Feeling powerless and not acting is like being hungry and choosing not to eat.

My name is Andrea and this is Adult Child.

Welcome back to Adult Child where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

Sorry for the delay y'all but here is your damn episode.

I just got back into town last night. I spent a couple days in New York with my mom.

We went to the US Open. I ate four bagels in 48 hours. I also had Chinese food. I had pizza.

And I had a lobster roll. Listen, this lobster roll is reason alone to attend the US Open.

It is so fucking good.

But other than stuffing my face with carbs and cheese, I had a really lovely time with my mom.

We had some great conversations and laughs and I love my mom so very much and I just cherish the times where I get to spend quality time with her.

Moving along here.

Today we are diving deep into step one of the ACA program.

We admitted we were powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction and that our lives had become unmanageable.

Now we've talked about the ACA program throughout the podcast so it is the 12-step program for adult children, adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families.

It is a spin-off from Alan on Alan on is the 12-step program for spouses, friends and family of alcoholics.

And the way that ACA differed is that it focuses solely on the experience, the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

I have been on the fence as to whether I really want to dive into the steps on this podcast because this is not a 12-step podcast and I did not want to label it as such.

But this is a podcast where I talk about various tools and resources for healing and the 12 steps of the ACA program has helped a shitload of adult children to do so.

And then about a week ago, I received a DM from Rebecca on Instagram, Hi Girl Hi, that's weird, Hey Girl Hey.

And she said that she had just started working the steps in ACA and wanted to know if I could share my experience in working step one because she was having a hard time grasping this whole powerlessness and unmanageability.

So Rebecca, I took your message as a sign from the universe that this is something that I should cover on the podcast.

So today we are going to be talking about powerlessness and unmanageability, what that looks like for an adult child and what that look like for me.

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