Living with the Effects of Family Dysfunction

Living with the Effects of Family Dysfunction

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This ACA Tuesday Zoombox share from M offers a raw and honest look at living with the long-term effects of family dysfunction, even after years of therapeutic and Twelve Step work. M, an adult child from a dysfunctional home, talks openly about celebrating four years in ACA and what has actually helped along the way.

Rather than focusing on backstory, M walks through a personal "seven-fold path": meetings, service, connection with a higher power, connection with fellow travellers, workbooks and literature, inner family work, and integration. The order shifts, but M is clear that inner connection and spiritual contact now come before meetings.

You’ll hear why sponsors from an AA background didn’t fit, and how working the ACA Yellow Book, the Laundry List traits, and the Red Book with small groups of fellow travellers became the real foundation. M calls these groups "my home people" and "my family", highlighting how healing happens in community, not in isolation. A big focus is the "critical parent" and practicing being a loving parent to oneself.

M reads from the Loving Parent Guidebook about noticing the inner critic: "Whenever you're aware of your critical parent, give yourself credit for noticing. You might acknowledge it to yourself: This is the critical parent." From there, M shares creative inner-family work, including a turtle protector retired to make space for feeling, and an infant self who now "naps" safely on that turtle.

M describes moving from total numbness to "healing through feeling", learning to track body sensations, then emotions, then the original wounds so each part can be reparented. It’s slow, deep work, but M keeps coming back with gratitude, persistence, and a quiet sense of humour. If you’ve ever felt behind in your healing, could this gentle, honest share be the reminder that your pace is okay?