The ACA Promises Really Do Come True.

Good Intentions: From Fear and Judgment to Loving Service 

A personal reflection on ACA Promises 10, 11, and 12

When my ACA group reads The Promises each week, I no longer hear them as distant or aspirational. More and more, I find myself thinking, Yes, this works – and it is working in me. Promises 10, 11, and 12 have become especially meaningful. They describe my movement away from fear, the gradual release of dysfunctional behaviors, and a growing ability to expect the best from life and from the people around me.

That transformation has not made me perfect, nor has it removed disagreement or conflict from my life. It has changed how I try to meet those moments. ACA is teaching me to pause, listen, practice discernment instead of judgment, and remember the humanity of the person across from me.

The Armor That Helped Me Survive

I grew up in a family shaped by alcoholism, instability, abuse, and abandonment. I learned early to be vigilant, independent, and prepared for things to go wrong. Those survival skills served a purpose. They also became an armor I carried into adulthood.

From the outside, much of my life looked successful. I built businesses and led large teams. I learned to solve problems quickly, take control, and drive toward results. Inside, however, I often lived with the belief that everyone was out to get me. Success never felt like enough, criticism felt threatening, and control felt safer than vulnerability.

My mother had participated in AA and Al-Anon for many years and repeatedly encouraged me to try a Twelve Step program. I resisted. I believed alcoholism was her problem and that my childhood had simply made me stronger. I came to ACA in June 2016 after reaching a deep emotional bottom. I did not yet understand what I would find. I only knew that the way I had been living was no longer working.

ACA did more than help me examine surface behaviors. It gave me a way to understand the generational patterns of fear, shame, control, and disconnection that had shaped my entire life. Through meetings, the Steps, sponsorship, fellow travelers, Laundry List work, and the Loving Parent Guidebook, I began to see that my protective patterns were not character defects deserving condemnation. They were once-useful strategies that I could thank, understand, and gradually release.

Promise 10: Making Peace with Failure and Success

Promise 10: Fears of failure and success will leave us, as we intuitively make healthier choices. Before ACA, I feared failure, but I also feared success. Failure seemed to confirm that I was not enough. Success created new pressure to perform, protect what I had achieved, and prove myself again. No matter how much I accomplished, peace remained somewhere beyond the next goal.

Today, those fears have not vanished completely, but they no longer run my life. I am learning to make healthier choices, set better boundaries, and allow success to be something I experience rather than something I must defend. I can take a risk without making the outcome a verdict on my worth. I can make a mistake without turning it into a life sentence.

The change has affected the people around me. My employees and colleagues have told me that I am a different and better leader. I am less harsh and more willing to listen. My relationships with my wife, children, parents, and sister have grown closer. What I once tried to create through control, I am increasingly able to build through presence and trust.

Promise 11: Releasing What No Longer Serves

Promise 11: With help from our ACA support groups, we will slowly release our dysfunctional behaviors. One of the most hopeful words in Promise 11 is slowly. ACA does not demand instant transformation. It gives me permission to practice, stumble, repair, and begin again one day at a time.

For me, releasing dysfunctional behavior often begins with a pause. When I feel criticized, overlooked, or underappreciated, anger and certainty can rise quickly. My old response was to decide who was right, who was wrong, and how to fix the situation. My recovery invites a different set of questions: What am I feeling? What old fear has been touched? What belongs to me? What would my Loving Parent say or do right now?

Judgment closes my heart. Discernment allows it to remain open while still protected by healthy boundaries.

That distinction has changed my life. Discernment does not require me to agree, remain silent, or accept unhealthy behavior. It allows me to evaluate an action, decision, or boundary without condemning the entire person. It helps me replace an us-versus-them mindset with curiosity. It reminds me that I can be clear and kind at the same time.

I sometimes say, Never waste a good trigger. A trigger can become an invitation to identify the old pattern beneath my reaction and bring it into the light. I still have moments when I react before I reflect. The difference is that I now have tools, a support group, and fellow travelers who help me return to myself.

Promise 12: Learning to Expect the Best

Promise 12: Gradually, with our Higher Power’s help, we will learn to expect the best and get it. For much of my life, expecting the worst felt responsible. Hypervigilance looked like wisdom because it had helped me survive. ACA is teaching me that hope is not denial and trust is not blindness. I can recognize risk, ask questions, and maintain boundaries while also choosing not to assign harmful motives to others.

My wife and I have adopted a simple practice in our relationship: assume good intentions. That practice has been a game changer in our more than three decades together. When one of us says something awkwardly or makes a mistake, we try to begin with the belief that harm was not the goal. This does not erase impact or remove responsibility. It creates enough safety for honesty, repair, and connection.

I am trying to carry that same practice into ACA service. When people pour their time and energy into a meeting, committee, Intergroup, Region, or World Service, I choose to believe that they want ACA to thrive. We will not always agree on how to accomplish that. We will make mistakes. We may need to question a policy, seek greater transparency, offer a minority opinion, or change course. Assuming good intentions does not ask us to abandon accountability. It asks us to pursue accountability without abandoning love.

Gratitude Is Not Silence

In service, I am learning to hold two truths at once. Honest questions, informed group conscience, and healthy accountability matter. So do gratitude, compassion, and respect for the human beings doing the work. Appreciation does not require blind agreement, and disagreement does not require condemnation.

When discussion moves from examining a decision to assuming the motives or character of the people involved, I notice my heart begin to close. My recovery asks me to pause. Can I say what concerns me using an I statement? Can I remain curious? Can I honor a minority opinion without turning another person into an enemy? Can I place principles before personalities, including my own personality?

I am deeply grateful for ACA’s trustees, employees, delegates, committee members, meeting servants, sponsors, fellow travelers, and the hundreds of volunteers whose often-invisible work keeps this precious program viable. I am also grateful for the people willing to ask difficult questions. Both forms of service can strengthen our fellowship when they are offered with humility and received with grace.

A Better Life Than I Believed I Deserved

ACA gave me my life back – and a better life than I ever believed I deserved. My emotional self has a voice today. My Loving Parent is becoming part of how I show up in the world. I am more peaceful, more vulnerable, and more tolerant of weakness and mistakes, including my own.

Promises 10, 11, and 12 are no longer abstract words I read at the end of a meeting. I can see them unfolding in my choices and relationships. Fear is loosening its grip. Dysfunctional behaviors are being released, slowly and imperfectly. With the help of my Higher Power, ACA, and the people who walk beside me, I am learning to expect the best – and increasingly, I am receiving it.

For that, and for all the wonderful humans who make this fellowship possible, I am profoundly grateful.