Friends in the program

I have never had relationships like I do with women in the program.  Well, actually men too...but I would prefer to focus on my relationships with the women.  I trust no one.  I take risks with people and relationships.  I get involved with people in a deep way very very quickly.  I always felt as though I bound into peoples lives.  I head right to the core of groups, associations, places of worship, places of employment and people themselves.  I believe it was all in an effort to break out of my old habits of isolation.  However it was a different part of my disease...when I was attempting to be the puppet master, and all my little marionettes would dance happily in the scenes I was constructing and creating.  The insanity did not stop when I entered the rooms...I wonder sometimes if the insanity will ever cease.  However, I have learned that the people in the rooms, while we want to believe they ALL follow the rules and they ALL are safe, honest and abide by the code of alanon...I have figured out that as time goes on and we walk our own journeys that our friends will emerge to walk along on our journey.  Only time will tell which ones are there for a season and which ones are lifers.  I have found some women that I am so unbelievably and indescribably thankful for.  Women whom I can say outright..."hey, I have no clue how to have girlfriends so please help me because I love you and don't want to lose the wonderful gift of our relationship".  I have had good responses so far, although it was like navigating a thicket sometimes, it has been worth the risk.  I know that there are moments still when the path starts getting tricky, and I am learning that it may always be that way...it does get easier and easier all the time.  I don't have to keep every single friend as my bosom buddy, I accept that those people who come and go are there for a season and a reason, and letting them go is okay.  Guess what people...the world continues to spin with or without those folks.  Weird, right?  Well, for me it is weird.  I am learning about choices, choosing, honesty, and how not much of what goes on constitutes "the end of the world as we know it"...(a little R.E.M. for those of you who appreciate 80's music)

So friends, I leave you with this thought...if I can choose to accept the things I listed above...can you imagine how many other things I may choose while on my road to recovery?  I love this road! 

Blessings and peace....Asalamalakum, which I just learned translates as "Peace be upon you"

Thanksgiving

This morning I am giving thanks for finding my way to Al Anon.  I am so very happy to have found a community of ACOA's to walk along side on my journey to recovery.  With each passing day, when I fail to "work" my program...and I sit lazily trying to give in to the disease I have new thoughts that occupy my mind.  I have sayings, prayers, principles, thoughts of my alanon friends and family, a phone message, an email and things that tell me I am exactly where I need to be.  In my heart, I can actually feel the warmth of the love that comes from the higher power in my life.  My higher power, as I have said many times, is not just the God of my understanding, but acceptance of love people are attempting to give me so freely and appropriately and unconditionally. 

Today, I will not be afraid because I am not alone.  Today I will read, journal, pray and ask for help to turn over my will and my life yet again to a God who loves me.  Be at peace friends.  Know that you are not alone.  I am so happy to know these things and am very much hoping to share with you.

Today was my first face to face meeting in over six months and wow did it feel good to be back. I rely heavily on online meetings as where I live in Asia doesn't have any face to face meetings.
I have to say that I am so grateful for my program, for the chance to connect to other human beings who have felt my pain and who are examples of great recovery. For the chance to hear just one share that can change everything. I realized today after hearing a share that I "disown" my inner child every time she feels something. This happened to me as a child a lot. I felt something and was shouted down, ignored, punished, laughed at or abused. It is sad to see that I now do this with my inner child. I am the only adult she has now and todays meeting and talking with a very special alanon friend across the seas has made me realize that its time to start working on my inner child issues. I am asking my HP for help with this.
Love
xxx

Ahhh...step 4....so we meet again...

So...Step 4...how have you been?  Of all of the steps, you my friend, are the Mount Everest of them all.  Well, for me, that is.  I have been avoiding step 4 since the first time I attempted to walk the steps.  I remained at base camp waiting for my Sherpa (a.k.a. my sponsor) to not only help me up the mountain...but to carry me up.  As it turns out I have to work my own program.  My sponsor can't do it for me.  The great news is I don't have to do it alone.  I have read a bit about people who have climbed or attempted to climb Mount Everest.  They cannot do it alone.  They must have someone with them for safety reasons.  Someone who knows the mountain, the path to and from the Summit.  They need someone who knows it and has been there and done that.  So much can be taken from this thought process.  My sponsor does know the ways...she has been there and back a few times.  We are all on this journey together.  Some of us will arrive before others, and then we realize...it is not a race to get there before or after anyone.  You are in a race against yourself, your past, your childhood, your issues, etc.  If you veer off the path in an attempt to take a 'short cut', sometimes you will find this causes your progress to be hindered.  Slow and steady wins the race. 

