Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 49 (Exploring Step 10 of the Twelve Steps of Adult Children of Alcoholics)

In today's episode, I discuss the tenth step from Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization's 12 Steps.

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

As we go about our day, are we taking stock of what we've done and how we're acting? The purpose of step 10 is to take time to reflect on our past unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors, adjust our behavior moving forward, and admit when we've made a mistake.

For example, if someone is unable to say "No," they might be pulled into a cycle of unhealthy behaviors by continuing to have weak boundaries.

When taking stock of this step, two helpful questions are:

  • Is this healthy for me?

  • Is it true?

The 12 Steps are a framework to help us learn healthier behaviors. If we never saw healthy relationships while growing up, now is the time to take accountabiity and be willing to learn.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Let Go and Be Free podcast, a podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of the Let Go and Be Free: 100 Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics series. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, letgoandbefree.com. And with that, let's get on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Let go and be free podcast. I'm your host Ron. And for this week, we are going to go over and review step 10. Of the 12 steps of adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families with the World Service Organization. Or as I like to abbreviate ACOA, or you may see the abbreviation as ACA.

So, if you've been following along with the other episodes, in which I break down the previous steps, one through nine, number nine was the complicated one of making direct amends to such people in your life like anyone that you have harmed. And we had talked about making amends to yourself and making time for that to make certain that you also add it yourself to the list. I know that could be seen as controversial.

Some ACOA groups or ACA groups recommend that you don't put yourself first. I respectfully disagree with that. I think often those of us that grew up in a alcoholic family or where there's dysfunction, addiction and such, we typically put our needs last. And I do think that it's important that part of the self reflection of the 12 steps is how, you know, did you hurt yourself like, when did you allow your own boundaries to be weak, meaning you took care of other people and didn't take care of yourself. So that was the last episode, episode nine.

And again, if you haven't gone through the previous episodes, I highly recommend that you go back and re listen to those other episodes, they're very helpful to give you a sense of grounding of where you have been through the process of the 12 steps. Where are you now? What have you learned? What might you look at from a different perspective, where you may have initially looked at something and been like, Whoa, I don't know what this is, I don't agree with this, maybe you're a little bit more open, you know, to some of the steps.

And again, if you're new to this podcast, and you're going through the 12 steps, if you see the word God in some of the steps, just remove it, you know, and some people would say, well, it says God, and what I'm saying is the importance of learning the toolkit and the framework that are the 12 steps, in my personal opinion. It's encompasses people who believe in God who don't believe in God who maybe aren't sure. There's a lot of good that's in there. And if the word God bothers you just simply remove it. And you could, you could easily read the step without thinking of a higher power, or, you know, there's some Supreme Being that's going to save you, that's not the purpose of the steps. There's a lot of other things that you can learn skills about self reflection, and the importance of taking care of yourself, and also how to interact health healthfully with other people. So that said, I am going to read step 10. And we will review it. So for step 10. continued to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. So again, I'll go through and read that again, nice and slow, continued to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

This is a difficult step, because again, step four, again, I'll read that one, if you don't remember that one made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. So basically, through the process of the 12 steps, there are different checkpoints in which you look at your behavior and say, Have I been a good person to myself, to others, the world, my family? What exactly does that mean? You know, and then through the course of the rest of the steps, you get to step 10.

And it says, continued to take that personal inventory. And when you were wrong, promptly admitted it. So again, you know, you're going through the steps, and if you've made you know, or good with people, if you've injured people in your disagreements with them with steps eight and nine, you've gone through that process of making amends. And now moving forward step 10. Is the continue reflection, in which you then need to say, Hmm, as I'm going through about my day, am I being, you know, a good person to myself, to the world, to my neighbors, to my family, to my friends, to my co workers? And I, you know, I will simply stop there and saying, what exactly is that? You know, how do you know when you're wrong? And that might seem like a strange question. But in behaviors that you may have used as coping mechanism mechanisms in the past, you need to be a little bit more aware of how you're going around about your interactions with people. So for example, if you're used to manipulating people to get your way, well, you might look at that and be like, hey, you know what, I've been going through these steps, and I've apologized to people, because of the harm that I've done them because I maybe I lied to them and manipulated them or, you know, or whatever. Again, I'm just using an example.

