I don’t know about the rest of you, but I certainly intend to give it my best to live life with a song in my heart and a smile on my face. No matter how tough things tend to be, I know that there will be hope and optimism shared here and at meetings.

I have often used an old defense mechanism from my childhood to re-create a world that was happy outwardly. No matter what was going on around me, I could find a way to get through the tough times and survive what seemed unbearable.

Today, that isn’t so. It…

The natural flight of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”
- Samuel Johnson -

I went to a good meeting yesterday. The topic was on being positive which was something that I needed to hear and share about.

I am a positive person but my exuberance for life can be a bit much at times. As one person shared yesterday, “Syd, I hated to be around people like you before I came into the program. I had nothing but negative thoughts and didn’t want to be reminded of anything positive.”

If I get too optimistic about…

I sometimes have those moments when I get  all  tangled up in my own thinking and bearing a load that I need help carrying.

Suffice to say that my own character defects have been pointed out to me and that I am smarting from being called controlling.  Maybe that’s what I am.  I know that I have a real fear of rejection.  So maybe underneath it all,  I do want certain things to happen or have certain expectations, and have trust issues.

It just bugs me when my own defects are pointed out while the alcoholic does not acknowledge her own defects. …

One of the most interesting questions that has come up during discussions about recovery with sponsees is  whether the steps were the only way.

I immediately thought “Yes”. But then I realized that I needed to qualify that by saying, “Yes, for me they are a proven way.” But the steps may not be the only way for others.

So I went back to the source. The Big Book states, “Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery..”
And further reading revealed that “It would be a product of false pride to claim that A.A. is…

I’ve been seeing a lot of billboard ads that say “What have you done for your marriage today?” I wondered about those signs. I found out that they are sponsored by the Catholic diocese.

Every time I see those ads, they make me think. What have I done for my marriage today? And today I can answer that I had many laughs last night in bed while we remembered the neighbors that lived around us when we had our first two homes. As my wife said, “If they are any indication of American society, we’re in deep trouble.”

We laughed about one…

I had one of those strange revelations of mind and spirit this morning. I’ve been ruminating on another break in anonymity that occurred yesterday. Maybe I’ll post about it at some point but suffice to say that it’s happened twice now by the same person. I’m not happy about it. I’m going to talk to the person who not only broke my anonymity but my wife’s and explain as plainly as I can why this isn’t a good thing.

With that rolling around in my head last night, I woke up in an out of sorts mood. I wasn’t angry as…

You’ve heard the old adage that “Opinions are like a_holes, everybody has one”. But what about those opinions that we form before we have adequate information. I’m talking preconceptions here.

I’ve done it before–judged a book by its cover, formed an opinion before I knew the facts. And with alcoholism, I’ve had preconceived notions about what the alcoholic will do or what will happen in a particular situation. It’s almost a Pavlovian response. If you experience enough chaos, disappointment, and let downs, then you come to believe that’s all you’ll ever get.

I suppose it’s only natural to think that if 99%…

The topic at last night’s meeting was how to make amends to ourselves. Not unlike the alcoholic, I came into Al-Anon with a lot of baggage. I was unhappy, emotionally bankrupt, and fed up with so many things, most of all the alcoholic. I was ready to leave my marriage.

Gradually, in baby steps, I began to see that instead of blaming my problems on alcoholism, I needed to look at what I was doing. So by turning the magnifying glass on myself and working the steps of the program, I came to realize that I needed to acknowledge my own…

“I can see why you are disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, “A.A. is a selfish program.” The word ’selfish’ ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others.

Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits.

What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell you that the salvation of his own soul is the highest vocation that a man can have……”

From As Bill Sees It

My wife and I often have  discussions about being selfish. She thinks that I am being selfish for wanting…

I always like the part in the Big Book from “How It Works” about thinking that “……we could find an easier softer way. But we could not”. In Al-Anon, there isn’t an easier softer way either. No, we’re not in imminent danger of drinking ourselves to death, but we are in danger of a slow, painful emotional death.

I’ve listened in meetings to people talking about not getting a sponsor, not working the steps. They are making a few meetings if there’s time, they are reading a daily reader, but they still feel miserable. And yet, they wonder why.

My experience has…

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” — William Shakespeare

It’s Father’s Day today. My father died in 1985. I think of him often, but there’s something about Father’s Day that was special when he was alive and is still special today. For me, it was always a way to say “Thank you” to a man that I both loved and feared. I would make him a card with my crayons when I was a kid and later would give him a card and a present.

My father was a man of few words and didn’t talk about feelings.…

Newcomers at meetings hear things differently than those who have been going for a while.  We each hear different things in meetings and we each take away something different from a meeting.  Sometimes I hear such eloquent things from people.  And I’ll wish that I had the oratory skills to express my thoughts better.  But is sharing really about how great a public speaker a person is?  Sure, it helps not to wander all over the place and to go on and on saying the same thing over and over.  But sharing isn’t about how witty someone is or how…

I laugh when I hear someone in a meeting say that they “shoulded” all over themselves. It is funny but such a true statement for so many of us in the program.

I certainly did my share of shoulding. And most of my finger-wagging attitude came because I was angry that my expectations and values weren’t being met. And I had no concept at the time about being powerless. I thought that I knew how things should be. The alcoholic had a different attitude.

I listened to a sponsee tell me about his shoulding yesterday. His wife is an active alcoholic, and…

At the meeting last night a lady shared about how little communication there is with her husband. She said that since he got sober, he didn’t talk. She said that talking about their children, their finances, and his sobriety were off limits.

Probably the saddest part that she related was that in going out for dinner at a restaurant, they would sit in silence with the only words spoken being those of the server. They’ve been married 42 years.

