The London Primary Purpose conference in London, UK

Now it gives me great pleasure to introduce Jew F from the UK, to share for Al Anon. Hello, Jim. Thank you. Hello. My name's Jill, and I'm a very grateful, member of Al Anon.

Hi. And, I'm here today to share my experience, strength, and hope with you. And, so just to say that I'm speaking for myself, not as Al Anon as a whole. As this is the, London primary purpose, I thought I would mention, Al Anon's primary purpose. And it says, Al Anon has but one purpose, to help families families of alcoholics and by giving understanding and encouragement to the alcoholic.

So that's our primary purpose as I said. Also, the other thing that that, just struck me as I was listening to the traditions being read out, one of Al Anon's in in tradition 6 of Al Anon, where it gets to the part where it says less problems of money, property, and prestige divert us, we say from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always cooperate with Alcoholics Anonymous, which is why I'm here. I'm not quite sure where I should start really. Really.

I suppose from the beginning of coming to Al Anon. I was ordered to an Al Anon meeting, by my ex partner's psychiatrist, who obviously, being an experienced man, could see that, I needed to get some help. And, I was very angry and very resentful because I felt that there hadn't been anywhere for me to get any help. At that time, my partner had 21 professional people working with him in his life, and I felt alone. And I went to this meeting and I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

I was so relieved. I couldn't believe that other people were living the same life as me. And that was the start of coming back to reality and to the start of my recovery, that very first meeting, I listened and I cried. Really like that idea. It reminded me of really like that idea.

It reminded me of submission. And I've had some experiences but the people in that room were wonderful. I've never met people like it before. They had this air around them and and I thought, I don't know what that is. That woman's got over there, but I'd like some of that.

And I realized now it was, serenity. And, so I I kind of started to think it looked hopeful and, I started to think maybe I could think about this powerlessness. Unfortunately for me, this, psychiatrist, this was a long time ago now and, he took me into into the group room of, the detox that my partner was at. And on the board was step 1, and he explained to me about the phenomena of and the obsession of the mind. And I knew straight away what I've been thinking that my partner was an alcoholic, was true because that's what I saw.

I saw that when he started, he couldn't stop. And I saw that it came before everything else and I could see the obsession. I had to look for similarities and I had a craving for him. And I had an obsession which was him and his drinking and where he was and what he was doing and who he was with. And somewhere in that journey, on the way to that first meeting, I've lost myself and I've lost my self esteem and often my self respect, and I had no idea that I'd affected my family as well because of my reaction to the alcoholic in my life and so listening at meetings, at first, it was a big shock.

I thought I thought I've been doing the right thing but, of course, what I've been doing was enabling. And I wondered why I always end up ended up in trouble just after saying I was only trying to help. And, I was a bit of a chronic helper and, I'm still working on that, actually. And, I find that really difficult. I I seem to have this autopilot just kind of jump in and say, what can I do?

You know? And, sometimes I've irritated people and I've got in the way. And I I do it sometimes, in my job. I, I have a business now, and, I go to the flower market in the mornings and I pay for a porter. And I'm probably the only person who helps the porter carry the boxes out, And I know that it gets on his nerves, and I have to resist the temptation to show him how to load the van, and I trust that his experience, he knows best.

And, so that's usually very early in the morning about 5 o'clock, so that starts me off with my humbling experience for the day. When he looks at me as if to say, you're doing it again. Anyway, so, I, I started to understand this powerlessness and but it took me a long long time to admit my life had become unmanageable I thought I was doing really well. But, people around me were saying things, you know, like, you look really stressed. Stressed?

I'm not stressed. I've got a lot on, you know. I've got a lot to do. Of course, I look a bit like that. Of course, I have thousands of things to do, and I was do do do do do.

And in amongst that, I was you, you, you, you, you. And I hadn't ever stopped to look at myself, to think about myself, or to sit with my feelings and and think about how I felt and, I didn't have any feelings except anger. I know I had anger when I came into Al Anon. Right. I could tell you how he felt and what he needed, but not myself.

Unfortunately, for me, those, they're something else. They're absolutely fabulous. They're very gently and slowly, and they start to snip away. And I learned to detach and they helped me because they explained things to me and they shared their experience and their strength and their hope with me and I started to realize that I could I could do some of these things. So my partner started drinking again after about 3 months and I was devastated and I didn't have enough of the program and I went absolutely berserk and I did my usual shaming and blaming and, and things just got worse and worse.

