History of Love Addicts Anonymous

[Susan Peabody]

History of LAA

Love Adddicts Anonymous was co-founded by Susan P. and Howard G.in 2004. Prior to this it was a "Women Who Love Too Much" meeting founded by Susan in 1984. The name change, in 2004, was made so that men could attend meetings.

The purpose for the new LAA organization was for love addicts to have their own 12-Step program with the focus on the various types of love addiction and codependency. The co-founders and first 12 members wanted to do something different than other 12-Step programs, so it was decided to allow "outside literature," and have a recovery reading at the beginning of each meeting and make that the topic and expedite recovery.

Susan dates her own recovery back to AA on November 7, 1982.

Susan wrote the literature behind the scenes, and Howard took on the responsibility of facilitating the meetings starting on September 12, 2004. They met in Piedmont, California. About 12 people attended.

In 2006, the message board was created for for LAA members to communicate with each other. It was small in the beginning but now it has 7,600 members.

In 2014, LAA became international.

In 2019, the International Business Committee was formed to try to bring all the meetings together to make decisions.

In 2019, the LAA Basic Text was written. It was revised according to the members' wishes, and then approved. A vote was taken on the message board. It will be revised as we grow and can get more opinions. It is modeled on the AA Big Book with information in the beginning and stories at the end.

In 2019 the South Africa LAA group created our logo.

On May 1, 2020, LAA was re-born under the dark cloud of Covid-19. Since then, we have grown significantly and currently have 21 meetings including the One Day at a Time Fellowship of LAA.

In 2021 the LAA Step Guide was published. It was written by the members of Russia and South Africa. It was approved by the international business committee.

Howard has passed on, but as of 2022 Susan still works behind the scenes. Service is part of the LAA commitment.

[Susan Peabody]

Yesterday fifty members of LAA voted to disassociate itself from the message board I created for them in 2005. I am processing this. It hurts, and I think it is short sighted.

Email . . .

I have been doing some soul searching and wanted to share. I have always wanted LAA to transition to a group leadership, but I was not prepared to hand it over to people who were hostile to me. I did want to hold on to the message board. I did often make unilateral moves, but it was for a reason. I am a very expedient person and have powerful visions of how to grow and move forward. Guidelines needed to be written as quickly as possible so I wrote drafts and had them approved. When no one was showing up at the business meetings I took charge, followed the agenda, and got the time down to 45 minutes. In ignorance I thought I was being helpful but others saw it as controlling. I am also good at diffused awareness (seeing the big picture) and organized things for the future like the Intergroup. The new IBM was unable to see how important the message board was for getting information about LAA to the public so they shut it down prematurely. It has 250 guests each day. So, letting go of LAA is not that difficult, it was the way it was done. It was the laughter after the new group congratulated themselves that hurt.

[Susan Peabody]

What happened to Susan, LAA, and the message board?.

My "inner angry teenager" was acting out from time to time. I was getting defensive when someone criticized me. I was sometimes harsh with people in emails. People got upset and turned on me. They started gossiping about me to newcomers. People were unhappy with my leadership. People were unhappy that they had to register on the message board. It all came to a head when I was in the hospital and a new executive committee came on board. The leader called an emergency business meeting and fifty people decided to disassociate from the message board that I had created. I was devastated. To manage my pain, I turned to my old (outdated/unhealthy)childhood coping mechanism, getting defensive. Then I went through a period of self-pity. Then I began to accept what happened. I tried to look at the bright side. I was no longer held back by the Traditions when it came to my anonymity that I have always seen as a personal choice. Then the tide came in and I was back where I started. I got depressed. My friends were unavailable. I kept trying to process it. I tried to get revenge by taking all the LAA threads off the message board. Then, my Higher Power intervened and told me to stop all this nonsense and return the LAA threads to the message board for the sake of those who did like it and want it to continue . . . especially the newcomers. Susan started to feel better. She is now posting on the thread, "How is Susan Doing?" (click on back button) about the step-by-step process of coming to terms with disappointment when you are an Adult Child. An Adult Child is anyone of the following characteristics.

For more about the Adult Child see my website adultchildren.us

The Laundry List
The 12 Traits of an Adult Child

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.

4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims, and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.

7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

8. We became addicted to excitement.

9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”

10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (denial).

11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

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The moral of the story . . . As my therapist once told me. "Susan, it is time to grow up." Join us for the Adult Child/Parents Zoom Meeting on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. PST. The link is on the website adultchildren.us