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, my name is Slogan Jim and I am a grateful member of al-anon.
Over the last couple of months Ive noticed a trend in certain people around me. Everyone seems to want the most for doing the least. Everyone seems to feel they are entitled to certain things in life, things that for those who have them, have worked extremely hard to get. They work a standard work week at a good job but they still dont make enough. They produce shoddy work and their bonus isnt big enough. The union wants to take away this and that, I have this education, therefore I should be making this much, at this stage, in this job. Even though I choose to make no additional effort outside of clicking send for my resume, I am OWED this.
In my alcoholic household the alcoholic was always crying poor. How life wasnt fair. He was always the victim. No patience, no will, no faith in a higher power. He never made enough. Everyone else always had more. We werent good enough and never will be. You will pay me room and board as soon as you graduate because I had to. Thats how I was raised and it wasnt fair and life just isnt fair.
Growing up around this, I adopted this mentality. I remember always complaining how things were always easier for others around me. I never caught any breaks. I was screwed out of a childhood. Noone ever gave me any head-starts. Who was looking out for me? If only we had money, if only I had rich connected parents that gave me a head-start. I didnt, and I thought I was destined to fall in the same path.
I could always count on my dad for some sort of support. Even though he did not always have my best interests in mind, he did love me and did what he could to help me. However when it came to starting my own life it was up to me to fund my own education, my own first car, my clothing and my lodging even when I was living in his house. I learned over the years by understanding him and his life better that I was never owed anything and that unless I made the required changes and the required effort then nothing was going to change.
Coming to Al-Anon, I realized that it wasnt up to me to change him but to change me and that in order in order to change me I had to accept that no one else was going to give me anything and that no one owed me the life I felt I deserved. It was up to me to go get it.
Thanks Jim...alot...I'm an enabler...I do for others what they should or can do for themselves and I sacrafice large pieces of my life for the peace of mind and serenity of others especially those who are addicted and need an endless amount of support on many different levels or else I will be left with guilt and/or shame for not having enough to get them by whatever unfortunate situation they have gotten themselves into. I have been convinced that what I have done as an enabler is noble and right and the very best thing I could do for the drunks and addicts and other less fortunates around me. I was taught to be an enabler by those who needed an enabler and I was taught how I would appear to the world if I wasn't what I was being taught. I was taught that to seek for myself was self-centerness and selfishness and that those were unacceptable sins and flaws of value and character. I was taught to enable without complaint and therefore achieve the highest respect of the community around me though that never arrived. I was taught that to say No to someone who reached out for help regardless that they had the time, ability and facility to help themselves was wrong and if I said No I was punished for it even when the punishers themselves were saying No themselves including to me. Additionally I had to work for myself...them and me and my life became a continuously orbiting decision of who came first...them or me. I got sick, I got lost, I got poor and they got as very much as I could get for them whether they had the time, ability and facility to do it for themselves. I stopped...
I became teachable. I learned the difference between being an enabler and being helpful. This is what I was taught. When a person has the time, ability and facility to take care of their needs and I step in and take over...I am enabling the situation to continue. When a person lacks any one of or all of those tools, time, ability, facility -and- they ask me for help or I ask them if they want my help and they say yes and it is something I can do...I am helping.
The best I can give a person of entitlement is support and encourgement that they can do it themselves. When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of Al-Anon to always be there and let it begin with me.
