Adult Children Of Alcoholics And Dysfunctional Families
We are an international 12- Step Recovery program for individuals who grew up in alcoholic or dysfunctional homes.
To understand why you should attend meetings read this page.
How to get started.
Read ‘The laundry list’ to see if you relate and may be able to recover with us.
Buy the Big Read Book. Information is one our shop page.
Come to the meetings, online or face to face. There are local New Zealand meetings listed here. International meetings have two ways to display. One is Teamup, the other is from the www.adultchildren.org website.
How to start a new meeting
Want help to start a new meeting? We can help. Email us on acanewzealand@gmail.com and someone will contact you to guide you through the process.
Get the lastest news
Join our Whatsapp groups to get the latest news or join our outreach meeting group.
ACA is based on the belief that the disease of alcoholism and family dysfunction infected us as children and continues to affect us as adults.
Welcome to a community of people, across New Zealand, who grew up in dysfunctional homes but have found a pathway out; it has 12 steps.
If you grew up in a home that was dysfunctional, chances are this still affects you now. But there is hope.
What Exactly Is ACA, and Why Does It Exist?
Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, commonly known as ACA or ACoA, is a twelve step recovery programme designed specifically for people who grew up in homes affected by alcoholism, other forms of addiction, emotional or physical abuse, neglect, mental illness, or general dysfunction. The World Service Organisation at adultchildren.org oversees the programme globally, and groups meet in countries across the world, including right here in New Zealand.
The core insight behind ACA is one that took researchers and therapists decades to fully articulate, but that most members understand the moment they first hear it: the way we were parented, the coping mechanisms we developed, the roles we learned to play, the beliefs we formed about ourselves and the world, follows us into adulthood and shapes our relationships, our self-worth, our careers, and our mental health in ways we often cannot see from the inside.
ACA gives people the tools, the language, and the community to start seeing those patterns clearly, and then to change them. It is not about blaming parents or nursing grievances. It is about understanding what happened, grieving what was lost, and building a life that is no longer run by childhood survival strategies that stopped serving you sometime around your twenties but never got the memo.
In New Zealand, ACA meetings are free, open to anyone who identifies as having grown up in a dysfunctional home, and run by members for members. There are no professionals at the front of the room, no fees, and no hierarchy. Just people doing the work together, which turns out to be extraordinarily powerful.
It’s not therapy (though many members also do therapy). It’s not a lecture. It’s not someone telling you what to do. It’s a room full of people who grew up the same way you did, reading from the same Big Red Book, working the same steps, and slowly, sometimes frustratingly slowly, discovering that the way they learned to survive childhood doesn’t have to be the way they live for the rest of their lives.
We have meetings across Aotearoa New Zealand, and this page is your introduction to what we do, how it works, and why it might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Pull up a chair. No judgement here.
The Laundry List: Do Any of These Sound Familiar?
There is a list of traits that have been found to be common to people that grew up in dysfunctional homes and at ACA it is called The Laundry List, (also known as The Problem). It is a list of fourteen common traits shared by adult children of dysfunctional families. It was developed from early ACA meetings and represents the lived experience of thousands of people who grew up in chaotic or emotionally unavailable homes.
The traits include things like: isolating yourself and having difficulty trusting others, being terrified of losing control, being approval-seeking to the point of losing your own identity, having difficulty with intimate relationships, taking on excessive responsibility for others while neglecting your own needs, and carrying a pervasive sense of shame and self-criticism that has no clear source.
Reading The Laundry List for the first time is often described by members as one of the most disorienting and simultaneously relieving experiences of their lives. Disorienting because you did not realise these things about yourself were not just personality quirks. Relieving because you finally have a name for it, and because it turns out approximately a million other people feel exactly the same way.
The existence of The Laundry List is one of the things that makes ACA distinct from general twelve step programmes. It is built around a specific and nuanced understanding of what growing up in dysfunction does to a person’s inner life, and it takes that understanding seriously.
The Twelve Steps of ACA: What Recovery Actually Looks Like
The ACA programme is built on twelve steps, adapted from the original twelve step model developed by Alcoholics Anonymous but reframed for the specific experience of adult children.
The steps begin with an honest acknowledgment that your life has become unmanageable as a result of the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. From there, they move through a process of surrendering the need for control, taking a searching inventory of yourself, making amends, and developing a connection to something greater than yourself, whether that is a higher power in a spiritual sense, the ACA group itself, the programme, or whatever concept works for you.
ACA is explicitly welcoming to people of all religious backgrounds and none.
