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Source: Sharon T – 12 Step Serenity Weekend 2023 Step One – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sharon-t-12-step-serenity-weekend-2023-step-one-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:19:51
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Alright. Do I have to be very close? Close enough, huh? Hi everyone. My name is Sharon. I've been a grateful Al-Anon member for many years. I haven't been to this weekend for a long time. My home group is Amherst. Okay. Speak up. Okay. My home group is Amherst Sunday Night. It's been my home group since I started this journey. And I have made an agreement with myself intention-wise to start going to other meetings to see people that I haven't seen or meet people that I need to meet.
So I- Louise told me there's approximately 140 people here. And so as I was studying this particular step, and I have to say that one of my favorite lines in beginning the 12 steps is this, study of these steps is essential, essential, sounds like, to progress in the Al-Anon program. And I really, really believe that. I have a number of people in my life here and out there that I engage in that from time to time. It's not as much as I used to be probably because of the carryover from COVID, but I think that study of these steps is essential because I continue to learn what these steps mean to recovery and to my way of life. I, as I was studying, I just, couple of things that perhaps you don't know that there are in this, in these steps, these 12 steps, there are six times that they use the word we. And there are 10 times that they use the words are, or ourselves, or us, which means when I come here, or you come here, this is a we thing. I don't have to be alone anymore. I think that's really, really important to stress is that, especially at the beginning of looking at this first step that is a little intimidating when I think back to how desperate I was, didn't know I was that desperate, but desperate in despair over what was going on in my life that had to do with alcoholism. And I didn't know. And so I didn't really have anyone in my life that could help me to understand that. I had a lot of people that commiserated with me. They were pretty good at that. And so you kind of, I kind of just stayed in this spot of how awful it was that I was living this life. And I'm going to say that it wasn't as awful as I know others have shared, but for me, it was awful.
And so I have these memories that I got an opportunity before I walked into these rooms to go to counseling and become part of a woman's group. And I was very resistant to that experience because I didn't want to lose my individuality. I hung on to that like I don't even know what the heck that was, but I hung on to that. And I have like looking back after all these years have found out who I am in a way that I don't know what that individuality meant back then, but I know what it means to me now to be part of the we to know myself. Isn't that kind of bizarre, which I think is part of the paradoxes that are woven into this program of the we helps me to know me. And I know that that's some places a little slogan,
[00:05:12]
the we becomes me and the me becomes we. But I think that it's really, I can't express it enough to know that here we are and we're part of the we. And so all weekend, we're part of the we. So I hope that you continue to embrace that as we're all here together and the boat ain't sinking anymore. I also in my thinking of this and talking about it is to we admit it. And I'm thinking about the word admit and I can get, I was talking to somebody earlier and I had an opportunity today to talk to somebody who's in the AA program and a good friend of mine for a long time. And we sat down and we were talking because tonight, probably just right about now, he's doing the first step at a retreat for AAs in Vermilion. And so we talked about how coming to this we place and talking about admitted and I said about taking words because I'm good at that. And he said, you know, about not making it too complicated. He said, you know, to just look at the big book and hope whatever that I'm trying to think right now, I'm not going to remember it, that 12 and 12. And he said, you know, to keep it that simple. I said, well, here's the thing for us we's over here on this side is that we have five books, okay? So we can certainly make things complicated, more complicated they need to be if we don't make some, have some awareness that they're all saying the same thing. So, but it's good to hear the same thing said in different ways by different people. And so, but the word admit to me has to do with this verb admission. Now I have been admitted, I'm been this admission to this group of we's. And what that did for me is realize that I also as admission being a noun had a ticket to this journey. It was this admission like I was when you go to, you know, a, to anywhere that you get a ticket to get in. And I didn't get a ticket ticket but I thought, I brought up this book. This is my first one day at a time book from a long time ago and I have a new book at home that I think that maybe I should open up and use that. But this one falls apart and falls apart where I need to read most of the time.
Sometimes it falls apart where I need to read but I don't want to read it. So, and I know that this admission that I got to go on this journey to become part of the we had to do with this very scary thing about being powerless. And I think that that felt so humiliating to know that I, for someone to tell me or the we tell me that I am powerless over this entity that's causing so much disruption and pain for my husband and my children and trying to figure out some ways to keep the peace, whatever the heck that was going to mean.
