Focusing on OurselvesFocusing on Ourselves
ACA Tuesday Zoombox
Kathleen S shares her long journey as an adult child of a dysfunctional family, describing how inner child work and the Twelve Steps helped her heal deep trauma. She talks about transforming fear and self-rejection into serenity and love, including a late-life relationship that reflected the promises of recovery.
15:33•30 Jul 2026
Kathleen S on Inner Child Healing and Finding Love After a Dysfunctional Childhood
Episode Overview
- Internalised fear and distorted thinking from non-drinking parents can be as damaging as alcohol use itself.
- Admitting that life is unmanageable can be a crucial step towards meaningful recovery and change.
- Inner child parenting and finding an authentic self are central to healing long-standing shame and self-rejection.
- Taking one’s own inventory, rather than focusing solely on others’ behaviour, is key to moving beyond victimhood.
- Trusting a higher power to remove shortcomings can open the door to genuine intimacy, serenity and unexpected miracles in later life.
“"Recovering truly is recovering. I was this innocent, sweet person that could be there for this wonderful, dear man that loved me dearly and vice versa."”
What drives someone to seek a life focused on healing from a dysfunctional childhood? In this ACA Tuesday Zoombox meeting, Kathleen S shares her long journey as a recovering adult child from a deeply troubled family, offering a mix of honesty, humour and hard-earned wisdom. Kathleen talks about growing up with abuse, secrecy and the "don't talk, don't feel, and by all means, don't share" rules that shaped her early life.
She explains how internalising both parents, including the supposedly "more functional" one, left her running on what ACA calls "inner drugs" of fear, suspicion and doubt. As she reads from the ACA Red Book, she highlights how para-alcoholism and distorted thinking can be as damaging as the drinking itself. You’ll hear how Kathleen first came into AA and Al-Anon in the mid-1970s, long before ACA existed, and how admitting that her life was "utterly unmanageable" became the turning point.
She talks about learning inner child parenting, finding her authentic self, and gradually letting go of the belief that she was "not a good person deep down inside"—which she bluntly calls "bullshit, technical term there". She shares frankly about childhood sexual abuse, the family’s denial, and years of self-rejection, while stressing the importance of taking her own inventory instead of staying stuck in blame.
The Twelve Steps, especially Steps 6, 7 and 11, feature strongly as she describes asking a higher power to remove her shortcomings and guide her towards kindness, serenity and genuine intimacy. One of the most moving parts comes as Kathleen talks about meeting "the man of my dreams" later in life, building a loving relationship, and staying present and grounded through his illness and death.
For anyone dealing with the long shadow of a dysfunctional home, this story offers hope that "the promises really do come true"—are you ready to focus on yourself and see what healing might look like for you?
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