ACA tools of recovery are a helpful means of reminding us how to “work the program.” Each person will use them to develop their individual path to recovery. They have helped many of us reconnect with others and find our Inner Child. These are just some of the many tools available that have worked for us on our recovery journey.
“The Tool Bag” is indicative of many tenets of our program. As with any craftsperson, the choice of tools available and the proper selection and use of each tool can greatly enhance the work we produce. Our recovery is very similar to creating and producing a fine work of art, a tome – even a relationship. Each craftsman has tools that they learn to use, and with use, become skillful and accomplished, with dedication – a master.
Not everyone will use the same tools; not everyone will attempt the same work. We each set our own goals, dream our own dreams, and find our own niche in the scheme of things.These are merely the tools available, and are not intended to be a complete list.
Choose your tools with care, develop your own unique skills, and pursue these things that will help you to become free from the crippling pain of the past and become accomplished in the life that exists today.
The Twelve Steps and Traditions, The Problem and Solution
The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are the rich heritage of our Twelve-Step Program. There are many books that examine the exact nature of these steps.
Working these Steps and Traditions means developing an understanding of how these Steps apply to us in our daily lives. Working these Steps and Traditions requires reading, writing, sharing, and living our understanding of these Steps and Traditions. We do so with the tools that follow in the light of our identification with “The Problem” and our understanding of “The Solution”.
The Meetings
The meetings are where we share our experience, strength, and hope. We share our identification with The Problem and learn that we are not alone. We learn that there are others like us, and there is hope. There is recovery. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Reading and Writing
In order to further our own program of discovery/recovery, we educate ourselves. We do this by exploring The Problem, The Solution, The ACA
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, and by reading literature, books and other publications that pertain to our program.
We write to further explore our understanding of our program. Through writing we document our process and clarify questions for ourselves. This
process requires a level of discipline and dedication. This dedication to the self – ourselves – leads to the freedom, understanding, and compassion needed to nurture our inner child.
The Telephone
We listen and share in our meetings and often find people like ourselves who we strongly relate to. By continuing to share outside the meetings, we further our process of discovery/recovery. We receive the support necessary to carry on our growth and also to support others in their process. Often we are far more compassionate and honest with others than with ourselves. In the process of sharing with others we learn to practice the same level of gentleness and respect with ourselves. We act as mirrors for one another and provide an avenue to escape the isolation of our childhood.
Sponsorship
Some of us choose to have sponsors. Sponsorship is a way to avoid the isolation we experienced as children. We seek others a little further along the path to provide us with guidance and possible answers to our questions.
In sponsoring or being a sponsee, we develop relationships based on the Steps and Traditions. We can often share things on a one-to-one basis that may be too terrifying to share in a meeting. We learn about intimacy, trust, risk, success, and failure.
A sponsor is not perfect – we are all in this program to overcome the effects of our childhood. But, just like sharing in meetings or with other friends, we stretch ourselves a little further, and risk a little more. We do this with someone who shows a level of recovery that we would like to develop.
Later, as our program progresses, we extend this same level of sharing to another. It is here in extending beyond ourselves that we develop a breadth of friendships. We learn about limited and casual friendships, and establish a support network of many types, levels and intensities of relationships.
Service
In service we try to give back to the program some of what we have received. By helping in the meetings as an officer, or as a set-up or clean up person, or by volunteering at the Intergroup or board level, we make this program available to others who follow us. Our recovery depends on an ongoing program of discovery and the PRACTICE of our recovery. Service provides us with the opportunity to practice this recovery in an atmosphere of support.
Source: The Tool Bag trifold