That AA/Alanon 12 step thing
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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That AA/Alanon 12 step thing
So hokey...
So cult-like, I've heard...
Sad people...
Bad influences, I'm sure...
My loved one needs something that will WORK and those 12 step programs have a reputation for not being organized, for having undesirable people there. I'm afraid they'll be brainwashing or taking advantage of my loved one.
My loved one isn't capable, smart, adaptable or independently strong, you see... and my fears are BIGGER than my hope of things turning out okay by embracing something so DIFFERENT than anything else we've known.
I REALLY don't want to go. I don't need it. It's not for me. My loved one maybe could use it, but refuses to even try it.
That AA/Alanon 12 step program
Showed me new ways of looking at life and myself. Of seeing beauty and goodness, of laughing my way through and out of the worse times of my life. I am a grateful member of the 12 step programs. I take what works and leave the rest. I asked someone else in the program to sponsor me. My sponsor showed me how the program works, how to LOOK for healthy behaviors in and around me. How to SEE unhealthy behaviors in myself.
Sometimes I spend months immersed in meetings and literature. There's a need, a hunger in me that's soaking in information I'm naturally filtering and taking from it things that are helping me. Sometimes I have a different balance to my life. Neither are wrong. This is no longer a race I'm caught up in trying to win. It's a journey, and a good one!
That AA/Alanon 12 step fellowship of PEOPLE has good and bad in it, just as every school, hospital and community does. What makes it special is how it shows how to trust in an inner strength and guidance system -- some call it a Higher Power, some call it Inner-Self, some call it God. My gut instinct, my healthy desires, my conscious thoughts and subconscious all working together for me in new ways. Maybe not every meeting is a good one. Maybe there's some toxic behaviors. I TRUST myself now to deal with that and from it I again learn new skills and strengths, especially the one to seek out healthier meetings for me. There is an ebb and flow to this that becomes natural. What helped me at first isn't quite what I need now. Yet I keep finding more good in 12 step programs and in LIFE as I look for it.
So cult-like, I've heard...
Sad people...
Bad influences, I'm sure...
My loved one needs something that will WORK and those 12 step programs have a reputation for not being organized, for having undesirable people there. I'm afraid they'll be brainwashing or taking advantage of my loved one.
My loved one isn't capable, smart, adaptable or independently strong, you see... and my fears are BIGGER than my hope of things turning out okay by embracing something so DIFFERENT than anything else we've known.
I REALLY don't want to go. I don't need it. It's not for me. My loved one maybe could use it, but refuses to even try it.
That AA/Alanon 12 step program
Showed me new ways of looking at life and myself. Of seeing beauty and goodness, of laughing my way through and out of the worse times of my life. I am a grateful member of the 12 step programs. I take what works and leave the rest. I asked someone else in the program to sponsor me. My sponsor showed me how the program works, how to LOOK for healthy behaviors in and around me. How to SEE unhealthy behaviors in myself.
Sometimes I spend months immersed in meetings and literature. There's a need, a hunger in me that's soaking in information I'm naturally filtering and taking from it things that are helping me. Sometimes I have a different balance to my life. Neither are wrong. This is no longer a race I'm caught up in trying to win. It's a journey, and a good one!
That AA/Alanon 12 step fellowship of PEOPLE has good and bad in it, just as every school, hospital and community does. What makes it special is how it shows how to trust in an inner strength and guidance system -- some call it a Higher Power, some call it Inner-Self, some call it God. My gut instinct, my healthy desires, my conscious thoughts and subconscious all working together for me in new ways. Maybe not every meeting is a good one. Maybe there's some toxic behaviors. I TRUST myself now to deal with that and from it I again learn new skills and strengths, especially the one to seek out healthier meetings for me. There is an ebb and flow to this that becomes natural. What helped me at first isn't quite what I need now. Yet I keep finding more good in 12 step programs and in LIFE as I look for it.
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