My First Meeting

I woke up this morning thinking of excuses to skip going to the Al-Anon meeting today. But, as you can see from the title, I did go. And I'm glad I did. I was worried the whole drive there that my husband would call and by not answering I'd get "caught" going to a meeting. He doesn't think "we need AA or Al-Anon." But that's a whole other blog post/issue.

So I went to the meeting and felt very welcomed. We read from Courage to Change, but instead of reading for March 5 the message for May 5 was read. When people realized this, it was pretty funny because it was exactly what was needed. I understand that happens a lot at Al-Anon...you get what you need. The focus was humility and taking care of ourselves. When it came my turn to speak all I could say was I was taking care of myself by attending the meeting...anymore and I would have cried a fountain. I heard things about setting boundaries, detaching and choosing what we want to deal with and when...I thought, ok, these things sounds familiar I guess these people are ok. The discussion then turned to consequences. One person said we don't have the right to take away someone elses consequences. I knew this, even though I do it. What struck me though was when she said if we do that, not only do we not allow them to suffer the consequence, we also don't allow them to feel the joy of overcoming the consequence. That put a totally different perspective on things for me.

After the meeting I hung around and a couple people talked to me. They gave me the newcomer packet and everyone's phone number. Really a nice bunch of people. I think I'll go back. Next meeting is Friday noon.

Today I'm grateful for:
1. My friend at work who announced this morning that she has designated herself my accountability partner and what time did I need to leave for the meeting today?
2. The beautiful blue sky and spring blooms
3. The nice people I met at Al-Anon today