Free Music For Meditation And Relaxation

Step 11: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out."

It can sometimes be a challenge for ACAs to take time out for ourselves. Call it yoga music, songs for meditation or whatever, this download has over 2 hours of chilled out goodness and it's all FREE! Includes music by Andreas Vollenweider and Jim Brickman.  

Here's to lower blood pressure, less stress and more relaxation in 2013!

Courtesy of Amazon. May only be available for  a limited time.

Free download:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AJMVTIG/ref=s9_hps_bw_g340_i5?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-4&pf_rd_r=0CB0Z8VGA9V4VEMZDZK7&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1288895582&pf_rd_i=678551011

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Part Of The Solution!

You can be part of the solution!

Rutgers University is conducting an online survey of ACAs. This study is being conducted to learn more about the communication behaviors that characterize families of alcoholism and the implications that family communication patterns have on the adjustment and well-being of adult children of alcoholics. The survey is anonymous.

Conducted by: Marie C. Haverfield
Doctoral Student, Rutgers University

SURVEY OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER 5.
http://www.breining.edu/RutgersACA.htm

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Read recovery advocate Lisa Romano's riveting story about her Follow Up Letter To Mom And Dad. Lisa has recently published two books about her life story and growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic home. You might be surprised by the reaction she received:

Follow Up Letter To My ACoA Mom and Dad


Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The Road Back To Me

Lisa Romano bravely documents her own experience as an Adult Child Of Alcoholics in her book, "The Road Back To Me".



Romano exposes her lonely childhood, feelings of abandonment, and her painful memories of being bullied. Obsession, compulsion, relationship addiction, food addiction, anxiety, constant fear and a crippling sense of low self-esteem eventually leads her to contemplated suicide. Her turning point arrives many years later, as she learns to heal the faulty programming of childhood. 


Lisa's Video on Codependency:




Her website is: http://www.healingselfesteem.com/


Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

COAs Face Increased Addiction Risk and other Health Problems

 

Here are some interesting excerpts from a recent article about Adult Children Of Alcoholics published on Cleveland.com 

No matter how many time I see facts like these it always surprises me;

Mood disorders like depression, anxiety and conduct disorder (a chronic behavioral problem characterized by rule breaking, truancy, drug use and criminal activity) are more common among COAs. 

Conduct disorder, if left untreated, is associated with adult antisocial personality disorder, a pattern of often criminal behavior characterized by a disregard for the emotions and rights of others.  

"If you don't as a child learn that ability to develop relationships and develop trust and feel safe, then I think that's something that's going to affect you your entire life." - Dr. Mackenzie Varkula, child and teen psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic's Fairview Hospital 

In studies of COAs who were adopted by nonalcoholic families, the COAs still had an increased risk of becoming alcoholics as adults compared with the general population, arguing for both a genetic and environmental cause. 

As adults, COAs are more likely than children raised without alcoholism in their families to marry an alcoholic or someone from a similar background, according to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics.

That's why raising awareness of these problems, and early intervention for at-risk kids and their families is so important. Without it, the alcoholic family perpetuates itself says Madeline Martin, Clinical Supervisor at Glenbeigh ACMC Healthcare system. Martin says it's almost uncanny, this ability to "find someone like their addicted parent in a crowded room, at a glance." 

A loving, supportive adult (a sober parent, grandparent or family friend, for example) who forms a positive bond with a child and helps that child develop coping skills can go a long way toward counteracting the negative effects of alcoholism in a family, say treatment experts.

Read the article here: http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2012/09/children_of_alcoholics_face_in.html

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The ACOA Trauma Syndrome

 

Dr. Tian Dayton blogs on The Huffington Post about Adult Children of Alcoholics and her new book, "The ACOA Trauma Syndrome". 

Some highlights of the blog post:

"Adult children of alcoholics (ACoAs) can and often do suffer from some features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that are the direct result of living with the traumatizing effects of addiction. Years after we leave behind our alcoholic homes, we carry the impact of living with addiction with us. We import past, unresolved pain into present-day relationships, but without much awareness as to how or why."

"If unresolved pain is left unattended, if it stays buried and denied, it develops a sort of psychic half life, it seeps and leaches into our emotional and psychological underground and gives root to new complexes and conditions. If however we're willing to simply face, feel and share it, miraculous things happen. We learn to think about what we feel rather than run from it. And in thinking, we make sense of what was senseless. We become whole again."

From the book: 

"Trauma is actually fairly common; most people grow up with at least four adverse childhood experiences (Anda 2006). It is not necessarily the trauma that creates lasting problematic effects, but how we deal with it (or don't deal with it) when it occurs and afterward. Much can be done to ameliorate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Supportive people, places to go that feel safe, and moving shock into some form of consciousness so pain does not remain hidden and unspoken can take a situation that could be traumatic and turn it into something that might be less damaging and potentially even character building."

"Recovery from the ACoA trauma syndrome is all about reclaiming the fragmented parts of self that are trapped in another psychological and emotional time and place and bringing them into the here and now. It is translating hidden emotion into words so that feelings can be processed, new insight and meaning can be gained, and experiences can be knitted back together with new understanding into a coherent and present-oriented picture of the functioning self and the self in relation to others. It is learning to live in the present rather than in the past or future." 

See the entire post here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-tian-dayton/adult-children-of-alcohol_b_1835677.html

 Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children