"Family dysfunction is a disease that affects everyone in the family. Taking a drink is not necessary to be affected. This is an ACA axiom, and it serves as a basis for our First Step." BRB p. 22

Whether we are teetotalers or "self-made" alcoholics, our perfectionist and risk-taking attitudes and behaviors far outlast the seemingly temporary effects of alcohol and other dysfunction in the family body.

In Step One in ACA, we admit that we are powerless over the effects of alcoholism and family dysfunction. Those effects seem infinite in number, just as with the stars in the sky. No matter which effects we start to work on in recovery, we will most assuredly uncover more subtle effects each time we do the Steps. It is a process of discovery - that we are all affected by this disease of family dysfunction.

As we keep coming back, we experience the everexpanding foundation of our recovery as we continue to admit the effects over which we have no control.

On this day I will remember that I am powerless over the effects of alcoholism and family dysfunction. However, I am not powerless over myself. I now have the willingness to face the impact my childhood has had on me.