Forum Sharing: May, 2011
Learning how to handle the loss of a loved one to alcoholism
I didn’t fly into Al-Anon on the wings of victory. I came in with a crash. I came in search of some special strategies to get someone to stop drinking. Instead, I learned I didn’t cause the alcoholism, I can’t cure it, and I can’t control it.
When I first heard the word serenity, I couldn’t imagine myself sitting on the top of a mountain with a blissful smile on my face. Instead, I learned how to develop serenity as the sense of balance and stability, even when the waves of chaos were surging around me.
Living with active alcoholism was like watching someone being swept out to sea and drowning. It seemed that the more I worked my program, learning to keep my own head above water, the faster she declined. I let go of unrealistic expectations, practiced loving detachment, and repeated the Serenity Prayer to myself.
Although I thought I had hit bottom before I came into the program, I discovered a new bottom after I arrived here. Looking back, Al-Anon may have saved my life by providing me with the spiritual principles and caring community that helped me survive the next chapter in my life.
Watching someone die from alcoholism is like living in a nightmare that won’t go away. I can still remember the sights and sounds of the hospital room where the love of my life took her last breath, before the room became silent, when the beeping sounds of life support were turned off.
Surviving the death of a loved one was like walking around with a big hole inside of me during the day, and then falling into that hole during the night.
When I was no longer living with active drinking, I began to discover how much the disease of alcoholism had affected me. During those months, the only one I saw in the mirror each morning was me. My program began to take on a whole new meaning as my life began to change.
After several years of working the Twelve Steps with Sponsors, and learning to live with people who are working their programs, I now have a life that is beyond anything I could have dreamed.
In retrospect, it seems like I knew so much more when I first came into this program than I know now. The longer I’m in the program, the less I seem to know, but the more I seem to grow.
For me, recovery has been a journey rather than a destination. The past is my experience, but now I experience gratitude rather than regret. The present is my strength, and now I find the gift of joy rather than sorrow. The future is my hope, for now I see a horizon of hope rather than despair.
I remember hearing from a long-timer when I first entered the program: “The bad news is that you have to change your whole life. The good news is that you only have to do it ‘One Day at a Time.’” Looking back, I now see the good news is that my whole life has changed for the better.
By Bill D., Georgia
The Forum, May, 2011
Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Groups Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA