Twelve Step Healing

Twelve-step programs are the only places where weaknesses, under the direction and guidance of a Higher Power, can combine into collective strengths, which transcend the past in the present and promote healing for the future. Yet those weaknesses, bred by exposure to alcoholism, para-alcoholism, and dysfunction during childhood and even adulthood, are the very obstacles to a happy, fulfilling life and, without understanding, to entering those very venues which can repair, restore, and reduce them.

Blamed, belittled, shamed, harmed, and distrustful, would-be twelve-step members are mostly unaware of how such programs can reverse the circumstances that caused these ill-effects.

Many, having been judged, misused, and abused, only understand degrees of power and control; and, after having been subjected to the damaging treatment administered by an abusive, abandoning, or rageful parent or spouse, expect the same in such venues.

“I used to live my life as if I were on a ladder,” according to a share in Al-Anon’s Courage to Change text (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 1992 p. 33). “Everyone was either above me—to be feared and envied—or below me—to be pitied. God was way, way at the top, beyond my view. That was a hard, lonely way to live, because no two people can stand comfortably on the same rung for very long.”

Yet this seesaw of parent-and-child or boss-and-employee does not exist in twelve-step programs, despite the walks of life their members experience outside of them, and would not promote kindred-spirit harmony, equality, and healing. Instead, it would recreate the relationships that caused the original dysfunction and distrust.

“When I came to Al-Anon, I found a lot of people who had decided to climb down from their ladders intro the circle of fellowship,” continues Courage to Change (ibid, p. 33). “In the circle we were all on equal terms, and God was right in the center, easily accessible. When newcomers arrived, we didn’t worry about rearranging everyone’s position: we simply widened the circle.”

Adult children, having been betrayed, abandoned, or traumatized at a very early age by a parent or a primary caregiver, develop a deep-seeded, but often-masked fear of those who remind them of them. Wearing the displaced faces of those crucial upbringing influencers, those later in life who hold high positions, exhibit similar personality traits, and mannerisms, and use similar expressions, are collectively considered “authority figures,” and new twelve-step members immediately try to identify who they are.

“Abuse from authority figures in childhood has left us on guard as adults about authority figures,” according to the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 379). “…Our past experiences tell us that any leader, employer, or officer is inherently an authority figure and is not to be trusted.”

Unaware that only God or a Higher Power of the person’s understanding provides meeting leadership and all others are equal servants, such a person may be uneasy until he learns this.

“Many new members of ACA wonder who is in charge of meetings and groups….We can be hypervigilant about identifying the authority figures in any group so we can survive as we did in childhood.”

Because of the need to feel safe, avoid judgment, and gain some degree of acceptance, those subjected to such upbringings find it difficult to be or even determine what their true selves are. Twelve-step venues provide the opportunity to either practice them or discover them for the first time.

“Before coming to Al-Anon, I never felt I could be myself around other people,” according to Courage to Change (op. cit., p. 222). “I was too busy trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be, afraid people wouldn’t accept me the way I am.”

Before recovery, most believe that they are inferior, less-than, not up-to-par, and often live life as if they were on the outside, looking in. But those in meetings share the same struggles and are therefore on the same footing. Once there, those common weaknesses can, over time, become common strengths.

The share, which is usually short and varies according to the topic or reading, gives the person the opportunity to voice and examine the difficulty or roadblock he has most likely repeatedly experienced throughout his life; it enables others to view their own, similar struggles in a new light; and allows God the opportunity to lift and dissolve them.

To avoid the circumstances that caused their plight, there is no interruption, judgment, correction, edit, shame, or grade given for it—just acceptance. Everything is heard and acknowledged. There is no right or wrong.

The Adult Children of Alcoholics and Al-Anon fellowships both emphasize the importance of this aspect.

“In ACA, each person may share feelings and perceptions without fear of judgment,” according to the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (op. cit., p. 564). “We accept without comment what others say because it is true for them.”

And every Al-Anon meeting ends with the remainder of “Take what you like and leave the rest. But let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in you one day at a time.”

Shares vary according to the person who gives them.

“I am so grateful to belong to a fellowship where everyone speaks for himself or herself,” according to Courage to Change (op. cit., p. 131). “…I am the only one who can tell my story…Through the interchange of experience, strength, and hope, we learn specific ways in which fellow members have applied the Al-Anon program to their situations.”

Twelve-step venues dispel many myths, since the disease of alcoholism, para-alcoholism, and dysfunction that warped and distorted a person’s self-perception and that of others leaves him feeling different and usually isolated.

“I’ve heard it said that in Al-Anon, we try to concentrate on our similarities rather than on our differences,” Courage to Change concludes (ibid, p. 278). “This doesn’t mean that we don’t have differences or that we shouldn’t acknowledge (them). What it does suggest is that by remembering why we are all here, we need never feel alone.”

It is that aspect, more than any, that restores the severed care and connection that those similarly afflicted lost. In unity, indeed, there is strength.

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for the past decade, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury. He is a frequent contributor to Wisdom Magazine.