Woititz and Adult Children of Alcoholics

I remember reading "Adult Childern of Alcoholics" by Janet Woititz as a kid.

I was a kid, mind you, yet my mother, who called herself an "adult child of an alcoholic," had me read those books so that I could learn more about who I am and what problems I would have later on in life.

Just writing that first line forced me to recognize how sick it was for anyone to be training me to believe such drivel.

Much of the recovery literature drives people to define themselves by the failures of their parents instead of granting them insight into the freedoms which everyone of us has by the grace of God.

People who have grown up in abusive homes do not need to be abused again into believing that their past will determine their future.

When someone is in pain, most often we are focusing on ourselves, looking at our thoughts and feelings as the final resting place for who we are. This pernicious set of thinking is just wicked. This premise has kept victims of abuse in bondage for years, and has led to the death of many others who cannot see themselves out of the limiting beliefs imposed by these terrible programs.

What we need in this life is not a "good" self-image, but a "proper", one based on an eternal standard, not how we feel, not what we think.

When I learned that in Christ I was made "the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5: 21), I found a standard for myself that was greater than my successes, better than my failures, and more than the opinions, thoughts, certainties, the past, the future, the present, or anything else in this life. This source of identity is the most important for us.

To define someone by their problems with drinking, or the failures of one's parents will only set them up to do the very things which awaken resentment inside of them in the first place.

Now more than ever, I am outraged at the wickedness folly of therapists and psychologists and social workers who turn people to look at themselves more, only to find more of the same pain and suffering following them around.

We do not need to learn more about ourselves, for man has eternity in his hearts (Ecclesiastes 3: 11). We need more than better thinking, or a resolution with our past. Everyone of us needs life and that more abundantly. We need a stable and strong sense of ourselves not based in ourselves.

The more I research these issues, the more that I see the primacy of man's mind and his thinking over the deeper need of his soul, of his spirit, of the certainty of things beyond one's thinking.

Such teachings have no concourse with the Bible or with Jesus Christ and Him Crucified., who grants to everyone who believes the grace to be named a child of God.