In our groups- I am aware that we are supposed to tell our full story to our sponsor. I was in Alanon before sponsorship was recommended, and so- at the time we told our story to our whole group.

Sponsorship came later. But I am aware that i tailor my sharing to the meeting i am at. Sometimes I tell some aspect of my life- to try and reach a newcomer. Other times- animist times- I am trying to align myself- to a safer, and a healing way of living.

I was born in 1951. My dad was an orchard worker up here in these upland valleys. My mum told me how I came to be and a lot of other stories about her life. I was the oldest and I am not sure the younger kids got this attention. We are not the sort of family that compares notes.

When I was 3 dad had cashed in his veteran allocation and bought a small farm and orchard about 4 km away.

Dad was a small town drinker. The hard drinkers never had to drink alone because they always had mates.

dad was always absent from most things. We had birthdays and Christmas in our family. Our mums a hard worker. She taught me how to milk a cow and how to ride a horse. We had hens, pigs and lived a semi-subsistence sort of existence.

i was good at school. An A student- until I got to the age of 17. I was kicked out of home, really- and things went bad after that. I was broken hearted. I had worked so very hard for my family.

I lost my mojo at age 8 or 9. Mum new I was broken down, She noticed- but was unable to reach me. She might have asked me- "what's the matter". But she didn't. The words she used were "chin-up, chicken." She said the song from Australia- called "little boy lost.

So I needed up being one of those people who hung out aimlessly around the city. I had am aunt and uncle up the coast who were good anglicans. They gave me board for the first vacation holiday away from home- working in the laundry of a mental hospital. it was a we com break from field work and ditch digging. it was there that I discovered the writing of the NZ writer Janet Frame. She became my hero. I was reading one of her books- and a prt of it was set in the laundry where I was working. 

My cousins in the city were becoming prostitutes. This was a shocker for me. It made me very angry at the world and at "society". The oldest cousin was always my special friend. The other four were all boys- at the beginning anyway.  

I first went to an Alanon-AA open meeting at age 20. Joined my first group when I was 32.

I wrote a letter to the paper in the city. The authorities sent me out of town to work in a railway gang. I found my feet there, really. Bought a vehicle.

i showed an aptitude for digging and got a fireman's role- a ganger.

One time they sent out my friends who were junkies. Heroin users- to work on the gang and try and reform them.

This was not immediately successful. But the constant trying, and attention may have had a cumulative effect- for the ones who survived.

I was always aware of how alcohol affected people. As young kid I always believed that they were drinking poison. And after the fourth or fifth drink- really speaking- it did become a poison.

So I mostly kept away from the dope and drugs.

i tried to be a community volunteer- to keep myself out of trouble.

I went back home at the age of 26. To look after the family property. The was a big hydroelectric dam being build at the bottom of the valley.

This bought about many changes in our community. This was a part of the reason why i had learned a lot about community work.

It was not easy- it was gruelling.

But the construction workers bought AA and Alanon into the valley- a whole other story.

My kiwi hero par excellence! 

David, thank you for sharing your life story, so greatly appreciate knowing who you are and

where you came from. You should be so proud of yourself and how you overcame those

struggles you experienced. I do the same thing as you, reflect back to my childhood and

how it has shaped the things about me that I work on in Al-Anon.

I will explore Janet Frame and her work and story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2LOH2Drrc

 Thanks Debb- for your encouragement. 

Maresie... I think is is important to look at linked trends- over the life of Alanon and AA.

I think that Janet was a "psychiatric survivor" although there was no movement behind her. She admitted to being suicidal in an essay- as a psychology student.

It is suggested that she had a crush on a young lecturer- John. It was he who had her referred to a mental hospital. By any standards the therapy was rudimentary.

Was her family dysfunctional? Her dad was a train driver-but she made her way through the education system.

She had lost two of her sisters to drowning- into seperate incidents. Occasions for a whole heap of grief- at a younger age too.

I related to her on  many levels- not least the red hair- which ran through our family.

I sometimes look at orthodoxy- in the 12 Step movement- and in various religious movements. At how people can attach themselves to this- and feel like they have the message. Then, after a generation or two the whole organisation just fades away.

I am more interested in the core- the crux. The basics, or fundamentals. The essence.

Of how life could be lived. Of how communities and societies could conduct themselves and grow.

And especially around the repair of lives.

So, I think that Janet pointed towards these trends

And equally how Lois, Bill, fanning out to a burgeoning movement that blossomed after the 1929 stock market crash- created some protocols and formulas that would add something to really quiet desperate lives.

I was really impressed when the New Yorker  published her story- Gorse Is Not People.

It concerns me greatly- about how literature and poetry is taught. It seems to dumb down the young, somewhat absolutely.

There seems to be no joy- no intellectual curiosity.

The actual work and production reaches the very few, really.

I belong to a tiny tight circle of people in NZ we could call post-Framians- maybe?

At age 17 I was headed for the "hacienda" of another famous writer in NZ. Somewhat infamous in hindsight- but a pioneer.

My aunt and uncle way-laid me- in a way. It may have saved my life- who knows.

And I read "Owls Do Cry" from the context of that "hospital" and it's laundry.

I do know Janet's niece, Pamela, fairly well. She is a great advocate for the work.

And I am more into the family dynamics- which are still current- and I am still learning...  ...

  Maresie- there are 10 or 14 people here would do anything for- and you are one of them!  

I have tried to help people, who really used me. Or, rather, I was vulnerable- and they took advantage of that.

But some people deserve respect, and some will help me too- in various ways.  ...

   There is a "rule"out there- 'don't meddle'.

A good one- some of the time. I went out to the supermarket and found I had left my cash-card at home. Attached to my I-phone. This happens 3 or 4 times a year to me- and I can self-sabotage far worse than that!

But I was much more aware of my thoughts and feelings. Memories were surfacing fairly fast. And I do sense that healing is not too far behind that! Very slow healing- but healing nonetheless.

I did go through a time- a couple of decades where I was working myself into nearly grave. I needed the back-up for our retirement years. And now i had to compensate- getting my whole being to function correctly. I was hopeless at sports- and at throwing and catching. But field work taught me to be ambidextrous- and playing with the grandkids I can pluck a ball out of the air any old how.

My pain and rage are universal characteristics. But hidden away by many other people.

As well as chronic pain I suffer from classic cold sensations too- which are just as bad.

And I have learned to deal with these too- to a certain extent.

Inside of my world I wanted to be like Madame Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, or Albert Einstein. 

A good and valid goal-set. But I really do want to discover something about stored trauma. And I do have a really good specimen to study- myself. 

Having said that I am so aware of the power of collaboration that digital technology has made possible.

Putting aside the distractions of what facebook, especially, can be accused of.  ...

I make it my goal to buy toilet paper when it is on special. And I buy rolls that are compressed and double length.

After my glitch with the cash-card I left the store with a pile of rolls and saved $40.

Such is the paradox of the family member, sometimes...  ...

 Same, Ileana...  ...