"To express my gratitude for this gift I will assume certain responsibilities: [...] —not to take up the group’s time talking about my problems, but to try to make everything I say reflect an Al-Anon teaching which will have meaning for those who hear me. [...] I will prepare myself for these meetings by reading Al-Anon literature so I can pass on something of value." (ODAT, July 13)
When I've used meetings to process what my therapist said, to catch the room up on the events of my week, on the 'developments' in the 'ongoing situation', to acquire temporary relief from difficult emotions through self-dramatization and the eliciting of attention, sympathy, and pity (the tragic hero with my brave, bitter little face), to think aloud, or to engage in any other activity that should either be desisted from entirely or belongs in a different venue, apart from the fact I'm not using the meeting for its best purpose myself, I'm blocking God from using the room to channel His love and intelligence through the insight and experience of other members. I did various of these for years, and the people in those meetings were immensely patient with me.
Each time a person activates higher consciousness in a meeting, accesses God, and allows God to work through that, the rays reach and penetrate, potentially, each person in the room, like a beam that passes through a prism and is refracted into many colours, each extending in a different direction, at a different angle. Each person hears something different, namely precisely what they needed to hear.
The importance of preparing for meetings, having something validly programme- and literature-based to say, and then confidently sharing it for the good of all, including oneself, through the reinforcement of principles one is trying to inculcate into oneself, cannot be overestimated.
I've taken a lot of people to their first Al-Anon meeting, and sat there hoping people will share something useful about the twelve steps. It can be rare, though, to hear the content of the programme shared. My friends and acquaintances have invariably expressed their confusion at what the point is. The most common refrain is, 'It just seems to be unhappy people complaining.' It's been difficult to argue with this.
That's why, although I cannot and should not attempt to do anything about any Al-Anon group, let alone Al-Anon as a whole, I can change the one person who is amenable to change through my agency: myself.
I can remain committed to turning to God rather than the ego for the solving of my problems.
I can remain committed to applying the Steps, the Traditions, and the Concepts, and to continuing to take, apply, and study them, respectively..
I can remain committed to sharing the content and the results wherever I go.
I'm doing this not for others but for me, because, in doing so, I'm saving the only life I can save: my own.
And there's the incidental hope that someone else's search for a solution might thereby be activated into a search for God.