Hi Jenny - It sounds like you are getting a good start. Going to a meeting every day will keep the program fresh in your mind. Picking up the phone when you need to is also a good tool.

Look around at the members and see who has the kind of serenity you'd like to have and ask her to be your sponsor. You can make it temporry if you're more comfortable with that.

And be gentle with yourself. It doesn't come all at once. The first time I felt calm with no pressres I wondered if this was all there was to serenity - really kind of boring. Then the craziness started again and boring became a serenity that I now protect as much as any a protects his sobriety.

Love in Recovery - Dot

Jenny,

I highly reccommend that you get a sponsor NOW - even if it is a temporary one, to help you work the steps.  A good sponsor can lead you gently to find serenity, and help you use the tools of the program to keep you on track when your life is unmanageable. 

I would suggest that you to re-work step 1 - truly understand that you are powerless over your alcoholic as well as others (except your children)  and therefore his relapse is just that -HIS relapse - not yours.  You can't control him and when you try, your life surely becomes unmanageable.  Get the focus on Jenny and that which you can control which is simply your thoughts and your actions.

Al-Anon has saved my sanity and probably my life, and has given me serenity that I never thought possible.  Good luck.  Love in the fellowship.  Kathy

It has been so wonderful to no longer depend on my way. I did find a sponsor and she is perfect, even though it was the work of my higher power and not my original architectural desing I had invisioned, this is so much better. I have started really working the steps, and today, I took a huge second first step, and admitted I was powerless over my own drug use. It was a hard one for me because I have been so focused on the destruction of our world through my partners extreme adiction to heroin, which cost us almost everything that we had, that I, who am a classic al anon, and very sick, could not see that I had become dependant on my pain perscription and now that I am looking at me, even though I am functional and my habit only cost 5$ a month, I have been using it to cope with physical and emotional pain, I think about it alot, I can't just stop taking them, and that scares the shit out of me. Last month was the fisrt month I actually ran out before I could refill and for the first time I bought them off "the street", and this month the pharmacy refilled my script 2x by accident, and now I know I am powerless over this. I spoke to a friend from alanon who is filling in for me b/c my sponsor is in mexico, and she made me feel alot better, told me I had tackled 2 of the 3 A's, awareness and acceptance, and that was enough for today. I have been the one holding up the fort while my partner has been in rehab and now moved into sober living for the next year, I have 2 kids and live 4000 miles away and across a border from my family, so I don't really have the luxury to go into a 30 day program, but I found a doctor who can help me detox and I went to my first meeting today and said Hi my name is Jen and I'm an addict, so now I don't have to sit in my car outside of work talking to myself and arguing with myself about it anymore. I also told my partner which was so hard for me, but I feel we are one step farther in recovery. Because it is opiates, I have been advised to get help detoxing, so that I will do, and in the mean time I give continuous thanks to the program, the members, the feedback and all the love and support I have received. Thank You HP for all you bring to my life