I Blog to Prevent Madness

I do, I really do blog to keep myself slipping further into the deep end of the pool. If I write it down it will be harder to sink me. 

So, I went to Al Anon today. And god bless the people in those rooms because if there is indeed no god the people in 12-step rooms are the closest thing. I have never felt so much love, patience, acceptance and wisdom in any group of people. The thing I love about Al Anon is that even though there are thousands of groups around the world, they are all the same. You can come through the door on your knees and the people in the groups understand because they have been there. When you come through the door on your knees the members do not pick you up and dust you off but tell their own stories of how they got off their knees. And you learn. You hear the words and relate. Words like insanity, fixing, vortex, fear, chaos, anxiety, depression and controlling are heard over and over. And those words have life in them...



"We welcome you to this Al-Anon Family Group Meeting, and hope you will find in this fellowship the help and friendship we have been privileged to enjoy.

We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism understand as perhaps few others can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated but in Al-Anon we discover that no situation is really hopeless and that it is possible for us to find contentment and even happiness...

We urge you to try our program. It has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity. So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives.

The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the Al-Anon ideas. Without such spiritual help living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.

The Al-Anon program is based on the suggested Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to our lives along with our slogans and the Serenity Prayer. The loving interchange of help among members and daily reading of Al-Anon literature thus make us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.

Al-Anon is an anonymous fellowship. Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is on our minds and in our hearts, for this is how we help one another in Al-Anon. "Source 

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 In other news, my son got his learners driving permit today! I am so proud of him. My question is where does the time ago? And how many parents have said those words? I remember when my boy was small and toddling around in his Osh Kosh overalls. I remember him running up and hugging my knees. Now he towers over me. *sigh*

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At this exact moment I am listening to Rita MacNeil. (Don't judge me! Yes, I know the average age of her audience is 85 but I like her.) Rita left these instructions before she died...

The instructions included her wish to be cremated, and her ashes placed inside of a tea pot — or two, should another be required...

 I say you freaking rock woman.