The following articles from the April 2009 issue are reprinted with permission of The Forum,
Al-Anon Family Group Hdqs., Inc., Virginia Beach, VA. For more articles, check The
Forum archive.
In Features (pp. 10-11)
How I let go of my pattern of unhealthy relationships
By Claudia M, Arizona
I have a sweetheart—but he's not my type. And it couldn't have happened without applying the principles of this program.
I met him when I decided to date casually for the first time in my life. I had been a serial monogamist. I had always chosen to reject or fall in love on the first date, and then date exclusively until "he" ruined it. Then I would move on to the next hostage.
This time, I went out with several men. I agreed to go out with anyone who didn't seem to be an ax murderer. Some were too short or too blond; not thin or muscular enough; or not funny or exciting enough.
As I got to know them, I learned what was important to me—and what wasn't. I learned that I liked to dance and didn't like sarcasm. I learned that integrity and spirituality were more important to me than biceps and green eyes.
One fellow was simply not my type, but I liked how well he treated me. It was a new feeling. He opened doors for me and gave me courtesy and respect—but he was simply not my type. I told him this was not going to work. There was no spark, no excitement.
I steeled myself, but he was persistent. I found myself getting awfully confused when I tried to explain why we could only be friends.
What I didn't expect was that I missed him! I talked to my Sponsor and Al-Anon friends, and I learned from them that the racing of my heart was just a symptom of heart trouble—not love.
I did the Steps one more time— this time focusing on what I really wanted and needed. I explored the fears of re-living my parents' relationship: the nice but ineffectual alcoholic father and the competent, controlling—and cold—mother.
I looked at the hurt and rejection of being single at middle age and realized it was largely my choice. I looked at my part in failed relationships, and I asked my friend if we could try again.
I enjoyed his company and started to feel deeper feelings, but I still had a lot of fears. I talked to people in the program who were managing to have successful romantic relationships. I wrote in my journal a lot, and I gave myself permission to simply enjoy myself.
We prayed together, laughed together, and talked honestly. He amazed me with his sincere compliments and our common interests. I started seeing walls go down; I replaced them with gentle, fluid boundaries. But I still felt a fear that I couldn't shake or identify precisely.
Then one day, he said grace before a meal, as is our custom. He asked God to bless me, and he thanked God for me.... I remembered the cold war that had been my parents' relationship, as well as my relationship with others before meeting this kind, considerate man.
I thought to myself, "This is going to turn into the hell that I'm used to, like it always does." I'd thought it before, but this time I heard it.
I identified my persistent fear: I was always "waiting for the other shoe to drop." My core belief was that nothing good will ever last, and everything that's bad will never change. Today I know these beliefs are fears—not the truth.
Simply being able to identify this fear as having no basis in truth gave me so much relief and joy. I don't know if this relationship is going to last forever, but I don't know for sure that it won't last. I don't know if it's what I have been looking for, but I don't yet know that it isn't what I'm seeking.
Fear still enters my life and my relationships. But I keep remembering that expectations of bad things can cripple me. I am learning to stay in today and enjoy the good. I am learning to do the footwork today and trust God for the outcome.
I am learning to fight fear by going to meetings, reading CAL, working the Steps, and by sharing my fears with my Sponsor.
My Sponsor tells me not to sabotage this relationship. She points out to me the realities that I forget when I go into fear. She reminds me that I am deserving of what I have in this relationship. I don't have to say "no" to love by saying "yes" to fear.
In My Story (pp. 16-18)
Al-Anon—after everything else failed
By Dolores M., Florida
Anyone who doubts the progressive nature of this disease and its power to destroy lives—even without active alcoholism—should take a look at my family. There was no drinking in our home until I was 15, when my mother had a major stroke. Her doctor, knowing nothing of her family history, told her to drink every day as an antidote to stress.
But even before the alcohol, the alcoholic behaviors were there long before I was born: fear, rage, guilt, shame, isolation, and emotional abuse. My mother's father and two of her sisters ended their addiction to alcohol with a bullet through the brain. My father’s sister slit her throat with an old-fashioned straight-edge razor. A cousin hanged himself.
My adolescence was a nightmare of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. I turned to food to ward off depression—struggling with starvation diets and bulimia.
Denial, secrets, and lies reigned supreme in our home. My parents refused to face the sickness in our family, even when my sister wound up in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital and finally had to be confined to the state insane asylum.
