The following articles from the December 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 Embrace the Legacies (pp. 6-7)
Our Spiritual Bridges to Expand the Future
By Ric B., Executive Director
Our pioneers believed that the Legacies—our Steps, Traditions, and later the Concepts of Servicej--were tools to expand Al-Anon's message of hope and recovery to all thoss suffering from someone else's drinking. Their early correspondence spoke about how the Traditions could empower the groups to grow.
When I attended my first Al-Anon Family Group meeting, I wasn't concerned about Al-Anon's worldwide growth. I wasn't even concerned about my own growth. I just wanted to the pain to stop.
I finally stopped trying to prove that I didn't belong, but then I wanted each meeting to meet all of my needs. Topics that didn't seem to be about fear, anger, or the Steps were not interesting to me; those service meeting announcements were really annoying. I didn't want to have to commit to anything else.
As I truly started working the Steps, I saw how the Al-Anon program was a spiritual guide to my personal recovery. And yes, the Steps were in the right order and every word was where it needed to be. My first lessons in true acceptance came after I realized the Steps didn't need my help in rephrasing them or altering the gender of a Higher Power. Al-Anon was a safe place for everyone; each of us could take what worked for us and ignore what wasn't helpful today.
I took the Traditions literally and not as spiritual guides. I didn't understand that they were keys to harmony and unity, not rules to apply strictly without spiritual context. Yes, my group was autonomous, but if we chanted outside prayers or read from outside literature, it could affect Al-Anon and A.A. As a whole. Whatever my group wanted to do to prove our autonomy was irrelevant if it negatively affected a newcomer's impression of the Al-Anon program.
The Concepts of Service were a turnoff because they were, after all, about service. I was still struggling with "our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern." Now I was supposed to relate a Conference structure and a Board of Trustees to my personal recovery. I had been involved in all those outside organizations and they certainly were not spiritual. I took many of my preconceived ideas into my first service meetings. I wanted to make motions before we talked about things. I new Robert's Rules of Order and believed that it needed to be strictly followed. But members (including my Sponsor) gently reminded me that this was Al-Anon and that we don't have to do business in the same way that others did. We needed to talk to one another and reason things out. Maybe a motion wasn't even needed and we could decide not to do anything--just listen and talk.
As I grew spiritually, my reliance on the Legacies became important to my recovery. The words of Bill's essay on leadership in Concept Nine and Lois's Committee description of how to deal with unreasonable people to avoid conflict in Warranty Four became checklists for what I needed to do to keep my serenity and maintain my spiritual health.
When I see a newcomer struggle now during a Tradition or Concept meeting, I make time to encourage them and confirm that similar topics didn't always make sense to me—but the longer I cam, the more I understood. The spiritual reality for me was, and is, that Al-Anon Family Groups has a roadmap for personal, spiritual, and business success. When I embrace the Legacies, they truly do provide me with the spiritual bridges that I need to expand my future.
As my understanding and recovery expand, my ability to carry a welcoming message to anyone, anywhere also grows. When I place the results in the hands of my Higher Power, the opportunities for Al-Anon's growth are spiritually unlimited. I just need to "Let It Begin with Me."
In Features (pp. 16-17)
A son moves past the anger of his childhood
By Tom C., South Carolina
When I was a boy, before my father drank himself out of his business and his marriage, he was the one you wanted to remove a splinter. "Get Dad to take it out," my brother advised me when I was crying over the sliver in my finger. "It won't even hurt." Amazingly, he was right. My father told me to close my eyes and look away, make some corny jokes in a silly voice, and then it was over. "Done," he told me.
Later on, in my twenties, a friend who understood my problem told me, "This stuff about your father, this stuff you've buried--you're going to have to deal with it someday." I had no idea what she meant. I didn't think I had buried anything. I had lived through my childhood and moved on. What was I supposed to deal with?
My wife urged me to find an Al-Anon meeting. She knew my background. She saw my unhappiness. But I think the 45 minute tantrum I thew when she criticized my driving may have influenced her advice.
When I studied From Survival to Recovery (B-21), I identified with the general characteristics the writers put forth: a tendency to either keep people at bay or drop all boundaries; to expect to do things right the first time or not do them at all; to insulate oneself from risk but ignore self-destructive behavior. But what especially struck me was each person's decision to change.
The idea that the anger and melancholy that had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember might not be my true self struck me. What if I were to give it a shot? What would I do if I found out that it hadn't been cloudy all my life, but that some of those windows just needed to be washed?
I was grateful I had a fledgling program when, for the first time in my adult life, I received a birthday letter from my father. He had moved into a house with a garden, and grew some cucumbers. He was starting to eat them now, and they tasted good. He signed the letter, "Happy Birthday. Love, Dad."
I started to cry, choked back the tears, and convulsed harder. The stories I'd been hearing of him for years from my sisters were that he would call them for a ride, then borrow money from them and from a nine year-old grandson. He lived on beer and pain relievers. He entered a recovery program one weekend and called them the next for help finding his car. I did not trust this man to be in my life. Thanks to my program, I was able to respond in a caring fashion.
Later his landlord found him passed out, dead drunk, and called the hospital, where he died. It will probably always hurt to think about him drinking himself to death in an empty home. But even if I'm sad that he never found his way to recovery, I'm grateful to my Higher Power for having allowed me to receive his last gesture of love, and respond ina loving way.
While I would have rather learned this lesson another way, the readings, prayers, and meetings that helped me get through that painful period illustrated to me that I'd found a second family in Al-Anon, and why I wanted to be there to pass the program on to the next person who needs it.
In Features (p. 21
Letting go of worry, finding happiness
By Anonymous, Canada
I was always worried about my alcoholic boyfriend--his health, his finances, even the mess left over the next day from empty beer cans. I felt that it was my fault. I was the cause of his stress.
I was driving myself crazy over the things he would do. It was a struggle to try to get him to stop drinking. It seems like there was never an end to all the turmoil that was going on around me.
One day, I was so upset I went to a mental health center for help. They mentioned Al-Anon. Of course, I thought that it was a program that would help me fix the alcoholic.
When I got to a meeting, I realized how wrong I was. Yet there was something about this program that helped put my mind at peace. So I kept coming back.
One slogan that grabbed my attention was "Let Go and Let God." At first, I thought it meant to stop caring about the alcoholic. Later I realized it meant to let go of the problems that I can't control and put them in the hands of God.
Every night I prayed that God would take care of his doings, and I would take care of mine. After a while, things started to get better. I found that it was easier to worry about what I was doing instead of worrying about what others were doing.
When people would ask, "Shouldn't you worry about what the alcoholic is doing?" I'd reply, "I don't have time for that, I only have time to work on me." I found that my mind was at peace and that nothing else bothered me. I truly felt happy, the way I was before all the worrying began.