Performance terminology can be applied as a form of analysis to evoke unique understandings of the identity of adult children of alcoholics (ACoA). By observing ACoA meetings, one can see members relying on positive reinforcement, validation perceptions, rewriting and visualizing healthy parenting skills, and rehearsing more functional alternative behavior. It appears that creation and acknowledgement of inner selves become the primary means by which members construct identity. It is the inner child who can begin to show the individual how to take care of and parent the adolescent and young adult parts of the self. Members' descriptions of and scripting and rehearsing with these inner selves suggests a dynamic, performance approach to recovery. Identity for the adult child, then, may be a complex and creative reworking of the crisis of addiction into the drama of recovery. For some adult children of alcoholics in recovery, support groups can aid the individual in learning how to rewrite the past and practice healthier possibilities for the future. Some members of mutual self-help groups imagine dialogues with and take on the roles of child, adolescent, and young adult as a part of recovery work. Understanding these unique parts of the self is key to working through dysfunction and synthesizing the inner selves into a functional, recovering whole. These strategies provide hope and health to individuals who come from alcoholic homes as well as other children of trauma. (NB)