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.
Hi everyone. I'm not really sure where to start. First I guess I should forward everyone I can be long winded lol. I have found a local meeting and will be going to my first tomorrow night. I'm nervous and excited. I have no idea what to expect so I have my fingers crossed. I've heard a few bad rings about meetings being purly a social gathering. I've also read that sometimes you might have to move around to find "your" group. We shall see. I'm excited because the few friends I have left have told me if I let my ABF into my life they will no longer talk to me. Wow! Some friends. Of course I'm sure if I gave you the long winded details you might be better able to grasp that or help me grasp it. Anyhow I wasn't sure if I should just start writing about my laundry lol. I'm very open and do not have a problem sharing any of it I just didn't know if it was appropriate or really how to do any of this.
Ok I think I'm nervously rambling now. I wanted to say hello and see if anyone could give me an idea of what to expecttomorrow night.
Thanks :)
Aloha Devlyn and welcome to the MIP board. Love lives here. You have just connected up with family who loves you unconditionally and will support you on your journey of change if that is what you want. Your other friends love you also and want to see you safe and protected even while telling you they don't want to be negatively affected by the relationship you have with your alcoholic. Alcoholism affects everything it comes in contact with and because I was just as affected I used to affect others with the insanity of it without even knowing or wanting that to happen.
I didn't get into the program happily and excited. I got in crazy and depressed. I was totally toast from my last alcoholic/addict relationship and marriage and I wasn't smart at all about what it was, how I got there and what had happened so I got into Al-Anon not knowing and not knowing that I was not knowing or as I call it "dumb as a stick". I did hear one promise though at the closing of the early attendance and that was in the closing of the meeting..."If you keep and open mind you will find help". That promise came true and is the very first miracle I have experienced in recovery. Another was to dump all of my worries and concerns and beliefs in the trash can before coming into the meeting and if I still wanted them after I could pick them up on my way out. Sick suggestion and still an obvious choice. I was told to sit down and listen, learn as much as I could and practice what was working for others in the room who got there as sick as I was. Listen for the similarities and not the difference and then to try to do 90 meetings in 90 days along with as much literature as I could get. Alcoholism was the largest disease going where and when I got into recovery in Al-Anon. There were over 439 meetings a month in our area so 90X90 was not hard to do and I did a bit more.
Anyhow if you keep coming back and following the suggestions the elder have for you...all of them...you will not longer be a newbie and your life will be one that you never thought could be that balanced and sane.
Others are coming up behind this to share there Experience, Strength and Hope (ESH...see you learned something already) with you. Keep coming back and sharing your own recovery with us. (((((hugs)))))
Thanks for your reply. I Guess in one way to say I'm excited might sound so strange. I have been reading all these posts and reading about the program. I know this journey is not going to be an easy one or a quick fix by any means. I do know that this is for ME. That excites me. I remember a long time ago I was once a very strong person. I have lost that person and I know I will find her again. I'm looking forward to not feeling so alone anymore and learning how to "own" my life and everything in it once again. I see people speaking of miracles happen every day. I think today my miracle was finding this group and my local meeting for tomorrow. Today was a rather quiet lonely day with bad news an some good. I have read today that we can choose to be happy or sad. I'm choosing to be and excited and focus on the group and my road to recovery :). I know I have had and I'm sure I will continue to have many days where I give in and I am just sad or plain negative. I just know in my heart when I have those days someone some where will lend an ear and understand exactly what I am going thru. I hope that one day I will be able to lend and ear to some one just like me and be able to do the same for them.
In Al-anon they teach you to take the focus off the A and work on yourself and only worry about yourself....however, I also feel that we have all been through some very traumatic times and it's also therapeutic to talk about what we've been through and ask questions, it didn't take a day to get to where we are, so it surely isn't going to take a day to heal from it. Glad you are here!!
I'm glad you found us and glad you have a attitude of wanting what the program offers. Sharing is a big part of the Al-Anon program. If you share you will not be judged or told what you should or should not do. I stated sharing is a big part of the program, but listening to others is the key. The first two meeting I attended I didn't open my mouth, my ears were a different story. I listened to members share their ES&H, what had worked for them. I knew after my first meeting I wanted what they had. I was a mess, crazy from the effects the disease had on me. I might as well have come into the room the first night waving a white flag.
I didn't hear everything I wanted to hear that first night, and I didn't like lots of things I heard....like.....Always take care of yourself first .......Keep all the focus on yourself and not the alcoholic in your life......You are the only person you have any control over....... You are powerless over alcohol......You can be happy whether the alcoholic in your life is drinking or not. Nope, no one gave me the answer I came looking for. How to stop my alcoholic from drinking. No one offered a magic pill.
