Al-Anon Family GroupAl-Anon Family GroupThe following articles from the November 2005 issue are reprinted with permission of The Forum, Al-Anon Family Group Hdqs., Inc., Virginia Beach, VA. For more articles, check The Forum archive.
HOME AGAIN
I went to a therapist because of depression I couldn’t shake due to a miscarriage. She told me Al-Anon had everything I needed. What a shock! I didn’t think my husband was an alcoholic. I attended a meeting because I respected the therapist, but I expected the members to tell me I was in the wrong place and my husband wasn’t an alcoholic. As I listened to Al-Anon members share their stories, I realized the therapist was right and I cried through my first six meetings.
I didn’t really understand that the program was about me. The Steps were amazing and the world would be a great place if everyone lived by them, but the slogans seemed kind of silly. The first time I detached, I did so without any love. I kicked my husband out of the house!
My husband and I got back together the day before our divorce was final. He agreed to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I quit going to Al-Anon because I accomplished my mission. My husband stopped going to AA a month later. Our marriage spiraled downward. We had another baby and bought a house. My husband quit working. I worked overtime to keep us financially afloat.
When I asked my husband if he was drinking again, he looked at me with hurt in his eyes and said, “How can you even think that?” I became a screaming maniac and shook all the time. All I could think about was that my children needed their father. How could I raise them alone?
Memories of my 40th birthday include looking for cans to recycle so we could get money to buy diapers. The mortgage company was ready to foreclose on our house and my husband looked like a street bum. I begged him to get help. Eventually I packed up the children and we moved in with my parents. All I really wanted to do was die, but my children depended on me.
At that darkest time in my life, I thought about an Al-Anon slogan. :One Day at a Time” became one step at a time as I thought, “Just put one foot in front of the other.” I focused on the Just for Today bookmark (M-12). It suggested I could do anything for 12 hours. I also repeated in my mind, “I didn’t cause alcoholism, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it.”
When I decided to return to Al-Anon, I felt so ashamed that I didn’t want to go to a face-to-face meeting. My husband found an on-line Al-Anon meeting for me and I started healing. Eventually I returned to the first group I attended. It was comforting to see familiar faces. The members welcomed me back with love and I felt like I was home again. My Sponsor is awesome. I returned to college and I sing in my church choir. I was painfully shy before Al-Anon and now I’m coming out of my shell and truly living life.
I
Felt EMPOWERED
I was at a social function when I heard someone say, “If someone’s drinking is creating a problem, there is a drinking problem.” Immediately I knew my husband had a drinking problem because his drinking definitely caused problems. I’d heard of Al-Anon and thought I could get him to quit drinking if I attended a meeting.
The group met in a church basement. There were only three of us. The other women shared their stories because I was a newcomer. One talked about enabling. She said her husband came home one Friday night and passed out on the kitchen floor. On Saturday—the day she scrubbed the kitchen floor—he was still on the floor. Rather than waiting for her husband to wake up, she scrubbed the floor around him.
The other woman shared about the night her husband drove his car into their neighbor’s yard. He got out of the car, stumbled back to their house, and went to bed. The woman said she didn’t try to save the family from embarrassment by moving the car. She left the car so her husband could face the consequences of his behavior.
I was amazed to discover the women had been Al-Anon members for a number of years and both were married to active alcoholics. That was when I realized Al-Anon wasn’t for me—I needed something to make my husband stop drinking.
Even though I didn’t return, I understood that enabling hurts—it doesn’t help. I no longer called my husband’s boss saying my husband was sick when he was drunk. I stopped buying beer and stopped pleading with him to get out of bed and go to work. Even with my limited understanding, I felt empowered each time I consciously decided not to enable him.
Six years later, due to court intervention for drunk driving, my husband was in a treatment program that urged family members to attend Al-Anon. Even though I thought Al-Anon was a waste of time because it couldn’t make my husband stop drinking, I went because I was a people-pleaser. That was my second meeting and I’ve been attending ever since—for 22 years.
DRAWING
CONCLUSIONS
One day I heard several dogs barking in a nearby apartment building. After an hour, I talked with the apartment manager. He was surprised because that particular building didn’t allow pets. The manager stormed off to chastise the resident. The barking subsided and I went about my day.
When I returned home later that afternoon, I found a small tree completely uprooted in my front yard. The tree was an unusual one that I’d nursed from a small cutting. I was shattered, certain the dog owner destroyed my beautiful tree as payback for complaining about the barking.
I imagined that act of violence to my property would lead to a threat on my well-being—possibly on my life. I panicked. I called Al-Anon members and attended my home group that night, sharing my anger, fear, and sadness. After the meeting, I visited several neighbors on our block, warning them of the current and probable vandalism.
The next morning, by sheer coincidence, a friend in the landscaping business came by my house to do some work. He looked at the fallen tree. “I see your tree finally fell over,” he said. “What do you mean?” I asked. He answered, “Well, that particular tree is a desert tree that holds water. It’s a miracle it didn’t fall years ago due to the way you always trimmed it to be top heavy. I’ve seen many trees like that just fall over of their own accord, roots and all.”
My face flushed with embarrassment as I related my exaggerated assessment of what had happened. My friend pointed out that if a vandal pushed over the tree, it would have broken apart. However, as is typical for that type of water retaining plant, it just fell over from its own weight, completely intact without evidence of a third party pushing it.
Embarrassed, but glad to set the record straight, I called my Sponsor. I decided to make amends to my neighbors for instilling fear with my incorrect assessment of vandalism invading our neighborhood.
In the future I’ll gather facts before drawing conclusions. I won’t share what I think may or may not have happened in any given situation, especially when I don’t have proof. Instead, I’ll press the “pause” button and use the tools of the program.