Your experience is true for me, too, Kathleen.  Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks, Kathleen, for the reflection on today's reading. I understand and can relate to much of what you have shared.

The opening paragraph about newcomers and their surprise that long-time members keep coming back even when they are living with sober As or don't have any active As in their lives caught my attention. I can remember sitting in Al-Anon meetings years ago, listening to people say how long they'd been in the program, and me thinking: "What?????!!!!! You mean I can never get out of this program? Welp! It might be right for you, but its not right for me." Teehee. That was a faulty conclusion I reached based on what I knew and what I didn't know. Today, I am still working on issues that are mine and not at all concerned that I will be in Al-Anon and working the program probably until I can no longer sit up and take nourishment. There is no end to growing more whole and serene. That is the conclusion I have reached for today.

I also want to add that there have been times in this program - usually right before another spiritual awakening - that I want to turn away from it.  I have come to expect that this is going to happen from time to time because it has happened from time to time - and just stay with it one day at a time.  Healing can come in many ways and in many forms in my experience and there is always darkness right before the dawn.  I do wish someone in the program had shared their own experience of hitting these places at different times in their program.  They didn't.  So, I'm passing on what was and is true for me from time to time so that others might know that it is/was part of the process for me to want to turn away from the work and what I did to keep doing it?  The healing isn't linear in my experience.  It is circular - like peeling an onion - as some say in our groups.  Like peeling an onion never made sense to me until I had experienced these "dark times" in my on-going work on myself in the program and came to accept this is the way of it - at least for me.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Wednesday 28th of January 2015 08:40:24 AM

-- Edited by grateful2be on Wednesday 28th of January 2015 09:16:13 AM

Alanon gives me the stability and security that I never had in childhood. I am free to be who I am and loved as is. I can't imagine not going back, some of my alanon friends I am closer with than my foo. Sticking to a routine is also healthy for me, and part of that is 2 to 4 face to face meetings a week. Right now I am going through a period of boredom that (lol) could go into rebelliousness if I'm not very aware and I do need to rely heavily on my program as I adjust to the peace and serenity that I deserve in my life, but at the same time feels so foreign to me. I love it, but I am still learning how to adjust as I never had it. One thing that stood out was " I don't want to underestimate the lasting impact that alcoholism has had me" I had many years of practicing stinking fearful thinking, I need constant reminders of faith and how to live the alanon way. I love the "just for today I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it" off the bookmark. Reminding me to do my best but be gentle with myself if I slip and fall. Get back up dust myself off and keep going. Thankyou hootnanny and Thankyou everyone else that shared :) Thankyou for allowing me to share ;) blessings

Debb: glad you are on here. We love you!