I had the most amazing experience today. Once again, being out of town, I went to an AA meeting. It was a couple of blocks from the hotel so I arrived a bit early. There were two guys there and they introduced themselves. While I shared some coffee with them, I explained that I was a guest and affiliated with Al-Anon. One of the fellows asked if I would chair the meeting. I indicated again that I wasn’t with AA but with Al-Anon and that I wasn’t sure that it was appropriate for me to do that. He said that it was okay since there were NA’s there and it really didn’t matter. I felt a bit unsure but decided that if I was being asked to do something then I needed to go ahead with it. God knows, I needed to be at that meeting today so I wasn’t about to get caught up in propriety. For some reason, I felt that I was being guided to do this and just trusted that it would all be okay.
Telling what it's like to work on recovering from the effects of alcoholism through Al-Anon
Friday, February 16, 2007
Chairing an AA meeting
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I was glad to hear that you know what to do when you get into the 'powerless' mode --- you went to a meeting! NO matter which fellowship --- you sought solace and found it! That's very healthy, I believe.
ReplyDeleteI can remember in the early days how much I was drawn to the AA meetings myself. I went to at least one per week, and could identify with 'them' more than I could the Al-Anon-ers --- guess my type A personality blended with the disease better than the isms! What it did do for me, though, was show me how and why the alcoholic did what he did. This helped me to understand that their pain was just as intense as mine, even though they were working on two problems - the drink, and themselves. All I had to worry about was me and why I was affected!
Very powerful. I think there should be more open meetings. It is very hard for me on a day-to-day basis to be emphathetic with alcoholics. But I know a lot of AA-ers in my husband's group call Al-Anoner's whiners. We should all listen to each other more often.
ReplyDeleteKeep posting stuff like this i really like it
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