Moving forward, you might have to be very brutally honest with yourself and be like, you know, what, certain behaviors, you know, pretending that you don't see something or hear something, knowing that somebody else is going to pick up, let's say, to slack on the homefront. Well, that's not really a really nice more mature thing to do. Whereas a discussion on hey, I'm doing these things around the house, you're doing X things about around the house, I really need help with something would be a more mature way to go about it. Whereas a coping mechanism, you know, that a dysfunctional behavior that you might have had is like, ignore it, ignore a problem, let something fester repress it, you know, denial, that type of thing. So as you're going through and doing that personal inventory, you might hit this hard wall of truth, where you might say, wait a minute, there are certain behaviors that I go through.

Anytime I'm in a problem, and they have gotten me through in the past, but they haven't necessarily been healthy. I'm building, you know, a strong, lasting, unhealthy relationship with someone. And again, relationship could be with a co worker, for example, if you're at work, and you keep shouldering the work, and you're like, Yes, I'll take on this, I'll take on that I'll stay late, I'll come in to extra weekend, this, that the whole thing. And inside, you're ready to blow because you're so frustrated, and angry, that you keep getting taken advantage of.

And I use that and I emphasize that on purpose. And then let's say you go home, and then your spouse, I don't know, forgot to get milk on the way home and you blow up at your spouse because of that, well, are you really that angry at your spouse? Or have you deflected your anger in a safe way, whereas for whatever reason, you're afraid of addressing conflict on the work front and saying to your coworker, or your boss, look, I need help here, I can't keep volunteering, you know, to stay late or to do this extra project, blah, blah, blah, that personal inventory and admitting when you're wrong, could be something which you may not have seen in the past before.

That's the purpose of these steps is to kind of go through and learn about what is healthy, you know, behaviors, what are dysfunctional behaviors, and going through the ACOA steps and learning that is something that over time, you're going to be able to put that together and say okay, I'm I have a better understanding now of what is going to work for me moving forward in my life, instead of following the behaviors that maybe you saw that your parents did, you know, maybe your your one of your parents escaped through getting high or drinking or whatever, instead of confronting their own boss, or dealing with their own problems, and, you know, denying things and repressing things.

Again, I'm just using examples. But this is something in which this, you know, moral inventory, you know, to this personal inventory, looking at that, and looking at yourself, and how you're interacting with the people around you, and then also interacting with yourself. You know, this is where I think it's a really good point that you can add in that those couple set of questions of as you're doing that personal inventory. Is this healthy for me, you know, you could sit there and then have a better understanding by saying, oh, wait a minute. This isn't healthy. If I work all the time. If I'm always volunteering to do work, if I'm always going to be the person that's going to step up for the holidays, and I'm going to do all the cleaning, and all the cooking, and all the other work around that.

And I'm going to take this all on, because it's the thing to do, and I just suffered through it. Like, there's, there's times where it's important that you ask yourself these questions. Is it true? Is it true that if I don't go in and stay extra late at work that the world's going to end, you know, that my, my performance at work is going to be directly affected, and I'll get fired? Like, when you ask yourself certain questions, you're gonna get different answers, when you have the clarity, to be able to put things in perspective, where you might say, you know, what, maybe I had too much tunnel vision.

And I was too afraid, you know, of standing up for myself, because I was afraid I was gonna get fired, or someone was going to disagree with me, I didn't want the center of attention to be on top of me, you know, or whatever. So it's just something that I think is really important that we focus on that we have a better understanding of what our weaknesses are, what our strengths are. And then also, where are our boundaries?

You know, a lot of times when you're asking yourself, Is it true? Is this healthy for me, that's where you're kind of testing verbally, the power of words being built around, you have these interpersonal relationships, you can't see me, but I'm kind of drawing this circle in the air around myself, that kind of show that if you have a strong boundary, that boundary will allow you to say, You know what, I really need to sleep, I need extra sleep tonight, I can't go out and volunteer to whatever helped my church with this bake sale, you know, that's going to run late, I'm not feeling well, it's okay to say no. And I think that's one of the things that it, it's not clear, often when you've grow up in a dysfunctional family, or where there's addiction in the household, because you didn't have that sense of, you know, your parents mirroring healthy behavior, you only learned their coping mechanisms to get through the life that they have. And you may have learned some of those. And basically, now you're moving through life, and you're just replicating that same behavior pattern. Using the 12 steps, is a way to break that history, change the generational dysfunction.

