Now, passing mid-life, and after the death of my alcoholic father this spring, I no longer wish to be held prisoner by the fear and distrust I have learned to carry around and hide.

My childhood responses have no place in my life today. I am ever thankful that organizations like this exist. I am a moderately successful professional who wonders what life would have been like had I addressed MY issues early in life. And I also wonder what great things are are still to come!

Thanks for listening! j

Then I realized how little trust and faith I had in this Higher Power. If I, a human, was gentle with friends I cared about, wouldn’t the Higher Power be gentle with me? I realized I needed to trust that the Higher Power would not beat me up in this process. My shortcomings would be removed in ways I did not understand, maybe not even see, and the removal would not happen all at once. A daily reading suggested that I stop worrying about my negative traits and focus on cultivating postive ones. I had my work. The Higher Power had “His.” Being humble meant being brave enough to give the Higher Power a chance and ask for this gift. I have to say that I never felt a knife cut me, I never felt a pain, and I never had to recover from any spiritual operation! Many of my shortcoming were removed because I asked–what painless surgery of the soul.

LEARNING TO ASK MY HIGHER POWER FOR HELP WAS A START ! My shortcomings being where I fail to take action ….. If I fail to even ask my HP in EVERYDAY IN EVERYTHING ! I am in CONTROL not my HP …. people places & things are not the problem if I am DISTURBED and if I am upset I am trying to manage direct control fix etc.. these are my shortcomings . ME in charge is not good LOL !!!!

SOO…. as soon as I get that knot in my stomach I ASK MY Higher Power to’ show me what HE have me be ‘ or ‘ give me the courage ‘ or ‘ give me the words ‘ or just plain ‘ what do I do ? ‘ and watch for signs pointing the way .

I dont always like the answers I get! I dont always understand them ! I just need to follow the signs , not easy LOL ! Someone gave me permission not to like what was being shown to me , thank GOD for her … she said I just had to DO it ! Well because of that I was able to test her suggestion…. it WORKED … imagine that.

Someone else later simplified step 6 & step 7 and that is …. step 6 is ” we stop doing the things we like to do ..” and step 7 ” we start doing the things we Dont like to do ! “

Thank you for this opportunity to share.

Raleigh, NC

I was at an emotional bottom and I was giving up on everything in my life and and ready to get out it was only a matter of HOW !

al-anon saved my life ! I was powerless over alcohol and its effects , I was powerless over the alcoholics and their tornadoes , and most all and my deepest denial ! i was powerless over the disease of alcoholism ….

TODAY I have the POWER in my life because of the 12 steps and the fellowship ! I am no longer powerless and my life is no longer UNMANAGEABLE (MY INSIDES ARE AT PEACE) ! THANKS to the love and friendship I am blessed to have in life EVERYDAY ! AND EVERYDAY MEANS EVERYDAY !

MY HOPE IS FOR ANYONE AND EVERYONE STRUGGLING WITH THIS DISEASE TO FIND THE POWER OF THIS PROGRAM AND HOLD ONTO TO IT !!! IT WORKS ! IT REALLY DOES….

Also, I had a lot of fear about the Higher Power removing too much of me. If he took away all that was wrong with me I might only be a skeleton. What would I do then? My sponsor reminded me that I was looking too far ahead. I just needed to concentrate on being ready to change. One step at a time….

I feel broken and lost.

She continues to drink, but although I cannot stop her drinking I can choose my reaction.

Your sharing wasn’t posted because it didn’t relate to the Step. To help you find an on-line meeting, send an e-mail to wso@al-anon.org and put on-line meetings in the subject line. We also have telephone meetings that might be helpful for you to keep the connection and share your experience, strength, and hope.

WSO Administrator

One of my most stubborn character defects was my belief that I was fundamentally unloveable. Even after many 24 hours in this wonderful program, I still found it impossible to believe that I deserved to be loved in the same way I saw so many of my recovering friends learning to receive love.

This character defect and my stubborn refusal to let it go made me very miserable for a long time. My life was blessed in many ways, but I refused to believe that I was as lovable as any of God’s children. I became so miserable that I made myself very, very sick. I chose to take a medical leave of absence from work to focus on myself and my recovery. I made some very good decisions about how to take care of myself and my health. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had become entirely ready to have God remove this defect.

