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Journaling by Adult Children
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Al-Anon is for families, relatives and
friends whose lives have been affected by someone else's drinking. Many
adults question whether they have been affected by alcoholism. If someone
close to you has, or has had a drinking problem, the following questions
may help you in determining whether alcoholism affected your childhood or
present life, and if Al-Anon is for you.
(Reprinted by permission from
Al-Anon World Service Office)
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Many
people who attend the Al-Anon
Adult Children Workshop and Festival for the first time question
whether or not the event will be helpful to them, and whether or not they
really 'belong' there. Based upon our own personal experiences, we have also found
the following scenarios all too familiar...
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You have
been "in recovery" for 10 years but never got your 6 month
medallion ---- because every time you got into a new relationship you stopped
going to meetings.... |
Do you constantly seek
approval and affirmation?
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If you were taken to court and charged with
being a 'co-dependent', and the judge asked you how you wanted to
plead, you would respond, "I don't know, your honor, how do you
want me to plead."
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you fail to recognize your own accomplishments? |
| Do you fear criticism? |
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When you read your
conference approved recovery literature, you easily
recognize the faults of everyone you have ever met in your entire
life - and can't understand why nothing in the book seems to
relate to you.
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| Do you overextend
yourself? |
| Have you had problems
with your own compulsive behavior? |
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If someone asks whether or not you have a
sponsor, you proudly announce that you have two sponsors,
Ben and Jerry.
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| Are you uneasy when your
life is going smoothly, continually anticipating problems? |
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You are so accustomed to living with pain
that whenever you roast marshmallows you don't bother using a
stick, - you just use your bare hands.
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| Do you feel more alive
in the midst of crisis? |
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Your idea of an ideal relationship between a
tender, honest, faithful, compassionate woman, and a dependable,
committed, sensitive, boundary-honoring man, is based upon
Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. (Since
neither of them were in program, we felt free to use their last
names....)
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| Do you still feel
responsible for the problem drinker in your life? |
| Do you care for others
easily, yet find it difficult to care for yourself? |
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At your first 12-Step meeting you hear the
slogan, "Keep Coming Back." You believe that this is a
great idea, because you think that it refers to your resentments.
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| Do you isolate yourself
from other people? |
| Do you respond with fear
to authority figures and angry people? |
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Whenever you read the 23rd Psalm or the
parable of the Good Shepherd and the lost sheep, you see yourself
as the shepherd instead of one of the sheep.
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| Do you feel that
individuals and society in general are taking advantage of you? |
| Do you have trouble with
intimate relationships? |
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Your definition of "working a good
program" is to get a good-looking, single sponsor of the
opposite gender, so that you have an excuse to call them up all
the time and know that they can't hang up.
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| Do you confuse pity with
love, as you did with the problem drinker? |
| Do you attract and/or
seek people who tend to be compulsive or abusive? |
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If someone asks whether you "see the
glass half empty or half full", you respond, "What
glass? Nobody gave me a glass! Somebody took my
glass!"
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| Do you cling to
relationships because you are afraid of being alone? |
| Do you often mistrust
your own feelings and the feelings expressed by others? |
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At a social event you spend the first several
hours with your back to the wall and your arms folded across your
chest. In the last 15 minutes of the event, you meet somebody
cute, fall in love, discard your boundaries, sneak out for a
'quickie', and propose marriage (not necessarily in that order).
In the morning you discover that they are controlling, violent,
pathological liars, multiple substance abusers, and are already
engaged to several other people. However, you see through all of
these minor inconsistencies to the noble character hiding beneath
the surface of this incredible physical specimen, knowing that
they will enthusiastically and willingly correct these
insignificant problems after they move in tomorrow. |
| Do you find it difficult
to identify and express your emotions? |
| Do you think parental
drinking may have affected you? |
 Click
to see both the real and 'easy' versions of the 12 steps. |
| Alcoholism is a family
disease. Those of us who have lived with this disease as children
sometimes have problems which the Al-Anon program can help us to resolve.
If you have answered "YES" to some or all of the above
questions, Al-Anon may help. You can contact Al-Anon by checking in your
local phone directory, on
line in northern Illinois, or internationally at www.al-anon.alateen.org |
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 People
see you as the
person that you want them to see, but when your inner values and
personality come out, you appear quite differently.
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