What I did leave with was a commintment to myself that I would attend as many meeting a week as were offered. I would trust, accept, work, and never question the program. I kept that commintment and my life changed not overnight, but one day at a time. That was five years ago. Five of the ladies that I met at my first meeting were across the table from me tonight at my Tuesday meeting. One of those ladies has been my sponsor for over four years. We are a family. We love and care for each other. I was and am the only man in the room. Those ladies raised me in the program and kept me on the straight and narrow.
This program offers every thing you need to make your life better. For me the three keys to the program were and still are........listen, learn and practice, practice, practice. As they say where I come from....I ain't there yet, but I'm gaining on it.
Good morning Devlyn, you will experience, people with similar experiences to you, they will share what works for them and what doesn't, you will be taking along some valuable wisdom for someone there too, just by being there. just by being you.
Hi and welcome here Devlynn :) I have been going to alanon off and on for a year, and have been reading the literature and posting here for that long as well. I am learning so much about ME by doing this and I have found that meetings that are face to face are the way I need to go. The board is great, but the meetings in real time help so much. They teach me to LISTEN, to practice, to not expect perfection, to reach out to others for help and guidance...This program works when we work it. Its spiritual, and you find the higher power of your understanding. You learn about letting go and letting God, and you get the courage to change what you can. I have learned that I have to let the change begin with me. That also, I didn't cause the A in my life to drink, I can't conrol their drinking and I can't cure it. And when I actually live my own life and let him live his, things are much better. Take care!! Welcome here :) youfoundme
__________________
-youfoundme
Let go and let God...Let it be... let it begin with me...
Wow thanks everyone. Everyone speaks with such wisdom and big hearts. Thank you for welcoming me. Imactually quit anxious to share my story. I use to think that the more people I told the more likely I would find someone who had the answer. I've come to realize I'm the only one who has the answers. To the contrary my very small circle of friends have given me the ultimatum of follow thier advice or they want nothing to do with me. Honestly that hurts. While I appreciate their "tough love" it just doesn't help me. I've taken what I liked and left the rest but I still need to find my own answers and I feel that i need some advice of experience. I haven't quite found all the answers with in. It's like buying a new TV. You research and say you've narrowed it down to 2 or 3 models. You start reading owners reviews to help you decide what is right for you. So here I am trying to find my "model" and I need some reviews from real owners. :)
Hi, devlynn, and welcome! I understand your excitement, I was excited, too, when I first found recovery. I'd come to a point in my life where I knew there was something wrong with me, but I had no clue what it was, how to find out what it was, or what to do about it. I was willing to get help, but just didn't know where to find it - or even what it was that I needed help for! All I knew was that I had this pattern in my life of having screaming/crying/fighting fits with my ex and kids for several days at a time, then I'd be fine for a while until the internal pressure built up again until it exploded in another fit of rage. The pattern ran about six to eight weeks, and the more clearly I saw it, the more I thought I was crazy because there was no reason for it. At least, not that I could find.
They say, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." The longer I watched this pattern go on, the more desperate I got to figure out why I was behaving the way I was, and the more the answer seemed to elude me. I knew I was damaging my family, and I didn't know why, and I seemed powerless to stop it. But when I was finally at the end of my rope and desperate beyond words to know what was wrong with me, that's when I read about adult children of alcoholics. The light came on and everything clicked! I was elated to know that I wasn't crazy, that there really were legitimate reasons for why I was the way I was, and especially that I wasn't the only one! That very week, I found an ACoA group. I went to that first meeting excited, and I left walking on air! There really was help for me! One of the most important things I heard in that very first meeting that I've never forgotten was, "We aren't bad people trying to get good. We're sick people trying to get well." That really meant the world to me, because I'd always been made to feel like I was a bad person. For the next two years, recovery was my life. I went to every meeting, read all the literature and read every book I could get my hands on. That group eventually folded, so I switched to Al-Anon. That was over 20 years ago. Just because life is what it is, I haven't always attended meetings, but the books have always been close at hand. And now there are online groups like this one, too.
I understand it hurts to have your friends say that they don't want anything to do with you if you let the alcoholic back into your life, but maybe they just can't stand to see that person hurt you. Because they love you, watching someone hurt you hurts them. When we've been involved in a bad relationship, we learn to have such a high tolerance for abuse that most of the time, we don't even recognize it anymore when someone is abusing us - we just think it's normal because it's what we've come to expect. But the people around us recognize it. Maybe they just can't stand to watch you be hurt and abused anymore. Don't be too hard on them for loving you that much.
I'm glad you found your way to recovery, and also to MIP. You'll find a great bunch of people here, and a LOT of ESH and inspiration!
Red Hawk
__________________
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. A passion to make, and make again, where such un-making reigns.
