Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Hot day

I was out in the field all day today. It was a gorgeous but very hot day to work on the water. I'm still mulling over what happened to my friend but have decided that she and the dominatrix need to discuss this and work out a solution. I'm staying out of this fight.

I wish that people would say what they mean and mean what they say. I also wish that in sharing people would realize that Less is More. We don't need to share everything or every detail. We need to be able to tell how it is now, how it was and how we came to recognize that Al-Anon had something to offer.

I'm still planning on attending as many Al-Anon and open AA meetings as I can. No one yet has kicked me out of an AA meeting, nor has anyone asked what I was doing there. I just need to move along and not get bogged down in life's injustices. It's a raw lesson in learning how not to be and how to give people the benefit of the doubt, just as I would want them to do for me. Maybe the heat's got my brain today or maybe I'm just learning how I don't want to be. There are good lessons to be learned from pain and sadness.

5 comments:

  1. I am so sorry to hear of the situation that happened at your meeting. When this kind of thing comes up I have to remind myself that some of us are still very spiritually sick. I hope that your friend will be able to recognize this as an indication of a sick controlling person and not a sign of an unwelcoming program.

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  2. I'm still apalled about your previous post.

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  3. Just read the last post also. Well that "meeting" may have let your friend down, but not the program of Al-Anon that you and so many others speak so highly of.
    I believe that Al-Anon is a program for people who have been affected by someone elses alcoholism..period. And that AA is a program for people who have a desire to stop drinking alcohol..period. A WHOLE lot of us fit into both catagories. I personally don't think it is right for an AA'er to tell an Al-Anon how to work their program and vice versa. But it is my responsibility to show love and compassion to ALL people in both programs!! So sometimes the "people" in a meeting let me down. But the programs (AA and Al-Anon) NEVER DO.

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  4. jeeeze..take away the preaching part in my comment above....and keep the AL-ANON ROCKS part. :)

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  5. I've bumped into so many really crazy people at meetings and dodgy behavior that stuff like that doesn't surprise me at all. Rather than try to 'reform' 'problem' members, I just 'stick with the winners', (which is always a very personal interpretation) and suggest the same to newer people. Very occasionally, for instance if there is a VERY sexually inappropriate man, I will forewarn newcomer women. Other than that I don't really notice it. After 8 years of attendance in aa I was very capable of spotting the slightly weirder members from a distance and avoiding others if I didn't like the way they were talking to me. I've heard of many very violations of trust from aa members. Even highly regulated environments have unscrupulous members who abuse their position of trust. There is no profession where incompetence is absent. So I just expect it really. And 12 step groups are unregulated, so these incidents kind of go with the territory. I know its very easy to let these people live rent free in your head, but there are FAR nicer people you could be thinking about instead, so I'm glad you're letting them sort it out amongst themselves. Life is too short to get bogged down with the occasional 12 step loon..
    In my opinion anyway!

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Let me know what you think. I like reading what you have to say.