Tuesday 1/26/10 - "OPEN LETTER OF AMENDS TO A SPONSEE"

Before I begin my blog, I want to thank McCaffery
for this "Honest Scrap" award.

Thank you so much for thinking of me
when you were handing out this award.

OPEN LETTER OF AMENDS TO A SPONSEE

Dear sponsee,
This is a letter of amends. It seems we have hit a rough patch that has disrupted the beautiful spiritual connection we have enjoyed. I hope you will understand.

I will forever be grateful that God brought us together. Since we met in an Al-Anon meeting over a year ago, the weeks have grown into months and the months have become more than a year. We have come to know intimate things about each other. We have shared so much of ourselves. I have done the best I knew how to share my own experience, strength and hope with you. You, in return, have been so very honest with me.

We have spent the past year methodically moving through the twelve steps using the Al-Anon book "Paths to Recovery". There have been times when you were anxious to move ahead quickly and there have been those times when your feet have dragged and much time has lapsed. But, the wonderful news is that you are now at the twelfth step and we are ready to sit down to do that last step that begins, "Having had a spiritual awakening as THE result of the steps..."

You have had that spiritual awakening and I see a miracle in front of me. You have changed in so many fundamental ways since we first began. In the process, I have changed too. I thank you for all I have learned about myself, life, and relationships during this process.

We have now come to a place where my clay feet are sticking out. I am making amends to you for having judged you. I have sought God's help to be less judgmental, critical and censoring of myself and in the process I have become less so with others. But it is a work in progress so I believe I may have reacted to your recent choice with unspoken, but surely felt by you - judgment of your actions. Who am I to say what choices you should make? I have always made my own choices, some have turned out well and some not so well. I am sorry.

I am your sponsor. God put us together. God has used me to pass the Al-Anon program on to you. I am also human. I pray we will be able to move beyond our human frailties and maintain the beautiful relationship we have shared so far.

I have kept this letter general so I could share it with others. I have written no specifics that could be linked back to you. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our program. Thank God for that.

You will forever remain in a very special place in my heart and in my life. I love you.

Your sponsor,
Prayer Girl

Sunday, 5/17/09 - "GRATEFUL SUNDAY"

(Remember - nothing is impossible)

"GRATEFUL SUNDAY"

My heart is filled to overflowing with gratitude.

I am grateful that with God nothing is impossible.

Friday night after attending a benefit for a friend with liver cancer, watching the Farrah Fawcett special all about her cancer, anticipating the purchase of a vehicle, I had one of those nights with almost no sleep. I don't do well with little sleep. Since I couldn't sleep, I got up and went to the early 7:00 Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with Mr. Steveroni before heading up the road to buy our new RAV4.

I am grateful that when we got home I was able to take a two hour nap that revived me enough to enjoy the rest of yesterday.

I am grateful that I got a good night's sleep last night and feel wonderfully rested this morning.

I am grateful for my friends, sponsees, and all the recovering people God has brought my way - both face-to-face and in the blog world.

I am grateful that today, Sunday, I have awakened to a beautiful sunny morning. Everything outside is green instead of parched brown. Our Florida summer rains have finally begun after a long stretch of very dry conditions.

I am grateful to be going to mass shortly and then to my home group Al-Anon meeting.

I am grateful Mr. Steveroni and I will be going to a birthday party for an AA friend this afternoon where we will see others we know and enjoy good company and good food. We'll be taking our "famous, handed-down-in-the-family recipe", finely- very finely - chopped coleslaw.

I am grateful for the invitation, grateful that people like our company, and grateful that I have progressed enough that I can go and have a good time.

I am grateful for my faithful readers. I am grateful for all those who comment. I am just grateful to have been given the gift of sobriety before my brain became "wet", can still think, and have the ability to write.

I am grateful for my faith and trust in God.....that He will continue to give me the power to stay sober, that He is leading me down a path that allows me to always grow and change, that my life continues to get better and better, and that He gives me the ability to help others.

Gratefully,
Prayer Girl

Thursday, 4/2/09 - "YOU ARE NOT ALONE"

"YOU ARE NOT ALONE"

There is a sign over the door as you walk into the 24 hour AA club in our town. It reads:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

What a comfort, what a miracle,
what hope, what a wonderful thing.

When I first walked through the doors of that AA club, I was totally and completely alone, lost in the hopelessness of a disease I did not know I had and did not understand in any way. I was so alone and so lost that I did not even see that sign hanging above my head. Well, my head was cast down and all I was able to see was my feet, the floor, the dirt on that floor. (I felt like that dirt I saw.) That was my life at that moment.

Very soon, however, I came to know that I was truly not alone. At my very first meeting, I identified myself as a newcomer, and the women in that women's meeting spoke to me. (I understood nothing they said, but I felt the caring or I would never have come back.) They also gave me phone numbers.

From that very first meeting I was not alone although it was a while before I understood this and was able to tentatively reach out for help to those women who reached out immediately to me. A few months later I asked a woman I met at that first meeting to help me stop drinking. She did, it worked, and she became my first sponsor.

As the years have passed, my sense of never being alone has grown stronger and stronger. I have discovered the deep spiritual connections that exist between myself and the sponsors I have had, much later between myself and those I sponsor, and with many friends in recovery.

I feel "at home" no matter what meeting I attend. I have walked completely alone into meetings in strange cities where I knew no one at all and in every case have found the same welcome I experienced when I walked into that first meeting. I am truly never alone.

Not only am I never alone, but the people I find also understand me. That adds a dimension to my relationships with other recovering people that is as necessary as breathing for me. I need people who speak the same language - the "Language of the Heart" - the language of recovery.

Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous and my never having to be alone again - ever - anymore.

Prayer Girl

Wednesday, 3/18/09 - "SEEING PAIN"

"SEEING PAIN"

Yesterday was a day unlike any I have experienced in a while. I witnessed so many people in soul-deep pain and confusion. On my own, I felt totally inadequate to help. Thank God, I don't carry the message alone. God is always with me.

One girl lost a son to addiction within the year and is experiencing pain that a mother who has not lost a child can only guess at how it feels. It's painful just thinking about that happening and I can only imagine the horror of living with the reality. This child of God finally surrendered the secret that she was drinking again and doesn't want to live that way anymore. Thank God. This is a beginning.

Another woman has just started attending Al-Anon and is in that place of utter torment and no understanding of what is wrong or how to lessen it. She is desperate for a shred of hope that something can help her. Like many of us before finding recovery, she has been trying to understand and fix herself for 30 years - with no success.

My phone rang all day. Recovering people I work with regularly were calling as well as those who call infrequently. They were all having some sort of crisis. Wow! The planets must be aligned in some weird way.

I had to remember to take care of myself and laid down for a while shutting 'everything' out. I needed to regroup. I called on my God to refresh my mind and spirit.

Here is what I hope for all those in deep conflict, doubt, fear, and hopelessness:

THE SPARK
Once more my Higher Power hear
Once more I call on you dear God
Place deep inside the spark of hope
That one day makes us fully whole

In one who's lost a cherished child
Another taken back the drink
This one lost in her own pain
That one struggling alone again

Breathe your breath oh God
Upon that tiny hopeful spark
Transform into a roaring flame
That victory may be won - be claimed

Prayer Girl

(Photo credit: You Reign...by chelina)