Q: I’m struggling to find my path and have been to a handful of meetings. I’m not sure if anyone else has felt like this, but when I leave meetings, I feel more hopeless. Any guidance for this newbie would be much appreciated.
A:
Meetings are to recovery like travel websites are to holidays. One derives none of the benefits of the holiday by browsing a travel website, although, to go on holiday, one might have to visit a travel website. One won't get a tan there, though.
Recovery is also not a psychotropic drug to fix my emotion. It's not a happy pill.
It's a method of systematically rewiring what I believe, think, and do. My experience of my life is down to me, not my circumstances, not my past. not others. Al-Anon has taught me to see how that is the case and take full responsibility for my life and my experience of it. As a result of the process, I do feel considerably better, on average, but that's the side effect not the purpose. The purpose is to life well, and feeling good is only one aspect of living well.
This method involves having a sponsor as the guide and the Twelve Steps as the system. Once one has recovered, the Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts are excellent sets of spiritual and practical tools for navigating the alcoholic, the home, Al-Anon, the workplace, and the world in general, with a Higher Power presiding over the whole shebang.
People often find themselves both dejected and baffled when they go to Al-Anon meetings. I know I did, and I have full sympathy for this. Why? Because, in some Al-Anon meetings, the discourse contains a lot of complaining and much blaming of childhood, the past, the alcoholic, alcoholism, the world, for the state of one's life and in particular one's feelings, with little indication of how one gets past this, other than talking about it, crying about it, and accepting it, none of which, in my experience, shift it, although all are necessary elements in the solution. Now, we're all at a different stage of our journeys, and I had a complain-and-blame stage myself, which was embarrassingly protracted. But it's a component of the problem, not the meat-and-potatoes of the solution.
What I've learned to do is stick to meetings where people do not complain but instead talk about the solutions they've found in Al-Anon and how they've applied those solutions to their lives. And when people speak on other matters, I've learned to just listen calmly and glean what I can. I listen out for people who have recovered and build relationships with them.
I have a wonderful life now, with many alcoholics and other disordered folks still in it, but I'm happy and largely unaffected by their alcoholism.
If one is not hearing people share about how they have recovered, there are many other groups to choose from.
Some good groups can be found here.