The topic of Relationships in Recovery at the Fellowship of the Spirit convention in Copper Mountain, CO

Ships and recovery workshop. I'm actually not supposed to be up here. Our emcee is stuck on the mountain with a bunch of other people. If you, if you might know. So I am speaking on the fly, but I prayed, so, you know, that's all I can do.

So let's say a prayer for them. There's a bus going to get everybody

which will be there in about an hour and they've been there for three hours.

So they are working on several of their character defects as we speak as I would be if I were up there.

But how I'll just kind of tell you guys a little bit about how this workshop came into into being the

there's a big Alan or there's a big committee meeting for FOTS that conscious that has a conscience and plans this conference. And then there's also a smaller Al Anon committee meeting that meets that plans the Al Anon portion. And we spent a lot of time talking about in both meetings, talking about the traditions and whether or not to include them in the conference. And

we decided as a as a full committee, not to include the traditions because we felt like

we couldn't do them justice.

And we also felt like that we were doing a lot of work. Hi, Tim. Do you have something else? Yes,

there is some cars parked in a dirt area by the lift, a BMW Aprius and a Mercedes that are in the ambulance area and they're going to be told unless they're moved immediately.

So if you're parked over there. OK, Thanks, Tim. No problem. All right,

OK,

nobody's getting up, so I guess we're all right. They're probably on the mountain that. Oh, man. Oh.

You know, a God of my understanding knows that one of my prayers is really,

where was I? OK, so we felt like we couldn't do the traditions justice, so we decided not to include them this year. But we while that we were having these discussions over several meetings in the big committee, the Al Anon committee was meeting and we felt like the traditions were really important to us. And like good Al Anons in recovery, we were tired of waiting for the Alcoholics to decide what we were going to do with our lives.

And we decided we were going to hold the tradition,

a traditions workshop, regardless of what the committee decided to do. So that's the truth. That's what happened. And we decided that we were going to sacrifice one of our open al Anon meetings in order to do that. So this is in place of an open al Anon meeting. And I want to thank the panelists for for being here. So the the reason that it's called relationships and recovery is because we wanted to smuggle the traditions in there, because we wanted people to show up.

Yes,

and you did and I'm grateful. Thank you for participating in that manipulation.

Yes, if you want to get up and leave, it's fine. You're like, oh man, they got me

those Al Anon's.

So to open it up, I just wanted to read a little bit. This is a reading that's very important to me, helps me with my boundaries. It's encouraged to change one of our Al Anon deity readers. It's it's one to get. This is my favorite and this is on page two O 1 on July 19th. Alanon taught me the difference between walls and boundaries. Walls are solid and rigid. They keep others out and they keep me trapped inside.

Boundaries are flexible, changeable, removable, so it's up to me how open or closed, albeit at any given time. They let me decide what behavior is acceptable not only from others but from myself. Today I can say no with love instead of hostility, so it doesn't have to put an end to my relationships. I've learned that boundaries from Al Anon's own set of boundaries, the 12 traditions,

although their purpose is to protect Al Anon,

they actually encourage the growth of this fellowship.

It is true of my personal boundaries as well, as I decide what is and what isn't acceptable for me. I learned to live protected without walls

and that I felt was the spirit with which we wanted to have this discussion today.

Just a little bit about the way that I use my, the traditions and our relationship.

You know, Steven and I have been married for two years now. We just celebrated our 2nd anniversary and it's the longest relationship I've ever had in my life and the healthiest. And I think it's because we practice the traditions and and because our relationship is based on God, not on each other.

And that's the sole reason that our relationship is as successful. But we've had to plan

several huge events in our lives. We built a house, we planned a wedding. We've had tragedies in our lives in the last few years. We've moved four times in four years and moving with an Al Anon and an alcoholic. I don't recommend it. It's like, you know, we're both just OCD and crazy,

but we've done a lot. But what we decided was that we were a committee of two and that we were not going to. We were going to listen to some advice if it was invited in,

but we were not going to listen to other people who were trying to put their ideals upon us with those decisions. And that's the first tradition. You know, our common welfare comes first.

