What is ACA?

Overview of ACA

Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) is a recovery program for adults whose lives were affected as a result of being raised in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional family.  It is based on the success of Alcoholics Anonymous and employs its version of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Briefly, the ACA program involves going to meetings, actively practicing the Twelve Steps, and calling program people to discuss recovery.  We read ACA literature and associate with recovering people.  In addition to living the Twelve Steps, we practice re-parenting ourselves with self-love, one day at a time.

We keep coming back because ACA is a way of life that fulfills us emotionally and spiritually.  We recognize that we can help ourselves and others.  We participate in life as a whole person.

ACA Is:   

Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) is a Twelve Step, Twelve Tradition program of men and women who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional homes.  The ACA program was founded on the belief that family dysfunction is a disease that effected us as children and affects us as adults.  Our membership also includes adults from homes where alcohol or drugs were not present; however, abuse, neglect or unhealthy behavior was.

The term "adult child" means that we respond to adult interactions with the fear and self-doubt learned as children.  This under-current of hidden fear can sabotage our choices and relationships.  We can appear outwardly confident while living with a constant question of our worth.

We meet in a safe setting to share our experience and recovery in an atmosphere of mutual respect.  We discover how alcoholism and other family dysfunction affected us in the past and how it influences us in the present.  We begin to see the unhealthy elements of our childhood.  By practicing the Twelve Steps, focusing on the ACA Solution, and accepting a loving Higher Power of our own understanding, we find freedom.

ACA is NOT: