Fresh Start Club West Branch

12/19/2025

Tonight ( Friday) spiritual meeting at 7pm

12/19/2025

Trait Fourteen
“Para-alcoholics (codependents) are reactors rather than actors.” BRB p. 17
Before ACA, many of us ran from one person to another, one idea to another, found “better” jobs, sought solutions for our medical ailments, read all the self-help books: we tried anything to change the way we felt. We were so mixed up inside, wondering why everyone else seemed calm and reassured, while we had fireworks going off in our brains and bodies. Each time we jumped into frantic action, the results were usually hurtful to ourselves or others.
How did we learn to react so intensely? As children, each step we took or didn’t take caused “bombs” to go off. We were told things like “Can’t you do anything right?” or “If you’d just stop acting like that, everything would be better.” We were scapegoats. We became reactors in an attempt to try to fix things. And we carried this behavior into our adult lives.
In ACA we find relief, one day at a time. We learn to use the slogans, like “Easy Does It” when we feel an “emergency” inside. They help us act in healthier ways by doing nothing, even if we have to sit on our hands or zip our lips until the compulsion passes.
Self-reflection is imperative during these times. Stopping ourselves before we react inappropriately, and even in mid-sentence, helps us gain self-confidence and positively affirm ourselves.
On this day, when I feel a compulsion to react “Right Now,” I will remember two slogans: “Don’t just do something, sit there” and “Be Still and Know.” I am learning to be calm in the face of internal chaos.
© COPYRIGHT ACA WSO INC.

12/19/2025

Today (Friday) at noon

12/18/2025

Tonight ( Thursday) Big Book Study at 7pm

12/18/2025

Service
“The purpose of service in ACA is to support one another in becoming responsible for our own well-being.” BRB p. 354
It can be difficult to start doing service when service seems to carry such a heavy responsibility. The idea that we can help another person recover feels similar to our having tried to save our families.
Yet service in ACA is what provides others the opportunity to assume responsibility for themselves. Opening the meeting, being the secretary, keeping the books, and picking up chairs after the meeting are all things that keep a meeting open and provide the means for ourselves and others to recover.
As members turn to us for guidance, we realize that we can share our experience, strength and hope, but that also, the directions are right in front of them. The “Newcomer’s Pamphlet,” the BRB, the Yellow Workbook, and other pieces of literature will answer any question the member may have.
Our goal is to support adult children as they become comfortable with the idea that they can be responsible for their own well-being. It may be very frustrating to the newer member to understand that by allowing them to find the strength to love themselves, we are expressing a deep level of love. However, if done with a spirit of love and a short explanation, they will feel the strength of the program filling in the vacuum they had long sought to deny.
On this day I will give service, realizing that every part of setting up a meeting creates an opportunity for ACAs to become empowered to love themselves.
© COPYRIGHT ACA WSO INC.

12/18/2025

Today (Thursday) at Noon

12/17/2025

12/17/2025

Today (Wednesday) at Noon

12/16/2025

Hearing a Fifth Step

“In Step Five, the ACA member trusts another to hear his or her life story without judgment. For many, this is the first time the adult child has told the most intimate details of his or her life to another. Trust of another person is one of the spiritual principles of Step Five.” BRB p. 632

The first time we did our Fifth Step with someone else, we may have been really nervous. Then we felt affirmed as the other person didn’t run away or shame us for what we shared. We had broken the silence, and it was a huge relief as we unpacked years of baggage. In a haze, we stumbled in the dark with the loving presence of a fellow traveler by our side. We released our past. We walked away better, lighter, and with a sense of completeness we may have never experienced before.

Hearing someone else’s Fifth Step can be such a privilege. When we are asked to do so, we remember our own vulnerability when we shared our lives in this manner. Recalling our own experience helps us honor the other person and treat them with the respect we were given. To help each other on such an important journey truly benefits both individuals.

On this day I will look forward to the time when I am ready to do my Fifth Step so that I can experience the freedom on the other side. When I am then asked to hear another’s Fifth Step, I will honor that request as the wonderful gift that it is.

© COPYRIGHT ACA WSO INC.

12/16/2025

Today (Tuesday) at noon

12/15/2025

Tonight ( Monday) 12x12 at 7pm