And you know, the other thing that I want to say, the other thing that we do is we have a rating system.

And whenever we really want something, whenever there's a disagreement or whenever we and we don't fight, we'll disagree. We've never fought. Neither one of us have called either 1A name, never raised our voice to each other. And that's a, a spiritual practice that's very important to both of us. But one of the things that we do is we do this rating system to figure out where we're at.

So if one of us really wants something or we're disagreeing about something, we'll do the rating system. Like on scale of one to 10, how much do you want this?

And we do that because we just decided that a four shouldn't be telling A10 what to do. And that's just how we live our lives. And that's we didn't come up with that. That's God. God gave us that tool and we use it. And so we, as long as we come from that place, we're OK. And the other relationships that we have in our lives today are based on the traditions and we have walls around our relationship, but also around

extended families. And it's because we are able to open and close those doors because we're not rigid, because we're flexible. Like in that reading, we are able to have successful relationships today and not all the time. I still screw up, he still screws up. We all do, right? We're human and none of us are Saints, but we can come back from it in a way that's effective and successful in our lives. And I just really think this program for that and for

helping me develop the relationships that I have in a way that was never thought possible. So with that, I'm going to turn the microphone over to Shannon, who's going to talk for a few minutes. Thank you.

My name is Shannon. I'm a member of Al Anon

there

also recovered alcoholic three years ago. Al Anon saved my life the second time. Alcoholics Anonymous did for the first time in August of 1997.

A little bit about myself.

I met my now wife in November of 2003.

She apparently, I'm not going to talk much about her, but it's just part of our story. She apparently had been exploring the idea of Al Anon or wanted to go to Alan on something like that. She met me and I was 5 1/2 years sober and I had just, I was in the middle of a set of steps with a man who did step work in a way that radically changed my life. I had multiple spiritual awakenings and we we started dating and maybe that spring, that next spring

decided to go to one of his 12 step workshops,

which went on for several months. All 12 steps, very interactive.

So our relationship pretty much from the beginning was grounded in the 12 steps,

first of Alcoholics Anonymous and then and then for her and Al Anon.

And then, as I said, I found Alan on three years ago when I was crumbling on the inside. My external world was fantastic and still is. And I didn't know what was wrong and I was doing all the right a, a stuff right. So I found that I needed this program as badly as I needed Alcoholics Anonymous.

So so our relationship is firmly grounded in the foundation of the 12 steps of recovery. And a few years into that, we started looking at the traditions,

and we've done that in different venues. I used to go to a traditions meeting. I've done traditions with friends in the program. I've taken sponsee through the traditions.

I am fortunate enough to be in a community of recovery where, you know, we all go out to lunch and we're like, hey, let's, you know, what does Tradition 5 mean to you? You know, we have these conversations and I love it because I get so much perspective from my fellows and it it greatly enhances my life.

So the, The funny thing about the traditions is I realize that we use them constantly in our relationship without really realizing it. Like

there will be a conversation or a decision to be made or some sort of interaction. And I'll be like, oh, that's kind of like tradition 4, you know, which speaks to autonomy. You know, I am autonomous except for as it affects the group and we're a group, right? Or my alanine group or or at work or, you know, whatever your group is, whatever your group is and whatever context. So I'm autonomous, right? I'm a free person in my relationship. We don't have rules. I love Jessica's lead in. There are no walls.

This is all, you know, everybody's free to move about the cabin. You know, as I told a friend of ours, yeah, As I told a friend of ours recently, the only rule in our house is no smoking. And that's fortunate because neither of us smoke and our friends know to go out back or out front. But that's really the only rule. And, you know, I mean, there's, there's probably those unspoken things like we don't do violence in our home, you know, that kind of thing. And, you know, and as Jessica talked about, you know, our common welfare does come first.

You know, as long as we have unity, we can go forth and do other things.

We put our programs first, you know, and God, of course, that's the root of all that. And then we go out and we are able to perhaps help each other or help other people, you know, or other people help us, whatever. But

yeah, that unity is really important. And and as you know, I'm sure we're all in relationships, whether it's your intimate relationship in your home or someone you're dating or your relationships at work or with your family. There's a lot going on there. You know, intimacy is very, very tricky. And it's like, OK, so when do I get to be autonomous? When do I get to just say, you know what, I'm going out tonight, see you later, you know, and do I do that? And is what, you know, the spirit behind that you can imagine that's a little like, you know,

respectful. I didn't say, you know, do you care? Do you feel like doing this? Do you want to come with me? Do you mind if I go? You know, we have those conversations because it does affect the other person. So there's this delicate balance there. And, you know, I don't know how to speak to that anymore specifically because again, it's contextual and it's it's dependent upon the individuals in the relationship.

You know, it just popped into my head

tradition to for our group purposes, but one authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience, we conscience all the time. And again, I didn't really realize that, and this may sound silly to you, but one of the things that I remembered was we were having some remodeling done in our basement and we had to choose a color of grout for some tile or something, you know, I mean, and if you've done this, you know, this is just not a straightforward process. The color you thought was going to match looks terrible. It looks yellow. You don't want yellow, you know,

and we're at Home Depot for God knows, the 4th 5th time probably. And we're standing there looking at these samples and we've got the tile or whatever. And we're just like baffled, like we don't know what to do now. This this is first world problems. This is not, you know, I know, but in my past I could easily devolve into an argument about it because I'm sick of it. I don't want to spend time doing it. The cat just died a couple months ago. I could give

a, you know what about the remodeling the basement, you know what I mean? I just didn't have the energy for it. And So what we did

was we stopped and we held hands and we prayed in Home Depot. And I didn't know if that was weird or I didn't care. Actually, I didn't care because I need guidance, you know, and I need guidance on things that small because I need to move on and do maybe, maybe some more important things than that. And we prayed and we then looked up again at those same stupid colors and we picked one and it was fine. It was perfect. You know, it matched.

We, we adopted a cat back in November

and there was, you know, we're at the Humane Society and there's the young kitten who's who, you know, is going to go tearing across your face in the middle of the night with claws. You know, I mean, it's a kitten, right? You've got to be ready for this if that's what you want. You're going to deal with some stuff. And then there was this older cat, maybe a year, 10 months or a year. We like them both. We didn't know what to do, what's the best for our family. We've got two dogs. We sat down in the middle of Humane Society and prayed and said, God, please show us which animal is supposed to come into our home.

And one of the other, I volunteered there. One of the volunteers walked by and said, Shannon, are you OK? Because I looked like I was like holding hands and crying with somebody. You know,

they probably thought somebody died. I'm like, no, no, we're adopting a cat. It's not that big a deal,

but we got the right cat. I mean, we really literally did. This cat is perfect for our home in so many ways. And so I think just, you know, God is behind all this stuff. God is behind the steps, God's behind the traditions, God's behind the concepts. And that's where ultimately all the guidance comes from. But the principles of the steps and the principles of the tradition give me very specific information, like when I don't know what to do.

So, you know, for instance, Tradition 7, you know, we're fully self supporting, right?

I make my contribution to the family. Now obviously we're talking financial probably anyway. Most people do to some extent. But there are a lot of other ways that we contribute, you know, and there are certain jobs that I just sort of do in the house and there are certain jobs that she just does. And if somebody is really busy that week or somebody sick or, you know, working extra or whatever, the other person just picks up the site. We don't even really ever talk about who's going to do the dishes. It just happens.

I cannot tell you that I've ever had my life go that smoothly

ever in or out of relationship. And I think it's because I have this very specific guidance. And if I don't know what to do, I can stop and I can ask And I, you know, I've done enough of the traditions where I kind of have them memorized. I understand what each one is. What do I need to use in this situation? God, you know what kind of like the big book even says, you know, what would God have me be that's in any given situation?

You know, I, I left a meeting this morning to, to talk to somebody who needed to talk to

and I prayed first. I didn't, you know, I didn't think, oh, but I want to be in a meeting or I don't want to be in it Wasn't that it was like, what am I supposed to be doing right now? You know, and that's, that's maybe a little conscience in my head, but I feel like the more I remember to pray and ask for help, whether it's again, from traditions, you know, what tradition do I need to use or what step do I need to use? It's always God. What do you want me to do? And I think that's it's

used to be a lot of effort involved

because I couldn't remember what all the traditions were. But it's become almost second nature. How am I doing on time?

I'm pretty much wrapped up,

according to my friend Jessica

's. Yeah, Yeah. I don't think. I don't think I have anything else to say. I could talk forever about the traditions and, you know, how they changed my life in a personal sense, whether, again, it's about, you know, being in my neighborhood or my home or with my friends or in my, my A A group or my Al Anon group. But I'm really glad you guys are all here. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Jessica.

Thanks, Shannon. Next, I'd like to introduce Suzanne.

Hi, my name is Suzanne S and I've been a member of El Anon since March 6, 2004, and my Home group is the Edit Group. And then this weekend the Edit Club

is moving to Alameda in Lakewood on Green Mountain. So if anyone wants to attend that meeting, it's Saturday mornings at 9:30 on Alameda in Green Mountain.

You know, I grew up in a

a family that was afflicted by the family disease of alcohol, alcoholism. And there was just so many things I didn't learn that I felt like the rest of the world knew about relationships. And I was often

kind of out of my mind and I knew I was out of line a lot, but I didn't really know how to do anything about it. And getting into this program, well, I started actually changed before I met Shannon, but when I met her, I then got introduced to the 12 steps in the 12 traditions. And so, like she said, the very beginning

our relationship, I was learning a new way to relate with people.

And a lot of things,

it was like the education on relationships that maybe I didn't learn in my home

because I learned or believed that what you did was reflection of me when I did was a reflection of you. And I needed to take care of your feelings and you needed to do stuff so I could feel OK about myself. And I was really insecured. You can just imagine.

And so from the very beginning, after starting to work the steps and the traditions, it really opened up my mind on how different relationships can be.

And I wanted to talk about, let's see here,

the idea of autonomy

and I'll just give you a story. So

couple years ago, I was in a job and I really hated it. And I just was not comfortable there. I didn't feel

like I had a purpose and I just wasn't feeling good about myself. And and so, you know, in my character defect, I decided to start focusing. I was also in financial fear. So I just decided to start focusing on Shannons career. And so, you know, I knew enough about the traditions that

really my opinion of her career

is an outside issue.

And I don't have any business telling her what career she needs to have. As long as we're both self supporting and bringing

a contribution to the households and the relationship, I don't get to tell her what she needs to do. And so for the most part, I was able to keep my mouth shut. But on the inside, I'm frantically working the steps with my sponsor and more than one phone call about her career and,

and my sponsor would tell me, well, you're not exactly happy with your job right now. And so as I work the steps, I was able to let go of what she was doing, you know, and work on my own autonomy because that's not autonomous if I need her to change her career so that I can feel better about myself. And,

and so sure enough,

did inventories and did the work.

And

as soon as I, it was kind of an amazing day. I was having lunch with my sponsor and I told her, you know what? I I surrender. If God wants me to stay at this job, I'll stay. If God wants me to leave, I'll leave. I go to work the next day and I got laid off

and, and even though that was really difficult, you know, and I really brought up my,

my financial insecurity, but in a lot of ways, I gained this new trust in God and

forgot what I was going to say. But

the amazing thing was I stopped paying attention to her career and within a short period of time,

she started working on her career. And it wasn't because I was pushing on her. You know, it's just like I started focusing on me not using her as a diversion. And I hope, I hope that most of it she wasn't aware of, but she can. You have to ask,

you know, and, and because I got laid off, you know, we had to have some pretty serious conversations about money and

I'm in a lot of fear doing inventory about that. And I hope you I think she'll think this is OK. But when we talk about money, just

for historical reasons, she gets really nervous, you know, like, oh, we're talking about money. Uh oh. And So what we would do is say, OK, let's talk about money next Thursday. You know, when we're both well rested, you know, we sit down, we pray right then, 'cause you know, and we would be, I would be really respectful of

her fear of the conversation. And I would be really

aware of what I was bringing to the table. And so you know that bringing God into that group conscience really made a difference. And we were able to go through our budget and,

you know, figure out how I could be, although I wasn't bringing in income, I could still be a contributor to the family by doing certain things around the house. OK, we're going to get rid of

this luxury or whatever first world problem, and I'm going to start doing that on my own. And so we've been able to really go back to the traditions and bring them in. It's not always my first instinct, but you know, with working with a sponsor and having these in the back of my head to know when I'm about to step over that line really

is important and it's made a difference in our relationship. Thanks.