But and I distinctly remember and I've said this in leads I've done before is that I remember standing at the stove and making tomato soup and stirring the tomato soup. I don't even remember what the subject was or what I said or didn't say or what I tried to do or didn't try to do to orchestrate something that everyone could be okay. And my husband came in to the kitchen and stood in front of the refrigerator and said, you need to stop because this is not going to work if you don't step away, if you don't stop. And I remember standing there going, now what am I going to do? I, you know, that was this clear message to me
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about being powerless. And so I kept working, I kept going to meetings and I kept waiving my ticket of admission and listened to people. I was saying to someone the other day is that I was fortunate enough to start this program when there were still old timers left who made coffee in the back rooms and served the men at the AA meetings and brought the donuts out and I was abhorred by the women that used to do that. But that's the way they started to be a we for themselves and certainly learning about what powerlessness meant. So I think that, you know, when we talk about admitted that we, our life had become unmanageable, I think that's really difficult. I remember going to a meeting and something had happened at home that I shared at the meeting and this particular person said to me, well I don't know why you're so upset, he just had a hissy fit. And I was so offended. Now I can look back, sort of laugh at that, but I think what that taught me there is like make sure I hear what I'm saying so I don't hurt someone else in their experience because that was painful for me to have it be so minimized with regard to my experience. So I think this, I don't think we can, certainly I'm going to use the we, I don't think we can say that this is the most important step, although I think that it has this intention to be so crucial to working the other steps because if I have not sincerely admitted my powerlessness, I'm not going to be able to really do the rest of those steps. I'm not. Not adequately so that I can benefit from it. So I think that it would be, it's my belief that when I'm going through other steps, whatever they are, if I'm going back to a step or I'm talking about a step with somebody else, I need to check into my admission ticket and to see exactly what's involved in this that would require me to pay attention to my powerlessness.
So I've had a lot of experiences in my life since recovery that would require me to get another admission ticket, seriously, because certain things happened in my life that I was powerless over that were really, really scary. Sometimes scarier than alcoholism, although I used to say and still kind of believe that that was the hardest place to let go was in the alcoholism. But cancer really requires you to let go, but I'm sure people can relate to that here. And so I had a fantastic group of WE people around me to help me do that.
And then my children were just talking about the other day that I had suffered pancreatitis. My husband would go around and say to the doctors as a jest, but, you know, yeah, she's a closet alcoholic, we just found that out. And I said, you can't say those kinds of things because they don't know that that's not the truth. But I got really sick, almost died from that. And talk about really turning my will and my life over to the God of my understanding was essential in order for me to engage, sit, believe, you know, and feel safer in my powerlessness over that, to just let it be. And I'll be okay. Regardless of the outcome, I'll be okay. So one of the things that I think about this step one is, you know, I got it. I got detachment and surrender. I got it. And we can go off in our life or sit in meetings and talk about it.
I sit in meetings and talk about it adequately and helping other people, but there are moments
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in my life, and I know I'm not alone in this because I'm not that unique, is that things come up and I realize it's pushing me somewhere that's uncomfortable because I think that there's a way to fix it. And I was thinking the other day, reading different things, and I can't, I can't, how does it go, I can't fix it, and I can't cure it, and I didn't cause it. But the thing about we, and Al-Anon, there's many times in life after we have done the initial surrender that it becomes a, and I'm saying the big it, whatever it is, we often times are searching for an answer to the it. And I believe that sometimes in that exploration you can get caught up in forgetting about powerlessness. And I, again, no I'm not the only one that does that. So, because I sometimes hear it in meetings that someone is really struggling with a particular situation in their life and if they could only figure it out. And the figuring it out is a little bit a pathway to being caught up in that whole trap of thinking I have the power, or the education, or the know-how, or the experiences in the past of letting go and surrendering. And I think that it's good to talk about that and hopefully have other we's around you to point that out to you. I have now in my life, I have three adult daughters and they're having a struggle with their relationships and talk about powerlessness. I don't like it and I don't want it to be that way, but I don't have any answer to the it that's my business to put out there. You know, I don't. I can think of some things that they could possibly do to help that get on the other side, but it's their journey, not mine. Although, their journey is mine, so what am I learning from that? Once again, how powerless I am. So, I have lost, I came from a family of six and all of my siblings who were younger than me have passed away, sometimes in very unexpected ways. So, I have one brother left who is older than me and he is in need of care and doesn't really have anybody, I just say doesn't really, he doesn't have anybody around him to take care of him, so he needs to pay somebody to do that or Sharon is doing it and I have to continually pay attention to how powerless I am over where he's at. He's a drinker and for a while there, I was going over and seeing how much more vodka was in the bottle, because he lives alone, okay, and then going through this very educated and compassionate speech about how that's not good for him to drink and take this medication and it affects his diabetes and then I come home and this thing that resided in me back in the day before I really got engaged in the we, it was starting to grab my insides and I realized you need to step back and check yourself, Sharon, because you have no power over that, the it of him, so it's his life, he can live it the way he wants to and I need to figure out how to take care of myself, not take care of that, take care of Sharon, so and how grateful I am that I still have my ticket. Thank you.
Oh, thanks John. I can't take credit.