Reddit reviews ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS/DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

ACA Big Red Book is for "Adult Children of Alcoholic / Dysfunctional Families."

You qualify to attend ACA due to being an adult child of a dysfunctional home. The authors of the ACA book realize that dysfunction in the home due to mental illness or other dysfunction creates similar effects in adult children as alcoholism, therefore the process for healing is the same.

You qualify to attend ACA due to your dysfunctional family.
It does not matter whether you are addicted or not. You can be a "double winner" and attend AA and also ACA.

Just like how you can be a double winner and qualify to attend AA and also Al-Anon. You can attend Al-Anon whether you are addicted or not. Same with ACA.

Honestly you don't even have to attend - the red book is just amazing to read. And where I live anyhow ACA meetings are VERY hard to come by.

Here is the book:
http://www.amazon.com/ADULT-CHILDREN-ALCOHOLICS-DYSFUNCTIONAL-FAMILIES-ebook/dp/B008YH705E

This is the book used today in ACA and I assure you it is very different from the AA blue book. The list of 12 steps in the book is the same list as in AA. But the chapters describe a hugely different method of working the steps. I urge you to take a look at the red book. It is chock full of healing messages like learning how to be your own loving parent, how to work on self-love and self-understanding. It talks about how we need to take an inventory of our parents also, because we have internalized them and now use this critical parent voice on ourselves, and it includes "holding our parents and family accountable for their action and inaction."

Alternatively - if you are fed up with 12 steps alltogether - you might want to read Charles Whitfield's book I referenced above - many of the same healing concepts around inner child work that are used in the ACA book are in Dr. Whitfield's book.