On-line Weekend Al-Anon Meeting on; Restoring Ourselves to Sanity

On-line Weekend Al-Anon Meeting on; Restoring Ourselves to Sanity

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 5/9/08 and runs to Sunday 6/11/08 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:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is from the Al-Anon Pamphlet "Freedom from Despair"

Specialists in the field of alcoholism regard it not as a moral weakness or sin, but as a complex disease, perhaps part physical and part emotional. Alcoholics tend to be sensitive and emotionally immature, excessive in their demands on themselves as well as others. When they fail to live up to their own standards, they escape from reality by drinking. The habit leads to obsessive drinking, a compulsion so powerful that not even the threat of death or insanity seems to break it. One drink sets up an uncontrollable craving that only more drinking can appease.

. . . . The alcoholic needs encouragement and understanding whether drinking or sober. By detaching ourselves from the alcoholic's problems and concentrating restoring ourselves to serenity, we encourage the alcoholic to seek and keep sobriety.

Five Common Traits of Our Disease (Derived from the Al-Anon pamphlet, "Understanding Ourselves and Alcoholism"
{These are the key words/sentences and thoughts I pulled out]

We, too, can become ill.
We hide bottles. We search the house. All our thinking become directed at what the alcoholic is doing or not doing. This is our obsession.

Watching them slowly kill themselves . . . We worry about the bills, the children, the job . . . This is our anxiety

The alcoholic's behavior sooner or later makes us angry. He is telling us lies, not taking responsibilities, feel he doesn't love us (as parents and children) . . . This is our anger

We pretend things are alright. We hide how we feel. . . . This is our denial

Perhaps the most severe damage to us is the nagging belief that we are somehow at fault. We may feel we are not good enough, good-looking enough, clever enough for not having solved this problem . . . These are our feelings of guilt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See if the five ways we are affected resonate with you. I know they do with me. I can even carry these behaviors to non-alcoholic environments, like work or friendships, or while being alone.

So this is where we comment!