And then to give you the tools and the framework, to be able to say these words, allow me to think in a different way. So when you're doing that personal inventory, it could be writing in a journal, and you're writing in your journal, let's say a couple times a week, about what's going on at work, what's going on in the household, starting to kind of process the feelings if you don't like to work or to to write, and you might turn around and do a walk, and you're walking around, and you're walking in through your neighborhood. And you're thinking in your head, no music, no phone, just walk and think. And then you might process like, Well, wait a minute, I had this argument with my spouse, or this big project at work is really kind of pulling me down. Why is that? Am I taking on too much? Am I carving out enough time? To help myself? Am I doing everything for everybody first, and I'm putting myself last? What would happen? If you were to say, you ask yourself the question, is this healthy for me? Or is it true? If I don't do all this extra work or volunteer

On the homefront to do all the things that the world would fall? What would happen if you took more time for yourself? When you start asking yourself these questions, you know, these neural pathways in your brain are going to open up different avenues of possibility. And I think that's the beauty of this, you see, that there is hope. Because your whole life, you've been told, this is how the way the world is because that's what you saw mirrored in the relationships around you. When you start looking outside of yourself, and then reflecting back inward and saying, wait a minute, why are these people happy and I'm not happy.

And then you say, well, because I keep denying my own feelings, I keep repressing things, I keep running away, or I keep lashing out. I keep whatever whatever your you know, weaknesses are, whatever these coping mechanisms, whatever these dysfunctional behavior patterns that you learned, in growing up, identifying them, naming them, writing them down, speaking about them, talking to a therapist about them is powerful, because then it gives you the next step of how can I grow beyond that? mean just think about that for a second. Basically, if you take the 12 steps and look at it very high level. They're just a set of rules to help you learn different behaviors that have not been so helpful for you in the past, there are a toolkit to help you to get to a better tomorrow. And so just, I'm not going to say this is this isn't an equivalency. But like, if you believe in the 10 commandments, you know, if you follow the 10 commandments, they're going to help you to live, you know, live a better life, you know, Honor thy father and mother, you should not You shall not kill like that, that kind of stuff, like think about it. They they're basically rules that will help you move forward in life. You know, again, if you're spiritual or not, I think we all can agree that killing people, you know, your neighbor is going to be a bad thing.

And if you say to yourself, these 12 steps, how can they help me? How can they give me hope for a better tomorrow? The challenge is, like, when you're stuck in a certain situation, you can't even see that there is another way. Is that I mean, does that make sense? I mean, think about that for a second, you might think you know, what, you know, but all of us are limited to our own experiences. That's why I think beauty is to grow and be open to discussion, to other ideas, to question to question yourself, not all the time, but to say, is this healthy for me, and then drop in whatever the current situation is? So when I think about that, you know, take that personal inventory.

And when you're wrong, you admit it for step 10. I like to fold into that. Those boundary test? Is it true? Is it healthy for me, and learning how to build up that internal dialogue with yourself takes time. One of the early episodes, I shared that my therapist and said, you know, there's the three voices within us, you got the child voice, you know, that we all grew up with, it says, I want the candy now. And then you got the parental voice that says you can't have candy before dinner.

And then you have the adult voice, which many of us did not see mirrored in our families growing up, the adult asks, Is it healthy for you to have the candy before dinner? Is it true? That candy is before dinner is going to ruin your dinner? And that that answer might change day to day? Maybe you're not going to have dinner till later?

And you're asking this question at four in the afternoon, you know, you're going to eat it like seven. And you might say, well, you know, if I have one tiny piece, maybe it's not going to be the end of the world where you might say, my sugar levels really high. You no prediabetic and maybe having that candy is not a good thing. I can't answer some of these questions for you. No one can there what you can do to help yourself when you do that moral, personal inventory. And I keep throwing in the world more moral, because I do think it's important that we do our best to be helpful in the world, not just selfishly around ourselves. One of the things that I look back at and I wish I would have seen reflected more, you know, in my own family upbringing, is the importance of service of helping others, not just you know, yourself. And again, I want to be cautious. I'm not saying that you ignore your own needs, or ignore your own family and go volunteer elsewhere.

And you know, try to be a savior, or a martyr to help others. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying, though, is, in the course of our lives, you'll see on the news, you'll see in your, you know, local community, there's lots of suffering out there. There's people suffering in all walks of life. And I believe the importance of empathy, and compassion, and in being able to step up, and to help others. I have been helped in the past by people, I like to pass it on and to help others. Now, I'm not saying I know all the right answers. I'm not saying that, you know, you know, volunteer, because then you can assuage your own guilt. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying, though, is as you're going through, you know, that personal inventory, you might ask yourself, what service of have I been, you know, to others in the world? And I asked that, you know, have you just to reflect that many of us think that we're powerless to change things, you know, whatever we're seeing in our society, in the government, in our community, and that's not true.

