As SIA becomes a place where we feel safe, we find the courage and strength to move out of isolation, to recover our feelings and memories, to reveal the incest and its many effects on us, and to work through the wreckage of the past. We become adults no longer imprisoned and driven unconsciously by childhood impulses and reactions. We recover and integrate our inner child or children, thus learning to accept and love ourselves fully.
We work this program one day at a time with the help of our higher power, the 12 Steps, the 12 Traditions, the Serenity Prayer, meetings, sharing, writing, sponsors, the telephone, therapy, meditation, prayer, fellowship, and books. These tools enable us to progress from hurting, to healing, to helping. We learn to restructure our thinking and behavior. We learn to be actors, not reactors. We gradually regain the sanity, wholeness, and authenticity that were stolen from us by our perpetrators.
In SIA we learn that incest and the interwoven family chaos was a disease that traumatized us as children and left us traumatized as adults. We learn that we did not cause this disease, we could not control it, and we could not cure it. We learn to keep the focus on ourselves in the here and now. We learn to take responsibility for our lives today, and to supply our own parenting, in partnership with a higher power.