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.
We celebrate our Al-Anon anniversaries with tokens at my home meeting. We honor members' anniversaries at the last meeting of each month. I live in California. I love that we do this. It helps me to appreciate my journey even more.
-- Edited by Green Eyes on Saturday 6th of April 2013 11:41:29 AM
I go to meetings in a Philadelphia suburb and I have heard of the chips, but I have never attended any meeting with anyone passing them out . Alanon member anniversaries are not recognized or celebrated here either.
-- Edited by LeenieBeanie on Saturday 6th of April 2013 04:16:31 PM
Where I live (in the SW), we have a monthly speaker meeting (joint AA and Al-Anon) the first Sunday of the month. At that meeting is when they give out chips. In fact, I get my three- year chip tomorrow! :)
I know Rinn - it seems like it would work toward the same purpose - showing the newcomer that the program works - showing that others are sticking to it and getting better. hmmm, I am thinking of bringing this up at the next board meeting. Thanks all for your input : )
The way we run our anniversary meeting is that at the end of each month, the leader will ask who has an Al-Anon anniversary that month. We then go around the room and let anyone who would like to say something to the person, or persons, whose anniversary it is. These affirmations are so inspiring for those giving and getting them. Then one person, either the leader or the person's sponsor, give them a token for the number of years they have been in Al-Anon. Then the person has a chance to give a short testimony about their Al-Anon journey. I love this tradition. It keeps our "old timers" coming back, as well as inspires our newcomers. You really don't even have to use tokens, you can just hold a ceremony once a month for those who are celebrating their anniversaries. I like to recycle my tokens and give the token back from the year before when I celebrate another year in Al-Anon.
I have never seen tokens/chips in the Toronto, Canada area. One meeting I attend asks in their preamble 'are there any al-anon birthdays?' and people can raise their hands and we clap. That's about it based on the meetings I've attended.
We have a monthly Al-Anon birthday meeting here hosted by our district, but we leave it up to the sponsor to gift tokens as they see fit.
From what I've heard only locally is that there is some mild controversy over whether Al-Anons "deserve" tokens because we basically slip every day. My only response to that is a token on the Al-Anon side represents "progress, not perfection".
I do enjoy that my sponsor likes to gift tokens for her sponsees Al-Anon birthdays. I really do like the reminder of how far I've come.
You may want to get involved with your group or your district and/or area and ask them about a birthday meeting and tokens. I'm sure you're not the only one wondering about it. :) Work your way into that service structure, my friend.