What the steps ultimately build is a process of reparenting yourself. ACA calls this the Loving Parent Within, the part of you that can begin to give yourself the safety, compassion, and unconditional regard that was missing in childhood. It sounds a bit abstract until you start doing the work, at which point it becomes one of the most practical and grounding concepts you will encounter in any healing framework.
Many New Zealanders working the ACA steps find that the programme complements other approaches they are using, including counselling, EMDR, somatic therapies, and mindfulness practice. ACA is not a replacement for professional mental health support. It is a powerful addition to it.
ACA Meetings in New Zealand: What to Expect When You Walk In
If the idea of walking into a room full of strangers and talking about your childhood sounds terrifyingly uncomfortable, you are in good company. Nearly everyone who comes to their first ACA meeting feels some version of that apprehension. And nearly everyone who comes says the same thing afterward: it was nothing like what they expected.
ACA meetings in New Zealand follow a consistent format. A member opens the meeting, there is usually a reading from ACA literature including the Big Red Book (the ACA programme text), and members share in turn, speaking to their own experience without being interrupted, advised, or judged. There is no cross-talk during shares. Nobody tells you what to do. Nobody diagnoses you. You share what you want to share, and the room will simply listen.
Meetings are generally sixty to ninety minutes long. Some are step study meetings focused on a particular step. Others are topic meetings built around specific themes like boundaries, grief, relationships, or the inner child.
In New Zealand, ACA meetings are held in person in several centres including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Dunedin, as well as online.
Online international meetings through the World Service Organisation largely on the hour, this means that meetings are largely accessible from anywhere.
You do not have to speak at your first meeting. Many people come and just listen for weeks or even months. That is completely fine. The only requirement for ACA membership is a desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family.
The Big Red Book: ACA’s Core Text and Why It Matters
The official ACA programme text, formally titled “Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families” and universally referred to as The Big Red Book, is the foundational text of the ACA fellowship. It contains the history of the programme, the twelve steps and twelve traditions as adapted for ACA, personal stories from members, and detailed explanations of the concepts that underpin recovery in this programme.
Reading The Big Red Book is not a requirement for attending meetings, but most members find it becomes a valuable resource. Many people underline it, write in the margins, come back to sections they thought they understood and discover an entirely new layer of meaning six months later when they have done more work. It is that kind of book.
The Big Red Book is available through the World Service Organisation at adultchildren.org and can be ordered for delivery to New Zealand. Some ACA meetings here also maintain a small lending library of ACA literature for members who are not ready to purchase their own copy.
For those in New Zealand who are early in exploring ACA, there is also a range of shorter pamphlets and workbooks available through the World Service Organisation that provide accessible introductions to the key concepts without the commitment of a full programme text.
Sponsorship and Step Work: The One-on-One Side of Recovery
While meetings are the visible heart of ACA, much of the deeper work happens through co-sponsorship and step work. There are workbooks and groups working these steps, creating a co-sponsor model. This differs from other 12 step traditional sponsor work. While it is possible to work with a sponsor in ACA, a lot find that co-sponsoring and working our own program yields results. The relationship is peer-based rather than hierarchical. A sponsor or a co-sponsor is not a therapist or an authority figure. They are someone who has been where you are and has done the work, offering to share what they learned.
In New Zealand, finding a co-sponsor is something your home group can help you navigate, but not something that is required. The programme meets you where you are.
Intergroup and the ACA New Zealand Service Structure
ACA New Zealand operates as part of the global ACA fellowship, with local meetings connected through an Intergroup structure that supports the coordination of meetings, outreach, and service across the country. Intergroup is made up of representatives from individual ACA groups and exists to serve the fellowship rather than govern it, consistent with ACA’s traditions of group autonomy and non-hierarchical structure.
For anyone in New Zealand who wants to start a new ACA meeting in their community, whether in a town that does not currently have one or as an online meeting for a specific population, the Intergroup can provide guidance, literature, and support. Starting a new ACA meeting requires only two members committed to meeting regularly and carrying the ACA message.
The World Service Organisation at adultchildren.org provides extensive resources for new groups, including meeting formats, literature, and guidelines. ACA is a self-supporting fellowship and does not accept outside funding, meaning its growth depends entirely on the energy and willingness of its members.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to be an alcoholic to join ACA?
No. Despite the name, you do not have to have grown up with an alcoholic parent specifically. ACA is for anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family home, which can include families affected by other forms of addiction, mental illness, emotional or physical abuse, neglect, extreme religious rigidity, or simply a chronic atmosphere of fear, shame, and emotional unavailability. The name is historical. The programme began with a focus on alcoholic family systems, but the scope has always been broader. This is reflected in the full programme name: Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. If you grew up feeling unsafe, unloved, or like you had to earn your worth, ACA is for you.
