This weekend we attended an AA/Al Anon conference. We heard 3 speakers, 2 of whom were AA speakers and one was Al-Anon. They were all very good. One of them delivered his message much like a stand-up comic. Each of them shared a powerful personal story, and were all very different from one another.
I've never been to a 12 step conference before, and found a lot of features interesting. It seems that the speakers are on a sort of national "circuit"; there were CDs available to purchase of talks by dozens of AA and Al Anon speakers, and people talked about hearing these speakers elsewhere before. They also had "marathon meetings" on Friday and Saturday. All evening on Friday and all day and evening Saturday there were hourly meetings, either AA or Al-Anon. We didn't go to any, we just listened to the speakers. It was really nice to attend this together as a couple and listen to the talks together, hearing both perspectives from the different speakers. My husband knew a lot of people there from his AA meetings around town; I didn't see any Al-Anon people that I knew, but our meetings are much, much smaller.
I thought it was interesting that each talk is treated like a meeting. At the beginning, someone reads all the usual preamble stuff from the respective meetings for the first 15 minutes. If the speaker was an AA speaker, they read the AA 12 & 12 and all their other blurbs. For the Al-Anon speaker, they started with the Al Anon 12 & 12, the Statement of the Problem, etc. Everyone who read introduced themselves first, just like at a meeting. It surprised me that they did all this, and it took quite a long time. Then the speakers always went over their hour of time allotted; the Al-Anon speaker spoke for about 90 minutes. But no one seemed to mind, and all were interesting and engaging.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was the sobriety countdown. I didn't know it would be such a cool thing when I heard about it. They started at 50 years, asking the entire room (at least 300 people) who had 50 years sobriety, and everybody clapped for one sweet old lady. Then they went down to 49, 48, 47 years...people standing up at each milestone, and everyone clapping and cheering for them. Then they went all the way down to 11-12 months, 10-11 months...31 days, 30 days...down to 24 hours. Two people there had less than 24 hours sobriety since their last drink. I was really moved that they were there at a conference, admitting to a huge room of AAs and Al-Anons that they had had a drink within 24 hours, and were receiving such support from the room. It was pretty incredible. They gave a Big Book to the lady with 50 years and the two people with less than 24 hours. All around, people were talking about how lucky they felt to have their sobriety each day, and how "there but for the grace of God go I." It was quite humbling to witness. My hubby has just over 60 days now, from alcohol, MJ and acting out. I am very proud of him, and all he has done in the last 2 months.
My husband's sponsor was at the conference. And his sponsor was there, too. Apparently, hubby's sponsor's sponsor had had many years of sobriety but last year dropped out of AA altogether. He recently came back after going on a meth binge for a while. It made me really sad to hear that, and thankful he was able to come back, and thankful for every day of sobriety my husband has. I can see it doesn't come easy. There was a day recently, last week I guess, when I made a discovery of some past acting-out that my husband had neglected to disclose to me. He knew that it would be the most painful disclosure of all, and he hoped it would just "go away" and he wouldn't have to tell me. Well, I found out, and we had unpleasant words about it. We were both very, very sad that night and the next day. The following evening I got home, and he told me that he had been so sad that day, he would have drank if he didn't have a court-ordered Sobrietor at home that he has to blow into 3 times a day. He was actually scared for the day that he doesn't have that to keep him from drinking when things get overwhelming. Things get overwhelming a lot these days.
Easy does it, Live and Let Live, Let go and Let God. With all the cliche "slogans" of 12 step speak, it is easy to make fun of, and goodness knows my hubby and I have done so in the past, before entering our recoveries this year. But there is a reason for it all, and the heart of the whole thing is the fellowship of the group and the spiritual journey of 12 steps. I think it might be slightly easier to do if you follow the traditional "God" as your Higher Power, but it doesn't change a lot. You still have to trust in something, anything, outside of yourself, and get yourself spiritually and morally right with yourself, with others, and with the universe. That's hard work, no matter what you call yourself.
I've never been to a 12 step conference before, and found a lot of features interesting. It seems that the speakers are on a sort of national "circuit"; there were CDs available to purchase of talks by dozens of AA and Al Anon speakers, and people talked about hearing these speakers elsewhere before. They also had "marathon meetings" on Friday and Saturday. All evening on Friday and all day and evening Saturday there were hourly meetings, either AA or Al-Anon. We didn't go to any, we just listened to the speakers. It was really nice to attend this together as a couple and listen to the talks together, hearing both perspectives from the different speakers. My husband knew a lot of people there from his AA meetings around town; I didn't see any Al-Anon people that I knew, but our meetings are much, much smaller.
I thought it was interesting that each talk is treated like a meeting. At the beginning, someone reads all the usual preamble stuff from the respective meetings for the first 15 minutes. If the speaker was an AA speaker, they read the AA 12 & 12 and all their other blurbs. For the Al-Anon speaker, they started with the Al Anon 12 & 12, the Statement of the Problem, etc. Everyone who read introduced themselves first, just like at a meeting. It surprised me that they did all this, and it took quite a long time. Then the speakers always went over their hour of time allotted; the Al-Anon speaker spoke for about 90 minutes. But no one seemed to mind, and all were interesting and engaging.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was the sobriety countdown. I didn't know it would be such a cool thing when I heard about it. They started at 50 years, asking the entire room (at least 300 people) who had 50 years sobriety, and everybody clapped for one sweet old lady. Then they went down to 49, 48, 47 years...people standing up at each milestone, and everyone clapping and cheering for them. Then they went all the way down to 11-12 months, 10-11 months...31 days, 30 days...down to 24 hours. Two people there had less than 24 hours sobriety since their last drink. I was really moved that they were there at a conference, admitting to a huge room of AAs and Al-Anons that they had had a drink within 24 hours, and were receiving such support from the room. It was pretty incredible. They gave a Big Book to the lady with 50 years and the two people with less than 24 hours. All around, people were talking about how lucky they felt to have their sobriety each day, and how "there but for the grace of God go I." It was quite humbling to witness. My hubby has just over 60 days now, from alcohol, MJ and acting out. I am very proud of him, and all he has done in the last 2 months.
My husband's sponsor was at the conference. And his sponsor was there, too. Apparently, hubby's sponsor's sponsor had had many years of sobriety but last year dropped out of AA altogether. He recently came back after going on a meth binge for a while. It made me really sad to hear that, and thankful he was able to come back, and thankful for every day of sobriety my husband has. I can see it doesn't come easy. There was a day recently, last week I guess, when I made a discovery of some past acting-out that my husband had neglected to disclose to me. He knew that it would be the most painful disclosure of all, and he hoped it would just "go away" and he wouldn't have to tell me. Well, I found out, and we had unpleasant words about it. We were both very, very sad that night and the next day. The following evening I got home, and he told me that he had been so sad that day, he would have drank if he didn't have a court-ordered Sobrietor at home that he has to blow into 3 times a day. He was actually scared for the day that he doesn't have that to keep him from drinking when things get overwhelming. Things get overwhelming a lot these days.
Easy does it, Live and Let Live, Let go and Let God. With all the cliche "slogans" of 12 step speak, it is easy to make fun of, and goodness knows my hubby and I have done so in the past, before entering our recoveries this year. But there is a reason for it all, and the heart of the whole thing is the fellowship of the group and the spiritual journey of 12 steps. I think it might be slightly easier to do if you follow the traditional "God" as your Higher Power, but it doesn't change a lot. You still have to trust in something, anything, outside of yourself, and get yourself spiritually and morally right with yourself, with others, and with the universe. That's hard work, no matter what you call yourself.
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