Al-Anon Family Group

The Forum magazine articles - August 2003

The following articles from the August 2003 issue are reprinted with permission of The Forum, Al-Anon Family Group Hdqs., Inc., Virginia Beach, VA.  For more articles, check The Forum archive.

 

My friend said she would pick me up on Thursday morning to go to a meeting.  At first, I wasn't quite sure if I was in the right place or why my friend brought me there.  I felt sure of one thing--I didn't belong in a room that was filled with laughter and lively conversation.      I didn't know eventually I would be feeling the same way those people did.  I continued to attend the meeting just to listen, even though it was difficult.  That was all right because at least I was getting something out of the meetings.      I was in the group for about five months before we studied Step Four.  I could not make sense of the Steps, yet I knew there was something about this Step that scared me--right into recovery.      I sought help from a professional because I knew my childhood, troubled teen years, and years of living with the alcoholic had caught up to me.  I felt overshelmed.  I spent two years in intensive therapy, five days a week, before I began moving in a positive direction.  I returned to high school and earned my diploma.      From there I returned to my Al-Anon group.  I found it just as I had left it, minus a few familiar faces, plus some new ones.  It was the same loving group I had known four years earlier.      I have been back in Al-Anon for eight years now and I am involved in service work.  I feel blessed to be a part of this supportive, helpful group.  I want others to experience the growth I have experienced in the Al-Anon program.

 

When I arrived at Al-Anon, I was desperate.  I was unable to control anything or anybody, yet my words of justification were, "Somebody had to," or, "They made me do it."  I kept coming back, listening to others share about their powerlessness.  They talked about all the things they had tried before they came to Al-Anon, and none of it worked.      Gradually I was able to accept my own powerlessness and to recognize that many of the happenings in my daily life were none of my business.  Fortunately my attitude changed and so did my behavior.  I found serenity when I used the slogans, "Live and Let Live" or "How Important Is It?"  Also, a saying that helped me was, "Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't say it mean."      I turned my will and my life over to my Higher Power, took it back, turned it over, and took it back again.  Finally I acknowledged that my Higher Power was in charge and that I needed to "Listen and Learn."  Lots of meetings, a Sponsor, and a Step study helped me work through the Twelve Steps.  Al-Anon groups introduced me to the Twelve Traditions, but service taught me how to incorporate them into my daily life.      Al-Anon is so different from other organizations.  We are all equal but we learn to put our common welfare first to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.  I learned humility by watching members put principles before personalities as they performed Al-Anon service work.  Through my own service work I experienced growth, recovery--and I learned that my efforts were good enough!  A wonderful bonus came in the form of fun, fellowship, and the many new friends I made throughout the district and our area.      Loving interchanges have guided me and allowed me to learn from my mistakes in an atmosphere of trust and safety.  The trusted servants who helped me did not make me feel I was less than they were just to make themselves seem important.  I've made mistakes and been able to say so, realizing it doesn't make me bad or stupid.  I've needed to make both public and private amends, but I'm okay when I do the best I can and my motives are clean.      Al-Anon changed my life because it changed my attitudes and my behavior.  Al-Anon saved my life by showing me how to forgive myself and others, and to live one day at a time.  I keep coming back because I need the positive reinforcement I receive when I recognize myself in someone else's sharing.  I need a place where I know people love me just as I am.      Today I face the same problems and people that I faced before I found Al-Anon.  The difference is I have the tools of the program to help me keep my serenity.  I take responsibility for my actions while letting go of trying to control the things I cannot change.  If I truly live my life, it becomes easier to let other people live theirs.      My daughter is back at home after another trip to a treatment center.  Presently she is working a recovery program and so am I.  When we both use program tools and give each other unconditional love, everything is serene.  What creates disharmony is our anger if we don't get our own way, or the moment when we fear a relapse is going to happen for either of us.      Al-Anon has helped me be honest with myself and my daughter.  Her program has helped her do the same.  I am so grateful that we know how much we love each other.  My daughter realizes how much Al-Anon has helped change me, and she wants some of what I've got.  To help herself with relationships, she has begun to attend her own Al-Anon meeting.      I took my daughter with me when the Al-Anon International Convention was in Salt Lake City.  I remember the theme for the opening meeting was "The Language of Love."  Now we speak the language of love in our family.  I am so grateful to be a part of this wonderful worldwide fellowship.  I love knowing that life is a great adventure, a journey.  I am eager to experience tomorrow while still savoring the joys of today.

