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 haven't yet found a sponsor, so I decided I would start working the steps online. I looked at step 1 a couple weeks ago, and thought to myself "well, I know the answers to all these, this shouldn't take long"
I sat down this morning to start. Two hours later, I am only halfway done, and want to revise half the stuff I have already written!
The step board is on Step 11 right now, and I am figuring I will have step 1 done about the time it wraps back around, we will see!
Betty and others, thanks so much for this service. It is making me think hard about myself, something I'm not in the habit of doing. That's probably the real reason I landed here in the first place, living with me is probably enough to make ANYONE drink lol.
Kenny
-- Edited by KennyFenderjazz on Sunday 9th of February 2014 01:44:56 PM
I love the step work on line too Kenny. I also like reading about them in the daily readers, it helps my understanding grow. Step 1 can be a tricky step but also the most obvious, its the one that I often come back to most. I say it to myself a lot - I am powerless over 'everything' really except me. I have taken my time with the steps, step 4 is where I am at right now and its taking me a long long time. Thanks for sharing.
I have at step 1 since march. I guess I think my AH is going to recovery. I actually believe him when he said he stopped drinking. I must be the most gullible fool out there.
I want to be able to know how to be in the same room with him whether he has been drinking or not. Is it even possible? And be joyous and happy. I want that I don't care attitude. I can't even ask a simple question without receiving that angry tone back. I just asked if my child did her homework. He had to make me see how angry he is? I told him I don't deserve this angry tone because I didn't do anything wrong. Then I knew he is back drinking after stopping 2 months.
The insane conversations say it all.
I had hope but now I am almost to the point it is your life just stay away from me.
He has been drinking for almost 40 years. He is pretty much pickled. Is anyone really happy living with an AA.???? Can it be done? I am so new in the program but is this true that I can lived in this insanity. I know I will not have a relationship with the AH it is disrespectful and chaos. Do you just go off and do your own thing?
I am going to work the steps and attend meetings.
Hope
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I have hope that my next minute will be better and to learn from my last minute.
Aloha Kenny and that is a reminder abit of what I did when I first started and then the feedback from the meetings along with the realization that the problems I was in were a consequence of my own thinking and behaviors I stopped trusting my head, thought processes and reactions to the disease. I had best to rely on the rooms and the literature and my sponsor. "If you keep and open mind...you will find help" was a wakeup siren for me and so I learned to sit still and keep my mind wide open...listen to it all and not block anything out...I could get a filter later and did when I heard the slogan "Take what you like and leave the rest" came into the rooms. The fellowship sponsored and led me earliest and then my first sponsor fired me and handed me over to my second sponsor and God took over from there. My Al-Anon sponsor I suspect was really an angel and as I shared at my morning meeting "He loved me more than my parents and family" because of what came about from the relationship. Of course my parents and family only knew about the otherside of the disease and not the recognition and recovery from its effects.
I also do what el-cee has learned to do regarding the first step...the first part of the first step has become a mind set. "We (I) admit(ted) I am powerless..." This allows me to get into partnership with a Power much greater than myself who can and will align my thoughts, feelings, behavior and beliefs so that my outcomes are far more sane than if and when I thought I was in control and only responsible in my life. I am never alone and having found that out don't ever now act as if I am and that everything is all about me.
Your process is revealing that you don't know and don't have much experience with knowing and for me that is why I also got confused, vascilated and second guessed myself when trying to do it all by myself with the same brain I brought with me into the program. When I decided to start listening to and trusting the ESH of others who had long solid recovery time in Al-Anon I moved away from bad, non-working habits. Doing the same things over and over again expecting different results was the face page title to the book "Proof that my life has become unmanagable"...a biology. You got time and Al-Anon and MIP and all the reason in the world to want and get "what we have". Take your time, you are worth it and deserve it.
Hope, you aren't gullible, I've been through that too. I am trying to get to a point where it barely even matters whether she is drinking. I say barely because I think it can't totally happen, plus there are safety considerations to factor in. Some people can do this with A present, and some can't. I think that is why some people leave the relationship and others don't.
Hello Kenny - for me step one was the simplest step of all - being freed by the realization that I had no power over him! He was going to drink and there was NOTHING I could do about it.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
I feel the same way. That's why I thought answering the questions would be easy. But the questions are making me think further, maybe they are beyond step 1, but they are goo questions and deserve answers!
Hey Kenny .. for me, step 1 was about going to meetings and finally having a safe place to share what was on my mind and in my heart on any given day or in any period of my life .. admitting began with admitting I was powerless but also about admitting I was confused, I was obsessing on how to control change cure, fix the alcoholic .. at the end of the day, what I was really trying to fix were a lot of my feelings .. I felt a lot of anger, sadness, pain, hurt, helplessness, etc .. realized after awhile, the power of the program for me was the wisdom shared by the group .. no professionals in alanon but many experts for having lived with the effects of alcoholism for many years .. we learn by experience .. when we share it, we give others strength and hope. really helped to be able to go in and share with others I knew understood .. whatever meetings you find yourself in, I am wishing you much serenity, hope, healing, and courage !!
