The Inner ChildThe Inner Child
ACA Tuesday Zoombox
Ashley reads from ACA literature and talks about healing her inner child, focusing on abandonment fear, reparenting herself, and building healthier relationships. The share blends readings, imagery, and personal experience aimed at Adult Children of Alcoholics and others from dysfunctional families.
15:44•22 Apr 2026
Healing the Inner Child: Ashley’s ACA Journey of Reparenting and Recovery
Episode Overview
- Inner child work in ACA involves recognising that adult decisions can be driven by childhood fear and trauma, especially fear of abandonment.
- Reparenting means treating oneself with gentleness, humour, love, and respect, becoming a reliable inner loving parent.
- Healing can include simply being with inner children through stillness, tears, mindfulness, meditation, and creative activities instead of always trying to fix them.
- Imagining safe inner spaces and protective figures can support trust and connection with the inner child and inner teen.
- Growth in recovery shows up as increased independence and forming interdependent relationships with emotionally available, healthy people.
“"We grow in independence and are no longer terrified of abandonment because I am with my inner child at all times."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This ACA Tuesday Zoombox meeting focuses on Ashley’s experience of healing her "inner child" as an Adult Child of Alcoholics and from a dysfunctional family background. Ashley, who calls herself a "fellow traveller", reads at length from ACA’s Big Red Book and the Inner Loving Parent Guidebook, centring on Chapter 8: "The Inner Child, True Self" and the trait of abandonment fear (Trait 12).
The episode is aimed at Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families who relate to being "dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment" and who see how this fear still affects jobs, relationships, and day-to-day emotional life. Through ACA literature and her own stories, Ashley describes the inner child as holding "original trust, original belief, and original love" while also carrying deep hurt and trauma.
She talks about how family dysfunction pushed her inner child into hiding, leaving "states of fear that wander the adult soul", and how that plays out in relationships, including a raw account of reacting to a partner who "wasn't paying attention".
Rather than just trying to fix or silence those feelings, Ashley talks about "healing through conscious contact with the inner family" by simply being with her inner children through mindfulness, meditation, prayer, creative activities, and quiet moments on the sofa during the winter holidays, hand on heart, letting the tears come. She shares imagery of a safe inner tree filled with protective animals, and how creativity and imagination help build trust with her inner child and teen.
The message that runs through her share is gentle but firm: recovery means reparenting herself "with gentleness, humor, love, and respect", growing in independence, and forming interdependent relationships with emotionally healthy people. If you’re curious about inner child work within ACA, you might find a lot of your own story in hers.
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