The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I went to my usual noon meeting today and the subject was faith. As the meeting commenced I realized how tired I was because I stayed up pretty late last night as there were multiple tornado warnings in my area. As people went around sharing I realized that I had quite a bit of fear when the baseball sized hail started crashing into the house. I woke up the kids and went into my basement.
I proceeded to watch all the news stations like a hawk. I was gathering information moving from channels 4, 5, 8, 11, and 33. It was as though if I found the "right" weather report, I could make a decision and be o.k. I was trying to fix it, the problem of not feeling safe. During the meeting I realized I was operating full swing in my character defects.
I walked into the rooms of Alanon full of fear. I had researched, polled people, and gathered information like a pro to come to the realization that I was a complete failure against the disease of alcoholism. The hard and fast unpredictability of a tornado reminded me of the feelings of extreme highs and emotional lows related to this disease.
I have discovered that serenity and peace cannot be achieved through frantic activity. Circumstances such as a tornado should never be the reason for the presence or absence of peace. God has yet again reminded me that if I truly made the third step decision, I should have peace regardless. One of my favorite quotes is:
"With God in the vessel, I smile at the storm"
Well, I wasn't smiling last night nor was God in my vessel. I was running the show. Judging by how tired I am today by the emotional experience, I hope I will remember this event and remember to invite my HP into my life again when I am so afraid.
I can relate. When the devastating earthquake in Japan generated a tsunami that was headed straight for Hawaii, I certainly found myself losing sleep. Of course, in part, because of my work, I needed to be on alert in order to keep the public updated of any major changes to the tsumani warning. But I was also scared - scared of what kind of damage the tsunami would do. While I live up very high and am far removed from an evacuation area, my work's offices are located right in the tsunami evacuation zone - meaning if a sizeable tsunami came through, it had the potential to wipe out my work's offices. That, of course, sent me down a chain-reaction of "what ifs" - dismal things leading me down to being out of work.
At the same time, I had fear over what it would do to the island's overall infrastructure. What if it wiped out power? What about clean water? What if the harbors got destroyed and hindered shipment of supplies to us residents?
Fear, fear, fear.
And then something in my head just washed calmly over me. I suddenly remembered that I was surrounded on this island by lots of caring friends. Many of whom were Al-Anon members. I knew that if things got really gnarly, my friends would offer shelter, food, whatever - just as I would for them. It then reminded me that God would take care of me. And then the fear subsided and I wasn't so scared any more about the tsunami.
As it turned out, the island I live on and the area in which I live suffered the worst damage from the tsunami. But not a single person got injured or killed. There was only property damage. The tsunami was not huge when it hit Hawaii, so it wasn't big enough to reach my work's offices. I found out later on at a meeting at work that several other co-workers had taken all their necessary steps to ensure work could go on if the offices had been hit - servers were moved out of the office along with other vital pieces of equipment. We would have been okay.
So, I was grateful on many levels. I certainly did lose a lot of sleep, but fortunately most of my hours spent awake ended up not being in a state of fear because I remembered my HP would make sure I was okay.
But I can relate heavily on the information gathering. The more I know, the more I'll be prepared to face the inevitable, right? Not necessarily. Especially if I'm spending hours gathering information from multiple sources that all confirm the EXACT SAME information.
I did that when living with the exAH. I never trusted my instincts... if it looked like cheating then yes, it WAS cheating. If it looked like alcoholism, then yes it WAS alcoholism. I kept thinking I had to gather more information because maybe I was missing something that would miraculously change the situation - a situation that was ultimately out of my hands and entirely up to the alcoholic. What was in my hands was how crazy I chose to make myself.
