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Made a Decision

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                                                 Double Winners

I was less than a year sober when I first heard the term "Double Winners" and learned it meant people who were members of both AA and AlAnon. 

Even so, it took me nearly 14 years before I went to my first AlAnon meeting.

Once there, the members pissed me off so badly by calling me out and telling me the truth, it took me several more years to go back for another meeting. 

AlAnon members have a lot they can teach us, but trust me, they don't play softball. Tough love is their middle name, and it has to be, because they're striving for their own sanity while dealing with us drunks. 

Why did I go to AlAnon in the first place?

 I was a sober alcoholic, but I was in a relationship with a man who drank. (A lot.) 

I also had a lot of alcoholic family members, co-workers and friends in my life. Some of them were sober. Some were not.

I figured AlAnon - the 12-step program that deals with those who have both drinking or sober alcoholics in their lives - might be able to teach me something. 

They could. And they have. And they continue to do so.

But first I had to become willing to be taught.

As part of my morning readings today I include their lovely little book One Day at a Time in AlAnon. I can highly recommend it for all recovering alcoholics, even for those who will never attend an AlAnon meeting.

The book contains gems on not only dealing with the other alcoholics in our lives (and with everyone else, too, including teenagers, relatives and partners), it can also teach us how to control our own often volatile temperaments.

Some examples:

I will pause and think before I say anything, lest my anger turn back upon me and make my difficulties even greater. I will know that well-timed silence can give me command of the situation, as angry reproaches never can. 

How happy and useful I could be if I weren't carrying around such a load of unpleasant emotional turmoil. No one asks me to, so why do I?

Am I too busy to pray? Have I no time for meditation? Then let me ask myself whether I have been able to solve my problems without help.

Knowing that only complete honesty will bring me to self-understanding, I pray that my Higher Power will help me guard against deceiving myself.

Let me fill this one day with thoughts and and actions I have no need to regret.

And finally this gem that I read just this morning:

Bad habits and compulsions cannot be conquered by determined resolutions or promising ourselves that we won't go on doing this or that 

They cannot be rooted out -  for what would fill that vacuum? They must be replaced - with their opposites. 

The secret is to substitute the positive for the negative - the I will for the I won't.

You may want to add the reading of some AlAnon literature to your own daily readings. It may prove to be of great help to you. I know it has certainly helped me.

Remember, our AA literature advises us to "Make use of what others have to offer." 

This includes 12-step programs for other issues if needed, medication on a doctor's advice, spiritual direction from a faith of our choice, exploring other faiths to deepen our understanding, and so much more.

AA is the perfect program to keep us sober, but it also encourages us to expand our horizons to become not only assets in AA, but also assets to our families and in our communities. 

As it states in our wonderful 12&12 book:

Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in 

self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes, but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things. 

These are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.

One of the great joys of recovery is learning who we really are and then to share that exciting discovery with others. We all have different and much needed gifts and AA gives us the platform to deliver them where needed. 

In addition to our important service work for AA, we can volunteer in so many directions - cooking in homeless shelters; walking dogs at the nearest animal care facility; volunteer at a local hospital; teach kids how to play chess in an after-school class; coach a neighborhood sports team; 

 join an activist society; get on stage in a community theater (or support it by painting sets or making costumes); check daily on an elderly neighbor; host a monthly dinner for neighbors who live alone (make it a pot luck if money is tight).

 It's the sharing of ourselves that matters - both inside and outside of AA. 

As drinking alcoholics we thought mainly of ourselves. We were takers, not givers. 

AA teaches us the joy in life is found in the giving. 

Recovery gives us a sober life to live and to live it fully.

Go live your best life today!