What had this defect done for me? It kept me isolated so that no one could get close enough to hurt me. But, ironically, it hurt me more than the people I was pushing away! Not until I realized how much I was hurting myself did I become ready and willing for God to remove the defect. Then I was able to take action to put myself in a position to be changed.

Thank you for letting me share. Hugs to all, and Keep Coming Back!

Sincerley
BCL

I will use my first 5 steps to find a place of willingness and use Step 6 in prayer to let my Higher Power guide me in my actions and decisions. This is such a powerful program to find serenity and I have developed a great trust in my Higher Power and Al-Anon. It has helped me through difficult situations before and I trust it will again.

When I got out on my own, married and had kids, these traits were clearly making my life unhappy and froth with problems. My being a nice guy was not cutting it with those close to me and whom I loved. Change was necessary, and Al-Anon was the program that made that possible. At first I studied psychology, and went for therapy, but real change alluded me – that is until I joined Al-Anon.

After many years in Al-Anon, I know that I am still not entirely ready. However, the Steps used on a regular basis definitely increases my self-understanding and my readiness. This program is about love and gentleness. So I accept my short comings and limited progress in recovery. I keep moving forward. I turn my will and life over to the care of the God of my understanding – as best I can today, and I seek to know God’s will for me and the power to carry that out. The more I commit my life to this process and the Steps, the more I become “entirely ready”. Thank you God, thank you.

Encouraged by the speaker I then spoke. I don’t remember what the topic was and I probably didn’t stick to the topic but everybody said keep coming back and some spoke with me afterward. This was the beginning of my 5th Step. I began admitting to others the exact nature of my wrongs. I had learned how to share my experience by listening to others.

I am not alone. So many others struggling the same way….no unique individuals in this. All our stories sound so familiar.

It has to stop some where…..has to stop with me. Break the chain. Stop the cycle. Make the stand….the buck stops here.

Admit the truth….can’t handle this. Too much. Stress is intense. Body can’t handle it.

God can handle all things. I’m not meant to take all this on.

Let go. It’s not up to me. I am not responsible for the alcoholic…he is for himself.

Love the unlovely with God’s help and see where that takes me. Wait. Hold on. Trust.

What I have noticed is that my creativity was blocked by years of resentment, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, anger and people-pleasing. That’s a lot of layers to remove one day at a time. It is long term plastic surgery for me.

The first three steps are about my relationship with God as I understood Him. These were very easy for me since I have outside spiritual practices with a spiritual director. But the next steps are about me and others. It is like going to the dentist to get your checkup and then your cavities need to be removed.

It is pain but it is a process of healing. My God is with me on this step along with my sponsor and others in the program. I look back on what I shared earlier and realize that there are metaphors and similes that I have not seen in a few years. Now that’s recovery! I actually like this step because it is discovery of finding my true self and not worrying about what others think of me.

But I take this step one day at a time.

More than a month had passed since finishing my fourth step without getting rid of it in a fifth step, and because of all the emotions it uncovered, I was not a nice person to live with. I hunted down a meeting because I was getting squirrelly and even though it was a new meeting, I just couldn’t seem to keep my mouth shut. I ended up giving my inventory to a room full of women that I had never met before and have never seen again.

They say God works in mysterious ways but in this case He also had the last laugh!

This 4th step has been different than the others. At the outset I asked my HP for guidance to help me do a complete and thorough moral inventory. It’s one thing for me to look at myself and realize what my assets and defects of character are. That’s hard enough for me. But for the past few weeks I’ve been blindsided by hearing from people things about me that I had no idea were true. This is not what I expected when I asked for guidance. Some of these things are very difficult to hear. I don’t know how much is true. I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe I’m being guided by my HP and that everything will work out exactly the way it is supposed to be.

Right now I’m working on acceptance. Acceptance that regardless of what my intention may have been when I acted a certain way, the perception by others is what I’m hearing about. If I intend to be the same person on the outside that I feel I am on the inside, I need to amend my behavior so that who I intend to be is who I am perceived as being. I need to trust in my abilities and in my HP’s direction and keep moving forward one step at a time. This experience has been a challenge for me: to take those perceived defects of character and turn them into useful assets; to trust my HP; to trust myself.

Thank you for providing a safe space for me to share.

I AM POWERLESS I CAN ONLY CHANGE MYSELF AND THAT IS WHAT I AM DOING!

