Woo-hoo! I have finally caught up and arrived!

For me, Step 12 gave me the courage to 'be' who I was. I feel that I also was in a spiritual coma. I had survived life using tools of FOO (family of origin) - some good & helpful and others ... destructive. I was stuck - spiritually and emotionally before recovery and could not advance forward on my own.

I was angry, sad, lonely, burdened, stressed, over-whelmed, anxious and just going through the motions of life. I had envy in my heart and mind for those folks around me who appeared to have perfect lives and perfect children. I truly could not see the forest for the trees - my mind was blocked, my heart was broken and my ears were closed.

I did not come to Al-Anon cheerily. I did not want to come at all. I had a program and was angry at God that I could not get out of my stuckness. I was angry at the world and my attitude was horrible. So, I came because my sponsor suggested it. I was full of shame and embarrassed that I had to go and work another recovery program - felt more like a failure than I did sitting at home.

But, I also knew because of my exposure to recovery and 12 Steps that if/when I opened my mind & heart the miracles would happen. I knew that I had never in my life attended a meeting and left feeling the same or worse than when I arrived. So, I sucked it up and began going on a regular basis. I also added another meeting on the other side of the table too.

I truly had no choice; if I wanted to find my peace and joy again, I had to surrender to this disease and jump back into the middle of recovery. I have put more emphasis on the Al-Anon side for the last 5-6 years, as I am not craving a 'fix' any more. Having a double-winner sponsor has been a huge gift and it's a God-given miracle that I was willing to listen to her guidance and suggestions for all this time.

The program is a huge gift to anybody willing to work it. I feel as if all of us who live with this disease and come out on the other side with a smile on our face(s) are miracles!!


Step 12 questions

Have I experienced a spiritual awakening? Is so, please describe:
- No burning bushes here but I view the cosmic shift in my attitude and approach to daily living as a spiritual awakening. When I consider and review what my life and days were like before recovery vs. how they are now, it is literally night and day. I rarely looked people in the eye. I always focused on what was wrong. I rarely had hope for the day - let alone the future. I dreaded getting out of bed. I dreaded interacting with anybody, especially my qualifiers.

Today, I am happy when I wake up. I am excited to get out of bed and plan my day. I feel grateful for where I am, I approach everything with a can-do attitude. I have 'pep' in my step and a life worth living. My fear of the future has gone away most of the time, and my regret, shame and remorse of the past has been lifted. I have been able to forgive myself and others and have great freedom in wanting to be the best person I can be, one day at a time, one moment at a time.

What have I received from Al-Anon that I would most like to share?
- The great gift I have received from Al-Anon is that I am only responsible for my actions/reactions & behaviors. Since two of my qualifiers are my children, I spent most of my waking hours blaming myself for the choices they've made and the state of their lives. I listened as their disease told me I was a horrible mother and a horrible person and allowed their disease to control my views of myself, our lives and the world. Al-Anon has given me a new set of glasses to see and live my own truth and own my side of the street. So - freedom from the bondage of this disease is my greatest blessing as a result of working this program and the 12 Steps.


What are the different ways I can carry the message to others?
- Carrying the message is as easy as smiling at a newcomer to sponsoring a member of the fellowship. I can treat others with dignity and respect inside and outside the program. I can patiently and kindly tell the solicitor at my door that I am not interested. I can participate in all aspects of the fellowship from making coffee to leading meetings to stacking chairs. I can share in meetings, give my phone number out and text/contact others to see if they are OK. I can post on MIP and share my ESH. I can offer support, prayers and positive thoughts and I can loan out literature I use less than before.

I believe the ways we can carry the message are limitless. Where there is a need, any need, I can try to be part of the solution.


Did I see a friendly face. Early in my recovery? What can I do to be a friendly face someone else?
- Yes....the group I call my home group has a lovely husband & wife with many years in Al-Anon. They are genuinely kind-hearted and were very welcoming when I first came. They remind me of an aunt/uncle you may have grown up around and wished they were your parents instead of your real parents. I've never seen them cross, they speak from the heart and they both smile with their eyes.

