Al-Anon Family GroupAl-Anon Family Group
The following articles from the June 2009 issue are reprinted with permission of The Forum,
Al-Anon Family Group Hdqs., Inc., Virginia Beach, VA. For more articles, check The
Forum archive.
In
My Story (pp. 9-10)
Until
Al-Anon, I knew only chaos and fear
By Suzanne, California
If I had the power to take an eraser to my life, I would erase nearly all of it, with few exceptions. I grew up not being able to trust that even my most basic needs would be met.
I am an only child who learned at a very early age not to go to my parents with any need, even at about five years old when I tried to eat liquid cleaner. No matter how much it burned, I kept my mouth closed and did not cry. Crying would have only brought punishment.
My father would send me to fetch his beers for him and chuckled when I drank some too. My parents yelled at me often and fought with each other. I was the counselor between them, trying to keep the peace.
One day, my father left for a two-week fishing trip and did not come home. My mother had dropped out of high school and could barely support a 15 year-old girl. She began drinking, hanging out in bars, and bringing different men into our lives. Some abused her.
She often hit me, until I threatened to do her harm if she ever hit me again. I was 17 then. My mother's favorite phrase to throw at me was, "I should have aborted you!" I swore to myself that I would never bring into the world a child that I didn't want. Both my parents had had dysfunctional upbringings; they applied their childhood experiences to their parenting. I was the result: an adult child of alcoholics who tried to be responsible for everyone else's shortcomings and was afraid of people. I stuffed all of the pain and shame deep inside myself and told myself I was raised in a normal family. No matter what the situation was, I was always the problem. I stopped believing in God.
I didn't realize how dysfunctional I was until I was an adult with virtually no life skills and had married someone equally dysfunctional. My husband readily blamed me whenever a problem surfaced, and I would agree with him. I went from counselor to counselor but could never get off the merry-go-round of depression, believing I had no value as a human being.
One counselor recommended I attend Al-Anon, and I thought he was off his rocker. I couldn't admit to myself that alcohol had played a part. Sure, both my parents drank, but they weren't hooked on alcohol. I told myself they couldn't have been alcoholics; most of what they did to me happened when they were sober. Though my mother often drank away her sorrows after my father abandoned us, I didn't recall ever seeing him drunk. I told myself I didn't belong in Al-Anon.
After the birth of my first child, repressed memories surfaced at inopportune moments. Each memory brought me down further, reopening wounds that required more grieving. I lacked the skills to handle it all.
My six-year-old son was pounding his fists into me, taking all of his frustrations out on me, and I said to myself, "I can't do this!" Then my husband refused to be involved with my son's therapy, and he blamed me for the problems. Only then was I able to turn to Al-Anon and find sanity.
Through Al-Anon, I found people who shared things in their own lives that uncannily mirrored my own experiences. Even though I was too afraid to speak out during meetings, members greeted me, made me welcome, and reached out to me. Through Al-Anon, I have found true friendships.
When I can't make it to one meeting, I can find another. When I can't get to any meetings, The Forum provides me with a link to keep working the program. I have learned that I don't have to be perfect, and I don't have to be everyone's doormat.
Through the first three Steps, I have found sanity and the ability to stand up for myself, even if it could mean that my husband chooses to leave me. I am more able to discern what I can change and am finally able to release to God the things I can't change. I have found faith in God, who cares about me.
In Features (pp.
24-26)
Conquering
the spiritual disease of fear
By P.A.M., Wyoming
The first time I had heard of Al-Anon was when I met my mother-in-law. She babbled on about how great a program it was and how it saved her life. Considering my background, it was absolutely mind boggling that I had no idea that alcohol could be such a problem in people's lives that they had a program for it. My mom was just 18 years old when I was born. At 16, she married a man with an inclination to smoke pot, drink, and try to flush her head down the toilet. They were divorced by the time I was one year old. When she began to raise her two children alone, she had a bad accent and the equivalent of a high school education.
She soon fell in love with the man who became her second husband. He drank, smoked, snorted cocaine, and sold drugs. My stepfather would have liked it better if I hadn't been around. I can remember several occasions when they took me to parties where-instead of a potluck table-there would be all sorts of colored pills, bottles of liquor, cocaine on mirrors, and clouds of pot smoke wafting from room to room. I was the lucky one who held my mother's hair back while she vomited her guts out in the bathroom.
As I got older, I swore I would never put myself in that position-wasted and out of control. My first boyfriend was an alcoholic drug addict. My second was, too. My third was 24 years older than I am. And then I met my husband. He actually had the good sense to tell me he was an addict. I didn't listen. I had never known anything else.
I entered the Al-Anon program at the advice of a therapist about four years into our marriage. I thought I was going to learn about my husbands behavior and how to handle it. I worked through the Steps with a Sponsor, but I really didn't understand that my life was unmanageable because of my disease. I just thought I attracted "jerks."
When I moved two years later, I worked the Steps again with another Sponsor. This time I learned that I could be controlling. But my husband was using again, and didn't that make him the biggest jerk of all?
It wasn't until December of last year that I hit bottom. I was severely depressed. I thought killing myself was the answer. I truly thought that my three sons would be better off without me, that I was teaching the younger ones bad habits, and that I was making the older one miserable. My husband, then sober, asked me to postpone killing myself until I had worked the Steps with a particular Sponsor. I agreed, and my life changed.
What I learned was that I have a disease that is just as detrimental to my health and well-being as alcoholism or drug addiction. I suffer from the spiritual disease of fear. When my disease is in control of my life, I am spiritually sick; and my behavior is bad. I am resentful and feel like I'm a victim.
On the other hand, my attitude brings serenity into my life when I focus on spiritual principles: acceptance, open-mindedness, honesty, love, forgiveness, harmony, faith, hope, light, and joy.
I oscillate between living in fear and living in the solution. Today I am quicker to become aware of my diseased thinking and gently place myself back into the hands of God.
Today I am able to admit it when I am at fault and make amends for my behavior. I am able to pray for God's will for me and the power to carry that out. I am able to pass on what I have learned to someone else who is living in fear.
My father, ex-stepfather, mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband are all alcoholics. What I have learned from Al-Anon is that any problem I have with them is the result of my diseased thinking, not their behavior. I can now clearly see the separation between me, my disease, and the rest of the world. I owe my life to Al-Anon and all the members who help to keep me free from the spiritual disease of fear.