🌸 What Is ACA... and Why Am I So Passionate About It? 🌸 

One of the questions I get asked the most is...

"Michelle... what is ACA?"

Since I share so much of my recovery journey online, people often see me going to different meetings and wonder why I'm involved in more than one Twelve Step program.

The answer is simple...

Because each one has helped me heal a different area of my life. ❤️

🙏 AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) saved my life.

It taught me how to live sober one day at a time. It introduced me to a relationship with God that continues to transform me. AA didn't just help me stop drinking... it gave me a new way to live.

💙 Al-Anon taught me that I didn't cause it, I couldn't control it, and I couldn't cure it.

It helped me stop trying to rescue everyone else and start focusing on my own recovery, my own peace, and my own relationship with God.

🌿 CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) has helped me recognize unhealthy relationship patterns, people pleasing, weak boundaries, and the ways I sometimes looked outside myself for validation instead of finding my identity in God.

🌸 ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families) has been another incredible gift in my recovery. I've been attending ACA for a couple of years now, and it has helped me answer a question I've asked myself many times...

"If I stopped drinking... why am I still doing some of these behaviors that no longer serve me?"

Why did I still people please?

Why did I still struggle with healthy boundaries?

Why did I still feel responsible for everyone?

Why was resting so difficult without feeling guilty?

Why did I still try to control outcomes instead of trusting God?

As I was rereading the ACA Introduction this week, I was reminded of something so powerful.

It explains that family dysfunction affects us as children and continues to affect us as adults.

ACA also reminds us that it isn't just for those who grew up with alcoholism. Many people come from homes affected by abuse, neglect, emotional immaturity, perfectionism, abandonment, or other forms of dysfunction.

That really helped me connect some dots.

Many of the behaviors I carried into adulthood weren't simply bad habits.

They were survival skills.

They helped me survive as a little girl.

But today...

I don't have to keep surviving.

I want to keep healing. ❤️

I'm not looking to blame my parents or anyone else.

I'm looking to better understand myself so, with God's help, I can continue becoming emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and relationally healthy.

For me...

❤️ AA gave me sobriety.

💙 Al-Anon taught me acceptance, detachment, and serenity.

🌿 CoDA is teaching me healthier relationships and boundaries.

🌸 ACA is helping me understand how childhood experiences shaped many of my survival behaviors and how I can continue healing them.

I'm grateful for all four. 🙏

Each program has given me tools I didn't have before.

Together, they have brought me closer to God, greater emotional sobriety, healthier relationships, and a freedom I never thought possible.

I don't just want to be sober.

✨ I want to continue growing.

✨ I want to continue healing.

✨ I want to continue becoming the woman God created me to be.

If you've ever found yourself asking...

"I'm sober... but why do I still react this way?"

You are not alone.

Sometimes putting down the drink is just the beginning.

There may be another beautiful layer of healing waiting for you. ❤️

🌸 Michelle Ann
The Healing Cheff®
TheHealingCheff.com
She Chose Herself • 2012

#Recovery #AA #ACA #AlAnon #CoDA #EmotionalSobriety #FaithBasedRecovery #HealingJourney #TheHealingCheff #SheChoseHerself2012