 

Before I found Al-Anon over 40 years ago, I was floundering--covering up, cleaning up, shutting up, keeping up appearances, seeming to appear calm, tolerant, and sweet in public--but inwardly I was burning with resentment and consumed with fear and guilt.  I did not know where to turn or to whom.      I longed for a confidante who would understand and not just shake her head and say, "It beats me how you carry on at all!"  I wondered what I had done to cause the drinking and to deserve this fate.  I often wondered if I should walk out--and but for the children, I would have done so.      I was completely baffled and overcome by our lives.  Fear beset my, lurking around every corner--fear of friends calling, fear of friends not calling, fear of asking people to drinks or for supper, fear of going out to parties or weddings, fear of a voice on the phone asking us to a party.  I can still hear myself hedging when this happened.  I was afraid of going out to try to live my own life for fear of what I would find when I returned.      My whole existence revolved around the bottle.  One word, alcohol, regulated everything I did.  I was full of resentment and self-pity and in danger of losing faith in life, living, and myself.      Then I heard of Al-Anon--and the members gave me some booklets to read.  I read Guide for the Family of the Alcoholic (P-7) andAlcoholism, the Family Disease (P-4).  I heard there was a book called Living with an Alcoholic, now titled The Al-Anon Family Groups--Classic Edition (B-5).  I started attending our little group and cannot adequately express my thanks for what I gained there.  I found the answers to my searing questions in our literature written in black and white.  I found I had been doing all the wrong things.  In fact, I realized I had been helping my alcoholic along the road to destruction, instead of assisting him to recovery.      I honestly realized for the first time that I was powerless over alcohol and the alcoholic.  That was something I could not change.  It was his problem, not mine.  I saw, too, what a mess I was in and how badly I needed to change.  I could change myself and I could learn how to live with an alcoholic.  I knew I must begin now if I was ever going to help my beloved alcoholic to a contented sobriety--in Alcoholics Anonymous, or out of it.      At Al-Anon meetings I have found kindred spirits who understand and I have found a program to follow that can help me.  The Twelve Steps, adapted from AA, are equally applicable to me.  I have found others in Al-Anon who are trying to work this program and are honestly and fearlessly facing up to themselves.  I have taken courage from them.      My altered outlook and attitudes at home have had noticeable effect.  Since I have ceased to complain, wallow in self-pity, and cover up, and since I have accepted alcoholism as a disease, it has revolutionized my whole thinking.  I have also accepted my husband as a sick person injured by his illness and in need of my help, not my nagging, criticism, and reproach.  Instead of listening for the key fumbling in the latch with meready to pounce, I'm there smiling and pleasant, asking if he would like some coffee!      I have learned never to restrict the liquor and never to comment on how much or what he consumes.  I have learned when to speak about the matter and what is best said.  I no longer offer a tirade of grievances, rage, and threats, but I do offer a benign statement of my awareness of his disease and of his fear.  I know that he must handle and deal with his own problem himself, with me in the background loving him and trying to understand.      I have learned not to feel discouraged too easily or to expect too much too soon but to take "One Day at a Time" and make the most of it.  We can all cope with one day.  They are the burdens of yesterday and the fears for tomorrow that weigh us down and submerge us.      At last, but certainly not least, I have come to a fuller realization than ever before that a Power greater than myself is around to help, guide, sustain me, and listen to my prayers for serenity, courage, and wisdom.