More from Step Four....Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families.
"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 are 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. Some of these well-meaning parents learned to say affirming statements of love and encouragement. Yet, they still transferred their own lack of self-doubt and lack of self-love in large measures. Many of us are the adult children of these parents. We have acted out with addiction or another self-harming behavior, continuing the disease of family dysfunction."
"Nondrinking parents raised in an alcoholic home are essentially unrecovered adult children who unintentionally pass on family dysfunction. These parents are typically a dependent personality driven by the inside drugs of fear, excitement, or anxiety. This is para-alcoholism. It affects the children in the same manner that the alcoholic drinking does if it is present. This means that our nondrinking parents were dependent people driven by a hundred forms of fear and self-doubt. they projected their fear and anxiety onto us with the same damaging effect that alcoholic drinking can have on a child. They passed on addiction or unhealthy dependence without taking a drink."
"We avoid blaming the drinking parent as well. The alcoholic suffers from an incurable disease that progressively worsens. The alcoholic is very sick in body and mind. We cannot reach the level of spiritual growth that we are seeking by blaming sick people."
"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 abuse and unhealthy parenting we lived through."
"We also avoid sinking into victim mindset. This mindset can disqualify us from the emotional and spiritual gifts of ACA. If we learn to accurately name what happened to us rather than blaming others for what happened, we find the truer path to healing and self-forgiveness. There is power in naming the exact nature of our abandonment and shame. We move out of the victim role and claim our personal power by taking this path. Step Four gives us a chance to identify what happened and transform our painful childhoods into our most valued asset. When we know what happened to us, we can help other adult children as no one else can, including some of the most dedicated professionals and clergy. We can finally say with humility: "This is what happened to me. This is my story. There is another way to live."
"We sress fairness with our parents whild holding them accountable for another reason as well. Many of us working Step Four realize we have harmed our own children. We have passed on what was done to us. Many of us have changed our behavior and made amends. However, some of us could one day be the focus of an inventory of our own children arriving at the doors of ACA. This is another reason to take a blameless, yet fair, inventory of the family and parents. If we give fairness, we can hope for fairness."
"While we look at the generational nature of our family dysfunction in Step Four, we must remember that the Forth Step is our inventory. In ACA we learn to face our denial and focus on ourselves. That means we will look at our parent's behavior in conjuction with our own behavior. We keep our focus on ourselves and on efforts to find clarity and be free of family dysfunction. We want to stop trying to heal our family-of origin through our current relationships. We want to stop isolating and repeating the same patterns that bring about our worst fears of abandonment and self-hate. We want to reclaim our wholeness."
"While working Step Four and all of the ACA Steps, we encourage you to nurture yourself. We must balance this probing look at our behavior with gentleness. We must protect our Inner Child or True Self vigorously. At the same time, we cannot let discomfort or fear stop us from getting honest about our own behavior." ACA
What I love about this is that they are looking to see where the dysfunction came from and then how we own it and then how we will eradicate it from our own lives; but not in the lives of our family of origin.
This is something each child within the family will have to do. It can't be done for another.
What is the phrase..."We are as sick as our secrets..." Mostly, I am finding is the secrets we keep from ourselves. What accurately happened to us as children..."Naming the exact nature of our abandonment and shame."
We somehow believe that if we name it, WE are the ones bringing in the shame.
Instead, this naming is the power we need for self-forgiveness and true path to healing.
Most adult children will avoid this step so they don't have to point fingers to their parents as the cause of their suffering. And, this avoidance will stop them from getting their power back.
I totally get how it would be possible for my children to blame me if they were to do this book and I would agree. There is no part of me that would fight them on the dysfunction I brought into their lives. I get it. I own how I could only mother at the level of my own self love.
The more healthy I became, the less I hurt them.
My encounter with my mother, wasn't one of understanding of the generational legacy of abuse. She would not own her dysfunction...or where it came from OR the cost of its nature.
This climate of her not owning the legacy IS the vast crevice our relationship fell into.
There is nothing there for me to work with.
It will take the complete owning of how dysfunctional we are in order to work on changing it.
Without acknowledging how messed up things were and are, especially with our own lives and self, there is nothing to work with.
If you don't see the effects...of dysfunctional parenting....let alone the dysfunctional parents, there simply isn't a problem to work out.
No problem.
No need to fix.
All is well...
I guess the biggest troubles dysfunctional families face is facing there are problems...owning it.
Claiming we are dysfunctional.
And how this dysfunction has wrecked lives...and how it lives within us.
It isn't something you can toss out and avoid...for where you go IT goes!
There was no part of my life that dysfunction didn't touch.
I was steeped in it...saturated in fear, anxiety, self-doubt and self-hate.
Dysfuction lived in me...and I passed it on to my children.
I also know, the more functional and self-loving and fearless I become...this too is handed off to my children.
