To the Person Supporting Someone Newly Sober:
You have so.many.questions…. I know. But you don’t feel you have the right to ask them yet. This just has to last.
The biggest one, the one that flashes through your mind a hundred times a day is “Will this last? And what if I do something that makes them drink again?”
You want to just keep things calm don’t you. You want to just make it all ok. This. Sobriety. This is what you’ve prayed for. This is what you put all your hope in.
WHY does it still feel scary? And Goodness there is pain down there that is begging to be heard- but lets just keep things calm.
And those pesky memories. What do you do with the flashbacks?
I just need to tell you something.
Please hear this and let it in.
It’s not your fault.
And you can’t do, or not do, anything to keep someone from drinking. You can’t do anything to make someone drink again.
I’ll say it again.
You aren’t responsible for another person’s recovery.
Read it, and let it in.
I also need to tell you this. IT’S TIME TO TAKE TIME TO HEAL.
Did you know that the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W, was married to a woman named Lois W. One day, when Bill was already in recovery, he asked her if she was ready to go to an AA meeting with him.
She threw a SHOE at him and said “damn your old meetings?” I love thinking of this sweet woman, in 1950, throwing a shoe at her husband! She puts it this way,
“After a while I began to wonder why I was not as happy as I ought to be, since the one thing I had been yearning for all my married life [Bill's sobriety] had come to pass. Then one Sunday, Bill asked me if I was ready to go to the meeting with him. To my own astonishment as well as his, I burst forth with, “Damn your old meetings!” and threw a shoe as hard as I could.
This surprising display of temper over nothing pulled me up short and made me start to analyze my own attitudes ...
My life's purpose of sobering up Bill, which had made me feel desperately needed, had vanished ... I decided to strive for my own spiritual growth. I used the same principles as he did to learn how to change my attitudes ...
We began to learn ... that the partner of the alcoholic also needed to live by a spiritual program.[13]
Lois W, the mother of those of us supporting someone in recovery, co-founded Al-Anon, a support group similar to AA- but for the families and loved ones of alcoholics. She knew she had to heal. She threw a shoe! And she called it a “family disease”. And it’s true.
It affected your family.
But here’s the key. Al-Anon will always POINT YOU BACK TO YOU. You alone are in charge of your recovery and your happiness. It’s no longer in the hands of anyone else. You are in charge of your serenity. You have choices. And its time to take a look at your part in co-dependency and possibly enabling.
There isn’t a lot out there about the support role of recovery. But I found this book, written in 1979, and I bought a used copy on amazon for $7.61.
I opened it and finally read, in print, many of the thoughts and questions I’ve felt and asked! It’s short writings from members of Al-Anon and it’s changing my life. I’ll Link it here.
I encourage you to get your hands on any and all Al-Anon literature. Buy it used, and hope it has the markings and underlining from the person who had it before you. Passing around books is a beautiful part of AA and Al-Anon!
Read “We are the Luckiest” by Laura McKowen. It also changed my life and my view of the disease of alcoholism.
Laura McKowen is a beautiful voice that is modernizing the sobriety lingo and culture.
It’s time to focus on your healing. Process pain you’ve walked through with a therapist. But you can’t point fingers, or play the blame game. Take back your power and know that you can trust your Higher Power.
The Serenity Prayer is the foundation of AA. It says
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
I read this today: “Serenity isn’t freedom from the storms of life. It’s the calm in the middle of the storm that gets me through. It’s up to me to try to keep this calm, even when the storm gets worse.”
-Alateen- a day at a time
That’s the thing. We don’t know what will happen in life. We don’t know if there will be a relapse. We don’t know the future. But we are sort of used to the unknown. It’s what life was like for a long time. But now there is sobriety. And you can begin again. And it’s up to YOU to keep this calm no matter what. No one else can take that from you.
To the person supporting someone newly sober:
Forgive. Forgive the alcoholic and forgive yourself. Quiet your soul and listen to where life is leading you. Pursue healing. Focus on YOU. And by finding your own healing, you will support the person in your life in recovery…because let’s be honest, you’re in recovery too.
I’ll link my two favorite Al-Anon daily readings, “Courage to Change” here and “Hope for Today” here. Search for local Al-Anon meetings via their website here.
Laura McKowen is refreshing current voice in sobriety and her website and book can be found here,
You will heal. It will get better. Rest in that truth!