Today I am hopeful.  I am thankful for my Alanon friends and family.  I am thankful for my sponsor.  I am thankful for a husband that loves me.  I am really thankful that as of yesterday I realized that my husband is a lucky man because I am pretty darn special.  Yesterday I figured this out...what took so long?  It does not matter.  What matters is that I am really starting to see that I am a valuable and loving person with a beautiful heart and spirit.  Normally, this is the place I would insert some sarcastic dig at myself, but this time I am not going to do that.  I feel a sense of progress, and I realize that perfection is not a reasonable goal for me to keep striving toward.

As I clean house, and remove the clutter that is my past, issues, hurts and old wounds, an enormous amount of storage space is freed up for my artistic expression.  Love and security are slowly replacing the doubt, fear and anger.  It makes for a much nicer interior...colors are brighter and this morning I can actually feel a very happy warm feeling in my heart. 

Thank you program and people for being...just for being here.

May the road rise up to meet  you...have a great day.

THE PROGRAM WORKS!!!

At the end of some of the meetings I attend, they say "Keep coming back, it works if you work it".  During one meeting I heard a share where the person says "it works even if you don't work it".  I struggled with that for a long time, because I didn't believe that sent the right message.  So I took what I liked and tried to leave that statement behind.  However, I will say that many months down the road now, when I find myself being resistant to work the program, my higher power is working on me through my Al-Anon friends.  I am fortunate enough to have reached a place in my journey where I have experienced enough growth that my old habits and self-preservation mechanisms are not working...they don't fit anymore.  I keep trying to squeeze into them...laying across the bed, holding my breath and trying to make it work...and my new progress is overflowing in such a good way.  My old habits were like that comfortable pair of jeans...the old faithful pair that you rely on.  Well...mine just don't fit.  I keep struggling to make them fit, but I realize that I have to accept that there are new tools and new ways to cope and deal.  It is time to face the things that inhibit me from further growth.  Excuses, expectations, and denial...how about today...just for today, I will ask my HP what is in store, I will do my best to listen.  I am powerless over my expectations, so I ask my HP to remove them from me.

In the rooms, the faces may change, but the program remains the same.  It is the organization and the program that are there time and time again.  The program and the guidelines are the outward symbol of the unmeasurable love that my HP has for me, and that I aspire to have myself.

Here again is my third step prayer: 

Today God, open my heart  to see what you see,

Take the thoughts of my mind that clutter the pathway to recovery and remove them from me.

Take my will and my life and make them yours today, moment by moment, step by step.

I am willing, I have made the decision.

Amen

Working the program when you don't want to

It has been a dark several days for me.  I have been down...frighteningly down.  I have felt myself slipping into that isolation that we all experience.  I have felt anxious and sad, just so down and out.  I have been going through the motions...my outside shell doing the bare minimum to try to meet the obligations of my role as mother, step-mother, wife, friend, employee, manager, daughter.  I have been painting, playing games on the computer, drawing, watching mindless TV and just plain trying to avoid the frightening prospect of facing step 4.  The isolation has taken on a new form...it used to be that I would retreat to my room, dive under the covers, watch old movies and sleep.  Now the isolation is my walking through life around people, wearing the mask of yesteryear and trying to just 'get through' the day.  My excuses are I am tired, I have a headache, I don't feel well, didn't get much sleep, etc...as I walk emptily through each moment.  I have been stuffing my emotions with food, alcohol and inner dialogue of how I will just never measure up and I am ugly and fat and a terrible example to my children...none of these old "solutions" is working for me now.

It is a very good thing that I have Al-Anon.  I have new friends, and a new family given to me by the gift of this program.  I do not want to work my program, but now that I have knit myself into this community, it makes it harder to just quit.  I don't want to quit.  I want to realize that I am going to have times in the valley...that is what makes the view from the mountaintops so breathtaking.  By working this program, we do not hope to be cured...well...maybe in the beginning we hoped for that...but once you start to journey along the steps...you realize that this program is here for us to fall back on when we reach these moments in time.  The love of the program is waiting for us always...it is a reminder that there is a power greater than ourselves that is closer than our own breath...if we just admit we are powerless and cannot do "this" (whatever this is for you) alone.  We don't have to do it alone...thanks be to Al-Anon.

May the road rise to meet you...Peace friends...please share your ESH with me today...I need it.

Just for today

I have a bookmark titled "JUST FOR TODAY", and one of the paragraphs on this book mark reads as follows:

"Just for today I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle all my problems at once.  I can do something for 12 hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime."  There are many other sayings on that book mark, but just for today I will focus on that one part.

At a meeting recently, I was asked to do the reading "Information for the newcomer".  I got to the part where it says "your job is to be here...that is all, just be here" and I got choked up.  It was overwhelming the thought that all anyone needed of me was to 'just be there' or that being there was a job anyone wanted from me.  I love that part of the readings very much. 

Today I ask my higher power to be here, just be here, in my heart and my life.