Thanks, Suzanne. Next, I'd like to introduce Jackie.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jackie Murray Louise, a very grateful member of Al Anon.

You know when I was asked to do the

the word humble comes to my mind. This humbles me.

I am so very grateful to have been given the gifts that I was given to be able to have in my life today. Such a different, different life. And I'm going to even say better, better life than I had when I walked in the doors of Al Anon

as I was listening to the 12 step workshop. Phenomenal, Phenomenal.

I got really fired up and what dawned on me was 31 years ago today, there was a woman who walked into Helena and she had two small children.

And 10 years later or so, I met that woman,

and that woman gave me something to share.

And that's the gift.

I'm going to start at the end. And the reason I'm going to start at the end is because I don't have a lot of time. And I had this whole plan and I had this whole idea. I wrote it all out. I'm not going to read it.

My best thinking,

but I want to start at the end because I want you to hear the miracle of recovery in relationships.

Today I'm married to a man I love so very deeply. We will be married 16 years in September

when I met him. I'm going to read just a couple little lines here from the Bedevilments.

We were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prayed a misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people

till I walked in here. I was also thinking about my prior relationships. What would I describe them as? Long term? No. Marital, certainly.

We're all four of them. Legal relationships, Yeah, I don't know. Two of them I actually took the vows.

Needless to say, I had problems with personal relationships. I had a girlfriend called me the walkout queen of the world. She was right.

My sponsor taking me through these steps and I met this, I met this man. I told God, I said, you know, I don't want a relationship. I really don't want a relationship. It's not going to be good. I don't want it. And I meant that with all my heart and soul. About two weeks later, this guy worked. We worked in the same building, started asking me to go dancing with him.

So I went and I told my sponsor that I couldn't have a relationship, that I was not healthy enough to have a relationship. I think she said something really weird to me, something about we'll go get healthy first,

Something along those lines. I don't know. Anyway,

Needless to say, he and I dated. He and I moved in together. He and I got serious. He and I were going to get married and I, as always unusual and still today, have complaints about him.

And I would go to my sponsor with my complaints about him and she would tell me, go read the traditions, call me back, tell me what you are not doing.

Oh,

OK.

Three years after we were dating, we married. Within a year of that marriage,

things were falling apart rapidly.

I was going to Al Anon meeting. Yeah, going to my meetings. I worked sponsoring others. I was, you know,

but my marriage was falling apart and I went to my sponsors and my marriage falling apart. I was obsessed with whatever he was obsessed with. I was absolutely obsessed. He could have been drinking. It wouldn't have made any difference. I was still obsessed.

I worked my steps in the space of about 3 weeks and my sponsor told me it will get better and I said she was full of it. I told her to face that time. I don't believe you. Anyway,

I so I worked my steps and she had me do this thing and that's the other thing I wanted to read out of the big book because for me it's one of the most important things that I've done with my steps

and it is in the sex inventory.

And basically it says in this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. My sponsor had me take the word sex out and put in my future life as a wife,

my future marriage.

And then we went on to sponsor sponsee, employer and employee and friend and daughter and mother. And I wrote ideals. The most powerful thing for me is that I have a piece of paper that I keep with me that has my ideals for a marriage and ideals how I'm going to behave as a wife. And they're really important to me.

Well, the whole idea was I went and told him that, you know, this wasn't working for me and I wasn't OK with what he was doing. And he said, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. My sponsor told me to wait and see what God had to say,

and years later he was working the program and working with a sponsor and he had another thing we did. He had asked his sponsor, who was married to my sponsor, but he had asked him to help him with his finances of all things.

