Awareness, Acceptance, and Action, sometimes referred to as “the three ‘A’s,” is both a process and a sequence that facilitates recovery for any number of addictions and those who have been exposed to them, along with its inevitable dysfunction, during childhood.
Awareness, the first of these, is “like a light in the dark (and) is the enemy of denial,” according to Keith Berger of Transformations Treatment Centers in “The Three A’s of Change: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.” “With light finally shed on the issue, these soul vampires begin to lose their power and fight even harder to maintain whatever control they may have.”
Denial certainly constitutes a dilemma for adult children, who helplessly endured a rocky upbringing.
“If we admit that harmful behavior occurred, we may still be in denial if we do not recognize the effects of the harm in our lives,” according to the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 92). “In addition, we are practicing denial if we try to explain the behavior or make excuses for our family. By overcoming our denial, we seek a complete memory. We find our loss and tell our story. With help and acceptance, we can recognize the false identity we had to develop to survive family dysfunction.
Awareness can be of many factors, including feelings, impulses, actions, misdeeds, mistaken beliefs, character flaws, emotions, reactions, and triggers, all of which seek to surface and enter into knowledge of the person.
Although it is the first required aspect in the retrieval sequence, it may require several attempts before it can be transferred from the subconscious to the conscious.
“Coping with a new awareness can be extremely uncomfortable, and most of us are eager to spare ourselves pain or discomfort,” according to Al-Anon’s “Courage to Change” (Al-Anon Family Groups Headquarters, Inc., 1992, p. 256). “However, until we accept the reality we are facing, we probably won’t be able to take effective action with confidence.”
Awareness can be enhanced with a therapeutic technique known as “mindfulness.” A state of mind that is achieved by focusing on the present moment and calmly acknowledging and accepting a person’s feelings, thoughts, and physiological sensations, increases awareness through the senses.
Dr. Jon G. Allen described this as “present-focused attention to mental states in oneself and others” in his course “Attachment and Mentalization in Old Therapy: Treating Trauma and Its Spiritual-Existential Impact” taught at Adelphi University in November 2013. “Keep a quality of openness and alertness so that whatever comes your way becomes the object of awareness, and let all objects of the body and mind arise,” he instructed .
This process has been expressed by a simpler rhyme, namely, “find out and you’ve got it.”
Once you’ve done that, it requires the next aspect of the process, acceptance, but this isn’t necessarily the smooth, effortless step that it appears to be.
“We may hesitate to accept an unpleasant reality because we feel that by accepting it we tolerate something that is intolerable,” continues “Courage to Change” (op. cit., p. 256). “But this is not the case… Acceptance does not mean submitting to a demeaning situation. It means accepting the fact of a situation and then deciding what we will do about it.”
“Accept” does not imply “ok with” or “like”. Instead, it means “to make real,” “to recognize,” “to own,” and “to claim as reality.” Repelling and repelling will only produce the opposite of these effects.
“The problem is that until I accept the situation, the effects or the memory that has come to my consciousness, I can rarely act effectively or live calmly with the consequences…”, advises “Courage to change” (ibid., p.256). “Most of the time, I still have to go back, sit still, feel the feelings, and come to some acceptance.”
“A leap from awareness to action leaves out a critical part of the recovery process,” according to Berger (op. cit.). “Acceptance is the stage where you can do an honest examination of the ‘comfort zone.'”
However, like awareness, acceptance can be a progressive process, as some realities can be hard to swallow and flaws and flaws are sometimes impossible for an adult child to own until they reach a level of greater strength and self-esteem. When he claims any of these aspects as his, he can change them as his, the third and final step in the process.
This can equally take many forms: attending twelve-step meetings, working with a therapist, consulting a sponsor, tracing unwanted feelings and actions back to their sources, and above all, understanding the inevitability of some of these manifestations as a result of a dysfunctional relationship. childhood.
“Actions” like these take time, patience, and perseverance, and progress is rarely linear, without hiccups and returns to old, familiar ways. Behavior, especially if it is adopted to survive adverse circumstances, becomes automatic, since the brain, programmed to endure and tolerate them, formed neuropathies early in life that need to be redirected. But with effort, they provide opportunities to “see again” and redirect pathologies engendered in childhood.
“If we want to change our lives, we must learn a new way of life,” concludes the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (op. cit. p. 568). “The twelve steps are the tools that teach us to live with greater awareness. Through a process of awareness, acceptance and action, we will begin to recover from the effects of family dysfunction.”
article sources
“Adult Children of Alcoholics”. Torrance, California: World Service Organization, 2006.
Allen, Jon G., Ph. D. “Attachment and Mentalization in Old Simple Therapy: Trauma Treatment and Its Existential-Spiritual Impact.” Adelphi University, Garden City Campus, 2013.
Berger, Keith. “The three A’s of change: awareness, acceptance, action”. Transformation Treatment Centers.
“Courage to change”. Virginia Beach, Virginia; Headquarters of the Al-Anon Family Group, Inc., 1992.