I always try to make contact and say hello to everyone - those I know and those I don't know. I am not into cliques, and want everyone to feel good about their choice to come to the meeting. There are many different personalities in recovery, and I am a huge believer in the principals above personalities. I make every effort to say hello, shake a hand, smile and welcome them.


How can I best carry the message to my family members, especially those in resist the ideas?
- We have all heard that actions speak louder than words. I have heard this and even said it and still argued or vocalized my opinions, suggestions, will, etc. onto other people. In my program of now, I believe and practice this to the best of my ability. I practice active listening with eye contact, and practice showing kindness and empathy even when the other person, usually a qualifier in my life, is acting foolish or is under the influence.

I have had to stop arguing, stop defending, stop explaining and just start living with peace in my heart. I no longer ask questions, especially those which are prying. I pray for patience and tolerance each day and my best action to be patient and tolerant is to be still.

I am one that believes in the principal of attraction rather than promotion. My experience is that when I am program-centered and deploying all tools possible, things are different around here.


How can I practice these principles in all my affairs, my job in my family life?
- I no longer look to blame others and shake off my part in the disease. I do not minimize anyone, or their experience. I believe in the disease concept and embrace this to have empathy for my qualifiers. I pray for and use loving tolerance with my qualifiers as well as others in my life.

I try to actively seek to understand and nurture those I love, no matter what they do or act like. I no longer practice indifference to their life/experience and work to accept that which, at times, feels/sounds/appears to be unacceptable. I detach with love and work to be kind to everyone I encounter as that brings me peace of mind.

For me, practicing these principals becomes easier as I focus on them, learn about them, share about them and listen about them. I agree that knowing what 'these principals' are is not always intuitive - I am always reminded of the poem, "Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarden..."

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life.

Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

~ Robert Fulghum ~


One of the principles that I will practice in all my affairs?
- The principles that I work to practice in all my affairs were taught to me to align with the 12 Steps.

Step 1 is about honesty - rigorous honesty in all my affairs.
Step 2 is about hope - hope for recovery, hope for others and hope for me.
Step 3 is about faith - faith in HP, faith in recovery and faith in others to be and do our best always.
Step 4 is about courage - courage to examine, explore, inventory and assess who I am vs. who I want to be.
Step 5 is about integrity - being authentic and real with God, myself and another trusted person to 'see' what I want/need to work on.
Step 6 is about willingness - being willing to process and change and work to improve myself, my attitudes, my actions/reactions.
Step 7 is about humility - being teachable no matter the source, looking for the lesson to grow and change.
Step 8 is about love - genuine caring and concern for those I harmed with an open mind/heart.
Step 9 is about justice - righting any wrongs by me to me and all those I can - correcting that which I can.
Step 10 is about perseverance - any/every effort possible to right wrongs, be better and do better in all my affairs.
Step 11 is about spirituality - assuming and striving to continue getting closer to God and acting/being as he leads me to be.
Step 12 is about service - giving back, giving to others and passing 'it' on as best I can. Doing something for another because I can.

These are the principles I try to live by each and every day. When I am troubled/uncertain, a nice PAUSE will typically re-route my thoughts or actions towards the next right thing.


How can I apply them in my daily life?
- There are or were no short cuts for me. It is by living one moment at a time, one day at a time that I can consider and apply these principles in my life. If I am worried or focused on the past, I am guarded and not being authentic. If I am projecting towards the future, I am distracted from my true next right thing. I can only handle, do, feel and be what is my truth in that moment.

I believe that by starting and ending each day with my HP, I am better reminded what I want to be/act like. It's easy to be impatience with others when I am in a hurry, yet I now can stop and consider that they are doing their best. It's easy to get frustrated with my qualifier for not doing what he says, yet I can pause and remember he is sick. The program gives me the tools to stop, process, regroup and then act in a manner that closely aligns most of these principles.