And, but I I carried on going to Al Anon and reading the literature and there's some absolutely amazing literature in Al Anon and there's some wonderful, wonderful books. And I immersed myself in in all this stuff. I mean, the book of daily readings, I I didn't read them on a daily basis. I And, I came to believe gradually. I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity because what I've been doing was insane.

I've been trying to control somebody else's drinking. And anybody who's even thinking about that right now, I'm sure some people are, have a feeling some people might be, It's useless to lay out a path for someone else to follow I have found. And, I was quite poorly, I think, really. I should have afforded myself a nervous breakdown but that would have meant, letting go of control and, I don't do that very easily. I, like to hang on in there and, keep thinking that I can somewhere in my reserves find another way.

And I I have to share at meetings that when I came to Al Anon, I was on plan 397 b of how I was gonna stop him drinking, and, I was writing a book sometimes called Plots to Kill. And, so it was it was a slow process for me and I'm a slow learner and, I like to go back over things, and I'm still learning and that's why I'm here today. I learn something every time I go to a meeting and I learn something every time I hear somebody share. My partner, didn't want this program and, I could sit here for hours, tell you about the horror stories, and I did have some very unpleasant experiences and I had to use the courts and the police sometimes as my higher power. And, there was an Al Anon member actually that said to me, why are you trying to manage this that's called breaking the law and that's what it's there for.

And I thought, oh, yes. Maybe I could ask for some help. And, so I found help in lots of places, not just in Al Anon and in the meetings and from the other members. It helped me open my mind and look for help anywhere I could get it and that's what I did. As I say, it's a long story and after my partner's, I think, 3rd rehab, I I made a decision that I didn't want him to come back and he seems happy with that at the time and he said that he understood but I think I don't think he was being honest.

And, he stalked me for a couple of years and, as I was getting better and better and my life is becoming more manageable and I started to go to college and and then I got myself a job and stuff like that. I have been became more and more resentful and, and so I had some quite unpleasant experiences but all through that, I felt different. I now felt that there was a higher power in my life and even when I used to open the front door, faced with this insanity of someone who was drunk and had taken lots and lots of prescribed medication and some phoning with some street drugs, whatever. I had a lunatic there and this program helped illness. It's very hard watching somebody illness.

It's very hard watching somebody you love kill themselves with alcohol or drugs or both. And I needed to be with people who understood how I felt and I needed some compassion for myself. And that's what I learned in these rooms. Years later, my son, who's left home for a while and gone to live with a girlfriend and that relationship had gone bandy which I could see coming. He came back to live with me not for very long.

I started to recognize some familiar behaviors and I've learned in Al Anon to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business, but I knew that I wasn't gonna do any more enabling. And one day, I challenged him over a simple domestic issue. Something like, can you pick up your smelly socks, please? And, he punched a hole in the wall behind my head. And then I saw it's back.

And I thought, oh, dear. I can't live with this again. I didn't work my program right at that moment. I lost it and I chucked him out of the house and while he was outside the front door, I packed his suitcase and I threw it out the door at him. And I went back into the house and I was raging and I felt angry with God.

I felt angry with myself. I couldn't believe how I hadn't seen this coming. But even all the time I've listened in Al Anon about the family illness, and I was faced with it again. Later on that evening, he phoned me from his mobile, from a friend's car and he said, I'm really sorry, mom. And I said, yes, I'm I.

I'm really sorry that I reacted like that. And he said, I'll be back later. And I said, no, you won't. I said, I am sorry but I can't go down that road again. And I recognize what your illness and you you can get help.

But I can't help you. But I know know some people who can. And if you want that, I'll be there for you. This is where I always cry. Excuse me.

I had to let go. Of him. That was different experience with my child, and I was so frightened. I kept praying to God to help me to find the strength, to say no to him, and I used to shut the front door in his face and think, tonight he's gonna die and it'll be all your fault. And then the will kick in and say, oh no, it isn't.

He has choices and I take him into his first n a meeting and then I left him there. Because I learned in Al Anon that you do something once and then let go twice. You're trying to put your will on it. Three times is insanity. And, I try applying that every day.

My son is three and a half years, clean and sober. Thank you, AA. I'm very, very grateful to this fellowship, and, that's just wonderful. I didn't think that was gonna happen, that night or quite a few nights after that, I can tell you. But, it did.

It really brought me to my knees again, that experience and, I'd stopped going to Al Anon for a while. In fact, I felt quite angry towards Al Anon. I thought, if I angry towards Al Anon. I thought, if I had never had so much compassion, I might have bloody left that relationship earlier. That was the madness and, maybe I wouldn't have had so much insanity and maybe I wouldn't have stayed around long enough for him to have done enough things to me to have filled him with even more shame and guilt.

