Needed: Courage to Change

One of my favorite things about Al-Anon is the Just for Todays.

Since my first Al-Anon meeting, I have thought they contained the recipe for a good life.

The only thing was, how could anyone possibly do those all those things every day? I mean, spending "a quiet half-hour all myself" to relax sounds like heaven. But some days I could barely manage to get dinner on the table, nevermind a quiet half hour.

Then there was this one:

"Just for Today, I will do someone a good turn and not get found out."

That was the one I couldn't get my head around. I wasn't that creative. How could I think of something like that to do every day?

Then, at a meeting, the woman who was delivering a greeting for the newcomers talked about the Just for Todays. She said the suggestion she had been given was to focus on just one of those Just for Todays each day.

"Some days, it's all I can do just to 'be courteous and criticize not one bit,'" I remember her saying.

I was grateful for that bit of advice. But I confess it allowed me to pick and choose the Just for Todays I liked the best.

Doing someone a good turn and not get found out still bedevils me.

If it bedevils you, too, I can offer a suggestion.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know of the Al-Anon service work that I do in the state prison, and you no doubt remember that the meeting I attend struggles with attendance. But that's not the case with all the meetings.

There are six different facilities in the prison, and each of them has an Al-Anon program. Some of them are quite large and growing. The prison coordinator, who is my Al-Anon partner at the meeting I attend, told me they are struggling to fill the demand for books.

At this point, the prison has only authorized the book "Courage to Change."

When they attend Al-Anon meetings, inmates bring an attendance sheet that is signed by the Al-Anon volunteers at the meeting. Once they have attended six meetings, they are given a book.

The only problem is that there haven't been enough book donations to cover the number of inmates who have earned them.

The prison coordinator, who lives in a different district closer to the prison, asked me to coordinate a donation effort in my district. I'm doing that.

But I thought I'd also bring my appeal here.

If you're looking for a way to be of service, that won't cost you much in time or money but that could make a big difference in someone's life, I'd ask you to consider the donation of a new or used "Courage to Change."

My local Al-Anon information center stores the books for the prison program. If you are interested in helping, I'd ask that you send a copy of "Courage to Change" or a check for $12 with a note that you'd like to purchase a copy of "Courage to Change" for the prison. In either case, please be sure to clearly indicate that you intend your donation for the prison program.

Here's the address:

East Valley Al-Anon Information Center 1320E Broadway Rd, Ste #109, Mesa AZ 85204

Thank you.

Hubby and I are off on assignment later today and will be gone for a few days. I hope you all stay well. I'll drop by for a visit when we return.

In All Our Affairs

Yesterday was the day my Wednesday group celebrates birthdays, so I celebrated “officially” and got my chip.

In our line of sponsorship, the sponsor introduces the sponsee, talks about their year from the sponsor’s perspective and gives the sponsee a word or phrase he or she feels represents that year.

My phrase was “in all our affairs.” That’s what my sponsor told me I had done. I had practiced these principles in all my affairs.

She said my marriage had improved because I was learning to say what I wanted and needed for myself. My relationship with my daughter had been transformed. She talked about my service work.

She said she thought it was a quiet year. Not much had happened. Just life on life’s terms. There was, she said, a calmness about me, which she thought might be a gift of the second year. “Don’t get used to it,” she said with a laugh.

I always believe I have an idea about what’s happening on my insides. And it’s always interesting to me to hear what that looks like on my outsides. Call it feedback. Like checking your hair in a mirror.

When my birthday came around, I thought about my year. I wondered what word my sponsor would give me. I like her word. It felt right to me.

But those aren’t the words that rolled around in my own head when I thought about my year. The words I thought of were faith and service. At the meeting I talked about service and how I had benefited from it. I did that because I thought that maybe there was someone who, like me, was skeptical about the claim that I would benefit more from service than those I had helped.

I was wrong.

That claim was absolutely true.

But the thing that most changed in me, I think, was faith.

I was happy to hear my sponsor say that she noticed a calmness about me, because that’s how I feel. Though, for me, it didn’t feel like an uneventful year.

My husband and I have faced what felt to me like pretty major things. We struggled to keep the doors of our family business open. Our incomes from the company and my work plummeted. My daughter’s situation is as bad as it’s ever been.

Here’s the difference. I didn’t freak out. It made me smile to hear my sponsor say that it had been a smooth year because while she is aware of everything I just mentioned, I didn’t seem to get that upset. Hence, she assumed things were not really that dire.

That’s faith.

It’s the greatest gift I’ve received in this program.