Tks for letting me share.

Even in the program, I had gotten into the habit of sharing bits and pieces of myself with a lot of different people. At least I was getting some practice at letting people get to know me through sharing the “breadcrumbs” of my inventory, I began to recognize that it was a form of dishonesty and that I was cheating myself out of the benefits of Step Five. My other problem was that I discovered that I was looking for the perfect Al-Anon member who worked an absolutely perfect program to share it with. So, after I finished the Blueprint for Progress, our inventory guidebook, and was able to compile a list of the “exact nature of my wrongs.” I talked to God about it but that was as far as I got with Step Five for another year.

Then, I was invited by an Al-Anon friend to go with her and her daughter to an Arabian horse show in a city about 100 miles away from where we lived. Her daughter brought along a friend; so there was no room in the cab of the pick up truck. So, my friend and I sat in the camper shell. We chatted and laughed about various things and talked about the program. I was really relaxed and felt safe. Out of the blue, I started sharing the “exact nature of my wrongs” with her. She listened and shared with me when she felt it was appropriate. All of a sudden, I realized I had found a person I trusted. She wasn’t perfect but she was a human being. It hit me that was all I could expect any person to be–human with “warts and all” as the saying goes.

The relief I experienced from sharing my garbage was unbelieveable. I had no idea what a release it would be. I was almost sorry that we arrived at our destination. I wasn’t fighting with myself because I had let go and trusted someone! I was able to release myself from wrongs because I learned from her that many of the things I did were simply becasue that was all I knew at the time. I didn’t know any better until Al-Anon gave me principles to live by and an understanding of alcoholism as a disease that affect both me and the drinker.

I really believe that as my Sponsor says, “God works within us without us” when I took that ride in my friend’s pickup truck. I just became willing without fighting with myself. It just happened as if it were natural. I thought the purpose of my ride was to go to a horse show. But I really think it was to join the human race by releasing myself from my negative self-image and guilt. I could forgive myself because I was only human–and truthfully, isn’t that what I will always be.

I started on a whole new journey in my recovery with my Fifth Step that day. I starting sharing more of myself with my Sponsor and no longer expected her to have wings and a halo. I also started more consciously to stop my “habit of “breadcrumb” disclosures of myself with various people. I learned that there are trustworthy people through the Fifth Step.

Thanks.

Telling another person my wrongs was harder than admitting them to myself. I judged myself so harshly that I was sure another person would, too. I greatly feared disapproval and rejection. When I told my sponsor the exact nature of my wrongs, she looked absolutely unruffled as I spilled my worst secrets. She listened, occasionally nodded her head, and then comforted me. Gently she said, “These things often happen because the family disease of alcoholism affects everyone in negative ways,” she said. “I know I have done many of the things you describe.” That was it. After Step Five, I was free to move on from the weight of the past and free to change things for the future. Carrying the heavy burden of secrets was wearisome, and putting that burden down was difficult–a risk. However, taking the risk to be honest was worth it! Step Five was the beginning of a new freedom.

One question came up about “the disease” concept of alcoholism, and the difficulty some folks were having in understanding and accepting it.  It offered me the opportunity to reflect on Step One - ”We admitted …”  I never really looked at the choice of the word “admitted”.  It could have been “We believed, or realized, or understood” but I think the choice of “admitted” has a special relevancy.  In using “admitted”, it calls for a testament.  Like the admission of guilt, or defeat, or failure — these thing have no meaning in the context of secrecy.  So too, admitting we are powerless over alcohol, calls for a public testament.

I resisted admitting I was powerless for 46 years.  But the time came, with my Dad at his second detox, that I welcomed the opportunity. It represented freedom. I had 46 years of slavery to alcoholism, and now my willingness to admit that I was powerless set me free.

 One person shared that they understood alcoholism as a mental illness. Another understood it as ”dis-ease”.  And allergy was another way to understand the disease concept. I came to feel it wasn’t important to understand the issue of disease and alcoholism. All I had to do is accept and live in Step One.  And if it’s difficult at first, I could fake ’til I make it.  But as I enjoyed the freedom of powerlessness, it didn’t take long to believe it with my heart and soul.

