Hi and thank you. Though I interpret some of Alice Miller\'s work a bit differently on some issues I love your posts and her work. In fact with the aid of her website and your posts I experienced a major breakthrough in my 5 year long journey in therapy with a LCSW. I also found very helpful your commentary on AA. Through direct experience I came to the same conclusions about AA. Once I started to open and learn more about the origins of my wounds I could no longer sit in the meetings and leave my mind vulnerable to the constant contridictions that I heard from the other\'s speaking at the meetins. I was sober for 9 years at that point. I do know without a doubt that the 12 step program was a priceless aide in becoming and remaining sobriety for the first 9 years. It wasn\'t until I met with people on the job who mirrored and exaserbated all my childhood wounding that I finally found an amazing therapist who walked me through the past 5 years. Though I did have lot\'s of therapy those first 9 years, she was the first to point out tha I suffer from PTSD and she wasn\'t big on jumpiing to forgiveness like all before her. I couldn\'t even hear her the first three years. In fact I told her OH NO don\'t go there with me. I have already forgiven my parents. I myself am the mother of a 27 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, and they have different fathers. If you are interested I will tell you my journey with my children. You mention not having children until the traumatic wounding is healed. Yes I agree people who are likely to pass down the wounding should not have children BUT that will not happen. People will continue to procreate if for only the reason that most wounded people have no impulse control and make babies all the time. You talk about the time it takes to truly heal. YES it takes a whole lot of effort to heal making all the demands of parenting very difficult. For me I have decided whatever the price economically and socially I will do the work putting my daughter and my own healing first. That is easier now after I worked while my husband got his R.N. Long story! I find that it takes so much time and effort that I wonder how I can maintain this journey. At this point I have really begun to grieve and look at my past... I am telling you it is not easy and does not usually meet with the approval of society. I can\'t say well I am processing so much data and working so hard to heal that I am not presentable today. Instead I say oh I am having such a hard time with menapause etc. etc. Then I am met with all kinds of advice. In short the good news is I am a good mother I work every day to be fully present for my daugher and my daughter is thriving. She is well balanced, joyful and has reasonable self esteem. As I work on my boundaries I help her with hers. I listen to her fully and I thank GOD that my therapist has been an amazing mirror for me. My son is ok and it\'s never too late. I was not as narcisistic as my own parents. In fact I was much more loving. My son suffered the worse as I did abandon him in my addications and his father raised him alone starting at age 5, which I am grateful for. I returned to his life when he was 11. I did however manage to hold him a lot the first year of his life and I tried to be a good mother. It was really important to me from my first born on. I didn\'t want to pass down those horrible feelings but the repetiion compulsion and my addiction to alcohol and drugs was very strong at that stage of my life. There\'s so much I could share here and I am saying there is hope for people who really want to end the repetition compulsion. It does take a huge amount of willingness and faith however. Some days I spend writing crying etc I change appointments etc. then at 3 PM I put on a happy face and pick my daughter up from school. It\'s terrifying because I have a small busines I am trying to run but as of this past month I am letting go of anything coming before my healing journey. If I loose clients I will get other\'s later. I know thi work cannot wait. It takes a tremendous amount of faith and courage. The faith being that I cannot do this work, be there for my daughter and work full time. I finally accepted that about the situation. We live in a beautiful place...in AZ a wonderful place to raise a child. However this town seems to be filled with either corporate minded people or NEW AGE thought and of course there is a lot of belief in Spiritual BY-PASSING. In other words traditional therapy as they call it is in some points of view a waste of time and money when afterall you can do this healer or that method to a fast track healing of mind, body and spirit. Not in my case you can\'t I tried lot\'s of methods as Miller says a mixture of eastern and westeren religous philosophy and it all futhered and intensified my confusion. If you respond to me I will would be happy to give you further information on my journey to end the suffering in myself and to help my children be free of the wounding. My childhood was extremely abusive, and I suffered greatly. I was sexually abused by my father and many other\'s. I saw violence on a regular basis and my mother was young and extremely narsisistic very wounded herself. She was horrible to me. With a grateful Heart~