I believe that God has directed my life. That everything in it is just as it’s supposed to be. That he’s arranged everything for my benefit. I can only respond with gratitude.

Someone at a meeting shared a saying they had seen taped to their sponsor’s computer. It said: “If you pray, why worry? If you worry, why pray?”

For the last several months, I have doubled the time I spend on my knees in prayer and in meditation and it has made all the difference.

BTW, here are a few things I have taped up on my computer:

“If you don’t hear the voice of God, it’s because you are controlling the conversation” —from Epiphany, on her blog “My Road as I Travel It”

“Resentments are when things didn’t go my way in the past.
Anger is when things aren’t going my way now.
Fear is when I think things won’t go my way in the future.”
—from Kim A, on her blog “One Day at a Time”

“Sponsorship is not placing someone in authority over you; it’s asking someone to hold you accountable.”
—Mr. Sponsorpants

“Go placidly among the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be one good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they, too, have their story.”
—Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata,” from ODAT

It doesn’t escape me that three of four of these came from blogs.

I started this blog as part of my 12th step work. To carry the message. To be of service. Of all the service work I’ve done, I think I’ve benefited from this blog more than anything else. That’s because there’s a tremendous recovery community here online. It’s like attending a great, big meeting every day.

You’ve all taught me so much. I am truly grateful. Thank you for being such an integral part of my journey.

Hubby and I are on our way to the land later today. Take good care and I’ll see you in a few days.

All By Myself

When I was in my early teens, my mother’s boyfriend told me I was aloof.

I was horrified to hear that. I didn’t want to appear aloof. I desperately wanted to be popular. But I felt socially awkward. I didn’t feel like I fit in.

When I got older, I decided that I preferred to be alone. It was easier than being with people. Being with other people wore me out. Trying to think of things to say was exhausting. I longed to escape to a mountaintop or a book or just to be alone with my own thoughts.

At the same time, I was lonely. I had a rich fantasy life that revolved around a mysterious soul mate, who would one day discover the beautiful person I was inside and love me and make me feel whole.

My soul mate would be handsome and wear sweaters. He and I would drink coffee at the edge of the lake a sunrise, take long walks through the woods in fall, read the Sunday paper on lazy Sunday mornings. We never had to talk.

In Al-Anon, I discovered that I’m not alone in this. Many of my fellow Al-Anons, particularly those who grew up in the disease, have what we often refer to as “a tendency to isolate.”

It’s not very mysterious. Like most of my character defects this tendency began as a self-defense mechanism. If I don’t let you get close, you won’t hurt me. If I don’t let you inside, you’ll never know how hollow and rotten it is in there.

So my relationships were a combination of holding you at arm’s length or creating just enough drama to keep you there. Until I got too scared and I blew the whole thing up. Because if I was the one to leave, you couldn’t leave me.

Not long ago, my husband and I attended the wedding of a friend I have known for maybe a dozen years. She was a bridesmaid at our wedding. She told my husband that she used to pour her guts out to me.

“Do you know what I got back?” she asked. “Nothing. I got nothing. Kathy never told me a thing.”

What she said shocked me, but I had to admit it was true. I gave nothing away. Not even to my closest friends.

I took that with me into Al-Anon, and hung on to it for a long time. People would say they found friendships and love in the program. I didn’t know what they meant. I found help, yes. But that magical feeling of fraternity eluded me.

Until I got involved.

I put off service work until I got to step 12. I am, after all, a commitment-phobe. I didn’t mind helping, I just didn’t want to commit to it.

Silly me.

Once I took a service commitment, everything changed. My schedule had changed and the meeting that I would be most likely to attend regularly was a new meeting for me. But it was clear it should be my home group, so I started there.

I started with set up, because I’m compulsively early and because it would give me something to do. I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. Only when people saw me setting up, they’d ask me questions because I looked like I knew something. So I’d try to be useful.

Next, I decided to really push my boundaries and be a greeter. Of course, I felt shy and awkward, but I remembered how the greeters in my former home group hugged everyone that came in. I remembered how that made me feel, and decided I would do the same.

I’m not afraid to admit I was more than a little nervous about it. My new home group wasn’t a huggy bunch. But I called people by name and hugged them and, to my surprise and delight, they responded warmly. Before long, they were hugging me.

Each time service commitments came up, I picked something different. Before long, the group representative was asking my opinion about things. I realized I finally felt a part of things. Each Monday night, I walked in and felt welcome by people who really did seem to care about me.