Before the program, I considered myself honest, with integrity, and kind/helpful. Yet, in doing my step work, I realized I rarely did things without an unspoken expectation - either of a kindness returned, or a thank you or a compliment or ... today, I do the next right thing with no expectation or agenda - I do it because, just because...

In what areas of my life do I need to start practicing these principles?
- For me, the life areas that are hardest to do and be authentic are family - esp. family of origin. It's easy to want to be different and to be different with program friends, other recovery people and my direct family. It is with my family of origin that I can stumble, mostly because the habits of old are deeply entrenched in my being.

Getting to practice with my parents and my brother - all visiting for the holidays - and for me, I did better than ever before. There were moments where I would begin to express myself, my opinions, etc. and then I caught me and changed to, "Maybe you're right." Both of my parents were always annoyed when their parents, my grand-parents, began repeating themselves in the aging process.

I watched them both get short and tell their parent(s) that they had just said that, or you've told me that several times, etc. I was able to use grace and patience and just say OK for each time that my own parents repeated themselves (they may or may not be aware that they are doing it, and they are more confused than ever before). It's not my job to correct them; it's my job to respect and love them, unconditionally, no matter what.

So FOO will be my target group for improvement for 2016!


However my living the message of the program?
- I believe I am living the message of the program by showing up and actively participating in life, each day. Even when I would rather stay @ home and isolate or do my own thing and not be bothered with others, going through the motions of getting outside myself is a testament to the many gifts of this program. I was the neighbor who put her head down from shame, and never walked outside as I was afraid someone would ask me how I was. I figured I would have a melt-down or just crack if asked.

I didn't know how to deal with this disease, I didn't know how to move beyond my sadness, my worry, my shame and my guilt. For all of us who have survived living with this disease, we are miracles each day that we can move one step forward, even if it's followed by 2 steps backwards. Our literature even tells us that without a program, most people can not survive our situation and come out 'whole', let alone healthy.

So, by facing life, taking care of myself, finding my joy and my truth, I believe this is the best way I can carry the program message to others.

How my good example of Al-Anon recovery?
- I believe that using the principles of this program when there is uncertainty is one great example. I have come to abhor gossip, good or bad or indifferent. I learned from feedback from my own children that their story is theirs to tell, even if/when it overlaps with mine. I was told this a long while ago, and it stopped me in my tracks as they were absolutely correct.

A part of me was still holding onto that thinking of, "I am the parent, you are the child, you hurt me with your actions, so it's a part of my story too!!" I found, after discussing with my sponsor, writing about it and praying about it that I was wrong. My feelings and my actions and my reactions are mine to share. What they did that contributed is not mine to share.

So, I walk away from gossip. My closest friends are fully aware of how I feel about this and don't do it around me (if they do it at all). I also am good about privacy. The anonymous portion of this program has given me a different way of viewing trust and privacy.

I also am one who will speak to and approach anybody who walks in the door. I try really hard to accept everyone, no matter who they are, who they love, what they say and how they feel. Most who walk in are afraid, angry, hurting and full of shame/other. It makes no difference to me - if they are willing to arrive at the door, it's my job to make them feel a part of. I know I spent many years feeling a part from and it's no fun place to be!!!

YAY......I am caught up and I am done!

Thank you Betty for your service with the 12 Steps on this board! I love that I am a part of recovery and so grateful you are part of my journey!!! (((Hugs)))

I'm ready to go again Betty! For me, each time I go thru the steps, I learn more about me/my recovery/my life.

It's been a pleasure and I look forward to the next time!

If I have the schedule straight, I think you will start up again in about 1.5 weeks. I am going to try and get to some online meetings this week, and will invite others there to join us as well as on the forum...

Have a great evening - I'm off to get horizontal!

(((Hugs)))

I did attend a few last week, and shared that we will be starting over soon! When you do 'your thing' and start us over, I'll go to some more and share again!

Have a great day Betty - thanks for all you do!