PaulettePaulette
ACA Tuesday Zoombox
Paulette reflects on childhood self-doubt rooted in an unspoken alcoholic home, and how ACA literature and meetings help her challenge those patterns. She also shares her struggle to support her adult son with bipolar illness while respecting his independence and trusting his journey.
12:29•19 Oct 2026
Paulette on Self-Doubt, Family Roles, and Letting Loved Ones Live Their Own Story
Episode Overview
- ACA’s beginner’s book A New Hope offers a practical, structured way to get familiar with the Red Book through short readings, questions and tasks.
- Growing up with unspoken alcoholism can teach children to doubt their own perceptions and feelings, shaping self-doubt in adult life.
- Daily readers and ACA literature can provide guidance and language for understanding long-standing emotional patterns.
- Supporting an adult child in crisis involves respecting their autonomy, recognising that their experiences and choices are different from a parent’s fears and history.
- Sometimes allowing someone to reach their own “rock bottom” can be part of their path to recovery, rather than stepping in to control or fix everything.
“We were taught to doubt ourselves, so it became natural to believe that we are wrong, defective or uninformed.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This ACA Tuesday Zoombox session centres on Paulette, who shares honestly about growing up with an alcoholic mother, living with years of self-doubt, and finding steady footing through Adult Children of Alcoholics literature and meetings. Paulette talks about working with the ACA beginner’s book, A New Hope, and how it breaks things into manageable topics while pointing back to the “Big Red Book”.
She calls it “a wonderful introduction” and loves that there are “jobs to do” and questions to answer, making the material practical rather than just theoretical. From there, she moves into the theme that’s been weighing on her: self-doubt. Reading from ACA’s daily reader, she highlights the line, “We were taught to doubt ourselves,” and connects it to her own childhood, where her mother’s drinking was never acknowledged.
Paulette explains how the unspoken rule was clear: “Zip your lip.” Even though she knew her mum was drunk, she absorbed the message that her perceptions weren’t to be trusted – a pattern that followed her into adulthood. The episode then shifts into present-day family life. Paulette describes her son, recently diagnosed with bipolar illness and going through a divorce, and her struggle to find the line between support and control.
She recalls a powerful share from a young woman who had been in prison: “If I had not hit rock bottom, I wouldn’t be sitting in these rooms today.” That reminder helps Paulette step back, respect her son’s autonomy, and park her own fears. This story will resonate with anyone who grew up in silence and confusion, and who’s learning to trust their own reality while letting loved ones live their own path.
It gently asks: where might you still be doubting what you know to be true?
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