Of course, faith played a part. As I started to fill up that God-sized whole with my higher power and stopped trying to fill it with another person, I naturally lost interest in selfish things, just as the Big Book promised. I became interested in other people. I sought out the newcomers. I tried to be useful. Like everything else, that new attitude has bled into the rest of my life, and what a difference it’s made.

Let It Begin With Me

Hubby and I got home late last night, and so this morning when the phone rang I felt a little tired.

I knew it was a program call because the caller asked to speak to Kathy M.

"Yes, this is Kathy," I said.

The caller's name was Sylvia and she spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent. She was a new volunteer at the local information center and my name was on her list. Could I help take home calls in April?

I started to tell her I was pretty well committed. Three sponsees, prison service, commitments with my home group and, well, life.

I started to say those things.

Then I remembered that in my line of sponsorship we don't say "no" without a good reason. I remembered that I said I was willing to go to any lengths for my recovery. I remembered that God knows better than I do. I remembered the Al-Anon Declaration: "When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon always be there, and Let It Begin With Me." I thought of the commitment she had made to fill all those night.

"What do you need?" I asked.

Sylvia said she needed someone to take home calls on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

My home group meets on Mondays, and one Monday a month, I'm at the prison.

Tuesday evenings are when I have my regular call times with my sponsees.

I wasn't available every Wednesday night in April, but I was available for a couple. I said I could fill in a day or two. She suggested two dates. I was free. I told her to sign me up.

I remembered what my sponsor said every time she took yet another sponsee (she has 14). "My God has a sense of humor," she said.

As I hung up the phone, I had to laugh.

The Wheels of Justice Go Round and Round

I spent quite a bit of time this week finishing up the requirements for prison work. It didn't all go well, but I won't belabor the details. I'll just say that after driving the 100-miles round trip to the state prison three times since Saturday's orientation, I'm not finished, thanks to an equipment malfunction. But all that's left is my photo. As of Thursday, the chaplain was still waiting for the results of my drug test to be forwarded to them and the fingerprint clearance from the FBI.

Today I attended a potluck hosted by the Al-Anon prison coordinator, and got to meet many of the other Al-Anon volunteers. I knew several of them from meetings I attend. It was the first time I got a really good idea about what going out to the prison was going to be like. Some of the volunteers had been going into the prison for years, and everyone there said they got a lot out of it. So now that I've gotten through all the red tape, I'm looking forward to being of service.

But it won't be for a while. I probably won't know what unit I'm assigned to until the end of February. I first expressed interest in the program before Thanksgiving. One lesson I'm learning is that the wheels of justice move very, very slowly.

But listening to the discussion today, I did learn some things I didn't know. For example, the prisoners have to earn their seat at an Al-Anon meeting. It's considered a privilege. And they have to attend six meetings before they get a donated book of daily meditations. Some women try to scam additional copies. To me that said these books mean something to them.

I couldn't help but think of how for me Al-Anon is given freely. I may have had to "earn my seat" in one sense. But all I need to do is to show up to get the help I need. The next time the thought crosses my mind that I'm too tired to get to a meeting or too busy to do my morning reading, I'm going to remind myself of the women who would love to be in my place.

Prison Bound?

I have spent a frustrating day and a half negotiating what I have come to affectionately call the volunteer prevention system at a nearby state women's prison.

There is an Al-Anon program operating in the prison and a handful of Al-Anon volunteers attend meetings there. It's both a way to carry the message and to be of service. I've been thinking about it for a while now, and after an impassioned plea for more volunteers at a recent meeting, I decided to make the commitment.

It sounded easy enough. Attend one meeting a month on a regular meeting night. It would just be a longer drive. There would be a background check, an orientation. No problem, right?

After an initial screening interview, I was told to expect an invitation from the chaplain to orientation.

I got the call on Christmas Eve. Before I would be invited to orientation, there was the matter of a little paperwork. He'd e-mail it to me that day.

The paperwork included a 50-page training manual, with something like 15 pages of exercises to be completed. An 8-page background questionnaire. A volunteer application, which, frustratingly, asked many of the same questions that were on the background questionnaire.

The cover letter came with bolded and underlined admonishments such as:

* All forms must be completed in black ink and returned to me no later than January 11, 2010.

* When you make copies of the background questionnaire (Form 602-1), only duplex (double-sided) will be accepted.

* On the Volunteer Application (Form 204-4), if you do not indicate why you want to volunteer or what training and experience qualifies you to present services, your application will not be processed.

*Unless you return this book by the close of business January 11, 2010, you will not be invited to attend orientation.

The exercises in the training manual must be completed, it said. "Please write in a legible manner, as I have to grade each book."

