions to, to seek help that in time we will see experience will show us that God is not an evil asshole that traumatized us when, when we were younger. Now the other common answer, the most common answer I received related to this question of what struggles you have related to step three was related to the issue of control. Now, in the Big Red book, It says, we believe that most of our emotional and mental distress can be traced to our steadfast nature to control. In aca, we realize that control was the survival trait which kept us safe or alive in our dysfunctional families. We controlled our thoughts, our voices, and many times our posture to escape detection from an abusive parent or caregiver. As adults, we continue to control ourselves and our relationships in an unhealthy manner. This brings abandonment or predictable turmoil. We make promises to do better, but eventually return to our obsessive need to compulsively arrange, question, worry, dust, wash, lock, unlock, read or hyper vigilantly survey our thoughts and actions to feel safe. But it is never enough. Experience shows that there's little hope and little spirituality in homes governed by smothering control. By making a decision to turn our will in our lives over to the care of God, as we understand God, we are actually making two decisions. By deciding to ask a higher power for guidance in step three, we are also deciding to back away from control. We are surrendering our plans to run our own lives on self will. We are asking God for help, which strikes at the heart of our instinctual reaction to solve problems on our own. You know, it's really helpful for me to remember that my need to control is often, I guess, not often. It's probably always rooted in fear. You know, to me, being in self will is when my behaviors and actions are rooted in fear. And when I think about step three, I think it as a choice to act in faith rather than fear. And I really don't even have to like truly have that faith or you know, truly believe. I just have to act as if I do. And time and time again it has worked out for me which has allowed me to actually have that faith when I'm choosing to act in faith as opposed to fear. So I shared last week that I have been, you know, struggling with some fear lately, particularly related to fear of the future. So I want to share what I've been doing to kind of counteract that. I don't know about you guys, but I, you know, I, I know all of these tools and I always forget about them in the moment. So I want to share what I've been doing that I, I feel has been providing me with relief in the present moment. So the first thing that I do is I, I do an eft tapping video. So I had, you know, Brad Yates on a couple months ago. And so if you're not familiar, you haven't listened to that episode. So eft tapping it's kind of rooted in Chinese acupuncture. But basically what it is is, you know, you're using your fingers to tap on these various parts of your body where acupuncture needles typically are placed, and you're simultaneously saying affirmations out loud. What I think is so powerful about this is, you know, most affirmations, it's simply acknowledging the good. But with eft, you're acknowledging the limiting beliefs and the fears while simultaneously also saying positive affirmations. So on Brad's YouTube page, he has a folder or playlist which is his, like quick quickie taps or quick taps or something. And so they're all. I mean, they're all between, I don't know, three to seven minutes. And so I pick one of those. He's got hundreds to choose from. And I can say for myself, I really, really find relief.

[Teresa]

I've.

[F]

I notice a huge difference in my body and the tension in my body and the stress of my body after I do one of these videos. I also really like them too, because it's easier for me to stay in the moment because you're. You're doing many things. So you're like tapping your face or your body. You're watching this video and then you're repeating the statements, the affirmations that he's saying. So for me, I just find it's. It's. It's hard to get distracted or off track because you have to be kind of doing many things at the same time. And as I said, I. I notice a very significant difference in my body after I do one of these videos. And so after I do that and I've kind of, you know, regulated myself a bit, I then do the three step choose again method, which comes from Gabby Bernstein's book Super Attractor. So the first step is to notice the thought. So she says, when you find yourself stuck in negativity or fear, consciously step back. You can do this by noticing your thoughts and energy are out of alignment with joy. Ask yourself, how do I feel right now? And then write that down in your journal. Journal or whatever. So then step two is to forgive the thought. She says, forgive yourself for being misaligned and celebrate your desire to shift. Thank your negative feelings and thoughts for showing you what you don't want and revealing to you what you do want. Write this down. Thank you for revealing to me what I don't want so that I can clarify what I do want. Again, that is, thank you for revealing to me what I don't want so that I can clarify what I do want. So then step three is choose again. She says, answer this question in your journal. What is the best feeling thought that I can find right now? And she says, then ask the universe, write this down. Thank you universe for guiding my thoughts towards good feeling emotions. So now you, you, you answer that question. What is the next best feeling thought that I can find right now? And the thing that she mentions is that this needs to be something that you can actually believe. So the example that she uses in, in the book is related to, you know, getting out of debt. She says, you know, if you're struggling with finances, the thought that I'm going to be out of debt in one week is like, is likely to create more misalignment because you probably won't believe it. So it needs to be something that you can believe. And what she says in the book would be something like, I am open to creative possibilities for abundance. And then she says, you know, this statement becomes like a prayer so I can read to you one that I did, I guess it was a couple weeks ago. So you know, how am I feeling right now? I'm feeling full of fear about the future. Thank you for revealing to me what I don't want so that I can clarify what I do want. So then step two, forgiving myself for having the thought. So thank you for revealing to me what I don't want so that I can clarify what I do want. Step three, you know, what is the best feeling thought that I can find right now? Thank you universe for guiding my thoughts towards good feeling emotions. And so then I asked myself, what is the best feeling thought that I can find right now? And I wrote, I am open to the belief that God is working behind the scenes and leading me to the life of my dreams. So that's the, the three step choose again method. And then the final thing I do is I just write down five things that I'm grateful for. So that's been my little fear buster that I've been using as of late and I've definitely been getting some relief. I mean it's not a permanent relief, but yeah, I, I noticed a big change. So it's the EFT tapping videos. It's doing this three step choose again method and then writing down a little gratitude.

What you holding on to? Just let it all go. What's making you slow now? Don't let it all go. What you got to do yet?