Is ACA the same as Al-Anon?
They are related but distinct fellowships. Al-Anon is a twelve step programme for people whose lives have been affected by someone else’s drinking, typically a spouse or partner. ACA focuses specifically on the long-term effects of having grown up in a dysfunctional family. Many people attend both programmes and find they address different dimensions of their experience. ACA tends to go deeper into childhood trauma, the inner child, and patterns of behaviour that were formed in early life rather than in adult relationships.
What if I am not sure my family was dysfunctional enough?
This is one of the most common concerns people bring to ACA, and it has a name: minimisation. Adult children from dysfunctional homes are often expert minimisers, trained from childhood to downplay what was happening, to make excuses for their parents, and to compare their experience unfavourably to people they perceive as having had it worse. ACA does not have a threshold of suffering you have to meet before you are welcome. If reading about ACA resonates with you, that is enough. Come to a meeting. Listen. See if it fits.
How much does it cost to attend ACA meetings in New Zealand?
ACA meetings are free. There is typically a voluntary collection at the end of each meeting, referred to as the seventh tradition, which covers the costs of the meeting space and literature. Contributions are entirely voluntary and there is no expectation of any particular amount. ACA does not charge membership fees and does not accept outside funding. The programme is self-supporting through the voluntary contributions of its members.
Do I have to speak at meetings?
Absolutely not. You can attend meetings and simply listen for as long as you need to. Many people come to their first several meetings and pass when it is their turn to share. This is completely accepted and respected. You will never be pressured to share, to introduce yourself, or to do anything you are not ready to do. When you are ready, you will know. Until then, showing up and listening is more than enough.
What is the difference between ACA and therapy?
ACA is a peer support programme, not a professional therapy service. There are no trained therapists running ACA meetings, and the programme does not diagnose, treat, or provide clinical intervention for any mental health condition. Many members also work with therapists, counsellors, or psychologists, and the two approaches often complement each other very well. Therapists who are familiar with childhood trauma and complex PTSD frequently recommend ACA to clients as a valuable adjunct to individual therapy, particularly for the sense of community and the ongoing structure the programme provides. ACA is not a replacement for professional mental health care, and if you are in crisis or experiencing acute mental health symptoms, please reach out to a qualified professional or call 1737 (the New Zealand mental health support line) for immediate support.
How do online ACA meetings work?
Online ACA meetings follow the same format as in-person meetings but are held via video conferencing platforms, typically Zoom. They are listed on the ACA World Service Organisation website at adultchildren.org, and many New Zealand members participate in both local in-person meetings and online meetings from other time zones, which gives much greater flexibility. Online meetings have made ACA accessible to people in smaller New Zealand centres like Gisborne, Whanganui, Taupo, Kerikeri, and Kaikohe who might otherwise have had no local meeting options. You can attend online meetings with your camera off if you prefer. The same principles of confidentiality and respect apply.
What is the Inner Child concept in ACA?
The Inner Child is one of the central concepts of ACA recovery. It refers to the part of us that carries the unmet emotional needs, unprocessed grief, and survival adaptations from our childhood. In ACA terms, most adult children are running on autopilot from their Inner Child, making decisions based on fear, shame, and unmet needs from thirty years ago, often without being conscious of it. ACA recovery involves building a relationship with that Inner Child: acknowledging their pain, grieving what was not received in childhood, and beginning to provide safety and compassion from the inside rather than endlessly seeking it from external sources. It sounds abstract until you experience it. Many members describe the Inner Child work as the most transformative and unexpected part of their ACA journey.
Ready to Take the First Step? Here Is What to Do
If anything on this page has landed for you, even just a small part of it, we would like to invite you to take the next step. That step does not have to be big. It can be as simple as attending one meeting and seeing how it feels.
You can find information on current ACA meetings in New Zealand at http://www.acanewzealand.co.nz. For the full global meeting directory and additional programme resources including The Big Red Book and ACA literature, visit the World Service Organisation at adultchildren.org.
If you are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or any other main centre, there is likely a meeting near you. If you are in a smaller town or rural area, online meetings are available around the clock and around the world.
You have already done the hardest part. You started looking. The people in ACA meeting rooms across New Zealand, in church halls in Ponsonby, community centres in Riccarton, borrowed rooms in Hamilton and Dunedin, were all exactly where you are right now at some point. They kept coming back and slowly but surely life transformed. It can do the same for you. One meeting at a time.
We will see you there.
With warmth,
The ACA New Zealand Community
http://www.acanewzealand.co.nz | adultchildren.org