The 8-page background questionnaire wanted me to list

* the dates of all my parking tickets and the disposition. (Seriously, who can answer that question?)

* Scars and identifying marks (So they could ID my body?)

* Every school I attended beginning with high school, with dates and addresses.

* My personal references (three people who have known me well for five years or more) must include addresses in addition to at least one phone number!

The exercises included scenarios that would undoubtedly be useful at an Al-Anon meeting such as: "You direct inmate Collins to clean up an area. He ignores your directions. You tell him again to get the job done. Inmate Collins tell you to clean up the *&#@* mess yourself. What would you do?"

In all, I'm mailing 25 pages of materials today, so that I may be invited to orientation. (Which, by the way was rescheduled from two months ago.)

I had to laugh, really. Getting upset would serve no purpose other than to make myself unhappy.

I had to admit that I was powerless over the state prison system.

I had to remind myself that I needed to be willing to go to any lengths for my recovery.

I had to remind myself that I was not doing this for the people who run the prison, but to be of service to the women who might benefit from this program.

When I had finished, I was reviewing my paperwork and the cover letter to be sure 1) I had not left any blanks (which could result in my application being delayed or rejected) and 2) that I had included everything asked of me.

I had to call the prison coordinator when I saw that I had failed to copy my background questionnaire in duplex. Would this be grounds for immediate rejection of my application? It was getting late, it had to be in the mail the next day to make the deadline. My willingness was waning.

She put me in touch with another woman who was doing her own application. She hadn't done that either, and hers was already in the mail. I decided that if they would reject me for this infraction, at least I wouldn't be alone.

That's the best part of this program. I never have to do it alone.

A leaky bucket

"We can only keep what we have when we give it away," is a sentiment you hear a lot in 12-step programs. It's the central concept of the 12th step.

As hungry as I was for recovery, I was afraid of the 12th step for a long time.

The actual step reads: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

What it boils down to is doing the things that keep the organization going. I thought it was part of the Kool Aid. It was a way for Al-Anon to perpetuate itself. I understood the need for people to do this work, but I wasn't going to be fooled into thinking it would help me.

In my line of sponsorship, service is one of six key principles, so I felt the pressure to do service work from the beginning. Some people do get involved in service right away, and they claim it helps them. Helping someone else allows them to get out of their own head.

But I wasn't ready.

My own sponsor is a shining example of service. She has so many sponsees that she has to keep a spread sheet to keep track of us all. Far from inspiring me, it scared me to death. I thought of her in the same way I think of Sister Theresa. I deeply admired her spiritual path, but I didn't necessarily want to emulate it.

But I had faith in the program. Service is 12th step work, I told myself. There are 11 steps that come first for a reason. When I get there, I'll feel ready. But when I got to the 9th step, I got a little panicky.I could see the 12th step from where I was sitting, but I still didn't want to do it.

Then I got to step 12, and I was ready.

I realized that I had been a leaky bucket. Everything that poured in just went right out the bottom. Al-Anon gave me the tools to patch my bucket. And as it did, my bucket filled up and flowed over the top. What my bucket couldn't contain naturally flowed over into service.

My first service job was an easy one: setting up the room. It was perfect for me. I was compulsively early to everything, but I was also shy. I hated the idea of sitting in a room full of people who might not talk to me. So I'd sit in my car and read the paper until it was a minute before the meeting was due to start. Setting up was active. It gave me cover. It gave me something to do.

Next, I faced my fear and became a greeter. By then, I knew most of the people in my home group by name. At first, I just smiled and said, "Hi John," or whatever. Newcomers were easy to spot, and I welcomed them and gave them a newcomers packet. My home group was never a huggy group. But at another group I attended regularly, the greeters hugged everyone who came. They were my favorite people because they always made me feel like they were genuinely happy to see me. So I took a chance and started hugging. The first night, I only hugged people I felt very comfortable with. The next meeting I started hugging everyone. To my surprise, people reacted very positively. Pretty soon, I wasn't the one initiating the hugs.

I took on different things. I became the literature coordinator. I signed up to attend meetings at a local prison. I signed up to chair meetings. When the chairperson asked for volunteers to lead newcomers meetings, I raised my hand. I started this blog.

This is my second year in the program. The first year and part of the second I worked really hard on completing steps 1 through 11. When I was done, I felt an emptiness, a kind of 12-step hangover. Service fills the void. For me, it's been a time of experimentation. I'm finding things out about myself. What I like. What I'm good at. What I'm good at that I never thought I would be. And, to my great surprise, I like it.