So my sponsor calls me and says, you know, we've talked about it. We don't know how it's going to work if both of you don't work together.

What do you mean work together? Pray for the willingness.

I really wish you wouldn't say those things to me because then I pray for the willingness. And if you've prayed for the willingness from your heart, you know what happens a week later on my phone door and going, OK, I'm run out of options, let's do this. And her husband and she went to Debtors Anonymous actually, and got a lot of information on their 12 steps. And they put together a whole 12 step program for us,

helped us set up a budget, helped us work together.

And three or four years we were out of debt. I'd like to tell you we stayed that way,

but we didn't.

3 minutes. Oh, OK. Anyway, so we did this. We practiced these principles. We tried to work this program. Life rocked on. Our daughters grew up and there were things that I was doing in my marriage that I had to learn to change. It was not my house. It was not my daughter's, and it was not my car. It was our house, our daughters, our car.

Our was a really hard word and still is today for me to put into my vocabulary.

We are a partnership. Ours.

New Year's

Day 2012, I asked my husband to move out,

and I didn't do that

because I was mad at him or because it wasn't. You know, what I'd realized was for years I had spent trying to get him to believe those ideals that I had written. I tried my hardest to make him believe that that was what was supposed to happen.

And I'd work with my sponsor very closely the last six months of her life on this issue.

And I looked at those ideals and I tried and I tried and I tried. And I was at a stalemate in my relationship. And I looked at the traditions and I was at a stalemate and there was only two of us. There's not a majority.

She called it a fundamental difference of opinion,

and I finally got to the point where I realized that I loved him

and he could be who he wanted to be, and I didn't have to change him,

but I also didn't have to live with it.

I call that living up to my ideals.

I had an ideal, we had a sacred circle and I wanted it to be a sacred circle.

And yes, I answered them ultimatum with that. And I'm here to tell you today that my ultimatum was let's look at the traditions. Let's sit down and bring this program back into our home.

Let's see if we can make this work and if you'd agree to that.

And there were a couple other things, but that's his business and I'm not going to go into that anyway.

If you'd agree to that, I'd be OK with you staying. And let's try this for a year.

We've gotten through 8 traditions. And what we did was we took a list of traditions that are not approved from anywhere, but somebody wrote them and they were. He found them in a drawer at one of our workshops and they seemed to work. And we've been asking the the questions, and we'll take the questions and we'll come back and we'll read them to each other. And it's been really, really powerful. And just recently we started a traditions workshop in our home doing the same thing.

I cannot begin to express

the gratitude I have number one, for the steps telling me to work on me. I don't work on my relationship. It doesn't work when I do because I'm trying to fix him. When I do that, it only works when I work on me.

But these traditions gave us something that was so extra. If this isn't phenomenal right, then I don't what is it, 12 years later that Bill came up with these tradition? I don't remember, I don't know, but the co-founder of A A came up with these traditions because the A A was falling apart

and what a beautiful thing to bring into our relationship. We sat down and decided what is our common goal? We didn't know. I didn't know. What is it?

It's to be expression of God's love.

And we did scream and yell and fight and throw things and break. I broke a door. How many years have I been in this program? I broke the Dang door. I'm going Really, Jackie, you're insane.

There's a tradition that talks about avoiding heated controversy.

Maybe if I just say it another way, he'll get my point.

And then the principles are a spiritual foundation. A principle is a fundamental truth,

and the principle of the 12th tradition

is selflessness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. My heroes are here, some of them still living, some of them not, but they're here.

They're given this thing away. They're not saying no to people.

They're not telling somebody when they come up and say will you be my sponsor? No. What is that?

I don't know.

They're saying yes. I was taught to say yes. I was given a gift.

I can't keep it and today I can't even put into words.

I had short term relationships before this program.

I had very few friends.

Nobody wanted to be a friend of mine. I don't blame them. I wasn't very nice

and I'm married to a man that I love deeply.

We have children that talk to us.

