Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families
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Are you an adult child?
Announcements
The latest news from ACA Fellowship
AWC Registrations Open
Registration to the 10th ACA Annual World Convention (March 27 to 28, 2026) is now open. For more information please see the convention webpage.
Fellowship Group Voting Results are Available
Visit the Fellowship Group Voting Page to see the results of the vote.
FGV Town Hall Saturday January 17 – 11am ET and 9pm ET
Town Halls/Forum PurposeTo explain the Fellowship Group Voting processTo provide support for conducting an effective group conscienceTo explain the...
20th Anniversary Big Red Book – Hardcover
Celebrate two decades of recovery with the limited 20th Anniversary Commemorative Edition of the ACA Fellowship Text. Only 3,000 copies of this...
2026 January Conference Business Meeting
The registrations for the 2026 January Conference Business Meeting are open. If you represented your group during May 2025 ABC or September 2025 CBM...
ComLine Blog Restart – January 2026!
The ACA ComLine Blog will begin publishing again in the early part of January, with member submissions reopening as part of a relaunch. While the...
You are not alone
Shared Traits of the Adult Child
- We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
- We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
- We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
- We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
- We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
- We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
- We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
- We became addicted to excitement.
- We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
- We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
- We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
- We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
- Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
- Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
Events
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ComLine Blog
check latest ComLine Articles
What Is WSO – and Why Does It Matter?
Many of us experience ACA through our meetings, our literature, and the relationships we build in recovery. Somewhere...
Dealing with Difficult Members
Many of us have had the experience in meetings where we find a fellow member who triggers us with what they say or how...
طاقة نور
كنت عضوة جديدة في زمالة ACA عندما تمَّ الإعلان عن ورشة «طاقة نور». في ذلك الوقت، كنت قد بدأت في دراسة الكتاب الأحمر...