October 6, 2011
We all know our assorted drama queens, addicts, and energy suckers. These are the types who used to push all of my buttons and pull every single trigger I had, and off I’d go to the blender to make myself a strong, frozen Jimmy Buffett concoction. I always felt that if I wasn’t always there [...]
August 18, 2011
I am going to venture out a little further tonight and share something a little more personal and heart-felt. Bear with me. My children were seven and five years old when their dad and I sat them down at the kitchen table to tell them we were separating. The three of them cried; I stayed [...]
August 14, 2011
When I wrote my article on self-esteem, I hadn’t intended on writing a series of articles, but looking back on my recovery journey, I can now see that self-esteem played a big part. I made a statement, in my last article, about A.A. being a safe transitional community. Some of you disagreed with that, which [...]
August 5, 2011
Being impulsive, quick-tempered, and easily offended often led me down a road that was way more treacherous than it had to be. Before I entered recovery, I used these as tools to project my insanity on my alcoholic, often times putting us further behind the eight ball and intensifying already-heated issues. I used money against [...]
July 27, 2011
I had an eye-opening experience this week that was one-hundred percent a lesson/mirror from my Higher Power. I’m in the middle of working my fourth Step (a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) and have, at times, found it difficult to see myself outside of my rose-colored glasses. Other times, I have a hard [...]
July 22, 2011
In my last column, I explored some misconceptions that I have seen causing friction in the fellowship, specifically between atheists and God-conscious members in 12 Step programs. Like any society, variations in our heart-felt beliefs can make a mosaic out of community life or it can cause tension; it’s all about love and tolerance. Today, I reflect on [...]
July 20, 2011
If I try really hard, I could probably take everything said to me on any given day and twist it into some sort of attack or personal innuendo. Me and my Aries-ego like to believe that the center of the universe was created on a beautiful April morning in 1976 when I arrived in my [...]
July 18, 2011
“Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until, in desperation, we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous.” “We were fresh out of ideas, and so became open to new ones. Our insanity had finally risen higher than our wall of denial, forcing us to get honest about our disease. Our best efforts [...]
July 18, 2011
I think it takes a lot of courage to work the Al-Anon program. From the first step into a meeting room, the first time I opened my mouth and spoke openly about my experiences, asking someone to be my sponsor, and being willing to change — all scary, scary stuff! It takes a lot of [...]
July 15, 2011
I was reading through my copy of the Al-Anon blue book: “How Al-Anon Works for Families and Friends” and found written in the margins, in a panicked script, one of the first stepping stones I experienced in Al-Anon,“What are my needs?” As a wife, mother, employee, daughter, sister, friend, I could tell you what everyone [...]
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