The ACA Fellowship Text was anonymously written by ACA members and provides guidance on working the 12 -step ACA program, leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA WSO has adapted AA's steps (with permission from AA) to address the effects of childhood trauma and neglect and offer hope to ACAs worldwide.

Ten years ago, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an adult child of an alcoholic. Today, she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of adult children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After more than 10 years of working with ACoAs, she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Listen to Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.

Growing up in a home where there is addiction or relationship trauma puts a child at great risk for long-term, post-traumatic stress effects that adversely compromise adult relationships. Best-selling author, psychologist, and psychodramatist Tian Dayton examines this trauma through an exploration of the way the brain and body process frightening or painful emotions and experiences in childhood.

This new edition of Perfect Daughters, a pivotal book in the ACoA movement, identifies what differentiates the adult daughters of alcoholics from other women. When this groundbreaking book first appeared over 10 years ago, Dr. Ackerman identified behavior patterns shared by daughters of alcoholics. Adult daughters of alcoholics - "perfect daughters" - operate from a base of harsh and limiting views of themselves and the world.

Janet Woititz, mother of the recovery movement, sensitively addresses the barriers of trust and intimacy that children learn in an alcoholic family. She provides suggestions for building loving relationships with friends, partners, and spouses.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents' emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you'll learn how to create positive new relationships so you can build a better life.

Have you ever heard of your inner child? Well, this is the classic book that started it all. In 1987, Charlie Whitfield's breakthrough concept of the child within - that part of us which is truly alive, energetic, creative. and fulfilled - launched the inner child movement. Healing the Child Within describes how the inner child is lost to trauma and loss, and how by recovering it, we can heal the fear, confusion and unhappiness of adult life.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.

The causes of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder range from severe neglect to monstrous abuse. Many survivors grew up in houses that were not homes-in families that were as loveless as orphanages and sometimes as dangerous. If you felt unwanted, unliked, rejected, hated, and/or despised for a lengthy portion of your childhood, trauma may be deeply engrained in your mind, soul, and body. This book is a practical guide to recovering from lingering childhood trauma. It is copiously illustrated with examples of the author's and his clients' journeys of recovering.

The trauma and grief of growing up in an alcoholic or addicted family create a lifetime of baggage. If you grew up in an addicted family, the dysfunction that permeated every aspect of your childhood may have seemed "normal", and you may not even realize the level of affect alcohol still has on your adult life - whether or not you drink. If you are one of the millions of Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs), the cost of your childhood pain can be unbearable. You may have learned how to "survive", but are you "living" your life?

Most people don't realize how much unresolved emotional pain they carry around. They don't know why they always feel depressed, anxious, victimized, or disappointed. They wonder why they keep making the same self-sabotaging impulsive decisions. These patterns often stem from their lost inner child, which carries a false narrative that has been on repeat since childhood.

In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?

Do you use substances or engage in compulsive activities to regulate your mood? Do you reach for something sweet, a couple of drinks, or a pack of cigarettes after a difficult day because you can't unwind without them? Do you race to the stores to spend away the day's frustrations or run around in circles taking more time to get less done? If these self-defeating habits sound familiar, Emotional Sobriety will shed light on why and how these coping mechanisms threaten your health and impact resilience

Stop Walking on Eggshells has already helped more than a million people with friends and family members suffering from BPD understand this difficult disorder, set boundaries, and help their loved ones stop relying on dangerous BPD behaviors. This fully revised third edition has been updated with the very latest BPD research on comorbidity, extensive new information about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), the effectiveness of schema therapy, and coping and communication skills you can use to stabilize your relationship with the BPD or NPD sufferer in your life.

Al-Anon's basic book discusses the mutual-help program of recovery, including personal stories. A beginning approach to the Twelve Concepts of Service is included.

Allen Berger, PhD, draws on the teachings of Bill W. and psychotherapy pioneers to offer 12 hallmarks of emotional sobriety that, when practiced, give people the confidence to be accountable for their behavior, ask for what they want and need, and grow and develop a deeper trust in the process of life. These smart things include: understanding who you are and what's important to you; learning not to take others' reactions personally; trusting your inner compass; and taking responsibility for your reactions to problematic situations.

In this supportive and straightforward guide, Lundy Bancroft, the author of Why Does He Do That?, and communication specialist JAC Patrissi offer a way for women to practically take stock of their relationships and move forward, with or without their partners.

Elaine Aron follows up her best sellers on the highly sensitive person with a groundbreaking new book on the undervalued self. She explains that self-esteem results from having a healthy balance of love and power in our lives. Readers will learn to incorporate love into situations that seem to require power and deal with power struggles that mask themselves as issues of love.

Best-selling author Dr. John Townsend teaches you that love can actually be learned and gives you the steps and tools to become skilled in love. Using his trademark stories to flesh out the important principles, Dr. Townsend covers receiving love, connecting love, healing love, confronting love, romantic love, and surrendering love. Through his teaching, listeners will discover - and start enjoying - the words, actions, and experiences of authentic love.

In this important sequel to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents.

Is someone else's problem your problem? If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to a loved one’s self-destructive behavior, you may be codependent—and you may find yourself in this book. With personal reflections, exercises, and instructive stories drawn from Beattie’s own life and the lives of those she’s counseled, Codependent No More helps you break old patterns and maintain healthy boundaries, and offers a clear and achievable path to healing, hope, freedom, and happiness.

In this remarkable self-help guide, Dr. Susan Forward draws on case histories and the real-life voices of adult children of toxic parents to help you free yourself from the frustrating patterns of your relationship with your parents---and discover a new world of self-confidence, inner strength, and emotional independence.