And that that was the kind of way that I was thinking and, I did stuff with my son, I thought I've gotta get back to Al Anon and I walked through the doors. It was like I've never stopped being there. I was met with the same warmth and kindness. I've moved away, as I was in a new area but as soon as I walked back in that room, it was exactly the same. I felt the same warmth and loving kindness I've always had every time I've gone into an Al Anon meeting.

And, I've moved a couple of times because, I needed to escape and, I had to change addresses. But, everything's still the same and I thought I'm gonna get a sponsor and I did that and, I tried, my working steps to the best of my ability at that time and things got better. Much, much better. And I got involved and because I wasn't in a constant state of crisis going from one crisis to another to another to another, I was able to start kinda start settling down and, prayer and meditation came into my life. But I'm here today to talk about step 10 and 11.

Step 10 says that I continue to to take personal inventory. So that tells me straight away that I'm not gonna be perfect by working steps that life's gonna happen. And, I need to continue to apply what I've learned in the steps leading up to this. And, and that's a a wonderful thing. What I've got at home in my house, where I put the kettle on and I make the tea, I open the cupboard right in front of me and I've got step 10 there to remind me.

And also, I've got a mirror. And when I open that door and I see step 10, I'm also reminded that I am my problem. And it helps me remind myself to take a look at myself. I've made amends to my children. I've made amends to my son actually, before, he, got cleaned up and sober and, he went into denial.

He is just sort of saying, you didn't do anything. You didn't do anything. Blah blah blah. And I had to say to him, please, will you just please listen to what I've got to say and let me know that you can hear me. That's all I want to know and that will do.

And he said, okay then, and, we both cried and he made amends to me, a few months ago and, boy, how it works, it's just fantastic and, I thought I knew everything that had gone on, but, of course, I was in the dark about lots of things. Sorry about that. But, it was a wonderful thing and, but listening to him, brought up a few new problems for me. I started to look at myself and think, maybe there was some more work to do. And I went to a speaker convention in Scotland and I heard this woman share and, I thought I want some of that.

And she was talking about the big book of our colleagues anonymous and I remembered reading the big book when my partner was drunk, actually. He he was laying there snoring and I was reading the big book and I was desperately trying to find him in there and then, and I was really confused about all the descriptions about, the sort of types and, he seemed to go from one to another and back again and, but I read to the family afterwards and to the wives. I was a bit confused about the wives. I thought, it doesn't sound like this is written by a wife, but I was a bit that didn't help very much. But to the family, afterwards, I found that was really wonderful and and and I thought I'm gonna go back and take another look at that big book actually because over the years, I I hadn't realized but, I kind of stopped using the stuff that I'd I'd learned in those very early days.

I I just kind of assumed that I knew it and, that somehow that was being, passed on to the people that I was, sponsoring and or sharing with. And, so that was really wonderful and I thought I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do some more work and that's been really good for me. And, I read that, I don't know if I should say this, the Joe McHugh book and, fell in love with him on the DVDs. And, although I've been told that he's definitely an alcoholic, so maybe I'd rethink about that. And that and that's been really good for my growth and, that's really helped me.

And, on step 11, how's the time coming on? That's gone quick. It says, sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact. And, I was really ready to do that because, in inventory of myself in Al Anon, I'd also looked for the good things, about me. And, it helped me look at my creativity and, laughing, smiling, and happiness, and things like that.

And and so I settled down a bit and my mind was starting to open up and, I thought, well, I've been talking about this, prayer and meditation for some time, but, I think what I do is I look around for someone who can teach me. Maybe I'll ask for some help and it took about 15 years. And, I found a meditation teacher and, and that was really wonderful. She was, she wasn't from any particular, train of thought of meditation. She was more eclectic and, taught us lots and lots of different, ways of being able to meditate.

And, because I'm I'm absolutely great when I'm in a quiet room alone and it's peaceful. But there's always life happening, isn't there? You know? And sometimes we'd sit in our meditation group. I found that really powerful, by the way as well.

Group meditation. Wow. The group consciousness of that room and god everybody's group consciousness of god in the room is very powerful experience. And even with kids outside kicking a ball against the wall, she taught us that, you shouldn't try and fight it. And and I suppose that was that detachment for me.

And I thought, yeah, I can do that. I know about detachment because I've been doing that in Al Anon. And, and I thought, yep, that's a ball against the wall with some children. Isn't that lovely? And then got back to where I was meant to be doing.

And, and I found that really helped, rather than starting to think, it's irritating me. How can I stop them? It's like back to the drinking. And, yeah. So, I found that that really helped me, going in for the, group.

