Originally Posted by
pupnut5 
I asked a co-worker about this very thing a few weeks ago. He is a alcoholic who has started attending meetings recently. He said that booze has been his crutch for so long that anything that overwhelms him naturally gets soothed by alcohol. The meetings were something new, something confronting and therefore something overwhelming. Hence for the first few meetings, his desire to drink afterwards was very strong. Its an interesting point he gave, especially since he stopped drinking after his 4th meeting. I dont know how I personally feel about what he said but Im grateful for his honesty. And Ive tried not to judge.
It is SO GOOD to get the truth from someone relatively neutral in our lives, someone who has little to nothing to gain by telling us what they think we want to hear, as opposed to what is the actual truth.
Originally Posted by
sandrawg I've attended AA meetings with an exbf who was in recovery. I saw people show up drunk.
They welcome them, all the same.
That's an excellent thing about AA. A's learn to not judge each other. I am learning, via Al-Anon, to drop the judgments, even when my AH comes home from a meeting and it's clear he has had something to drink. It does become clear to us, when our A's have been drinking. What I've learned in Al-Anon is to notice it with neutrality, and, to realize "quacking" when I hear it. Developing the neutral response to his quacking has led to less quacking from him.
Today's ONE DAY at a TIME in AL-ANON (little blue book) post is right along these lines:
APRIL 29 in The Little Blue Book ONE DAY at a TIME in AL-ANON:
"A little meditation on the word FORGIVE can throw some rather surprising light on our understanding of the word.
"We are asked to forgive those who have injured us. Unless we have first judged and condemned them for what they did, there would be no reason for us to forgive them. Rather we would have to forgive ourselves for judging.
"The Scripture says: 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' If we do judge - no matter how great the injury or how premeditated - WE are at fault. Following this train of thought to its logical conclusion, we see that we can forgive only ourselves. In doing so, we also forgive the person whose action we have resented.
"Today's Reminder
"'Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself' tells me I must first make peace with myself before I can learn to love others. I must remind myself constantly that I can never know any other person's motives and conditioning; I must, for my own sake, accept them as they are. A large ingredient of that acceptance is loving tolerance.
"'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.' (Luke)
"'And forgive me for judging and retaliating. Help me to forgive myself; I know this is the first step toward spiritual security'."