I am not only religious but spiritual, but that does not mean I’m intelligent in my practices. I find I am often misguided and usually it is by mself. I pray all the time, but I don’t know what to ask. I ask God to help my spouse and to restore him to the man I know him to be. I ask God to save myself and save him. I get my head to involved in the heart and I find myself asking “How do you let your soulmate suffer?” How can I just walk away? He is the one I meant to spend my life with and I took a vow to love, honor and cherish. Part of the insanity is staying and not assigning responsibility to him as a part of this relationship. I’ve prayed to God to restore myself. I know I cannot “fix” or control the situation anymore or my husband’s choices. I cannot allow my life to pass by while my husband tries to figure out his. I pray to leave this situation behind regardless of if it means to stay with him or not.

Eleanor Roosevelt has a prayer/poem with a couple of the lines, “Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength.” I’ve drawn so much strength from these lines, but I find my method of trying to enact these lines misdirects and my controlling nature takes over. In turn, that sends me into an insanity that I cannot handle. I get so involved and play out so many strategies that I forget the part of allowing God to take over.

I recently left home to go work in a foreign country. Many or my family and friends told me that I shouldn’t, that I had to face my problems. They told me to remain home. But, whole heartedly and still I believe I did the best thing for me. I left. I will have to return, but I left the problem where it was with my husband. I said a prayer, I prayed with him. I prayed with other people, but I left. Wouldn’t you know it, part of the problem followed me! I can say that with excitement, because I know that part of the problem will always be with me. I feel as if I lost a part of myself when my husband took up the bottle and never put it down. I was robbed of my dreams, my inspirations and my hopes of a family. I cannot alllow my failures to hold me back from asking God to help. And I have. I don’t know where that is going to leave me. I have no idea if I will have the dreams met that I dreamt up for us or for me. I have to let those things go. I wanted to be successful and be married to someone equally successful and full of energy. I’m drained and I haven’t seen my husband try anything for awhile without being pushed. His parents and eeveryone have always handed him everything and then I stepped in and did the same thing.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I would have married another man, I think I would have made the same mistake. I would have married someone that I had to take care of. I was wrong. I apologize to God, to my husband and the other family and friends that I have shared a codependency with. It was wrong of me. It was wrong. I’ve enabled a lot of behaviour and took on a lot of problems that weren’t mine to own. I cannot fix the world or anyone else.

God, I ask you to keep me at tasks bigger than myself so I must rely on you, but I pray to know when I need to step back and allow you to make the call. That is and should remain my deepest prayer.

I take care of the literature for my group, so have had a copy of Blueprint for Progress for several months; its sitting in with my other CAL. I see it each day, yet I’m afraid of it. I know now that my opening up to my Sponsor was what I was meant to do at the time. I was looking for someone I could trust, someone to like me unconditionally.
This nagging voice has been speaking to me for a few weeks now, I know it is time for me to grab ahold of that Blueprint and dig deep. I still carry guilt, I still carry blame; All for things I was never responsible for. Its time for me to ‘Let Go and Let God’.
Thanks for letting me share.

One member in the middle of a crisis (his drugging young daughter was arrested and called to have dad to rescue her) read April 7 in ODAT suggesting to have the courage to keep hands off and let the crisis happen. This reading from ODAT is so powerful when I came to understand its full implication. I have come to believe, in my doing the Fourth Step, the simple concept that awareness per se is curative. And awareness comes to us and the alcoholic through the crisis. So I came to understand that “Let(ting) the crisis happen” will be curative. Within the crisis is found the ultimate outcome – the path waiting to be traveled.

Let the crisis happen. How often out of pain and fear have I rushed in to “fix it”, “fix them”, and encountered myself – confused, lonely,and filled with anger. “Let the crisis happen”, how hard I fought that concept. With growing self awareness, through my Fourth Step work, is the meaning of crisis becoming clear and being understood as curative. “Keep hands off” another phase that I resisted. Now I have come to accept this with soul-filled conviction.

We may never be sure what will be revealed to us as we work Step Four, but our faith in the Twelve Steps, our faith in Al-Anon, and our Faith in a Power Greater than ourselves will cure the ravishes of this disease – alcoholism.

I have been so angry at my alcoholic husband for so long. Our marriage was a farce and a big lie!! I am angry at myself for trying to deny it and how could I marry another alcoholic!!! Husband #1 was also one. I tried to fool myself and the abuse also crept into this marriage too!!

