***OUR WEEKLY READING AND JOURNALING ASSIGNMENTS APPEAR BELOW THIS POST***

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Laundry List Trait 3: We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.

Reading assignment for Trait Three:

Laundry Lists Workbook: Pages 22 and 23.

Optional, but highly recommended: Appendix A and B on pages 152 – 154 of the Laundry List Workbook.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 24 and 25 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 3 Reflections: The Laundry List”:

1. Describe ways you are frightened by angry people (both in childhood memories as well as in your adult relationships.)
2. Describe ways you are frightened by personal criticism (both in childhood memories as well as in your adult relationships.)
3. Can you see ways you’ve dissociated – “dosed” yourself with inside drugs to numb yourself – to avoid feeling fear?
4. Make a list of the comments that you heard and the physical acts that caused you to fear angry people and any personal criticism.
5. Who in your present life comes to mind as being similar physically, vocally, or in demeanor to the angry and critical people in your childhood?
6. Who are the types of people and the types of criticism that are the most powerful in causing your fear today as an adult?

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

The Flip Side of The Other Laundry List Trait 2: We realize the sanctuary we have built to protect the frightened and injured child within has become a prison and we become willing to risk moving out of isolation.

Reading assignment for Trait Two:

Laundry Lists Workbook: Pages 12 and 13.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 18 and 19 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 2 Reflections: The Flip Side of The Other Laundry List”:

1. When you are alone, do you feel more like it is a prison – or a sanctuary?
2. Describe ways you have been or are willing to risk moving out of isolation.
3. Describe your past concept of a sanctuary type of isolation and the benefits you seemed to receive from building it and living in it.
4. What are some instances and experiences that helped you realize that your sanctuary has become a prison?
5. What were some of my first steps in moving out of isolation?
6. What are some of the benefits of moving out of isolation?

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

The Flip Side of The Laundry List Trait 2: We do not depend on others to tell us who we are.

Reading assignment for Trait Two:

Laundry Lists Workbook: Pages 12 and 13.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 17 and 18 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 2 Reflections: The Flip Side of The Laundry List”:

1. Describe ways you do not depend on others to define who you are.
2. How could you integrate more ways *not* to depend on others to tell you who you are?
3. Who am I and how do I know this?
4. What happens internally when someone describes me and speaks for me or states my opinion when I am standing right there?
5. Describe someone’s perspective of you to the best of your ability and then describe how that perspective makes you feel.
6. When someone draws an inaccurate assumption involving you, what do you do and/or say?

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

The Other Laundry List Trait 2: To avoid becoming enmeshed and entangled with other people and losing ourselves in the process, we become rigidly self-sufficient. We disdain the approval of others.

Reading assignment for Trait Two:

Laundry Lists Workbook: Pages 12 and 13.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 15 to 17 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 2 Reflections: The Other Laundry List”:

1. Describe ways you see enmeshment or unhealthy boundaries in your relationships.
2. Describe ways you see healthy boundaries in your relationships.
3. Describe ways you might be rigidly self-sufficient.
4. Do I find myself disdaining approval of others? How do I externally and internally act out my disdain of others? Provide some examples.
5. What did I learn to do when I was little to take care of myself because no one was taking care of me in this way?
6. What happened when I was entangled and/or enmeshed with others as a child?
7. What happens internally when someone tries to get close to me when I’m not ready?

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

Laundry List Trait 2: We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

Reading assignment for Trait Two:

Laundry Lists Workbook: Pages 12 and 13.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 14 and 15 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 2 Reflections: The Laundry List”:

1. As a child, what prompted me to seek approval?
2. In what ways do I behave more as an approval-seeker; how do I lose my identity in the process?
3. How did losing my identity help me in my childhood? When and why do I continue to not claim my true identity in my adulthood?
4. What identity or identities did I focus on as a child? How did that focus help me survive?
5. If I weren’t raised in a dysfunctional/alcoholic home, what type of identity might I have had?
6. Describe how your true identity (being valued for who you truly are) has been hidden/suppressed (for example, by being as your caretakers and/or loved ones wanted you to be.) How did this happen in your childhood? How has it been hidden in your adult life?
7. When you answer questions like this, do you anticipate “what they want to hear” and hope to get it “right”? Have you taken tests or completed forms and filled in the blanks as you “knew” they wanted to hear? Have you answered the questions to “get what you wanted” after the form would be read, perhaps for some service?

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

The Flip Side of The Other Laundry List Trait 1: We face and resolve our fear of people and our dread of isolation and stop intimidating others with our power and position.

Reading assignment for the first four weeks: Laundry Lists Workbook: Foreword, pages vii through ix, and Trait One chapter pages 2 through 4.

  This week’s study questions are found on pages 8 and 9 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 1 Reflections: The Flip Side of The Other Laundry List”:

1.    How has the ACA program helped me face and resolve my fear of people and dread of isolation?

2. What principles of the ACA program have allowed me to stop intimidating other with my power and position?

3. How do I appropriately act within my power and position without intimidating others?

4. What specific fears of people and authority figures have lessened for me?

5. Are there people who are realistically fearsome? If so, make a list of those people or types of people and why they are on your list.

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”

Trait One, Week One: January 21^st, 2026

Laundry List Trait 1: We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

Reading assignment for the first four weeks:       

Laundry Lists Workbook: Foreword, pages vii through ix, and Trait One chapter pages 2 through 4.

Appendix A and B on pages 152 through 154 offer a good review of the concept of dissociation.

This week’s study questions are found on pages 4 and 5 of the Laundry Lists Workbook under the heading “Trait 1 Reflections: The Laundry List”:

1. When have I been isolated and afraid of people and authority figures?
2. Where and when has this occurred?
3. How does my body react when I am in fear?
4. What do I do to help my body come back to a calm inner state?
5. Has isolation become almost comfortable? If so, how?
6. List all the people or types of people who you perceive today as authority figures?
7. This trait says “we became afraid of people.” Who have you been afraid of in the past and who are you afraid of now? This might be certain people with names or it might be types of people.

“Copyrighted by Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization.”