She gave me this actually and I just like to read this, and it says, that the conscious mind is the tip of an iceberg. The unconscious lies beneath that and beneath that lies the level of consciousness of which we are all joined. The universal consciousness. What happens in meditation is that we sink into different levels of mind, experiencing a sense of timeliness, feeling deep and peaceful at the times. The conscious mind is very active and every effort is needed to concentrate and I needed to concentrate.

I needed to shut some of this chatter out of my head and, and so she taught us techniques for that and, what what I was amazed at though was that guided meditations, instantly, I was able to go with them because I had a higher power. I just took God's hand and trusted that wherever this was going to take me, I was gonna be okay. And the very first guided meditation, she took us to a pyramid and I went inside this pyramid and I started to panic. I thought, oh, I'm gonna get out. I don't wanna get trapped.

I know about trapped. I know about being taken hostage. How am I gonna get out of here? And it brought up all these stuff, but I took myself back outside and I held my high power's hand and I said, come with me, god. And he did.

And I went back in and I was able to experience the whole thing and it was amazing. I was in the pyramid. I went into a healing pool. I was dragged down and then out to space and I could hear choir singing. And I thought, shit, what is this?

I'm really going mad now. Has someone put some drugs in my tea? And I was I was actually frightened to share about this at the end of the meditation because I thought they're all gonna think I am round the bend. And, and I've learned in Al Anon that it's not always wise to share everything that you're thinking. And I thought, shall I say about this or not?

And, she really encouraged me to, share with everybody what happened so I did. I went through this whole thing which took about 20 minutes and I could feel that there were some people in the room getting quite resentful, because apparently, they've been going for 5 years and I've never seen a thing and and I felt guilty. But, what I've noticed is that, my Al Anon friends, come along to meditation and have been to that group with me. Don't seem to have any trouble and, and I think that, for me, that's allowing myself to be in God and God in me. And that's what I discovered through this wonderful, fellowship.

I'd looked around at loads and loads of religions and, Al Anon said, take what you like and leave the rest. And that's what I did. I took the bits that I liked from all different sources and, and that's okay. And, I looked at some Buddhism and, one day I really wanted to be a Hindu, you know, I've been to this temple and it was fantastic and I loved everything and I sat. They invited me warmly into their service and and I sat on the floor and all these little children came and sat around me and I thought, I'm on cloud 9.

I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be Hindu. Then all of a sudden, I realized that all the men were sitting at the front and all the women were sitting at the back. And I thought, So I've had a stick with, what my program tells me that I can take what I like and leave the rest. And, I've discovered very recently, that God is inside of me and inside of you.

And before you all got here today, this was just a room and there was no love in it, but there is now because I can feel it. And you've bought that because that's coming from inside you. And that's what's coming from inside me right now. And I know that's god. And I can feel it.

And I I felt that from everybody in here. And, so I know that's true. I know that, we have God in us. I have God in me. And, all I need to do is step out of the way sometimes and let it come out.

And, I can show that to people. I can express my love to people. I can be generous and warm and kind. And, if you wanna know if I've got any recovery, ask my family. I'd like to say, I've got all these years of experience, etcetera, etcetera, but this is a daily program for me and it's one day at a time.

And, some days I can lose it. And I was reading a book recently my son bought me. I never ever thought he'd buy me any of that sort of literature. And, it was about this guy, sat in temples. He's, sat on the for 7 years.

Enlightened and, then he had a family from enlightened and, then he had a family function. And, so he flew to his hometown in his, monk's robes. They've become a monk by now and, he went to Elizabeth Arden, on Fifth Avenue and his sister-in-law that he was making waiting to meet was late and, he said that in 10 minutes, he lost it. And I'm alright in the cave, and I'm alright in the cave, you know, but, I have a family and, we have dynamics, apparently. And, I think that's what they call it.

And, you know, sometimes, it's hard and, my partner's in recovery and my daughter I want to mention just quickly before I finish. I took my daughter to when she was 10 years old and, she's 19. And, it's very strange when a child throws the program back at you, I can tell you. But I'll tell you what, it makes me look at myself and it helps me work it and I'm grateful that she inventories me sometimes. And I and I've learned to take offense to those things and to listen because, it's usually the truth.

It's somewhere in the middle. So she's in the middle, really. And, it's very painful when people you love don't love each other. And, so I need to stay focused and I need God to help me with that. And I need all my wonderful friends I can see over there smiling at me.

And, and, I need my family, you know. I love my family. And, so I want to I want to make the effort to do the best I can. So thank you. Okay then.