When I first went to Al-Anon, I had no idea that alcoholism
had effected me as much as it did – I was not aware of how much I was aware of
the people around me, to the point where I was counting others’ drinks, keeping
score of others’ behavior, and living a life that revolved mostly around how
much I could stay out of the way of whatever terrible thing I imagined could
happen, regardless of whether it happened or not. (I wrote about this before without talking about how it was related to Al-Anon; you can read my post on codependence here.)
Now I know that a lot of my behaviors are related to having grown up in the company of an alcoholic; that many of my actions are actually defense mechanisms that were built into my childhood to cope with things beyond my control; some part of me created them to keep me safe in a situation that never felt safe to me on a very deep level.
When I first went to Al-Anon, I was already aware of many of
the tenets of the program; the alcoholic in my life had stopped drinking when I
was young, and I had been to meetings before, as a child. I knew the first step
of Alcoholic’s Anonymous, which, coincidentally, is the first step of Al-Anon,
too, although in Al-Anon we focus more on our inability to control another’s
relationship to alcohol:
We admitted we were
powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.
In my first Al-Anon meeting of about 4 people in a small
village in Mexico, we read this first step, and everyone shared what their
first meeting had meant to them. There was a silence when everyone else had
finished. I looked down at the book in front of me, swallowing repeatedly to
hold back the tears.
Someone cleared their throat and said, very gently, “You
don’t have to say anything, but we are here to listen.”
“I don’t want to be in charge of anyone else anymore,” I
said.
And then I cried.
Hard.
I think I may have spoken more. I think I may have explained
that I wasn’t even sure I belonged there, because I hadn’t lived with an active
alcoholic for more than 20 years; I probably expanded on the idea that I had
always thought unconsciously that my job in life was to take care of others. I
probably said all this, but I have no idea how, because all I really remember
of that day was racking sobs and the relief that came from finally giving up
the thought that I had the ability to control anyone, any situation, or how
anyone acted. Best of all, it wasn’t my job to fix it. It wasn’t about me, and
anything outside the sphere of me was none of my business.
At the end of each Al-Anon meeting, there is a line, and it
has always been one of my greatest comforts, much the way that Al-Anon became a
comfort to me in the fact that I could
go to a meeting anywhere in the world and the format was always the same; the ritual
was always similar. That line says, “In closing, I would like to say that the
opinions expressed here are solely of the person who holds them. Take what you like and leave the rest.”
Al-Anon – and other 12-step meetings – allow a person to
talk about what is bothering them in an environment where people understand
where they’re coming from and what they’re going through, but it also allows
that not everything heard in a meeting is going to apply to everyone, and that
is one of the most comforting parts, as far as I’m concerned. However, I have not been going to meetings
lately, and it has caused me to forget how important this line was to me, and
how applicable it is not just in a 12-step environment, but in life in general.
I’ve been so tired lately, invisible audience. I have
stopped answering emails, I have stopped engaging, and I have found myself
either holed up in my home or escaping to Costa Rican beach towns, all because
I am having problems hearing myself think. This is not a new problem, but it is
a cyclical one: when I am trying to grapple with new emotional upheavals or
discoveries, I tend to get easily overwhelmed, and during these time periods,
anything anyone tells me comes at me in stereo sound, with a lot of bass and
not a lot of room for me to hear myself think.
What’s new, however, is an immediate connection to my
intuition that wasn’t there before. Before, anyone could state how they felt
about something with conviction, and I would find myself wanting to believe it
was true because they seemed to know
it was, and it very likely IS
true…for them. It would take days or weeks for me to finally come to the
understanding that just because they
believed it didn’t mean I had to…that
in fact, the exact opposite might be true for me.
The difference now is that I am suddenly feeling my
disagreement in the moment, where I never could before; where, because of my
experiences as a child, it was never safe to do anything but defer to the
biggest, loudest and most insistent opinion out there. Now, when someone says
something that is against my best interests or doesn’t resonate with me, I feel
sick. Nauseous. And it is not until I consciously dismiss their words and own
that I don’t agree – either out loud or simply to myself – that I start to feel
better.
I have to take what I like, and leave the rest. And believe
me, there’s a lot to leave: ideas about my role in life; what I am capable of;
what is not my responsibility; others’ ideas on spirituality, reincarnation; my
career, if I even want one. There is much more to leave than there is to take,
and this is news to me. It is no wonder I have always felt overwhelmed, if I
somehow thought I had to take all that was handed to me and treat it as truth,
even if it didn’t fit.
In Al-Anon, we sometimes refer to emotional sobriety: of an
ability to maintain equilibrium in the face of life’s storms. Many people in
Al-Anon are still living with active alcoholics, and our own disease is often
seeking out these people and trying to care for and change them; making their
lives our own. Regardless of whether that’s the case, regardless of how each
day shapes itself, the truth of the matter is that there will always be
something to rock the emotional boat. I am finding that my own emotional
sobriety has more to do with choosing the right battles. I have to work on
letting go of the ideas that no longer serve me, and fostering an ability to
manage stress that does not actually require an absence of stress, but a
healthy awareness of what is mine to own and what I don’t have to; what is
outside of the realm of my control or responsibilities. It is about being aware
of what I get to take, and what I get to leave when I leave all the rest.
Love and all the rest kisses
Morgan