We’ve all had friendships that have gone bad. Whether it takes the form of a simple yet inexplicable estrangement or a devastating betrayal, a failed friendship can make your life miserable, threaten your success at work or school, and even undermine your romantic relationships. Finally there is help. In When Friendship Hurts, Jan Yager, recognized internationally as a leading expert on friendship, explores what causes friendships to falter and explains how to mend them - or end them.

End the cycle of abuse-for good. Authors Charlie Donaldson, Randy Flood, and Elaine Eldridge uncover a proven action plan that violent men can use to change their behavior. Filled with insightful questionnaires and actual case histories, the essential how-to book Stop Hurting the Woman You Love, will help end abusive patterns in favor of healthier, happier relationships....

Practical, proven self-help steps show how to transform 40 common self-defeating behaviors, including procrastination, envy, obsession, anger, self-pity, compulsion, neediness, guilt, rebellion, inaction, and more.

Psychotherapist and breakup expert Rachel A. Sussman, LCSW, reveals the secrets every woman needs to get her life back on track. Drawing on hundreds of counseling sessions she's conducted with women at all stages of recovery, Sussman developed a proven three-phase process for healing from a breakup.

When a child is hurting, it can be the most painful challenge a parent will face. With compassion and perspective, Dr. Brad Reedy offers hope and wisdom for children who struggle and the parents who love them. The Journey of the Heroic Parent will take you on a journey to a happier, healthier relationship with your struggling child - and yourself. Through lessons learned, mother, father, and child will achieve greater understanding, love, and humanity - no matter what the outcome.

Everyone faces the challenges of making relationships work. Whether with spouses, family members, friends, lovers, or colleagues, relationships have the power to make one feel happy, frustrated, or miserable. In Relationship Breakthrough, Cloe Madanes - an expert in creating healing, empowering relationships - gives listeners vital tools to transform their relationships and their lives. Madanes's cutting-edge methods produce real results and create rewarding, sustainable relationships.

To grow in recovery, we must grow up emotionally. This means getting honest with ourselves and facing up to the self-defeating thoughts and actions that put our sobriety at risk. Although there are as many ways to mess up recovery as there are alcoholics and addicts, some general themes exist, which include: confusing self-concern with selfishness; not making amends; using the program to try to become perfect; not getting help for relationship troubles; and believing that life should be easy. Allen Berger explores the 12 most commonly confronted beliefs and attitudes that can sabotage recovery.

What the award-winning, best-selling Boundaries has done for adult relationships, Boundaries with Kids will do for you and your children. Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend provide the help and guidance you need for raising your kids to take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions. With wisdom and empathy, they take you through the ins and outs of instilling the kind of character in your children that will help them lead balanced, productive, and fulfilling adult lives.

From the author of the New York Times best seller Adult Children of Alcoholics - a wonderful book that affirms and encourages ACoAs by developing your skills for living. Imagine how good you would feel if: you could stand up for yourself without losing your temper; you could make a decision without second guessing yourself; and you didn't have that sense of worthlessness every time someone criticized you. In Lifeskills for Adult Children you can learn how to do these things and more.

The ACA Fellowship Text was anonymously written by ACA members and provides guidance on working the 12 -step ACA program, leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA WSO has adapted AA's steps (with permission from AA) to address the effects of childhood trauma and neglect and offer hope to ACAs worldwide.

Ten years ago, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an adult child of an alcoholic. Today, she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of adult children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After more than 10 years of working with ACoAs, she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Listen to Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.

This new edition of Perfect Daughters, a pivotal book in the ACoA movement, identifies what differentiates the adult daughters of alcoholics from other women. When this groundbreaking book first appeared over 10 years ago, Dr. Ackerman identified behavior patterns shared by daughters of alcoholics. Adult daughters of alcoholics - "perfect daughters" - operate from a base of harsh and limiting views of themselves and the world.

The child of an alcoholic develops patterns of behavior during childhood that carry over into adult life. As children they were taught to cover up the family secret and suppress their feelings. No matter what is going on, as adults, when asked how she or he is doing, your partner will likely answer "fine". Distrust, fear of abandonment, and sensitivity to criticism are all major issues for your adult child. Recognizing these patterns and changing the ones that cause problems will help you and your partner enjoy a deeper relationship.

In this compassionate guide you'll find tips and tools to help you set boundaries with others, honor and validate your emotions, and thrive in the face of life's challenges. You'll discover how to protect yourself from hurtful behavior, stop making excuses for others' limitations, forge healthier relationships, and feel more confident in your life. Most importantly, you'll learn how to stop putting others' needs before your own and manage daily stressors.

The trauma and grief of growing up in an alcoholic or addicted family create a lifetime of baggage. If you grew up in an addicted family, the dysfunction that permeated every aspect of your childhood may have seemed "normal", and you may not even realize the level of affect alcohol still has on your adult life - whether or not you drink. If you are one of the millions of Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs), the cost of your childhood pain can be unbearable. You may have learned how to "survive", but are you "living" your life?

It is estimated that as many as 34 million people grew up in alcoholic homes. But what about the rest of us? What about families that had no alcoholism, but did have perfectionism, workaholism, compulsive overeating, intimacy problems, depression, problems in expressing feelings, plus all the other personality traits that can produce a family system much like an alcoholic one? Countless millions of us struggle with these kinds of dysfunctions every day, and until very recently we struggled alone.

Healing the Shame That Binds You is the most enduring work of family relationship expert and New York Times best-selling author John Bradshaw. In it, he shows how unhealthy toxic shame, often learned young and maintained into adulthood, is the core component in our compulsions, co-dependencies, addictions and drive to superachieve.

Since the publication of Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, many thousands of people have learned that invisible Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN, has been weighing on them their entire lives, and are now in the process of recovery. Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships will offer even more solutions for the effects of CEN on people's lives: how to talk about CEN, and heal it, in relationships with partners, parents, and children.