When my parents brought my sister home, their response to the situation was a stern lecture to the effect that she was going to have to "straighten up." She got no professional help. By her 40s, she was in and out of psychiatric wards about eight times.
I believed there was something terribly wrong with me. But I thought if I could just get away from my family, I could make a better life for myself. At 18,1 left for a famous professional theatrical school.
It was a devastating shock to discover that, despite my academic achievements and artistic talents, I was emotionally incapable of independence. I was unable to relate to my peers and suffered from clinical depression. At the time, there was little effective treatment.
Physically and mentally ill, I returned home in disgrace. I remained sunk in the depths of depression, unable to live anything approaching a normal life. I couldn't sleep; I lay awake at night praying for death and suffered from severe respiratory infections five months out of each year.
I gave myself totally to my religious faith, the only way I could bear days and nights of sleeplessness, chronic fatigue, and emotional agony. Though it didn't "fix" me as I'd hoped, my faith at least provided me the strength I needed to get from one day to the next.
With the help of a good doctor, my health problems receded, but not the crippling depression that I hid from everyone. After ten years of medical treatment, good nutrition, and the pursuit of God failed to provide a cure, I abandoned my religion.
By the time I got to Al-Anon, I was 50 years old. I believed that I was the problem. I had two failed marriages behind me. Rage, envy, self-hatred, and despair were eating me alive. I'd had 20 years—off and on—of psychological counseling. I had thrown myself wholeheartedly into a myriad of self-help theories. Nothing helped.
I was devoid of hope, full of anguish that I would never have the peace of mind that I sought. The only bright spot was my instinctive response to an Al-Anon friend who told me that I was an adult child of an alcoholic.
That certainty alone sustained me during the years I kept coming back before I began to experience an occasional whiff of happiness and serenity.
Because of Al-Anon, the last 15 years have been happy, although fraught with trials. Every trial, however, has carried with it blessings. Life no longer terrifies me, because Al-Anon has given me the tools to deal with it in a healthy manner.
Al-Anon has given me myself. Of all the treasures the program has given me, this is the one I prize most. Al-Anon has healed my relationship with God and made available to me the riches I knew my religion possessed, but was unable to access because of sick attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors.
The program also healed my relationship with my sister, a relationship I had believed would never be restored. My sister also chose to enter the program herself and has made enormous progress.
Alcoholism is a disease that not only kills the drinker, but can, and often does, destroy the lives of those affected by the drinker. Because of Al-Anon, I know that it doesn't have to destroy mine.
In Features (pp. 20-21)
As an outsider, I couldn’t figure out Al-Anon members
By Lena
The first time I witnessed the joy Al-Anon brought to people's lives I had no idea who these people were. I was waiting tables in a small restaurant. Almost every Saturday a table of about six to ten people would come in shortly after noon. I was usually the one who waited on them.
The rest of the staff and I could never figure out the connection these people had. What brought these people together? How did they form this obviously strong and wonderful bond?
They came from every walk of life. They were a group so eclectic there seemed to be no common thread, except the laughter. They obviously weren't related. It didn't seem like they worked together. We were stumped.
Roughly two years later I was a mess. I no longer felt sane, happy, or even like a human being. I didn't want to kill myself but I didn't want to live either. My life had become so strange.
I loved my alcoholic more than life itself. We had even talked of marriage. There were amazing, wonderful times.
But as great as those times were, there were equally dark and hard times. It was the worst behavior I had ever witnessed—and I contributed to it!
When he went off to rehab, I could take no more. I had nothing left. My entire life was in pieces, even the parts that seemingly had nothing to do with him.
His mother had suggested I attend Al-Anon a few months prior. I had gone to a few A.A. meetings with him during a short stint of sobriety but never Al-Anon. I knew his parents attended Al-Anon, but I was convinced I could do it on my own. The fact that they had been struggling with this family disease for more than 10 years should have been my first clue ....
I was completely desperate when I walked into an Al-Anon meeting. As soon as I stepped into the room, I recognized everyone from my regular Saturday table.
As I went to more meetings I saw the rest of the Saturday regulars and began to understand their bond and the laughter. It all made sense.
Now, just a few months after that first meeting, I go to lunch with this group—which is now my home group. We frequent my old work place often. As I laugh with them, I spot some of my old co-workers looking at us with even more curiosity since I've joined the Saturday regulars.