Products are Made; People are Created

So, I guess when one of the characteristics of ACOAs is having difficulty getting things done, they aren't kidding.

I apologize for being late; finding Pacman on Facebook has not done good things for me!

Anyway, this past weekend, my two "very best friends" came to visit me for the first time since I moved from home about four and a half years ago. They've known me since kindergarten and second grade, respectively.

The weekend ended up being hard for me in that I found out my friends continue to change, but seemingly not for the better. Here, they came to visit in order to make me feel better about stuff going on, when really, I think they may have made me feel worse.

At one point, we were talking about the "accent" of the city I live in, and how some people have it very pronounced, while others don't seem to have it at all. I speculated that it had to do with the type of schooling people had, and whether or not they had Phonics, whereas one of my friends concluded: "Really, it just depends on your parents, and what you were surrounded with growing up. That's what shapes you as a person altogether, really."

This got me thinking.

I've always been one to preach that we needn't be a product of our surroundings. I've especially said this when others feel sorry for themselves for their upbringing and how they feel that, for some reason, it might keep them from becoming who they want to be.

I say: no. We are autonomous beings--we are able to make our own decisions and educate ourselves. I use the example of my parents--two incredibly intelligent and talented engineers gone completely worthless thanks to alcoholism--and how I REFUSE to be like them. This decision, in and of itself, could arguably be the same thing as becoming a product, in the sense of allowing the situation to shape my decisions. But for point's sake, and for the sake of not getting too philosophical, I would say that being a "product" is being the totality of many pieces--something that's manufactured. Therefore, if I were a product of my surrounding, I would be much more similar to my parents than I am today.

However, the more I learn about ACOAs, the more I wonder if we are wired to be the cause of our seemingly inevitable demise. It seems that unless one happens to stumble upon some sort of resource, that person will turn out to be a product of the surroundings, even in the midst of the decision to live an opposite lifestyle. What's more disheartening is that even if you are able to stumble upon resources, they simply label all the ways your are contributing to your own demise. Ugh!

I guess my real question is this: how much of our backgrounds play a part in who we are as people, aside from what we are as ACOAs? How much of a role do surroundings play a part in anyone's life as a person comes into full creation and being? What about the purpose of autonomy?

I guess I ask this because there comes a time when we want to hold other people's lives/upbringing against them because it is different from that of our own. They might "not understand" they probably "can't relate" and surely have "no idea" the kind of struggles we have in our lives. But is it right to hold that against them and then make decisions about our relationship with these people based on our own upbringing? That seems hypocritical...

Are we truly escaping from our past so as to evolve into our own, or are we just letting it add to the pieces that might formulate us as a product?

The only stopping point I can come to is this: products are manufactured; people are created. To be a product is to allow the mechanics of our lives to run their course and determine our every move and decision...to live our life as ACOAs and only that. However, to live as a person is to live as a Child of God, who created us. Isn't this related to the "second step"? I think it's something like, "accepted that there is a Higher Power greater than us that can restore our sanity..." Well, accept this Higher Power, and start living for it. Make decisions in your life according to God's Will--recognize the fears and difficulties that may come from our backgrounds as ACOAs, but use them as a point from which to transcend to have a life God wants for you...

... a happy one.

No personal destruction, no manufacturing, only the realization of you as a creation outside of anything having to do with alcoholism at all.

Let's recognize how the past may have affected us, but refuse to let it make us who we are.

I love you.