The Purpose Of Service
As the experience of service continues to evolve in ACA, we see the need to address the basic idea of service and to acknowledge the service we give to ourselves.
Service in ACA
The purpose of service in ACA is to support one another in becoming responsible for our own well-being. We lose our sense of personal responsibility when we are forced to separate from our feelings. Without emotional integrity, our actions become scattered and unfocused, and we are helpless in responding to our essential need for love and care.
Action Coming From Love
The essence of service in ACA is action coming from an attitude of love. But before we can serve one another, we must first be willing to love and serve ourselves. In seeking to understand their experience of pain, children in an alcoholic family will reverse the normal sequence of cause and effect and decide that they are the cause of the family’s distress. They react to this decision by hating and punishing themselves for needing love and by retreating into emotional isolation. In being willing to again acknowledge and respond to our own needs, we regain our sense of emotional wholeness and reclaim the power which comes from taking responsibility for our own well-being.
Service Allows Us to Trust Ourselves
Our feelings of self-worth and adequacy start to grow as we successfully reparent ourselves, and we begin to trust our ability to love and serve others. We give service just by being present to support and encourage other members of the program as they make the transition from frightened adult children to whole human beings who are capable of acting with the spontaneity of a child and the wisdom of a mature adult. This central concept underlies and supports all forms of service.
Service Provides Our Program
By uniting in service, we create a program for living which provides a sane alternative to the insanity of family alcoholism.
Why We Give Service
Between the time we have decided to disconnect from our alcoholic beliefs but have not yet reached the security of a spiritual awakening lies a “dark night of the soul” where we perceive there is no guiding force whatsoever. Our passage through this terrifying and often chaotic period of uncertainty and doubt is where we experience the power of our program and realize the importance of the service we give and receive.
Sharing Our Recovery is Service
In ACA we give service by reflecting for one another the progress we make in awakening the inner spirit of freedom and joy. We trust this process of reflection because of the history of recovery in other Twelve-Step programs and the growing evidence of recovery in ACA as well. The shared experience, strength and hope of those who have successfully negotiated portions of the journey towards spiritual reconnection serves to strengthen and encourage those who are just beginning the process. Each individual’s experience of recovery is an essential piece of the mirror which serves to redefine our self-image and increases our sense of self-worth. Our combined experience of spiritual transformation provides a complete model and picture for a return to sanity.
Benefits of Giving Service
The healing we receive by giving service in ACA removes our deep feelings of inferiority in giving and receiving love. Our sense of inadequacy begins to disappear when we see the value of the service we give. Our idea of who we are and what we deserve starts to change as we see our real worth reflected in the eyes of other adult children. Our feelings of unworthiness are transformed into positive self-esteem as we realize how important our experience of recovery is to others in the program. With our increased sense of self-worth, we are able to let others love us in return.
Service Ensures Unity and Strength
In giving service to each other, we show we are united by the common belief that we can transcend the crushing burden of demoralization that is the legacy of family alcoholism. By taking the action of responding to one another with love, we simultaneously allow ourselves to give and be given to in a way that heals the wounds of our childhood and meets our simple human requirements for attention, love, and respect.
Source: Chapter 10, ACA Fellowship Text (Big Red Book)