I didn't talk to my parents for a long, long time. And on top of that, I talked to my mother. I call her once a week. I listen to everything she has to say. And I love it. I love it, I love it. I love being able to love my mother because for a long, long time, I wasn't able to. And that's recovery in relationships. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me speak.

Thank you, Jackie.

This time we'd like to open the mic up to anybody who'd like to share anything that's on their heart and their minds.

Thanks.

Hi, I'm Chris. I'm a grateful member of Al Anon

and I was really lucky to, I'd like to say I was lucky that I found my sponsor. I was lucky that God put my sponsor in my path because early on in my program she said something about working the steps, the traditions and the concepts, which I thought meant when I worked 12 steps, then 12 traditions, then 12 concepts, I can graduate and get out of here.

Thankfully, by the time I got done at the 12 steps, I was grateful to be in this program for life.

Working the 12 steps got me better,

got me better with situations, got me better with work, got me better with a lot of things about me.

When I decided to work the 12 traditions, the rest of my life just fell into place I now know how to have. It's a program of relationships. I came here because I love my loved ones and I want to continue to love my loved ones and not hate them and resent them because of my own thought process.

I wanted to learn how to be in relationships with people around me and not just think I could own

everyone and what they should do

When I work the traditions I learned because I had already seen them working in the in the rooms. I had seen all the traditions, the group consciences, the all the stuff that works in Al Anon and makes the program work. And I've seen this program for years and years and years continue to go on, even with a bunch of crazy people in it like I, I work, I'll go ahead and divulge. I work in education. A lot of crazy people work there too. We can't get done. Nothing can get done because it's just a bunch of insanity going on. You get those same crazy people

rooms of Al Anon and all of a sudden we can function as a group of people with different ideals and demographics and needs and wants.

I think the one that kicked it for me, for real. The one that really I think solidifies my relationships, at least with my family

I was spoken about with the panel, was Tradition 6. The idea that

I am a separate entity from my Alcoholics. My Alcoholics bad behavior doesn't actually reflect on me. Nobody looks at my mother behaving badly and goes, oh, Chris, did you just see what she did? I can't believe you'd let her get away with that.

Can't believe you couldn't stop her.

I can't believe you didn't get, you know, Gee, why would you let your mother behave that way? No one's ever said that to me. But because I was so differently attached to my mother, her behavior reflected upon my being. What I like is this last part of that tradition that says I will always cooperate with my alcoholic. I'm not attached to her. Her behavior does not reflect upon me. I am my own person, but I can cooperate,

and I'm really more of a punisher than a cooperator. So that was kind of a big deal for me. Like, oh, I'm a separate entity and that doesn't mean I then get to punish you for being separate from me. I get to cooperate with you and work with you.

My relationships in my family are much different and in my work are much different. And my family is currently imploding. The disease is blowing up my family and I don't have to be a part of that. I get to be eleven, cousin and niece and daughter, and I get to be present for anybody who needs me whenever they need me. And I don't have to be in the drama. And I love every one of them, regardless of the infighting they may have going on. So

I'm looking forward to working the 12 concepts and graduating never.

Thank you for this program and thank you for my life.

Hi, I'm Kerry grateful member of Alan and thank you guys so much. That was so fantastic. And there's been a couple of things that have happened in my program that have really helped me have I have an amazing husband. We have an amazing relationship and and it is not through my own ability at all. First thing that happened, I was in a relationship when I came into Al Anon. When we broke up, my sponsor said because I said I really want a different kind of relationship and she said that's great. So why don't you sit down and write down everything that you were looking for in a partner? And I was like, awesome.

So I made my shopping list and I gave it to her and she said good, now become those things.

I was not happy about that. But that was the whole thing is that water seeks its own level. You know, if I want somebody who's going to be kind and loving and spiritual, I need to be kind and loving and spiritual. Another thing that

I have a friend in Al Anon who says that being in a relationship is like putting miracle grow on our defects of character. So continuing to work the steps is very, very important in my life. But one of my favorite things my mom told me a story one time and she and my my step dad did not always have a great relationship. She's the child of two Alcoholics and you know, she's had her own path, but they today they are like so in love. It's stupid weird.