On-line Weekend Al-Anon Meeting on; Major Responsibilities

On-line Weekend Al-Anon Meeting on; Major Responsibilities

If you have found this website you are invited to join us in a weekend long, Al-Anon Meeting.

The on-line meeting starts Friday evening 4/25/08 and runs to Sunday 4/27/08 evening.

Note: To view this Post and the Comments at the same time, click on the link here ---> (click here). Or you can click on the title of this Post in order to get a better view of the Post and the Comments.

Here are some guidelines ---> Click for Guidelines. Bottom line; say what you want, when you want, as many times as you want, to whomever you want, about whatever you want. Cross-talk is allowed ("cross-talk" is talking to each other, not being "cross" to the other).

This is where we start:
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Many of us started shouldering major responsibilities when we were very young. Having had to grow up quickly in an alcoholic or unstable home made us grown-ups faster than we would have liked. But because we had nothing else to compare it to, we did as we had to, and as we were expected.

Having to place the children in an area where they were needed, and put a lot of burden on a young child or children, perhaps made some parents feel guilty and remorseful. Not knowing how to deal with the guilt and the shame, or perhaps dealing with the chaos of an alcoholic, you as a child maybe were treated unaffectionately or you were made to feel unappreciated. This is probably because the main, stable parent was doing all he or she could at the time.

The chaos was too much for the parent. The burden of you the child, may have been stressful, but as children, children are well equipped to "adjust" their little selves to the chaos and pick up the slack around the house. Children are excellent at trying to adjust and cope.

As we grew older, and we no longer needed this skill of "picking up the slack" or "shouldering major responsibilities," this once productive skill set, an asset as a child, turned into a liability as an adult.

So, when we grew up, our little goal seeking mechanism, that is, our mind, or perhaps our subconscious, sought out new situations that provided a safe haven for our ability for shouldering major responsibilities could be put back into use. So, we looked for another person, that could bring us chaos, and allow us to "help" and become the major contributor to fixing the chaos.

What we soon learned, and felt, is our unhappiness of finding us in a situation similar to the one we grew up in. Soon, we become despondent. We become angry, at ourselves and our qualifier, for having to go through this all over again.

We have become great fixers. And we feel we are powerful enough to "fix anything."

But we need to find out, and realize, that we CANNOT fix everything. There are jobs too big for even us to handle.

This is the reading Al-Anon's; "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions."
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Others among us, having shouldered major responsibilities, may have found it difficult to let go and to admit powerlessness, over something in our live that we felt must be changed.
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This is where I started to find serenity. When I realized I did not have to solve all the problems of the world or the house or the business I am in. That no matter what others problems are, they are really not mine to solve.

And that problems too big for me, are also not mine to solve. These are God's.

Added Later After Initial Post;
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I am very, very grateful for Al-Anon. I didn't know how affected I was by my qualifier's drinking and how I had fallen into a caretaker role, insteading of just being, well, caring. I had lost myself. Not totally, but somewhere I was buried. Some may scoff at this, if they heard me say this. But I have, and had put on a great, "I am okay" front. I was dying on the inside. I was lonely, alone, and felt, well, I hate to admit it, "unloved." Now I am beginning to see, life is not supposed to be this way.

I am also grateful to the first steps, that I can get some help. And I don't have to solve every problem. What a relief when I can say, "Okay God, this one's for you to work on."

I was not a big believer in God or a Higher Power before Al-Anon. Wow, have I changed. I just feel a little guilty in saying that, "Because I needed God, I now believe in God." I think I need to rewrite what I just wrote, because this is a profound revelation for and to me;

"Because I needed God, I now believe in God."

I think I needed God's help before. I just didn't want to ask for help, because I would feel like a phoney, since I wasn't sure there was a God. But because my problems had become too big, I had no place else to go and no one else to turn to, who could actually help me. So, I read and reread Step 1 material by looking in the index of the back of the books "Courage to Change" and "Hope for Today." This has helped me quite a bit. And I am forever grateful.
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And this is where we begin.

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