Sadly, I’ve watched people in restaurants where there was no communication. They sit and eat their meal without even glancing at each other.…

I went to a great meeting yesterday  that really got my thoughts going round and round. The topic was about loss. Most people shared about lost relationships. And how they lost themselves in dealing with alcoholism.

As people were sharing, I thought about how I really didn’t realize how much I had lost, until I found myself in this program. I was determined never to be the quitter. I stuck with my wife through some bad times, I stuck with my mother during her depressions and last years, I stuck with my job during many periods of disillusionment, and I stuck…

“Lower your expectations until you get what you want”. I was told that a few days ago when I was getting myself into self-pity mode. I was bemoaning a few things that were driven by fear which is my chief character defect.

It’s easy to let myself slip back into having fantasies about how things “should” be or how I want them to be.  I can build up expectations about something that I am planning, or that I hope someone else is planning.  And quickly I’ll be disappointed when my expectation doesn’t turn out the way that I have planned.  Then …

Yesterday there was a good meeting on “Let It Begin with Me”. This was a timely topic for me, especially in view of my thoughts about service work this week. I know that getting honest with myself about what I can realistically do and what I can’t is an essential part of the slogan.

If I want things to change in my life for the better then it will need to begin with me. When I first came to Al-Anon, my marriage was just about dead. This was a last ditch effort for me. I didn’t want to live with alcoholism,…

I recently shared in a meeting that I have begun to feel as if I am taking on more and more service work with Al-Anon. And the feeling that I get is similar to those pre-program years when I took on more and more things at work and at home, only to feel trapped and resentful that I had taken on too much.

I inventoried what was going on and find that I’m not wanting to take on anything else. In fact, I’m wanting to rotate out of service on some things. I haven’t volunteered to do the Beginner meeting in…

I’ve read several blogs and seen for myself in real life the horrors that go along with active alcoholism.  One woman wrote in her blog that she was struck on the head and choked by her husband who is alcoholic. She called the police and now has a 11 day Emergency Protective Order for her and their 20 month old child. And she is scared, lonely, and wondering the same thoughts that I used to wonder about during the time that I lived with active alcoholism.

In the worse part of those years when my wife was drinking, we had our…

One of the qualities that I have come to admire in this program is the ability to remain calm and serene even in the midst of turmoil. It’s like a Zen like peace that emanates from a few people that I know. I’m still very much a work in progress, although my serenity meter has definitely moved to the higher end of the scale since joining the program.

Those times when I display anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, bitterness, self-pity and a host of other character defects still come up. Yet, most of the time I don’t put that face forward to…

It’s wearying to see the lack of respect that occurs in our culture today. And in spite of the rude and unkind behavior of others, “respect” is a big issue worldwide. Everyone wants it, but there’s a prevailing feeling that it has to be earned or gained in some way.

Maybe this whole thing about respect is bass-ackwards and “Respect is always given and never earned.”

I was taught to respect people, all people, from childhood. And that respect was given and kept unless proven otherwise through the course of their actions. Respect wasn’t required to be a test given to another…

At the noon meeting, we talked about losses. Some of us shared about losing loved ones to the disease. I shared about losing myself. It has taken me a lot of years to recognize that I am still grieving the loss of innocence that I had as a child and the loss of love that I experienced in my marriage.

The sadness, anxiety, anger, and emotional confusion that I experienced as a child were extended into my marriage to an alcoholic. I had a lot of expectations of others that never were met. I wanted closeness with my father who loved…

I remember all those Mother’s Days when I would get up early and put cards out and pick some flowers from the yard for my mother. The cards were the ones that I had made, with stiff paper and colored with crayons. Later on, I bought cards but they never seemed to have the same significance for me as those early ones that I made. The flowers could be anything from what was growing, usually tulips, daffodils, and irises, to some wild flowers. My mother would always act surprised and happy. She kept all those cards, and I found them…

Another part of the closing statement for Al-Anon goes like this:

I’ve always liked the Al-Anon closing statement. But this part of it I have found particularly moving:

“A few special words to those of you who haven’t been with us long: Whatever your problems there are those among us who have had them, too. If you try to keep an open mind you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened.”

In dealing with alcoholism, there is a lot of dishonesty. I’ve been dishonest with myself for a long time because I tried to pretend that things were going well. People would ask me how things were going and I’d say that they were “fine”. I think that sometimes I believed that things were going well because it was too hard to look at the truth.

And then there is my unwillingness to hurt others. I’d been hurt plenty but when it came to being brutally honest about my feelings, I found it difficult to slash and cut the other person. Every…

I’ve been thinking about how anger is a hurtful thing. Just seeing someone go off on another indicates the amount of physical and emotional energy that anger takes. It’s not a productive emotion for me and seems to take away my enjoyment of people and opportunities around me. The words that are said during an angry interchange can maim the soul. But after an angry outburst, it takes me quite a while to get the event out of my head because I go over it and try to figure out what happened.

It seems that angry people like to think that…

There’s a roundup occurring nearby that my sponsor and I are attending. These are a great opportunity to listen to some great speakers and to participate in some of the small meetings that occur. It’s also a great time to meet other people in the program. I went to this roundup a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.

I’ve downloaded a lot of the speakers from Sobercasting.org and have been listening to them on my IPod as I make the drive to and from my work. Some of them are excellent and have incredibly compelling stories. I’ve found myself very…

I was listening to a speaker talk about how life is often spoken of as a game. I haven’t felt that it was much fun playing the game of life until I came to Al-Anon. In thinking about my life and the stages that I’ve gone through, several things come to mind as to how I’ve played the game.

1. Don’t play at all–just give up. During the last few years when things were so bad and I felt hopeless, I came as close to giving up as I could. I simply had enough of the anger, moodiness, emptiness and depression.…