Author Archives: cjbowdish@hotmail.com

ACA Fun Day! – October 17, 2015

Join us on Saturday, October 17th,2015
For an afternoon of kayaking/paddle boarding, fellowship and a beachside meeting in Santa Barbara!

Where to Meet: The Dolphin statue at Sterns Wharf
Time: 11:30AM

Here’s the plan: Meet at the dolphin statue at Stern’s Wharf in Santa Barbara. Your mission, to decide just exactly how you want to have fun! Here are the choices:

Paddle boarding or kayaking starting at $15 per hour
Renting a bike (for 2 or 4 people) $10 to $29 per hour
Explore Sterns Wharf or Santa Barbara’s Harbor

Once we have everyone out of the water, we will gather and go grab a bite to eat. Long Boards is on the Wharf and is large enough to house us all. Everything available to do is within a block or two and there is plenty of parking available. And of course, there is always State Street to investigate and the art show on Cabrillo street to discover…

We will end our afternoon together with a meeting on the beach. Umbrellas, blankets, swimsuits and chairs optional!
Please R.V.S.P. so we will have an idea of how big a group we will have.

ACA Fun Day for 10-17-15 (flyer)

August, Sept 2014

Thanks to all the Santa Barbara ACA groups for supporting the SB ACA Intergroup!


Thursday August 21 in Santa Barbara:

Special ACA Speaker Meeting with visiting members of ACA WSO. There will be a 5pm casual group dinner with our speakers Mary Jo and Karen from ACA WSO at Beachside Restaurant on Goleta Beach http://www.beachside-barcafe.com/ Please RSVP your dinner reservation to John M. The speaker meeting will be from 7-8:45pm at the Trinity Lutheran Fireside Room (Church Office entrance) at 909 N. La Cumbre Road at Foothill Road where Mary Jo and Karen will share their ACA recovery stories and perhaps answer some questions if we have time.

Please RSVP John M at <johnmudie@gmail.com> to ensure a seat at the dinner table.

Please contact Martha K at <mingk39@hotmail.com> if you can help us record the meeting.

Please contact Duncan at <dvx800@yahoo.com> for general event information.

Audio of Mary Jo’s pitch for the Santa Barbara ACA August 21, 2014 Speaker Meeting.


Audio of Karen’s pitch for the Santa Barbara ACA August 21, 2014 Speaker Meeting.


Weekend of September 19-21 in San Bernardino Mountains

26th Annunal Fall Mountain Retreat – Theme: Claim your Baggage, Claim your Life – with meetings and speakers, hikes, talent/no-talent show, arts & crafts, pool, jacuzzi, massages, and much more..

Flyer cover: http://repository.adultchildren.org/images/2826585401329_FMR_RETREAT_FLYER-2014a.jpg

Flyer inside: http://repository.adultchildren.org/images/mps_flyers/2826585401329_FMR_RETREAT_FLYER-2014b.jpg


Saturday September 27 in Santa Barbara:

ACA SOUL CARDS Workshop. Some of you SB ACA “oldtimers” may remember the brilliant collage making activity that Lynne facilitated at our first SB ACA Retreat on the Gaviota Coast in early 2013. This ACA Soul Card Workshop with potluck lunch will happen at Trinity Lutheran Fellowship Hall at 909 N. La Cumbre Road at Foothill Road from 10AM to 5PM where participants will create a collage style “SOUL CARD” of their very own and have a chance to share about it with others. Very cool concept!

SB ACA News – July 13, report from Duncan

Our SB ACA Intergroup met today and had a smooth meeting. Our meeting list is getting very polished, we’ll be adding the new Ventura ACA meeting to it, and it’s getting distributed around town so that more ACA’s can find ACA. Our SB-ACA.org website is up and running too.

After expenses, the workshop netted $198 much needed dollars for our SB-ACA intergroup!

And another SB ACA workshop is already in the planning! Some of you SB ACA “oldtimers” may remember the brilliant collage making activity at our first SB ACA Retreat on the Gaviota Coast in early 2013. This next workshop involves creating a collage style “SOUL CARD” of your very own! Very cool concept and there will be more info about it coming soon.

Perhaps other Intergroup members might add any more news that I’ve left out.. or get the report from your meeting’s Intergroup Representative!

ACA Logo

Santa Barbara ACA – Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families

ACA is as an international 12-Step recovery program for women and men who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional homes. ACA is based on the belief that alcoholism and family dysfunction affected us as children and continues to influence us as adults. An adult child is someone who meets the demands of life with defense mechanisms and survival techniques they learned and developed as children that helped them to survive dysfunctional environments during childhood. Without help, adult children unknowingly operate with ineffective thoughts, judgments, reaction patterns, codependency and other behaviors that can sabotage decisions and work, personal and family relationships.

ACA members are not limited to those from homes with alcoholism, illegal or prescription drug or other forms of addiction. Some members had alcoholic or dysfunctional grandparents who passed on the dysfunction in their families. Other members are from homes where alcohol or drugs were not present; but abuse, neglect, and/or unhealthy behavior were. Some members are from homes with a mentally ill or hypochondriac parent, or homes where ritualistic beliefs, harsh punishment, extreme secretiveness. verbal, mental, emotional, sexual and/or other abuse occurred, or from perfectionistic, shaming homes in which expectations are often too high and where praise was typically tied to accomplishment rather than given freely.

If you identify with the 14 traits from The ACA Laundry List, then ACA might benefit you. The only requirement for membership in ACA is a desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. This page is intended to provide some basic information about ACA and to list our meetings. There is much more to learn in our literature and from our members.

“The Laundry List” – 14 Traits of an Adult Child

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.

4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.

7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

8. We became addicted to excitement.

9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”

10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).

11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

The Laundry List was written by ACA co-founder Tony A. in 1978

(ACA Red Book, Page 587)