Sometimes a simple act of kindness can go a long way. simple act of empathy, and understanding where somebody else has come Being from can go a long way, instead of, you know, gossip, talking about somebody behind their back, you know, trying to sabotage somebody, you know, behind the scenes, because you're angry at them, you know, ignoring someone making something more difficult for some, someone on purpose, there's a, there's a lot of ways that we can be petty, there's a lot of ways that we can be difficult with ourselves, where we're not giving ourselves, you know, the honesty, and the compassion that we need, as we're going through and learning through the course of our lives. Something that's really important is understanding the healthy balance between, you know, what are your needs?

And how can you thrive, and how can you be of assistance to others, so that you can build community, if you only focus on yourself, and don't focus on tendering your relationships, and your relationships or with your co workers, with your family, with your friends, with your long distance friends, or cousins, you know, long distance family, but also with your community. I think often in today's world, many of us, you know, are so tied to our phones, that we're not spending the time and energy in the world around us, you know, and having all come out of, you know, the worst knock on wood of the pandemic. You know, and looking at quarantine that we'd spent together for all that time. And the difficulty, you know, that many of us had in interacting with people due to high virus rates, you know, in our communities, and people getting sick, you know, and long COVID and etc, etc. There has been a, you know, kind of withdrawal into ourselves, which is good to have self reflection.

But if you're able to, if it's healthy for you, physically, I mean, and mentally, emotionally, psychologically, what would happen? If you when you did that personal inventory, you can say to yourself, you know, how have I been of service to others? I'm asking that in a way that might seem contradictory to the 12 steps, because the 12 steps typically focus, you know, when you and when you get to the 12 step, then it's a little bit more about sharing the message with others spoiler. And that's where I think planting the seed in step 10. And asking that the question of what about, what about, you know, the interaction that you have with your own community? How can you be of service? I think that's important when you get to Sep 12 When we discuss that in a couple of weeks, because then you can reflect and say, Can I volunteer at my local library?

Can I volunteer through some program at work? How can I be of service to others? And you might say, well, no one ever helped me. No one ever, whatever volunteered to make my life better. You know, I've got this all on my shoulders, why should I help somebody else? Well, go back through the steps. Take a look. And maybe you might reflect differently on this after you've gone through, you know, the steps four months to a year, you might look at it from a different perspective have think about if this is the first time that you're hearing about the steps. And if you've interacted with others who have gone through the 12 step program, you might say, hmm, I learned a lot through this, maybe this is something that I can give back, you know, to this community. And what would that mean? I don't know. Maybe you write a poem.

Maybe you could give a donation, you know, to your local ACA, group, there's a lot of things that can be done. But what I'm saying is, when I say be of service, I think it's important to reflect and see how we can physically make a difference in a way that would be helpful to others, not trying to be controlling or trying to save the world. But how we can take small steps to be integral and connected with our community. Because the more that we have strong relationships, with our families, with our friends, with our co workers, and then with ourselves. That's where we find that healthy balance. And we're able to live in a way where we will thrive rather than using coping mechanisms when we're under stress.

And those mechanisms are never working for us denial, repression. You know, lashing out, running away from things, ignoring hyper, you know, responsibility, taking on too much and then not being able to handle too much. There's a lot on the adult children of alcoholics site, about the laundry list various different behaviors that I think I know when I read them, I can see it myself, that many people who have grown up in a dysfunctional family or those you know who were suffering from addiction and grew out of that family can identify with those feelings.

So, as you go through step 10, look at it from very high level perspective, and then bring it back down to your daily routine. And be honest with yourself, the importance of how to see where your behavior, you might want it to change, because it's not been helpful in the past, it's acted as a barrier for you to have true intimacy with those around you love, friendship, companionship, when you put up those walls, do you really have that close connection? Or are you just always just, you know, continually hurting, and just suffering through. So I do hope that this podcast, this episode has been of help to you. You know, again, we're getting up to very close to the year mark of this podcast, the anniversary, and I asked if, and again, I always feel bad doing this, but I have to be honest, I'm putting out my own money for my day job to be able to pay for the fees for the website, podcast hosting, etc.

If you'd like to help, there's ways you can do so subscribe to the substack newsletter that I send out every week, it's $5 a month, $50 a year. And if you can't do that, if you purchase one of the let go and be free books, you know, I'd ask that you can do that. That will also help me because the money that comes in from those books I can put back into the podcast. And if you are struggling now financially, even just giving a like or a review on wherever you're listening to the podcasts will be of great help. So thank you. I appreciate when you tune in each week, and for continuing to listen. So as always, I wish you well and be well. Thank you.

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