I found a meeting schedule and am thankful for that so that I can take care of myself.

thanks
Kathy

By the grace of God, I was able to put a couple of things down on paper and after a few weeks feel ready to continue on. My sponsor commented to me one day that it was probably OK because I could always revisit when I was really ready. I wondered, “what did that mean?”, but I continued on anyway. I know now, God had a plan for me and I later realized denial was something that needed some attention.

Several years later, many of the regular members of my homegroup decided to start meeting as a step study outside the meeting. When we got to the Fourth Step, we decided to make a positive attribute list for each other. I was overwhelmed with the good others saw in me – because I sure didn’t see it in myself. After talking about our lists, we were later able to move on to our own moral inventiory. As each discussed their past and present, I was able to see myself and my part in life as I had never seen it before. There was a lot of wrong that I needed to own. Talking about these with one another and writing them down gave me the informatin I needed to be able to move on. I finally saw there was more to me than I was willing to look at before-but it was in God’s time, not mine.

The unveiling of my past with a loving environment of friends was what I needed to be able to see myself and what I could really be. Today, I am able to live “happy, joyous and free.” Every once in a while I will hear myself in a newcomer speak about their plan and my only thought is, I hope they stay around to find the miracle they can truly be.

thanks to al-anon I am not fighting his disease but my past of being put down .
with the higher power I am different person .

I am never alone with my new family and have to work the program much more .
Hopefully with a sponsor soon .

Turning my life over to a loving Higher Power eventually sounded like a better idea. But, it remained an idea for many meetings. Finally, when I had reached the end of my proverbial rope; when there seemed no reason to hope, I made a decision. And, as others have shared, I learned that that decision is one I will make regularly for the rest of my life.

The outcome of those decisions has been a sense of freedom and relief. I have found a source of comfort and strength on which to rely: a source that always has my best interests at heart. I don’t always like what my Higher Power puts before me, but I know today that it is always just what I need and will, in the long run, serve my continued growth and serenity.

The longer I am a member of Al-Anon, the more I appreciate the wisdom of the Twelve Steps. Today I pray to continue being a student of those Steps; to turn to my Higher Power for strength, courage and most of all, hope.

We went to a Christian counselor whom I really respect. He told me that staying was codependent and I needed to leave. My husband and I spent some time with an elder and his wife in our church, in a mentoring-type relationship. They tell me that I need to leave. My pastor and my parents tell me to stay. I will leave if I have to, if it is the right thing to do. I am just not convinced that it is the right thing. I love my husband. My boys love their Daddy. My heart wants to stay.

My husband is patient with me and very forgiving. Just because he is the one with the drug problem doesn’t mean that he is the only one with problems! I used to be rather irresponsible and I still enjoy playing things by ear, flying by the seat of my pants, making last minute decisions… But after five years of marriage, I had allowed myself to be twisted into this controling wench (at times) that I hated. It isn’t who I am, or who I want to be!

I want to be the fun one, the one who sleeps in because I know my spouse will take care of the kids, the one who stays up all night doing whatever I want to do and shirks responsibility. I also want to be an amazing mom and a desirable wife…

Any suggestions?

Yes, to hand our lives over to someone elses control leaves us not capable of turning our life and will to God’s care – not capable of turning our life and will over to the care of Al-Anon, and all it offers us to confront our disease. I had turned my life and my will over to the alcoholic disease of parents and family. It wasn’t my love; it was my fear, my confusion, and ultimately the pain of a life enmeshed in the disease of my alcoholic family. My choices, my disease. Humbled, I was looking for a path out of the insanity of alcoholism that I lived with my whole life. I was ready to make a decision…. . Thank you God, Thank You!

I believe the first three steps are three parts of one big idea. The idea being that first, I can’t control anyone or anything else, and when I try to stay in control, my life becomes unmanageable. Second that no human power, mine or anyone else’s, can relieve my need to stay in control. And third, that a Higher Power could, but I would have to ask for His help.

Those three ideas were foreign to me when I got to Al-Anon, but I knew that what I was doing wasn’t working. By choosing to make this Step Three decision, my Higher Power gave me a loving sponsor who intuitively knew what I needed and the willingness to follow her direction.

Without those three steps my life today would be just as unmanageable as it was when I walked through the doors of my first meeting 26 years ago. Those three steps gave me the courage to change me, and through my changes, others have also changed. But their change is only an added benefit, given to them through their Higher Power.